Under Gunmetal Skies

"Before the Quiet, there was adventure.   Before the Quiet, the innate forces of the universe were an open book to those with the patience and willpower to harness their power, making gods of men. It was an age of adventure, of mighty heroes and fiendish villains, where mystery and mysticism lurked around every corner. Even in the bleakest of times, light could be found in the glistening armor of a paladin, or the warm glow of a witcher's staff. Every week was a new tale of progress and heroism. Our future was so bright, it blinded us to our own undoing.   It started with the Noise. The Noise of Man's growing footprint left upon the world, the echoing voices of our machines. With each passing year, we perverted nature's design, deafening our magi to the whispers of the Universe. Those who were once deities in their own right became vestigal husks barely able to throw sparks, left by the wayside of the future they helped create.   The Noise drowned their screams, one by one, until they vanished from the world.   And then there came a Silence more deafening than the Noise that had come before it."   Under Gunmetal Skies is a dark fantasy world in which technology has "silenced" natural occurrences of magic, grinding centuries of magic and high adventure to a screeching halt. From the ashes of the old world emerged a new one, where the masses are forced to fight their own battles, and the heroism of the individual is often lost to the annals of history by the depredations of the many. Many begrudgingly embrace this new reality, rallying behind a community rather than a lone hero, while others demand things return to the way things were, no matter what it takes.   Under Gunmetal Skies is a story about disposession, identity, and nostalgia, and the dangerous extremes people go to in the name of these ideas.