Wateruled
The world is covered in water.
When it happened, no-one alive knows. Even those dead now hadn't known dry land. Some have half-thoughts of a world with dry land, plants, land animals. Most consider those ridiculous fantasies. Dreams of some bright futures that they've convinced themselves to be true. Had to be true. Must have been true - at some point.
There's no point in dwelling on such fairy tales. There is your survival to worry about.
The world is one massive sea where storms sweep across without stop. Humans who manage to live thrive with bits and pieces of a society that once was. One that was kinder to humans. One that allowed them to build great things. Those things only exist as hovels and relics now, old and run-down. Scraps of some history that no-one really remembers, and no-one really knows why.
Humanity's population is minimal - possible a thousand strong. Society only exists in tiny harbor collectives - groups of harbors working together rather than wasting the energy to fight. The people drink the sea and live off its plants and animals. They trade between each other with tiny invented currencies. Eventually, they get raided by Pirate ships.
Pirate ships are small, shoddy crafts that sail the oceans looking for ways to scrape by. Harbors to steal from. People to take their meal from. Fishers to take their catch from. Merchants to take their wares from. While its the collectives and the merchants that gather everything, it is the Pirates in the end who own it. Or think they do.
The state of humanity is terrible.
But, as things usually go, there is a dichotomy in this world. Evolution, it seems, took a mandated step in the direction of survival. Perhaps, it was a god who gave the gifts. Perhaps, the gifts had always been there and only now were they discovered. Whatever the case, magic has surfaced on the surface of the water. Those who can change the weather, call creatures, shift the elements of nature, and call down punishment from the firmament stand with the pirates, against the pirates, are the pirates.
There are guesses, rumors, whispers that someone is orchestrating all of this.
There are flags that are flown, common flags, flags - it has been said in whispers - of those who reside over all pirates. They have been called pirate rulers, pirate heads, pirate kings, pirate gods. Most just refer to them as simply 'The Eight".
They are certainly working together to own it all, or they are fighting for total control of the seas. They have created magic, or they are killing one another to control it. There used to be four of them. There have always been eight of them. They are ever changing. They are immortal. Magic keeps them alive. Magic drains them.
Who knows? Perhaps, the Eight do.
Perhaps, they don't.
Perhaps, you will only know once you, too, are one of the Eight.
