Sonder and Animus

A journey across the land healing from a cataclysmic conflict that ended but a few centuries ago. It is a tale of watching the resiliency and spirit to endure and thrive, along with those forces that continue to tear down what is built and won. This is a game that will vary from wholesome moments to existential fear.

"Beauty... such a curious concept. So hard to grasp, and yet with how much we speak of it, act upon it, obsess over it... yes, beauty is a very real part of this world. At least, I find this world quite beautiful... do you?" -Lo, Accursed Wanderer

 

The world recovers. The great conflict among mages ended centuries ago, leaving the world broken, but alive. Once great cities lie empty and overgrown, save perhaps a small village that has emerged and lives within but a small fraction of a once great metropolis. Nature has calmed, the spirits now are content, and slowly aid and guide a more humble people. Some are nomadic, exploring this new, untamed world. Others settle in, forging small communities around but a single relic that offers some relief from the normal day-to-day toils to get by.

There are dangers. Many of the monsters and creations of the great conflict linger, stalk the forests, valleys, and hidden places in the world. People are still flawed, still find reasons deep and petty to disagree. A storm may ruin a crop, a fickle dragon may exact a tithe from a village, curious and intrepid souls may explore places they should not go. And yet for all the troubles, there are no nation-spanning wars, for no true nation remains. Since the last of the true Mages fell, their power, their story lost to time, the world has been allowed to slowly but surely return to a better state.

And yet, just as hope emerges, just as people once more have the freedom, the ability to reach higher, so too are there forces at play to take hold of such dreams and aspirations and pull them back into the darkness. Just as the world feels on a tipping point towards good, so too are there those who would in their malice drag the lands and peoples to a fate far worse than the wars had ever brought them.

This is the story of those who helped determine the fate of a new age, one of prosperity, one of despair, or perhaps a time of something else entirely...