In time immemorial, the realm was beset by innumerable calamities: a thick cloud of poison that choked the air, the swelling of the sun, drowning floods, terrible storms, earthquakes that shook the land and brought great mountains to ruin, and the fading of ley lines.
Subsequently, the boundaries between this realm and other realms and planes grew frail and, eventually, broke down. Creatures never before seen spilled forth, and great tides of elemental mana filled the ether.
Wars raged as various factions vied for supremacy, bringing an already ruined realm to even greater ruin. Ultimately, none emerged victorious. In their fervor for ultimate power, they destroyed each other and, in the process, themselves.
Amidst the carnage was born an alliance intent on salvaging what was left of the realm (and, perhaps, the potential for civilization to one day rise again). Using runic symbols to infuse mechanisms with mana, they created apparatuses and devices powered by gears, cogs, steam, and magic.
They called this runemancy, and they called themselves the Tai Kalayne.
Using the power of runemancy, they built the Obelisk Shield, a series of interconnected, monolithic pillars that sealed the rifts between this realm and the others. The realm’s entropic decline ended, yet it would be many years before it healed.
Eons passed, then eons more.
The realm did eventually heal. Its ley lines solidified, restoring the boundaries between realms and planes. However, the damage had been done; these boundaries remained tenuous and, sometimes, the preternatural slipped through.
Meanwhile, the introduction of magic and otherworldly creatures had reshaped the realm until all remnants of its sordid and sorrowful history had been wiped clean. Yet the Tai Kalayne remained.
Until the Splintering tore the realm asunder and destroyed the Obelisk Shield.
In its wake, the few Tai Kalayne who survived opened a rift to seek the cataclysm’s source. They found themselves on another realm or another plane; they knew not which. It was here they first encountered the dark god Uul, Silus, and the legions of chaos.
What followed could hardly be called a battle.The Tai Kalayne were all but slaughtered. In the aftermath, Uul consumed the land’s mana, and the Chaos Legion moved on to their next conquest.
Corsec Constantia was one of the few survivors. In the midst of all that death and despair, he organized the handful of other survivors on a quest of righteousness and of vengeance. Unable to return home, severed from their past and their culture, they chose a new identity: the Riftwatchers.
For over two millennia, they followed the Chaos Legion from realm to realm, helpless to do anything but lend aid to any survivors they found. They bided their time, training any who would join them in the art of runemancy.
From tales and interrogations of cast-offs and deserters, the Riftwatchers learned that the Chaos Legion’s machinations to breach their homeworld had wrought the Splintering. After failing to take it by brute force, the ageless Silus led his armies through rift after rift, allowing Uul to gorge itself on the mana of countless realms. One day, the dark god would grow fat with enough power to open a rift to that now splintered land–the most potent source of mana anywhere. When that happened, the time for action would come, for the stakes of the final battle would be existence itself.
Today, the stories of Corsec Constantia are more fiction than fact–as are the tales of his children, his children’s children, their children, and all the generations between then and now that have led the Riftwatchers in pursuit of the Chaos Legion.
Oshuur Constantia is the last in that long and venerable line. Her youthful appearance belies a wisdom and strength of will born of a life of loss and hardship. Still, a great weight rests on her shoulders.
The Riftwatchers are coming home, and the stakes could not be higher.
Another world, another lost cause.
Oshuur Constantia lay prone on a rocky outcropping, propped on her elbows and peering through a monocular at the barren landscape. The air was still and silent. A haze of heat shimmered in the distance, and a trickle of sweat rolled down her brow.
“Are they leaving?” Atuat asked from beside her. Like Oshuur, the dwarven runemancer lay on his belly, his harpoon on the rock next to him. He squinted into the glare.
“They’re leaving.”
The dark god and its many tentacles had already withdrawn through its rift. Now, the Chaos Legion followed. Foot soldiers, wagons, and beasts lumbered through the tear between realms. A cloud of dust billowed in their wake.
Oshuur watched them go. Her lips pressed into a thin line.
As the last echelon vanished and the rift winked out of existence, she and Atuat struggled to their feet. Oshuur folded her monocular in upon itself and tucked it into an inner pocket of her vest. She brushed the dirt from her pants and her shirt and sighed.
All that was left here was to pick up the pieces.
She turned to Atuat. “Take the Dumacke north and search for survivors. The Lemell will take the east, the Folians the west, and the Argians the south. Everyone else, have them trace the Legion’s path, scavenge what’s worth scavenging, and save anyone worth saving.”
Atuat nodded wordlessly and, hefting his harpoon like a walking staff, lumbered down the craggy hillside toward the Riftwatcher’s encampment.
Oshuur turned back toward the empty horizon and the vanished rift. Five days after the Chaos Legion’s arrival, the dark god had been released to consume the realm’s mana. Silus’s pace of conquest was accelerating. They were closing in on their endgame.
Their endgame, she knew, was the splintered land of her ancestors. What she didn’t know, however, was what Silus planned to do when he reached it. Would he release Uul to consume it? Oshuur didn’t think so. So much mana. So much power. After all this time, all this effort, what a waste to let it end in a dark god’s fit of gluttony.
No, Silus had his own plans, but for the life of her, she didn’t know what they might be.
Long before Oshuur–long before any of them who still lived–the Riftwatchers had followed the Chaos Legion through the rifts from realm to realm. Silus commanded an army, while they were a motley band of several hundred: refugees and exiles from realms sucked dry by the dark god’s hunger. To stand against the Chaos Legion would be tantamount to suicide.
Instead, they waited, hidden and protected by their runemantic wards and mechanisms, as the legions of chaos plundered the land and the dark god drained it of mana. It was like seeing pastels washed from a painting or the life fade from a child’s eyes.
When at last the Chaos Legion had gone, the Riftwatchers took to their airships or set out on foot and scoured the land for supplies, survivors, and the occasional deserter or left-behind.
Sometimes, they found knowledge or apparatuses that, when combined with runemancy, would help even the score when the time to stand against the Chaos Legion finally came.
Survivors native to the realm were offered a home with the Riftwatchers, a righteous cause, and the promise of vengeance. Deserters and left-behinds of the Chaos Legion were questioned. Those who didn’t cooperate–and many who did–were tortured. Brutally. It was through them that the Riftwatchers had pieced together what they knew of Silus and the Chaos Legion’s plans.
Now, Oshuur closed her eyes and attempted to channel the elemental mana of dragons. There was none. Nor was there the faintest trace of any other element. The air was odorless and tasteless and dead. Only her runes and her amulet remained imbued with magic. Without their runemancy, the Riftwatchers would have been stranded, unable to open a rift out of this magic-less realm.
Another world, another lost cause. Time to pick up the pieces again… and shape them into Riftwatchers.
She started down the hillside.
Credits:
Story: Joey Shimerdla
Editor: Sean Ryan
Narrative Lead: Joey Shimerdla
Character Art (cover): Candycal
Illustrations: HPL Game Design Corporation
Graphic Design: Tamer "Defolt" Oukour
Voice Acting: Diana Croft
Ending credits song: AfterSound
Music: Isaria
Multimedia Lead: Isaria
Post Production: INFLUX Pictures
Creative Director: Nate Aguila
