It all started when the Machine went critical...
The earliest memory of civilization is devastation, of the twilight of the grandest empire the world had ever known, of a Great Machine, an unfathomable marvel, whose architects sought to enrich the world by capturing the power of infinity.
Their hubris was their undoing, and the Machine suffered a critical failure upon activation, turning the power meant to enrich the world into a force that only wrought a storm of annihilation. At great cost, the Machine was deactivated and sent crashing to the earth, but once the survivors dared to brave the world again, they would find the damage had already been irrevocably done.
The world beyond what would soon come to be known as The City had been reduced to a barren, uninhabitable wasteland of ash and infinite dunes, and the Machine, like a dark monument mocking the arrogance of mortals, had carved out a no-pony's-land of madness in the center of it all.
Centuries after the empire's fall, not even the memory of it remains, and the City's inhabitants have managed to scrape together something approaching functional societies, explorers digging through old ruins in search of scraps of glory that might rekindle what was once lost. Civilization survives, but it barely "lives".
In the ages since the fall, the art of magic is a shadow of its former brilliance. So much was lost in the fall, and what has been rediscovered is jealously hoarded by exclusive groups. Even most unicorns, those to whom magic is their greatest defining trait, forsake their gifts in favor of circuit and servo. For despite everything, technology -mundane and magical alike- dominates this era.
The theocratic dictatorships of Harmony and The Dominion wage an eternal war of land and resources, and in the ruined spaces between, Destrier scavengers eke out an existence, uneager to face the wrath of the god-queen Alicorn or the dragons across from her.
All the while, the Machine's shadow looms across the land, presiding over this twisted play with all the indifference of an eldritch deity. It is a time of faith and radical ideals, a time of discord and refusal to compromise on extremes, a time where the ideals of love, hope and harmony are in direly short supply, where giants trample over the commonfolk in the name of lofty so-called "Greater Goods".
It is into this era they arrive, or rather... from which they rise. For now, they are little more than cogs in the machine, a single grain amongst the sands, but there is a spark in some... a thirst for more... a drive for change, be it grand or personal. And whether it be at their own behest or in aiding those leading the charge, this time of darkness might very well be coming to an end... or only just beginning.
Shall we see where the dice land?
homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/yfO…
This is an MLP post-apoc science fantasy West March setting. If you're interested, contact me.
The earliest memory of civilization is devastation, of the twilight of the grandest empire the world had ever known, of a Great Machine, an unfathomable marvel, whose architects sought to enrich the world by capturing the power of infinity.
Their hubris was their undoing, and the Machine suffered a critical failure upon activation, turning the power meant to enrich the world into a force that only wrought a storm of annihilation. At great cost, the Machine was deactivated and sent crashing to the earth, but once the survivors dared to brave the world again, they would find the damage had already been irrevocably done.
The world beyond what would soon come to be known as The City had been reduced to a barren, uninhabitable wasteland of ash and infinite dunes, and the Machine, like a dark monument mocking the arrogance of mortals, had carved out a no-pony's-land of madness in the center of it all.
Centuries after the empire's fall, not even the memory of it remains, and the City's inhabitants have managed to scrape together something approaching functional societies, explorers digging through old ruins in search of scraps of glory that might rekindle what was once lost. Civilization survives, but it barely "lives".
In the ages since the fall, the art of magic is a shadow of its former brilliance. So much was lost in the fall, and what has been rediscovered is jealously hoarded by exclusive groups. Even most unicorns, those to whom magic is their greatest defining trait, forsake their gifts in favor of circuit and servo. For despite everything, technology -mundane and magical alike- dominates this era.
The theocratic dictatorships of Harmony and The Dominion wage an eternal war of land and resources, and in the ruined spaces between, Destrier scavengers eke out an existence, uneager to face the wrath of the god-queen Alicorn or the dragons across from her.
All the while, the Machine's shadow looms across the land, presiding over this twisted play with all the indifference of an eldritch deity. It is a time of faith and radical ideals, a time of discord and refusal to compromise on extremes, a time where the ideals of love, hope and harmony are in direly short supply, where giants trample over the commonfolk in the name of lofty so-called "Greater Goods".
It is into this era they arrive, or rather... from which they rise. For now, they are little more than cogs in the machine, a single grain amongst the sands, but there is a spark in some... a thirst for more... a drive for change, be it grand or personal. And whether it be at their own behest or in aiding those leading the charge, this time of darkness might very well be coming to an end... or only just beginning.
Shall we see where the dice land?
homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/yfO…
This is an MLP post-apoc science fantasy West March setting. If you're interested, contact me.