WIP Campaign: The Collision
Based on this CYOA
Campaign Premise:
The world has ended, not through plague, nor through war, but through an invasion of demonic nature. Enepsias, The Sovereign-Goddess of Hell, invades the mortal realm in a desperate gambit to end the eternity long stalemate between herself and her elder-brother Gavreen, The God-King of Heaven. As a way to accomplish such a feat she plans to use Earth as a catalyst for her power, to open a dimensional fissure in the heart of Heaven and let forth her unholy hordes and claim her victory. The first stepping stone of her grand scheme was to create permanent gates to Hell all throughout Earth; how she achieved her goal was through the sacrifice of one million damned souls, the souls were, in turn, destroyed once her spell was complete. Once her magicks had finished she had laid waste to humanity as to not have any resistance to stop her plan, the survivors of humanity later named the event The Collision.
Many thousand years after Enepsias's invasion of Earth the world altered thanks to the strange energy that came from the Hell-Gate, this strange and powerful energy was æther. Æther altered the world in ways humanity could not imagine, magic flooded back into the world after millenniums of dormancy. The very laws of nature themselves drastically changed as æther-storms and æther rich areas violently fluctuated in gravity and weather causing the Sahara desert, including most of Africa, to become blanketed in ice and snow. The entire North American east coast drying into an arid wasteland known as The Scarred Coast. Lands around the Hell-Gates became charred blackening with soot and white with constant blizzards no light shined passed the blackened clouds, the land-only being illuminated the brief but bright strikes of lighting.
Humanity had also adapted to survive their new and dangerous world. In the aftermath of The Collision, humanity had split into three factions, The United Civil Government [U.C.G.], The Order, and The Tainted. In their early years, the U.C.G. searched for a way to fight back against the demons in order to prepare for another attack, U.C.G. scientists soon discovering that æther could be harvested from the air and used as a form of renewable energy; this discovery later paved the way for æther energy-based technology advancing their technology to the impossible realms of science-fiction, though unable to leave the planet due to æther energy weakening once in orbit. The Order is a vast community of individuals imbued with the ability to physically harness æther in the form of powerful magicks; their teachings of how they utilize such power are well-guarded secrets studies in magicks are their only defense against the demon forces as æther energy seems to be one of the very few weaknesses that demonkind possesses. During The Collision, vast waves of demonic energy burst forth from the Hell-Gates as they appeared, the humans in close proximity to these ground-zeros unwillingly became imbued with demonic energy which enhanced their strength, stamina, and senses to superhuman levels; these enhanced attributes also came at the cost of mutations, intricate tattoo-like markings started to appear on there bodies as well as the growth of demonic horns and wings. This would later cause discrimination against them as they were seen as demons with their appearance and as such some defect to Enepsias armies out of anger, spite, and revenge.
It has been two-thousand years after Enepsias invasion and something is amiss in the world. Demon patrols have become scarce even around the borders of demon occupied territory instead, Order scouts have spotted clusters of demons in high concentrations within the Scarred Coast and rumors in the U.C.G. of drone footage showing that Hell-Gates withing The Scarred Coast are on the move and will converge on the ruins of New York. An unholy plot is coming to fruition but the factions of humanity struggle to understand their common enemies intentions, and many powerful players feel as though whatever the intentions of the demon hordes are, none will survive its reveal.