"We were masters of this world once. The nuclear wars shook apart our kingdoms, awoke monsters from underneath our feet, and brought the sky crashing down. It is now the Dark Age. There is no law or order save for what you are able to protect by yourself."
Skellbrieg is a world bathed in battle and blood. Its dominant inhabitants are naturally violent, megalomaniacal, and have evolved their biologies to be tailored to combat. Their multilayered brains are dedicated to conquering their surroundings and destroying all who oppose. It is the law that was ingrained in their ancestors ever since they first created primitive tools in the wilds of the hell-razed world. Their long history of war goes back to the very roots of the Empire of the Bloodied Hammer, as well as the founding of the first necromantic cults buried deep in the bowels of the Dark Road.
The Bloodied Hammer was the sigil of the kingdom of Kahzmor, built on the principles of their greatest champions whom they elevated to kingly status and named Kahzmor - for only one can rule, and that is Kahzmor. It held sway over much of the supercontinent that dominates Skellbrieg, even unto the northern pole of the planet.
Yet its rivals combined forces and launched a nuclear strike upon one of its provinces, sparking a conflict that would change the course of Skellbrieg's history forever.
FACTIONS
BLOODIED HAMMER OF KAHZMOR
Bathed in atomic fire, the world shuddered and crumbled under the weight of insurmountable artillery strikes and missile bombardments. Millions were wiped out in an instant, with many more dying of radiation exposure and infected burns. Vegetation became sparse, and wildlife mutated to adapt to the horrific changes spurred on by the disastrous conflict. The citizens of Kahzmor reunited under a new leader, one who took up the mantle when no one else would, and became the Independent State of Kahzmor, still bearing the Bloodied Hammer as boldly as ever.
Kahzmor is based on the Eastern Fringe of the Skellbrieg supercontinent, dominating its coasts and mainland cities with an iron fist. It is ruled solely by a ruler named Kahzmor, whose name is merely a title dedicated to lend itself and the bearer a sort of immortality through the ages. "Only one can rule, and that is Kahzmor," is the common saying.
The strongarm of Kahzmor is the Holy Inquisition. They are tasked with hunting down and destroying mutants wherever they may be found, lest they join the armies amassing in the Dark Road. The Inquisition routinely requisitions crusades against the "lower families", or the tribes that were opposed to Kahzmor before the Nuclear Wars. Their signature weapons of fire and pseudomantium are capable of rending flesh from bone, but the forests of Le'Gorrosh hiding the Tarkhan tribes still confound their efforts for expansion.
Wherever the Inquisition goes, the proper armies of Kahzmor are not far behind. The Inquisition regularly wears the most advanced armor and sports the highest-quality weapons available, as is expected of their elite status. The footmen of Kahzmor are legion and go to war with the intent of drowning the enemy in bodies and bullets, in that order. Their mission is nothing short of hammering the opposition until they are ground to dust under tank treads and heavy boots. Such is the undertaking of amassing a Kahzmor army that the Inquisition is often tasked with eradicating smaller threats and leaving fortifications for the soldiers themselves.
TRIBES OF THE MAINLAND
Meanwhile, the coalition of Kahzmor's rivals splintered off into a multitude of groups, each embodying different ideologies. The Tarkhan resurfaced as a prominent sub-cult of these various paramilitary practices, creating a name for themselves in the strangely-untouched jungles of Le'Gorrosh. Only they know the secrets of the mutated flora there, and use it to their advantage as a screening zone for would-be invaders. Kahzmor would never dare to boldly invade their territories, and they strike out with a vengeance.
The various other tribes of Skellbrieg are constantly shifting power scales and memberships. One day, some tribes might even exist where they didn't the day before and others have been completely eradicated. To be a tribesman of Skellbrieg is to live in unrelenting conditions. Tasked with holding the line between the Bloodied Hammer and their homes, the tribes might collaborate for a month or so before falling apart under the weight of the onslaught. Or, in other areas of the massive No Man's Land on the various borders, there might be a military upheaval as tribesmen combine forces and lay waste to a Bloodied Hammer stronghold.
Borders are always changing, and maps are never up-to-date. The stalemate between the Bloodied Hammer's coastline empire and the mainland tribes has been raging ever since the fallout of the Nuclear Wars, when the Coalition that instigated it fell apart and their leaders were scattered and killed. To survive, the tribes had to elect new leaders or be erased. Combine or die. Owing to their natural stubbornness and bloodthirst, cooperation never lasts forever and treachery is always afoot. No one can be trusted when there is profit to be had, as is the law of the Dark Age.
MUTANTS AND ABERRATIONS
Mutated offspring of the native humanoids were either discarded or killed following the bombs falling, lending to a catastrophic drop in population increase. Yet there were still those who raised their deformed children and still those who mutated them further, seeing this as a genetic rebirth for their species. Mutants living in this age are hired on as mercenaries or thugs who are trained from an early age to kill using their bizarre deformities and extra appendages. Yet, they congregate within the Dark Road as amassed armies of strange and unsightly beasts capable of catastrophic destruction when spurred on by those who would seek to gather them.
In contrast to the fantastic powers normally associated with mutants, those derelict lifeforms on Skellbrieg are often hulking masses of fleshy tumors and ropey muscle that are able to throw normal men aside like dolls. Such is the raw power of these behemoths that a single one is a terrifying sight in the midst of battle. Bullets ricochet off its leathery skin, and multiple arms shoot out and crush limbs and torsos while a specially-made artillery-grade firearm launches off shells the size of skulls into the ramparts. The Dark Road holds sway to many sub-breeds of these mutated creatures, and are witness to a mass-production of them under the supervision of their necromantic overlords that have waited centuries to reemerge. There is no telling just how many mutants have found refuge under the surface of Skellbrieg, but if their raids are any indication, if they were to unite they would crush all opposition before them. Luckily, the necromancers who bind them are just as arrogant and divided as the surface-dwellers and war more amongst themselves than with those above.
There are also the cannibalistic cyborgs to consider.
BINARY LEGION
Those who were trapped in the northern poles of the world bore witness to the crashing of civilization from a relatively untouched distance. Though the empires of Norrath and Karda remained resolute in the face of disaster, they were soon besieged on all sides by creatures more strange than the mutants who attacked their borders.
Within Norrath, there were a multitude of untested bioweapons meant to be used as a last resort if the Bloodied Hammer triumph over the Coalition before the Nuclear Wars. One such weapon was of techno-organic composition and viral in nature. Upon contact with the skin, the virus spread until the host organism was completely converted into mechanical matter. Cells were replaced with cold pseudomantium, blood with oil, and minds with computers.
Cold logic dictated that all organic life must be purged, for they caused the Nuclear Wars and by extension the Dark Age. Those who yet lived on Skellbrieg were errors in their own ecosystem. Thus the kingdoms of Norrath and Karda fell, and the Twin Cyberlords Teslai Khan and Mundus Gigante emerged from the smouldering wreckage of organic civilization. Mundus Gigante, the more militant of the two, ventured without mercy into the Dark Road and forged a path of carnage, earning the moniker The Impaler when he started building fences out of those who opposed him - regardless if they were living or dead, they were put upon a pike and left there.
Now his eyes are set upon the Bloodied Hammer, but the mutants of the Dark Road continue to harass his armies. The largest target remains the tribes of the mainland, however, and their internal political strife plays well to his cruel strategies.
GARGANTS OF ADMUND TORR
The gargants of Admund Torr are the everlasting scourge of the wastes. Awakened from their primordial slumber by the Nuclear Wars, they march out in small numbers but with horrifying force against the more modern races of Skellbrieg.
They are armed with massive clubs, axes, and flails, for nothing else crosses their minds as effective weaponry. Sometimes an errant rock or chunk of rubble might find its way into their hands to be thrown, but other than that their ancient minds only thirst for the bloody tithe of melee. That way, they can fight and enjoy a meal at the same time.
Gorthok the Fleshcleaver is their undisputed leader, who rules from a throne around which are heaped mountainous piles of bones. The skeletons of the gargants' enemies are their greatest tribute to Gorthok, who devours any who refuse him payment for his tyrannical rule.
The gargants, as well as their Gundaragh and orugg cousins, are strange stonelike beings that seem to have evolved out of the deepest places of the world, only to adapt based on their current habitats.
GUNDARAGH
Wherever the gargants walk, their terrible size and strength either destroys or enslaves those around them. Hundreds are butchered in their wake, and those who survive are often swept away into cages.
Their closest relatives are the Gundaragh, miniscule in comparison to the titanic gargants, but still monstrous to normal humanoids.
The Gundaragh inhabit mountain passes, canyons, and abandoned road systems, infesting the countryside in immense numbers. With behemoth muscle and leathery skin, their bulletproof disposition and iron-fisted approach to combat make them excellent shock troops when used in massive formations. Nothing barring a concentrated artillery barrage can hope to put a dent in the rising tide of charging flesh and ropey muscle, and even then there is no guarantee the Gundaragh will actually stop.
Primitive and incredibly violent, the Gundaragh were reawakened from an ancient age by the Nuclear Wars and spread like a virus throughout the wastelands.
ORUGGS
Lesser than the Gundaragh and gargants are the oruggs of the Dark Road. Long have they infested the derelict tunnel systems of that forsaken underground labyrinth. From back beyond the count of years, before the very first organism from the oceans made its way to land, the oruggs were dominant within the Dark Road while their Gundaragh and gargant cousins stormed the highlands and mountains of the world above.
Oruggs are naturally violent and prone to acts of barbarism unthinkable to normal people. They delight in the suffering of others, and actively pursue bloodshed and battle as a means of entertainment.
They are intelligent enough to understand that what they enjoy doing goes against the laws of other civilizations, and that retaliation is inevitable. Oruggs don't seem to care, however, as their contempt and seething hatred for all things that do not share their foul blood outweighs common decency.
This violent behavior was only exasperated in earlier generations by the wars against the First Men, who build cities within the Dark Road and constructed vast wonders in the honor of their god-king Grungnir.
The oruggs butchered the First Men with sadistic joy, and ran away when they saw the battle get out-of-control. They utilized monstrous beasts and enslaved countless smaller devils in order to drive back the First Men, and eventually they struck a wound upon Grungnir that spelled the beginning of the end for the burgeoning empire of stone-skins.
Yet, even with this grievous blow, the First Men continued to fight back. Thoragnar the Unbeliever finally beheaded Gargog Bloodgulper in the final battle to open the gates to the surface. When the First Men won the fight and saw the nuclear wasteland before them, the oruggs saw their opportunity to raid as much as possible in this new and foreboding landscape - since they thought the doors were just locked.
Now the oruggs marshal out in terrifying numbers, often using their larger Gundaragh or gargant cousins as shock troops and mercenaries in order to seek out the bloodiest fights of this new Dark Age.
THE FIRST MEN
Long ago, in the primal ages of Skellbrieg, before the primordial organisms of the Cambrian explosion emerged from the waters of the world, there were the First Men. Stone constructs made by Grungnir, a wandering godlike being who saw fit to make his claim to Skellbrieg, the First Men created marvels without number within the deep places of the world. Grungnir fought back the underground terrors at the forefront of this millennia-long conflict, winning many wars and killing countless worms and flesh-eating giants that spawned within the tunnels of the Dark Road.
Soon, however, Grungnir suffered a terrible wound and turned to diamond at the center of his great empire, entombed for all time as a glittering monument to the former glory of the First Men. Ever since then, their borders have been dwindling and their monuments have been broken. Bloody reigns of expansion and recession have seen the conquest of perhaps a single mile, paved with the sacrifice of thousands of First Men. Isolation underground drove many to starvation, as the hordes of the Dark Road closed in around from all sides.
With the rule of Thoragnar the Unbeliever, the First Men broke through to the surface for the first time in generations, hewing apart the horrors below with indifference and disdain. Thoragnar looked out and saw the devastation of the lands above his realm, that the farmers who were upon the surface were left to whatever dark death claimed them. Corpses were petrified clawing at the doors to their kingdom, desperate to get inside to safety. The First Men had reemerged to a land sprawling with unnatural terrors.
And they would meet them head-on.
SEIWAN
The Independent Country of Seiwan
STRONGHOLDS
ADMUND TORR
The birthplace of the gargants and their smaller cousin species, it is a massive and intimidating labyrinth of caverns and canyons extending for many miles in any direction. Situated in the heart of the South Coast, Admund Torr was long ago thought to be uninhabited. That, of course, changed with the advent of the Nuclear Wars.
With the atomic bombings scouring the world with fire, the monstrous beings locked in hibernation there awoke and the oruggs managed to find a way to the surface.
Those provinces defended by the humanoid tribes are hardy folk, surviving off petty rations and fighting at a nearly-constant rate against the behemoths that spill out into the countryside. They see fighting from oruggs mostly, weathering their raiding parties as nobly as they can manage. Yet it is the rare orugg mass-uprisings that see these southern provinces pushed into unrelenting service. For in these events, the oruggs often bring their larger cousins to seek out the bloodiest battles they can find.
THE DARK ROAD
Nowhere on the surface of Skellbrieg, not even with the ever-changing borders of the No Man's Land, is there a larger battlefield than the chilling darkness of the labyrinths below.
The Dark Road is a massive undertaking of the ancient species of the world, who burrowed out gargantuan empires over the course of many millennia in the heart of Skellbrieg. These derelict kingdoms fell into disrepair, and were conquered, or converted to other purposes. The mightiest was of the First Men, under their god-king Grungnir, who led them into the depths combating the bloodthirsty oruggs and their worm-slaves.
Yet even this great republic collapsed into decay, and would have fallen completely if not for Thoragnar the Unbeliever, who led an unprecedented campaign to open the vaults for the first time in centuries. What he saw beyond was a world awash in fire and death, though the ashes had long ago settled.
The Dark Road has always been open to outsiders, however, for the war between the First Men and the oruggs was merely a blink of a percentage of its scale and complexity. Mutants spurred on by necromancers in shadowy caves, cannibal cyborgs from the fallen kingdoms of Norrath and Karda, oruggs from the deepest pits of the cavernous void, all of them and more collide on an hourly basis in enormous battles.
LE'GORROSH
Along the Western Coast are unexplored jungles and mountains covered in vegetation that was mysteriously spared from the Nuclear Wars. With the return of the tribe of Tarkhan to their section of No Man's Land, they found a province rife with devastation as oruggs ransacked their old homes and villages upon emerging from the Dark Road. Gundaragh marauders followed suit, though the enormous gargants were thankfully absence from this incursion.
The Tarkhan retook their province with an outstanding show of force, building trenchworks and fields of razor wire as they went. Artillery barrages crept along the orugg-claimed territories, smashing them apart into mangled chunks. Long ago, the Tarkhan held a kinship with the forests of Le'Gorrosh. That proved to still hold to the present day when oruggs retreating into the jungles were mysteriously killed. The Tarkhan counted their blessings and retook their villages within the mountains, at home in the wilderness that in turn kept them safe from invaders.
It had seemed the radiation generated a genetically improbable mutation within the plants themselves, for their distance from the main focus areas of the Nuclear Wars lessened their initial scorching. The plants adapted a primeval intelligence, remembering the kindness of the Tarkhan to the green places of the world, and sought to repay them in turn. Foreign planes taking flight over the forests find their engines clogged with spores and failing. Armies marching to war must maintain careful burning distance, or else be consumed entirely. Even armored columns disappear within the jungles, only to join the iron graveyards within.
KAHZMOR
The largest single province of humanoids on Skellbrieg is also its most militant and outright cruel. Before the Nuclear Wars, some of the first conquerors of the world scoured the land and began the line of Kahzmor - tyrannical rulers of the Empire of the Bloodied Hammer. Though the kingdom itself was also called Kahzmor, the name was more in reference to the iron-fisted monarchs who held sway over its people. Brooding, hulking monsters of men whose strength to rule was only matched by their strength in combat, every Kahzmor throughout history has been headstrong, patriotic, and megalomaniacal in the extreme.
This pattern continues to the modern age, as the current Kahzmor utilizes both his Inquisition branch and the vast manpower afforded to him to crush all who oppose the Bloodied Hammer.
Time and time again, a Kahzmor would die in battle or be assassinated only to be replaced by a crueler and more power-hungry successor. That pattern has and will not be diminished, for only one can rule over Skellbreig and that is Kahzmor.
The entire eastern fringe of No Man's Land is consumed in heavy fighting in the name of the Bloodied Hammer, as the deepest cuts into tribal territories have been brought by the legions of Kahzmor. It is a primal and deeply-rooted hatred that spans back generations, one that is destined to cause bloodshed for decades to come.
THE IRON FRONT
No Man's Land extends from the deep south of Admund Torr, to the Western Coasts of Le'Gorrosh, to the Eastern Fringe that is dominated by the Empire of the Bloodied Hammer. It also touches the frigid north, where nuclear winter unleashed a bio-weapon that turned living organisms into mechanical slaves for the hive mind of Gunda Ragh and Teslai Khan, twin emperors of the Binary Legions.
The Iron Front is where the cybernetic hordes make their presence known on the surface, with entire provinces being held under siege by Gunda Ragh the Impaler as he strides into battle leading his robotic warriors without remorse or pity for the "fleshlings".
It is a costly war in the north, as the organic humanoids defending themselves against Gunda Ragh's tireless advance lose more and more ground every day. Their retaliatory strikes win back miles at a time, but with the cost of manpower being a significant target for Gunda Ragh to exploit. The cycle continues much as it does anywhere else within No Man's Land, and the cannibal cyborgs keep marching on.
NO MAN'S LAND
No Man's Land is a constantly changing border that the humanoid tribes of the mainland guard against their myriad foes.
It is a massive network of artillery complexes, bunkers, trenches, and various other methods of suppressing any and all comers or pounding them into submission against weight of bodies and ammunition. The tribes protect their own section of the No Man's Land, and sometimes build across the borders to other tribes.
This of course creates tension and often civil war, resulting in the collapse of a province or the ransacking of both by a larger third party. Whether this is by a foreign faction or another tribe is inconsequential, as it happens too often to be considered anything less than negligible.
Such is the size and scope of the No Man's Land surrounding the mainland that no measurement has truly been able to comprise it's circumference at any given time. It was once the heart of the Nuclear Wars, and now it's myriad ditches and valleys have been laboriously converted into staggering war machines.
The tribes of the mainland may bicker over territory and resources, but in the event on an imminent invasion those closest to the threat will always prove a stubborn foe to overcome.
OOC:
- You are able to join any faction that you want. Doesn't matter, go crazy. Please note that if you want to aspire to a role of leadership, the tribes are constantly changing and will be your best bet. Kahzmor is a title owed to the ruler of the Bloodied Hammer, earned through conquest and usurping the previous Kahzmor. Your character must be renamed Kahzmor IC if this is your aspiration, for only one can rule, and that is Kahzmor.
- If you want to rule over a den of mutants, then you are able to make a supreme mutant who corrals them together. Making a necromancer is not required. Mutants are exceptional as mercenaries and hunters.
- The cybernetic north is more strict and concrete. Gunda Ragh is a highly feared and massive robotic warrior, while Teslai Khan is his more astute and calculating twin counterpart. If you want to make a cyborg, then it's entirely possible to make one that branches off and does its own thing. Computers aren't perfect, especially on a place like Skellbrieg.
- Pseudomantium is basically just steel, but making steel on an alien world would be weird.
- Questions can and will be answered below.
- Have fun!
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