NagoyaHammer.com

Lovejoy wrote:I'm interested..is this your own homebrew system?

job wrote:I'm interested, but between this and Infinity in the morning was a hard choice. Still I'm interested in the final product.

Once, the world was at peace. Farmers grew their crops, merchants plied their trades and civilization thrived. As cities and centres of learning grew, magic became more widespread. Those gifted with arcane power pushed back the boundaries of knowledge and even the mundane folk could make use of the energies harnessed by those with power.

No-one really knows how it started, whether it was the jealousy of rival wizards, or a mind set on conquest, but soon the world was engulfed in war. At first countries fought countries, but soon the leaders of cities were declaring independence and then it seemed that it was every man for himself. The wizards and magi who could do so quickly seized power. Draining the magics that had once been used to help the world, they channelled the power into destructive blasts or used it to raise mighty armies. Even the most limited of the gifted were recruited, drafted or compelled to fight, as entire armies died in gouts of eldritch fire and the ground shook beneath them.

Mighty leaders rose and fell as the conflicts raged on. Ulthrasar the Undying, Noble Arka'nan and Mabeden, King of the Dragons became names to be feared as their armies annihilated each other in a never-ending series of battles. Giants descended from their mountain strongholds and grappled with wyverns and hydras. Chimeric beasts slaughtered the common folks and tales were even told of demonic beings rising from the flaming Pit and devouring the souls of those unfortunate enough to cross their path.

And then, suddenly, it was over. Some say that the forces of good triumphed and returned the world to peace. Others say that the last of the great magi destroyed each other in a final blast of overwhelming power. Some say that the victor of the long wars looked out over the smoking ruins and devastated world that he had won and simply left this world to find another, still wholesome and unscarred by years of war.

One by one, the survivors dragged themselves from the rubble and set about rebuilding. However, once verdant farmland was now desert and forests of oak now blasted wastes. Resources of all kinds were scarce and nowhere had escaped the touch of the war. Those few gifted who remained skirted the fringes of the new settlements being built. Their talents barely tolerated for their usefulness, all the while being watched by people fearful of the damage done by men and women with the same power. Warlords and chieftains sprang up to protect or control the new shoots of civilization that were starting the grow. Borders and ancient allegiances were long gone, erased by the armies that had driven across the world. Areas blasted by magic spells became death-traps to the unwary as rogue elements of sorcery reacted wildly. Those creatures created during the war that had survived slunk off into the unpopulated wastelands, returning from time to time to raid, pillage and plunder. Those with the tenacity and the skills to survive set about hunting for food, supplies and relics that could offer some aid to those able to employ them.

The long Mage's-war is over. Now, the fight for survival begins.