Romance of the Dead Planet
The world of Mosrab. An old world, a dying world, littered with the ruins of a hundred dead sapient species and ten times that many empires. The sun is dim, and distant, but the world is warmed by geothermal activity and a nearby gas giant as well. Earthquakes are common, volcanoes thankfully less so...but more common than our world. Once the world was green and lush, perhaps, but now a garish mish-mash of colors paints the exposed earth, the sky, and what places plant life remains. Odd chemistries replace photosynthesis. There is oxygen in the air. . .it is clean and breathable, usually. The pollution of the vast cities is almost as long gone as the green it replaced. Life lingers, struggling, near the few rivers and oases.
In the dismal, turgid swamps of Dreen, the reptile folk carry on their cold pragmatic way of life. Only the useful is retained, only the strong or clever thrive. In the wide, dry plains of Mok, the scorpion people scurry, hiding in their hive-mounds by day, and hunting by night. A very few of the angelic, ethereal, enigmatic Anekai survive in their floating sky cities, each as capricious and unpredictable as they are beautiful. Some few mountains are still home to the self styled Demon Lords of the Daekai, scaled but with long braided hair and horns. There are more, tiny pockets of all sorts of leftover holdout creatures, striving to eke out one more day of life in a world that tries to kill them every day.
But a new species has arrived, and the status quo, as chaotic as it is, is being disrupted. Humans. The first of them appeared from the ruins over a century ago. They came in trickles, then in floods. Each new arrival claimed they just woke up here, after an event that should have killed them. Fewer come now, and several generations of children have been born on Mosrab. Most of the humans found themselves helpless, when they arrived, and were subjugated by the Daekai, who, though they are not numerous, have strange powers and arcane science. To make things stranger, where the humans go, life returns to the land . . .at least after a human is buried in it. The places where humans have lived and died and been buried are turning green. And many beings would like to know why. The humans have begun to meet the other peoples of the world, as well, and are nearly ready to begin to take a stand against their oppressors. But fear is a powerful motivator. Having enough to survive, if barely, is something many do not wish to risk. They need an edge, a rallying cry, perhaps even heroes. And maybe, somewhere in the ruins or the plains or the swamps, such a thing might be found. Can enough hope be found for the oppressed and hungry to seek adventure and freedom in a world where survival is a moment to moment thing?
