Crescent Star Saga is such a huge campaign setting adaptation that I can’t even think of where to begin. I will inevitably leave out a lot of vital information. If you have any questions, just post them in the Q&A forum and I’ll answer them as best I can. Much of the setting remains to be fleshed out entirely, and that is another reason why consolidating everything all at once is very difficult. Much remains to be written, and what has been decided often changes before, during, and after campaigns. Crescent Star Saga is always evolving from one incarnation to another; I like to think towards a more complete form. Hopefully things will get relatively wrapped up this time.
Without further ado, I give you the world of Crescent Star Saga.
THE AGE OF THE AVATARS
In long ago ages, the Tellurian had existed in relative peace and harmony, when mortals chosen by the Aeons ruled the Multiverse with justice and benevolence. These beings were known as the Avatars, and they were given their powers in the time before history to fight the forces of the Fallen Aeons, also known as "The Elder Gods."
There are two sorts of Avatars – Divine and Arcane. The Divine Avatars were the Favored of the Aeons and could command the fundamental forces of the Multiverse, but their power was too strong to pass through the blood. Instead, when one died, its soul was recalled and given to a new mortal who became its vessel. The Arcane Avatars attained their powers through intuition and insight and thus did not have the favor of the Aeons. They were less powerful but more numerous, for their secrets could be taught to others. Although they were not favored, however, they still served the Aeons.
Eventually, the Avatars defeated the forces of the Elder Gods. As a reward, the Aeons gave the Avatars dominion over the Multiverse. For many countless ages the Avatars ruled justly over all living things, and their invincible empire was called The Empyrean. However, the death of the Elder Gods tore a great rift in the fabric of the Multiverse that created a dimension of pure void known as the Outer-Darkness. Within this realm of total entropy, the endless void lay waiting to consume reality itself. Powerful servants of the Elder Gods known as the Eldritch snuck through the cracks in the Multiverse and deceived the minds of the Avatars. The benevolence of the Avatars turned to cruelty and tyranny, and peace turned to civil war. Eventually, the Arcane Avatars formed a separate faction known as the Ascension and slew the Divine Avatars, who were the rulers of the Empyrean at that time.
Some of the Divine Avatars survived the initial campaign and there were cosmic battles as they regrouped and fought back against the Arcane Avatars. This went on for many countless ages (and indeed continues to this day), and was known as the Wars of Divinity. Much of the glory of the ages was lost during this war and much of the power as well. In the ruins of the Empyrean, the Arcane Avatars set up a military government that lasted for thousands of years. It was not the glorious empire of the Empyrean, nor was it entirely peaceful, but it was devoid of the vast atrocities that had plauged the Multiverse before.
A powerful group of Divine Avatars, known as the Chronomasters, had aided the Arcane Avatars in their murder. Shortly after the fallen of the divine avatars, the Chronomasters made a concerted effort to fade from view. Texts mentioning them were destroyed, and memories of them were allowed to vanish over mortal lifetimes, until they were only a legend.
A close watch was kept over the few divine avatars that continued to be reborn throughout the ages. This watch, called the Arcane Crusade, used powerful astrology and magical technology of detection to pinpoint the emergence of divine avatars. Heavily armed strike forces descended on these newly emergent "Angels" and destroyed them before they had a chance to gain power – in many cases the target was destroyed before he even realized he had changed at all.
THE ELDRITCH PURIFICATION
Then the Purification came. A wraith-plague called The Shroud surged forth from the Outer-Darkness and slew 9 out of every 10 sentient races in the whole Multiverse. There was no cure, and none to tend the sick in their suffering. 90% of the sentient races of the Multiverse went extinct. All reality wailed in agony, but the true horror had only begun.
In the unshaped Outer-Darkness beyond the edges of the multiverse, the Draconus had always lurked. They were always held back from the Multiverse by the massive solidarity of the Empyrean, as well as by the powerful technological defenses of the Ascension. But when the Purification struck, the population of the Multiverse was decimated, and the controls of the defense grids were manned only by corpses. The Draconus forced open the gates of space and time and came forth in endless legions.
With them, the Draconus brought great storms of pure chaos and laid waste to the Tellurian. Vast, unfathomable numbers of continuums and Nexus Realms were totally annihilated and reality was changed forever. Even in the places that were not destroyed, wherever the forces of the Draconus had traveled, the tapestry of reality was left crazed and fluid, scarred forever by the chaos of the Draconus’s passing.
As the Draconus’s armies raced toward the Centrality of the Tellurian, an Arcane Avatar and Draconus warrior named Valdragora Jurai dared the impenetrable defenses that guarded the central controls of the Ascension’s defense systems. By luck or fate, she seized control of those systems and threw back the rest of the Draconus host. Scattering like chaff and melting like wax in a forge, they fled howling back into the chaos of the Outer-Darkness beyond the edges of the Multiverse.
With control of the Ascension’s defense systems, Valdragora was the most powerful being in the Tellurian. From the realm known as "Neverlight" at the center of the cosmos, she accepted pledges of fealty and proposals of marriage. Consolidating her power, she proclaimed herself a God-Empress, and that has been her name since that day almost a hundred-thousand years ago.
Among the God-Empress’s first and most important allies were the survivors of the Chronomasters, who shared their knowledge with her and advised her. In return, the Chronomasters were given vast influence over the Multiverse, and the Chronomasters were given great authority in conducting and maintaining the Arcane Crusade.
THE FOUNDING OF THE JURAI EMPIRE
The God-Empress Valdragora Jurai easily seized control of the Centrality of the Tellurian, but she had too few loyal troops to dream of conquering and holding the entire, war-wracked Multiverse. Instead, she demonstrated his power, using her handful of Arcane Avatars and her control over the Ascension’s defenses to obliterate several of her most obstinate opponents. From the rest, she extracted pledges of peace and of tribute and left them subjects of her rule.
Though it took many thousands of years, the Tellurian was eventually made to kneel and pay Jurai homage. Only in the farthest regions of the Multiverse, now called the Nephyrexian Continuity, were the inhabitants successful in their resistance to the God-Empress’s forces. Unwilling to sacrifice more of her limited resources, the God-Empress left the Nephyrexian Continuity to its own devices.
At first, her greatest enemy was infact her own race. Because of the violent nature of male dragons, it was argued by the female population that males were not suited to rule. An uprising occured when Jurai attempted to subjugate the males of her own species. This uprising threatened to destroy the Empire at its very foundation, which has split male and female Draconus into two seperate people.
The males became known as The Dracothi, and were divided by chromatic color into five different royal castes that serve the God-Empress Jurai. Females, who were divided by metallic color became known as The Dralathi. For awhile, it seemed as if Jurai would not be able to stop the males from usurping her own dominion. However, the males underestimated the cunning of Jurai, who put into motion a plan that would ensure the dominance of the Dralathi in the end.
To secure her position, the God-Empress engaged in a series of political marriages and extramarital liaisons with key Dracothi patriarchs. The results of her efforts became the royal dynasty of the Dralathi Empire that persists to this day. A large and tightly intermarried extended family, the Dynasty wields almost all political power within the Tellurian. Though it started with only a few ragged survivors, the Dynasty grew. In the modern day, it comprises ten major houses and countless smaller bloodlines and contains millions of Arcane Avatars.
Defeated from within, the Dracothi faction fell and their political rights were abolished by the formal decree of Jurai. This would not be the end of the Dracothi faction except on paper, however, as the Dracothi fled to the outskirts of the Tellurian where they began to once again consolidate their power. There they encountered the Nephyr, who had established a vast Dynasty of their own. Seeing the Nephyrexian Hegemony as nothing more than a laughable imitation of the Centrality, the Dralathi mounted an invasion of the Nephyrexian Continuity from within in the hopes of eventually turning it against the Centrality.
For over ten-thousand years the Empress manipulated her metallic and chromatic descendents, setting them to war about her feet to gain her mercurial favor. Yet, if retaining her position was foremost in her mind, she made sure she was secure against external foes as well as against internal challenges to her power. In all the ages of her rule, the Crusade never failed, the Empire was never seriously menaced by a foreign enemy, and the great houses grew fat and powerful on the cream of the Tellurian.
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE GOD-EMPRESS
A hundred years ago, that all changed. The God-Empress went missing one morning, gone without a trace. Almost overnight, the Empire began to crumble. The government of the Empire was not built for a succession – there simply were no mechanisms to put a new ruler on the throne. There wasn’t even any proof that Jurai was dead.
Weeks of indecision turned into months of political wrangling, until the ancient civil war once again erupted into open war between the Dralathi and the Dracothi. The provincial Nexus Realms of the Tellurian were bled white, as garrisons were withdrawn from the tributary Nexus Realms and brought home to the Centrality. Any attempt to deploy the legions abroad was seen as a maneuver in the struggle for control of the throne – the armies of the Empire were paralyzed. Even the Crusade had fallen to the wayside, as the contenders for the throne gathered their every iota of power.
Realizing that the Empire’s armies and ancient defenses were mere paper tigers, the Empire’s countless subject Nexus Realms began withholding their tribute. The Nephyrexian Hegemony finally established true independence from the Empire, and the Dracothi were expelled from it. The Dracothi returned to the Centrality, and succeeded in re-establishing their presence as a formal power within the Tellurian, while the Nephyr began a campaign to consolidate their power in their own Continuity even further.
But the Nexus Races are not the only enemies to realize the weakness of the Empire. Hostile races which lurk beyond the pale of the Empire or Nephyrexian politics have begun to gather power much faster without the Dralathi legions to retaliate against them. From their strongholds within the multiverse, and from those outside of it, the Ancestral Draconus murmur of war. The Elder Gods of the Outer-Darkness unleash new monstrosities against the living, and everywhere, there are omens of war and end times.
