NeverDawn - Sanctuary of the Lost
There are those who argue that there is life after death. And then, there are those who argue that there is life in SPITE of death. Such are the grimly cheerful and utterly indefatigable citizens of the city of NeverDawn. In the wake of the Devourers, tiny bits and pieces of worlds have drifted into a region of the endless Periphery known simply as Null. New world-shards drift in every day, from rocks no bigger than a man to entire fields, forests, mountains and shapeless blobs of ocean still teeming with fish.
Null is both a place and its contents- the fabric of time and space has been shredded here, leaving only the barest threads contained within the pieces of the world within. One can breathe in Null, even swim in it, as there is no time to contain the general effects of such physical laws as gravity, vacuum, and friction. Even a living being carries enough of the threads of time and space to continue to live anomalously in deep Null, and even now, a decade since the first survivors fell out of space, members of the first expeditions to explore manage to return one by one with priceless treasures and vital resources. Within reach of any world-shard, no matter how small, a tiny bit of time and space exists, allowing people to live comfortably on the larger shards.
The survivors who arrive on such pieces vary from simple farmers and "ordinary" folk, to hardened soldiers and powerful wizards, to masters of technology and science. The Devourers spare none, and Null welcomes all. The more civilized among these have banded together with their assorted world-shards and created NeverDawn, a small patchwork city struggling to survive in a place never before inhabited. The farmers' crops still grow, despite there being no sun to shine on them, the mills grind without a wind to turn them, and somehow, in the most truly "dead" place in all of existence, life manages to go on.
In the town square stands a monument to the mysterious Foreman, a stranger who came seemingly out of Null itself to lead the first survivors in the founding of NeverDawn. The Foreman vanished some five years before, without a trace or even a clue to an explanation. Many of the inhabitants of the city knew him personally and still claim he may yet return someday, though these also hold out hope that someday Santa Claus may visit their humble home, such as it may be...
