Across a Great Dark Sea

Nothing is forgotten.

Books rot. Carvings fade. Words diffuse into empty air. No one may remember, but nothing is forgotten.

Cleocadia is a place with scars from forgotten wounds. Six hundred years ago its land became a great dark sea, and the holy empire that ruled it was swallowed by the deep. Gods left the world, mourning one of their greatest. Humanity all but died out.

The handful of remaining islands survived in chaos for five long centuries as different authorities took turns ruling them. Vampires took people as cattle, and gathered the relics of the Empire to live in decadence. Orcish nobles governed with feudal tradition. Pirates plundered the world for all the treasure it was worth.

Ulthir came the closest to ruling it all. The most powerful necromancer who ever lived, and a pirate Warlord, his undead Armada grew with every victory. It took four Warlords and five nations to take him down.

Those nations compose Cleocadia's latest authority - the Coalition. They've survived, expanded, and innovated for seventy-five years. Discovered the power of steam. Brought newspapers, pictographs and trains across the sea. Taught people how to dream again.

But as it's grown, its problems have grown with it. Corporations keep expanding on a glut of cheap labour. Victoria, powerful with its old world tech, resents the taxes and tariffs put upon from it from afar. There are only so many Dream Eaters that Psypol can contain. Beaurocracy bloats.

And, secretly, people are waiting for the thing that'll end it all. Some vestige from the Empire. The bottomless Abyss. An old god. The sea itself. Because Cleocadia is a place with scars from forgotten wounds. Its future is as alien as its past.