The planet was scarred by the wars of the creators, then by the wars of the machines that replaced them. Continually evolving minds, the Exponentials jostled with each other for dominance, before abandoning their home and taking to the stars. Their lesser mechanical brethren were left to inherit a barren world, machine people picking through the ruins of a more advanced time, looking for parts with which to repair and augment themselves. They have formed tribes and factions, alliances to defend themselves against raiders, cannibalistic scavengers, and insane robots still running war protocols.

Another consequence of those wars is the Corrosion, a nanotech plague that can infest susceptible machines, reconfiguring them into strange new forms running incomprehensible algorithms. Explorers and adventurers brave such dangers in their hunt for the Exuvia; relics of esoteric science left behind by the Exponentials. The Exuvia can be powerful weapons and artefacts, though some are sentient, and it is unwise to disturb them.

The world is literally alive; an endless expanse of skin, shaped into plains and hills and valleys. There are forests of hairs the size of redwood trees, dry and desiccated scablands, the oily depths of the sebaceous caverns. Somehow humans came to live here, amidst an ecosystem teeming with stranger creatures, all in some way parasitising their immeasurably vast host.

In a distant age, that host was bombarded with meteorites, vast lumps of rock and metal embedded in its flesh, some as large as mountains. Combined with an abundant fuel source in the form of combustible sebum, the inhabitants had everything they needed for an industrial revolution; now train tracks cross the wilderness between settlements, which are sprouting factories and other urban developments.

But this is a dangerous time of rival states, outlaw gangs and hostile species. Added to which is the phenomena of curious fireballs seen falling in the scablands, and rumours of metal things with tentacles that are snatching folks away…

It was an age of science and discovery; humanity had ventured into the void aboard gleaming rocket ships and discovered the worlds of the solar system to be as richly inhabited as Earth. Though some contacts led to conflict, humankind was victorious again and again, eventually securing a peace with their celestial neighbours. That peace would be undone when a new enemy arose, one which could not be so easily overcome; eldritch forerunners who had been slumbering beneath rock and ice and oceans.

The immediate threat to Earth was apparent when the surface of the Moon cracked open, disgorging hordes of batrachian beings, which clung like ticks to serpentine abominations; hideous wyrms that could swim impossibly through the void. These beings wielded organic weapons, and left disease and hideous parasites in their wake, mutating the survivors of their brutal attacks.

Thus, a golden age sank into a desperate war for survival against the spreading contagion, a war that would be fought with rayguns and jetpacks, with science and forbidden knowledge, a war in which the lunar horrors may be just the opening salvo…

This project is here to encourage me to write and draw something every day. The posts will mostly be ideas for RPG settings, locations and scenarios, with accompanying doodles. Enjoy!