Rust & Requiem

Long ago the world of Aevyra was green and whole.
Then came the Century Winter-an endless cataclysm of ice and storm that swallowed continents, boiled oceans into cloud, and drove the sun behind a veil of ash and frost.
What remained of humanity clawed upward or downward to survive.

From the ruins rose four great refuges, each a defiant answer to a dying planet:

- **The Sky Cities**, crystalline citadels suspended by ancient aether engines above the endless storms. Caelun and its sisters gleam like fallen constellations, ruled by the Stratocracy-an empire of marble halls, political masks, and whispered treaties that hide sharpened blades.

- **Undermire**, a labyrinth of caverns and steam-lit markets carved into the planet's crust. Here exiles, traders, and outcasts forged a rough democracy of guilds and secrets, where bioluminescent forests grow beneath rusted cathedrals of industry.

- **The Oceanic Nations**, ever-moving fortress-cities that ride the restless seas on turbine legs and whale-bone keels. Amphibious clans and deep-adapted humans navigate storms and leviathans alike, answering to no flag but survival.

- **The Ice Kingdoms**, scattered citadels and nomadic tribes upon the glacial wastes, where geothermal fires warm stone halls and frost-forged warriors ride beasts carved from the blizzard itself. Once the mightiest power on Aevyra, now only echoes and ruined spires remain of their golden age.

Between these realms, fragile pacts and older grudges hold the world in uneasy balance.
Airships, railcannons, and clockwork messengers cross the void carrying trade, threats, and rumors of war.

Into this brittle peace steps a white-haired wanderer known only as the Ghost, a musician whose instrument can kill as easily as it weeps, and a sharp-tongued thief from the depths who never planned to save anyone-least of all herself.

Above them, the sky cities begin to hum with a new and terrible song.
Below, the earth itself listens, and waits.