Splintered Moon is a PbtA game of a fallen world and lost heroism.From the introduction:
After all the signs and portents, the entrails read and the cards consulted, the omens foretold and the prophecies fulfilled, it happened: The Last War. The gods of Light and Justice gathered their forces and assaulted the strongholds of Darkness and Evil. God slew god; angel smote demon. All that was fantastic waged a horrific conflict with its opposite. The Lords of the Fae rode out to inglorious battle. The Great Old Ones shambled forth. The Elemental Princes whipped their followers into a frenzy of devastation. Every living pantheon (and many of the forgotten ones) rose up and sought to destroy the others. Vast creatures of primal might coalesced from the spare matter of Creation and made savage war. Dying gods spoke hellish curses. The moon shattered into a billion deadly shards, some still falling to earth generations later. Deserts melted to glass or blew away to bedrock. The sky caught fire from a thousand riven angels falling in blazing arcs. Lesser creatures fled the carnage, hiding wherever they could find a metaphysical hole deep enough. Few survived; none survived unscathed. The collateral damage of the War encompassed every part of the universe. Stars burnt out or froze solid. The seas boiled and blackened with the ash of ten billion cindered trees. Priests of fallen gods ran in screaming madness, their ultimate connection forever severed. All the magic in Creation turned against itself like a serpent, striking in maddened terror. Sorcerers imploded or melted into bony puddles or detonated in a horrid display of thaumaturgical feedback.
Kingdoms warred with republics. Empires warred with theocracies. Disease followed famine followed disaster. With their armies in ruin, rulers called upon their craftsmen to forge Created soldiers. Most Created were only smart enough to hold a spear and follow explicit orders. Some were more than that and had steel minds conceived and constructed for only war. A few still exist, guarding places that no longer survive.
Creatures of the world, both mundane and magical, drew the dying magic as unwitting targets. Scores of mutations erupted as flesh and bone and fur and feather flowed in a sluggish river of torment. When the ground stopped shaking, most were dead - disfigured and unviable. Creatures of magical essence wisped into nothingness. The great dragons fell, nevermore the lords of the air. The vicissitudes of time fell in a rush on the ageless and unchanging, as immortals found themselves to be very mortal indeed. The dead outnumbered the living; Death Herself lost interest in gathering souls. Funeral rites still lay loved ones to rest, but scores of undead stalk the world’s wreckage. Some are silent and subtle. Some wander, shrieking their torment and loss, some grown bold at the easy pickings… all deadly. But life persists, inexorable. Several of the new species were able to survive in the fallen world, their Twists new knots in the rope of existence. A lucky minority found themselves adapted to the ash wastes and the charcoal seas. New predators stalk the razed cities and crumbled mountains.But all is not lost. New communities rise from the ashes, new breeds of people, new religions, new reasons to hope… new gods. Some of these are reclaimers, seeking to resurrect the Golden Age. Then there are the Twisted, those folk marked and changed by nature’s revolt. The superstitious shun them, but the Twisted have been instrumental in building new places of refuge.
Some groups have turned inward, rejecting the old gods and the new. A few are re-inventors, forging the world anew. Some turned to pursuits of what meager pleasures still existed. Many have collapsed into degeneracy and savagery. Rumors persist of hidden enclaves with scholars, sages, and warriors to shield them. They have not only reinvented lost technologies but have even surpassed the advances before the Fall. The sun still shines, though it beats down like a dwarven forge-hammer. Tides still run, unpredictable as phases of a shattered moon. Ash blows, sometimes for days. You'll lose track of how many withered, sand-blasted bodies you find. Some died only a few score yards from clean water. This is the world we bequeath to you. It is a world both harsh and unforgiving, a world of scarcity, need, and privation. You are heroes in a world with no concept of heroism. Not any more.Welcome to Splintered Moon.
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