We only have legends of that time, a thousand years ago, when the world was young and pure. Great civilizations spread across the planet of An like sequoia over a forest floor. Their cities were obelisks of glass and pearl, metal and gem, and they reached toward the heavens, ever-yearning. Some say they challenged the gods.

Perhaps that is why they were punished with the Maelstrom.

For centuries mother An withdrew her boons. Fierce winds turned mild-mannered dust into a gale of blades that etched away at the ancient cities. Fire boiled the oceans and the world became inhospitable. Man retreated to the caverns that cradled him in his youth. There they subsisted on moss and mould, waiting... waiting.

Humans were only a handful when, four hundred years ago, Dawn came. The sun, so long covered by fierce clouds of dust and ash, shone once again. The land, though barren, was just beginning to bear new fruit. Jubilant, Man emerged to till the fields and hunt what game there was to hunt. Wise men and women gathered to lead them, and they vowed to never again challenge the gods; instead, humanity would be their humble servants.

But it was too late, for though the world was born anew, it had changed.

Those first winters were troublesome. Lights were seen in the foothills, drawing away the young and the infirm, driving them mad. Strange diseases plagued the villages, turning their victims into mindless vegetables that babbled in tongues. And then there were the creatures that haunted the night, never heard save for their howls in the night—never seen save for their shadows over the hills and the stars. Any who saw any more cannot tell, for they are either insane, or dead. Some believe that the unluckiest of them are both.

That was four hundred years ago. Now, civilization bustles again. The power of steam and electricity have been rediscovered; Man is on the verge of splitting the atom and has made thinking devices to serve him. In the great, sprawling cities of the New Era, people are safer than they have ever been, and the evils that haunt the shrinking Frontier are long forgotten by common folk.

But they are still there.

Holy men warn of Man's hubris, how it cursed him before. They demand a return to a simpler time, but you will have none of that. You are a Frontiersman, a traveler well versed in the lore of the eldritch wastes beyond civilization. You know of the danger, of the things that move beyond the light of knowledge. You know that great and terrible things are afoot, but you are not afraid. Instead, you are curious, defiant, perhaps idiotic. Nonetheless, you scour the borderlands, taking on any job you can, seeking to understand the strangeness that haunts the world. Whether you banish it or join with it is your decision.

Welcome to Saga RPG.