The recorded history of the Skyborne world spans three distinct eras, each defined by catastrophe, silence, and rebirth.
The Era of Conflict (The War)
Before the clouds, the world belonged to precursor civilizations of unimaginable power. They waged a high-tech stalemate that ground across centuries, consuming continents and resources.
- Colossus Golems — Solar-powered animated mountains, each a walking fortress capable of reshaping terrain. These were the ultimate weapons of the war, too costly to destroy and too dangerous to ignore.
- The Flight — Precursors harnessed Aether-Shards and Lattice-Drives to take to the skies, fleeing the devastation below.
- Alchemical Mists — Desperate weapons deployed to obscure vision, poison armies, and corrupt the land. These mists would prove to be the war’s final legacy.
The Era of Silence (The Reset)
The war could not continue. A final, desperate measure was taken: a solar eclipse — or perhaps a planetary cloud layer — was summoned to cut off the Colossus Golems from their power source.
- The Cloud Veil — A thick, alchemical barrier draped the world, plunging it into twilight. The Golems fell into slumber, their peaks the only remnants visible above the clouds.
- The Phoenix Project — The precursors, knowing extinction was near, built Nurseries: sealed facilities with AI Overseers tasked with preserving DNA and storing knowledge. They left no records of their own history, ensuring the new world would begin with a blank slate.
The Era of Rebirth (Present Day)
The clouds remain. The world above them thrives.
- The Scavenger’s Rise — Generations of descendants born from the Nurseries — now called the Skyborne — have spent hundreds of years scavenging the ruins of the precursor world. Every piece of tech, every Aether-Shard, every Bit of scrap is a link to a forgotten age.
- The Great Awakening — In recent years, Nurseries have begun activating at an unprecedented rate, flooding the peaks with new births. These newcomers strain resources, challenge established communities, and reignite old questions about what the precursors truly intended.
For more on the remnants of this history, see Technology & Magic, The Nurseries, and Global Threats.