Welcome to Gaia! ::

There was once a grand empire stretching across almost all of the Midland, with only a few independent nations left along the Periphery. However, with the death of the Last Emperor and the disappearance of the Crown Prince, the kingdom fell into disarray. This would have been a survivable problem had there not been other fundamental flaws within the empire, such as the fact that there were several Noble Houses contesting for the throne, and the Imperial Officials that were not corrupted were far and few between. Thus, the Outer Edges began to declare their independence, and the Empire was helpless to stop it.
As the system began to collapse from within, worsened by a series of weak pseudo-emperors, the actual size of the Empire decreased. Soon, the Periphery was convulsed with internal wars as the city states battled each other, and for them, memory of the old Empire began to fade.
Near the center, the Empire was still intact and still falling apart when the newly independent nation of Anacreon sacked the Imperial City. The Tower of the Crystal there was broken, and without the Tower, suppressed magic began to arise again in the Midlands. People were born with bizarre talents, sorcerers became twice as strong... and wild beats grew and mutated, and the dark, grim things from deep below the earth began to slide up again to reclaim the land lost to them. In the latter days, magic ran rampant through the very sky, warping it to a burnished red with violet lightning dancing between clouds. Great and terrible beasts arose from a slumber of 1000 years, ready to rule again. If there was still an Empire left, it was surely lost amidst the vast, tumultuous, and anarchic landscape of the Midlands.

But there were still people, still towns, albeit many enslaved by human lord or dark lord. But there were still people who would rather not see civilization end, and who would do anything to rebuild...