Anima Setting Briefing

And Man Forgot.

No one is able to say why it happened...or how.  Perhaps some sort of natural phenomenon erased our memories.  Perhaps we broke a rule of some unknown Power, and were punished for it.  Perhaps, simply put, we did it to ourselves.

Like small children, reduced to something little more than animals, we roamed throughout centuries while our arrogant civilization tumbled down around us.  Everything turned to ruins.  The ruins turned to dust.  And the dust was taken by the wind.  The world had a different name then.

But no one remains to remember it.


(Hello, and welcome to Pilz's summary of Anima's setting's history!  The above is the first few paragraphs from chapter 17 in the core Anima rulebook!  Now we begin, in a much more casual style.)


So, the earth is a clean slate.  The old civilization has been wiped clean off the earth, and only humans are left wandering among the remains of the remains of ruins.  It is at this point that Beings visited the planet.  They were basically gods, the first of many.  They saw Humans and thought we were the tightest shit ever, so they decided to make their own.  Thus, the Duk'zarist were born.  They were based on an elemental affinity to darkness and fire, and forged from magic so that their souls were magic.  It would have ended there, except that a group of these godlike beings was unimpressed with the Duk'zarist, and decided to make their own race, with Light and Elves.  They made the Sylvain.  This schism escalated, with some gods trying to be interventionist and others trying to leave everyone well enough alone.  This eventually lead to The War in the Skies.

After an apocalyptic battle in the heavens that may have lasted mere minutes, only two groups of beings remained.  Gaira led his seven Shajad, while C'iel stood with her seven Beryl.  Despite being diametrically opposed, they found no reason to continue the war, and so it ended.   Gaira and C'iel remained with us, shepherding in an age of vast prosperity...for a time.

During this initial golden age, the gap between the Wake (a sort of dream-mirror-world, think along the lines of the Warp in 40k and you're not far off) and the material world was thin, meaning that creatures and spirits could manifest freely and easily.  Likewise, supernatural power drawing on the Flow of Souls (reincarnation cycle through which the souls of dead dudes are drawn into the wake and "Scrubbed clean") was common.  Initially, the new gods taught everyone...but slowly the Beryl found themselves drawn to the Sylvain and the Shajad were drawn to the Duk'Zarist.  This new schism eventually lead to yet another war, the War of Darkness.

Initially, the war was between Sylvain and Duk'Zarist.  Looking on in horror, C'iel and the Beryls determined not to intervene in order to prevent Gaira from intervening.  While there were far fewer Duk'Zarist, they were much better fighters (warrior culture vs hippie elves, so...) and they got power-hungry, turning against the other races as well as the Sylvain.  At some point, a leader whose identity has been lost to time united the races and lead them against the Duk'Zarist, wrecking Duk'Zarist face.  In a moment of desperation in the face of defeat, Ghestalt, lord of the Duk'Zarist, accused Gaira of betraying them and challenged Gaira for godhood.  He talked the talk, but could not walk the walk: Gaira smacked him down, the Duk'Zarist retreated into their lands, and the world now known as Gaia began to rebuild.

Then the world goes through a period of chaos.  Various kingdoms rise and stake out their boarders, including the city-state of Solomon, which will be important later.  What IS important is important is that at the end of this period, a young man named Abel appears.  A messianic figure, he preached love and forgiveness...at least as far as humans were concerned.  Magic had no place in the world he saw, and that often was interpreted to include those with magical souls (like the duk'zarist and sylvain.)

Zoom out a bit.  In the shadows for an indeterminate amount of time, three major secret societies possessing of a vast technomagical power had been watching.  Abel represents their first (known) attempt to control the population.  The societies are the Imperium (Humans), the Technocracy (Sylvain) and the Illuminati (Duk'Zarist).

Back to Abel.  Now called Christ by many, he takes 12 disciples and cuts a swath through the various kingdoms of man until they are all under his banner, save Solomon.  A city-state possessed of powerful technomagic, it had remained unassailed for centuries.  Abel's army camps outside the city, ready to burn it down in the morning, only to wake up and find Abel crucified, dangling from the walls of the city.  Iscarot, one of his disciples, had sold him out for 30 pieces of black metal that held "The knowledge to change Gaia."

The army being understandably miffed and kinda sorta totally still there, they destroy Solomon in a single day and night.  The remaining disciples forged kingdoms for themselves out of the conquered land and  built the holy city of Abel on top of Solomon.  They slowly cast out magic-users and magical beings from their lands, even going so far as to completely cut off relations with the kingdoms belonging to such beings.  Eventually, the original disciples die off and wars of succession start.  Two hundred years after the death of Christ, Rah, Descendant of Iscarot and ruler of the nation of Judas (them references man), begins the War of God.

Rah has been sitting around plotting this for a while.  He's basically recruited all the magic users and magical beings that the various human kingdoms told to fuck off.  In addition, he's secured the assistance of the Duk'zarist through a combination of bribery (he promises them a solution to their weakness to worked iron) and blackmail (totally kidnaps their empress and holds her hostage :<).  Unfortunately, Rah's true goal was not conquest, as they thought.  Rather, Rah saw gods and magic and the religion surrounding them as chains created by those seeking to keep man down (possibly those three secret societies I mentioned earlier).  His goal was the destruction of God, so that man could take his place (Try to take it as less "Edgy" and more "shonen bullshit awesomeness.  Keep in mind that Humans did kind of exist before any of the current gods or secret-societies-pretending-to-be-gods showed up.)

Thankfully, one of the heirs to one of the holy kingdoms, Zhorne Giovanni, had some sense.  He rallied the nations and forged peace with the Sylvain and other races to fight.  Realizing things were turning against him, Rah left his palace to command his troops on the field, providing an opportunity for a young Duk'zarist to rescue the empress and discover Rah's Machine (capital M).  He and the empress bail and tell the rest of the Duk'Zarist, who immediately turn on Rah's forces.  Rah retreats to his island palace and Zhorne pushes his advantage.  Then, in the final moments, Rah uses the passing of all who had died in the war to turn on his Machine, in a desperate attempt to forcibly divorce reality and the Wake forevermore.

Thankfully, Gaira and C'iel were still around, and realized what was happening.  they stopped the machine before it was too late. Even so a hefty barrier was erected between the Wake and Reality, killing millions of beings whose souls were tied to magic.  It was here, with racial tensions at an all-time high and every civilization on the brink of extinction, that the powers in the shadows came to a grim conclusion: The people of Gaia could never coexist.

Meeting with Gaira and C'iel, the now five forces agreed that something had to be done.  With the races unable to live together in harmony, and with a massive area around Rah's Machine fatal to any magical beings that should enter it, they saw only one solution.  Releasing a terrible power, they split the world in three.  One zone was given to the Sylvain and their allies, one zone to the Duk'zarist.  The final zone, mostly tainted by Rah's Machine, was given to the only race that could survive there: Humans.  The groups then basically agreed not to fuck around any more, and then went about totally breaking that promise as best they could without other people calling them on it.  5-way-cold-war.  In particular, the Imperium (From what I've been told/read in other books besides core) seeds their jurisdiction (the human area) with magitech nanobots that can manipulate the emotions of the hosts.


SO FAR SO GOOD, WE'RE IN THE FINAL STRETCH! DON'T STOP NOW!

Back to Zhorne.  Dude builds a massive holy kingdom that spans the new-known world, the Holy Empire of Abel.  he declares himself Saint-Emperor, the pope of the church of Christ.  Because he's not a micromanaging asshole, he makes a few more things.  First, he divides the army of the empire into 4 parts, and gives it to four Lords of War.  Second, he creates the position of Supreme Archbishop, who is basically a functional pope.  Then, he orders the Archbishop to create the Inqusition, that the terrors of men's nightmares might be kept at bay.  With the same breath, he gives Rah's island fortress to a new group, the Templar of Tol Rauko, who are charged with preserving and studying the exact things the Inquisition is meant to purge (knowledge is power, after all).

Zhorne lives for goddamn 150ish years and has a bunch of heirs.  Everything goes great and people slowly forget.  Almost 800 years later, one of Zhorne's descendants, Lascar Giovanni, goes batshit insane on the throne.  The lords of war stage a desperate coup d'etat, lead by the idealistic Elias Barbados, who hopes to convince the Emperor to see reason.  Upon entering the throne room, they find Lascar has forced his son, Lucanor Giovanni, to kill him with the royal sword!  Technical Treachery!  Now Lucanor cannot be heir to the throne! shit!

The other Lords of War nope the fuck out of there and Elias finds himself nominated to be the new Emperor (Lucanor is given a technical banishment, and placed in charge of one of the most important principalities, which he does a bomb-ass job of ruling).  Elias does great, for a while.  Eventually, his wife dies in childbirth, and Elias falls into a deep despair (he even ignores Elizabetta, his child, placing her in the care of his guard Kisidan).  During this time, he meets Eljarad (Descendant of Rah, Descendant of Iscarot, not that he knows that) and becomes enraptured with her.  He grants her the title of Supreme Archbishop (pissing off the church).

Eljared goes power-mad (OR DOES SHE?) and does a bunch of terrible things.  Eventually, a governor of a largeish town balls up and calls her a witch, accusing her of bewitching the emperor's mind.  She orders the army (through Elias) to wipe out the dude's town which they do.

At this point, one of Elias' old comrades in arms begs Elias to cut this shit out.  Elias tells this guy (Tadeus von Horsman, a lord of war) to fuck off.  Seeing no trace of his old friend in Elias's eyes, Tadeus raises an army and attacks the royal palace in the name of the future empress Elizabetta Barbados.  Elias flies into a rage and attacks Elizabetta, trying to kill her.  Kisidan strikes him down, and Tadeus arrives on the scene of a bloodbath when he reaches the royal chambers too late.  Eljarad disappears (and with her goes the functioning of those pesky nanobots that were restraining human will.  Odd, that.).

Elizabetta is crowned.  The church isn't sure they give a shit, and appoint a new supreme archbishop without consulting her.  one of the four lords of war disappears.  Another, Matthew Gaul, forges an alliance with some other places and declares himself head of the Azure/Azur Alliance, because he doesn't like the idea of being told what to do by a teenage girl.  Several other principalities make a break for it, and the Holy Empire of Abel is without the strength to bring them back.

Thus, the empire lies fractured.  Magic is creeping back into the world as the effects of the Machine slowly fade.  It is in this era of uncertainty, this era of freedom, that you will make your stand!