Fluff

>Once, Malma was a verdant, pleasant world. It was far from perfect - there was still war, disease and death - but it was improving, and its people were for the most part content. The great kingdoms of the age had even managed to establish a temporary peace, broken only by occasional skirmishes. The mana-rich environment gave rise to great projects of engineering and sorcery, building great works and taming the once-savage plane. It was as close as mortals may come to a paradise.

>Then the Mind Flayers came.
>The mighty and terrible Illithid Empire, ruler of a thousand planes, descended upon Malma with a single goal: conquest. Their infiltration was at first subtle, and in the complacence of their brokered peace, the kingdoms of men failed to notice until they had infested their world thoroughly. When the Mind Flayers finally struck, it was with a near-global offensive, calling upon powers from beyond the plane to topple the empires of Malma. The great capitols of the world fell and were laid waste, and the skies grew thick and black with eternal clouds.

>With the sun blotted above, the mind flayers could launch a full assault on the surface world. Their armies routed what remained of the unprepared and underserved human militaries, establishing a new branch of their empire in the ruins of the old world. Those who survived their attacks were brought beneath the surface and enslaved by their new masters. Their civilizations were lost, their people kept alive only to feed and serve the Illithids.

>For several centuries this subjugation continued, while on the surface above, the world was neglected. The mana that had once powered many a glorious nation became wild and untamed, its nature warped by the apocalyptic war that scarred the planet. No longer would its energy be easily shackled and bounteous. The plane above became a wasteland, deprived of growth by the eternal storms that roiled in its skies. But while most perished, some creatures thrived. The insects of the plane grew massive and dreadful, many easily the size of a man. They fed upon the raw mana of the plane, and with no empires to keep them in check, soon infested much of the surface. The Mind Flayers were more than happy to leave them be, serving as predators to devour any humans who escaped their subterranean empire.

>But the Illithid Empire grew lazy, even complacent. Much like the human empires of old, they became assured in their own dominance, and this negligence came to burn them. Constant exposure to the Mind Flayers' mind-warping magic, and the psychic essence of their dread Elder Brains, altered the human slaves nearest them. They developed psionic abilities of their own, a latent memetic ability to use telekinesis, among other nascent powers. At first such individuals who showed psionic potential were culled by the Illithids, or forced to become Illithids themselves. But their numbers continued to grow, and with them, resistance to their subjugating magic.

>The revolution finally came as rather an accident. A human with psionic power was captured and forced to undergo ceremorphosis, the process by which one is made a Mind Flayer. But the ritual failed, and the illithid larvae merged only partially with its host. What resulted was a being that possessed all the psionic expertise and arcane power of a Mind Flayer, with the soul and mind of a human. The dreaded Adversary had been born, and in its torturous wrath it killed hundreds of illithids before it was finally stopped.

>With their illithid taskmasters dead, the humans of that colony were freed of oppression. They banded together, taking what weapons they could and escaping, intending to retake the surface world. After killing all foes in their path, they formed a refuge within the ruins of an ancient capitol city known as Nakyma. But their victory was far from absolute. On all sides, the Mana storms wracked the land, forcing them to hide in cover and preventing most new settlements from being built. The local fauna, as well, terrorized them at every turn. Perhaps worst of all, in their centuries of subterranean existence, they had lost all sight. Instead, the holdouts came to rely on their other senses, including their psionic awareness, to survive.

>For two centuries more, against all odds, the survivors of Nakyma defeated every Illithid force sent to defeat them. They formed patrilineal clans, led by the most psionically adept among them, and a crude civilization in mockery of the old began to develop. But the constant fighting, mana storms, and insect attacks were taking their toll. Humanity had won its freedom in part, but they could not last forever. And worse still, most of their kind remained beneath the surface, slaves to the hated Mind Flayers. The rebellion would eventually end, and they were not likely to be its winners.

>The hopes of the Nakymans turned after a raiding party breached the inner sanctum of an Illithid archmage. They took heavy casualties, but returned with one of the Empire's most valuable secrets: the knowledge of other planes of existence, and the power to find them. With the power of Planeshifting, the Nakyman clans have a new hope. They may never be able to save their world, but they can find another. A new land they can make their own, free from insects, from the mana storms, from the damnable Illithid Empire. A whole multiverse was now opened to them. They would be truly free once more.