Broken World W.I.P

A Treatise upon the Broken World
Anonymous

Of all the Worlds in the finite cosmos, few have a story so wrought with lunacy as this. Its name is two things: forgotten, and unimportant. None remember what this place was called when it was once whole, and that which remains of it has become so disparate from itself that each Shard could be seen as a separate world unto itself. An in-depth search through historical records will bring you back as far as 16000 years into the past at the time of writing, with the earliest recorded event being the arrival of those known colloquially as "The Interlopers". Around this time, the sixteen current dominant species had not yet attained sapience and civilization, and instead were being "guided" by some as-of-yet unnamed species, which will be referred to from this point forward as "The Eldest", for convenience's sake. Evidence exists to suggest that the Eldest were remarkably advanced, and it is believed that the remnants of their civilization and technology form the backbone of every sapient society upon this world today. Terraforming on the scale of continents, nigh-unlimited fonts of sorcerous energy, the technology to reconstitute entire extinct species. One must wonder: were these People, or Gods? One thing is certain, though, the aforementioned Interlopers were confirmed to be of the latter category. Having recently fled upon artificial Moons from the destruction of their own world by some unfathomable, indescribable foe, this orphaned Pantheon sought to subjugate the inhabitants of this world, and recreate their own upon this planet. Of course, they were not expecting a species such as the Eldest to be residents of this world, and were caught off guard when they were met with resistance that they genuinely struggled with. For eight centuries, the war waged on between the native Eldest, and the divine Interlopers. Eventually, the Eldest were pushed back to one final stronghold. As a last, desperate act to deny the Interlopers a victory, and keep this world in the hands of creatures that had been born upon its soil, they enacted their Final Stratagem. Through countless years of observation, Eldest scientists had managed to ascertain that the Interloper Deities had one crippling flaw. Due to their vastness in what can only be described as "the grand scheme of things", and their ties to the very fabric of reality itself, the Gods were bound to a seemingly insignificant rule: they could not manifest upon objects without sufficient mass. They could take on full corporeal form on a planet, moon, or other sufficiently massive object, but were unable to directly exert their will upon smaller bodies. The Interlopers had scores of minions at their disposal, but the inability to simply bring these minions to their location upon the planet would make a continuation of their invasion infeasible at best. With this knowledge in hand, the Eldest activated the Devices necessary to break the world into sixteen Shards, each Shard inherited by one of the descendant species they'd sealed within vaults beneath the surface, with atmosphere and heat being held to the Shard by massive Sorcerous Engines in order to sustain life. They enacted this plan just as their final bastion had been overrun, the resulting calamity obliterating the stronghold. The Interlopers were themselves manifest when the world was broken, and were sent reeling by the trauma of being so suddenly and violently cast off. After recuperating their strength, each retired to one of the eight artificial Moons they'd brought with them, and began to plot, waiting for the day that they might yet be able to continue their campaign against this prize that has been denied to them.