The Umbral Seas ((Story/possible RP))

The Umbral Seas - Origins


It wasn’t always like this. Long ago, the clouds did not exist. The skies were clear. Light shone from the heavens, blanketing the twelve seas in a warm glow. It was not firelight – it was an ever-burning, intense thing that came from something in the sky that we have since lost. The light shone through clear skies. It shone upon us all. It shone upon a different world.

The light shone upon great island structures of metal and stone. It shone upon metal beasts that thundered across sea and soared through the sky. It shone upon vast networks of bridges that connected all of humanity. It also shone upon great island forests of green trees and blue lakes (yes, I said GREEN trees! BLUE lakes!). It shone upon plants and animals very different than those we see today. For our ancestors, the Builders, the light was their giver. It was their god. It provided endless energy. It powered the entire world.

And then, the Darkness happened. No one really knows how, or why, or when it happened. Every tribe, every family has their own ideas. Some say a machine was built, one that angered the light, and so the light refused to shine on them. Some say the machine threw the clouds from the seas into the sky, blotting out the light forever. Some even say the light died, and there is nothing behind the rolling clouds. Whatever the story, they all agree on one thing.

The Builders got greedy. They got complacent. They thought they would be the masters of the earth. Even after the Darkness, when the clouds came and the light went, they thought they would be safe. Safe in their society of metal and stone. Safe from the eternal blackness of the new world.
They were wrong.

Oh, how they were wrong.

The green plants were the first to die. The once-lush islands became wooden graveyards as they withered. The azure-blue oceans became choked with dying algae. Builders built nations on the growing and selling of their strange green plants, used as food. Now, their food was no more. Builder clans and societies collapsed quickly. Wars and conflicts broke out over simple food. And with wars, came their weapons. You see, Builders did not fight with sword, bow and spear, as we do. No, they carried terrible weapons that could destroy entire tribes, entire islands, with a flick of the wrist. Burn fleets like campfires in an instant. And that is what they did.

By the time the Oscuroplants began to grow, almost every part of the Builder’s world had been destroyed. By their own hand.

We know the Oscuroplants plants well. Red. Always red. They blanket the islands that are not poisoned. They require no light. They leech their lives from the salt, the dirt and the darkness – the very air. These new plants grew into existence right at the end of the Builder’s reign. When only small villages were left – isolated pockets of Builders who had survived their terrible wars. They began to rebuild, confident that they could use their knowledge of metal and stone. Confident that they could harness these new Oscuroplants. Confident that they would once again rule over the twelve seas.

They were wrong. Oh, how they were wrong.

The old stories say that animals used to be different. Used to be many different types. We see and hear about a few different creatures today, but not like then. Thousands, even millions of different animals! Think about that! There’s even talk of ‘Di-erns’ – animals that were used to living in the light! That used their EYES to see! Imagine! It was these animals that shared the old seas with the Builders. Before the Darkness. The Builders knew they could deal with these animals. Most had died in the wars, anyway.

Then the Umbeasts came.

No one knows when the first Umbeast showed itself. No one knows which Builder village was the first to fall. Some say they were the old aquatic animals, transformed by the Darkness into monsters. Some say they came from a cosmic sea beyond the clouds, looking for new things to butcher. All we know for sure is one moment they were not there, the next moment they were, emerging from the seas and swarming over the Builders, ripping them limb from limb. Shadowy beasts that melt into the waves, never showing their form or face. Never showing themselves, until it is far too late.

The Builders tried to fight them, to bring their terrible weapons to bear. All they succeeded in doing was destroying more of the world. The Umbeasts kept coming. They did not die. They did not stop. The Builder’s time was slowly running out. Without anything to Build in this dark world, their fate was sealed.

You see, their whole world was like a fire. Fire runs on fuel. You need to keep supplying wood or something that will burn. If you don’t, the fire dies. The Builder’s weapons, their villages, their boats, EVERYTHING, needed fuel. And it was not wood – not a fuel you could make or find easily. Once their fuel ran out, it could not be regained. Therefore, under the constant Umbeast attacks, unable to find a new fuel, the Builder society died. Not with a bang or crash, but with a scream. Cowering in the corners of their massive metal villages, afraid, or fleeing across the vast oceans, waiting for the Umbeasts to end them.

And thus, the mighty Builders were no more. The world belonged to the Oscuroplants and Umbeasts. They swam where they pleased, turning their ferocity on each other. Continuing their eternal search for food under the roiling, thundery clouds that surround our dark world. The new masters of the oceans.

No one knows when the first Kurocelaran came into being. Was there a hidden family of Builders somewhere? A family that somehow escaped the horrors of old? Somehow eluded the first great attack of the Umbeasts? Did they somehow change to suit the Darkness – develop senses and organs that we know the Builders never had? Did they abandon their Builder ways and adapt? Did they retreat from the earth to beneath it? Did they slowly, painstakingly carve out the underground villages? Did they survive to bear children and children’s children?

No one knows how they did it, only that they did. That they survived, hiding underground below the constant roil and roar of the Umbeasts above. It was – is – a constant struggle, living off the few edible Oscuroplants we can scrape from the rocks and the Gudfesh we can catch in the pools. Keeping the Umbeasts from discovering us with eternally burning torches. Hearing screams in the darkness. Sealing off those tunnels. Keeping watch through small cracks in the earth, barely giving us a bleak view of the cloudy, stormy sky.
Living with the sound of Umbeasts above us. As it has been for centuries. Under the earth. Forever.

Except now, the sound has stopped.

An eerie silence hangs over our village. For the first time since any elder can remember, there is no sound. Villagers look upwards, afraid to make even the slightest noise, for with silence comes the threat of discovery.

Are the Umbeasts gone? Or are they waiting? Waiting for the first Kurocelaren to pop their head out of the tunnel to check? Waiting to start the second great slaughter of the Twelve Seas? Waiting to extinguish the human line once and for all?

Weeks now, with silence. The villagers grow restless. They cannot keep living like this. Fear is good. Fear has kept us alive. But this is too much. We cannot keep living like this.

Then, the water came. The underground rivers and pools rose. It was slow at first, and it was days before it was noticed. The pools kept rising. They flowed, then flooded. Tunnels were gradually lost in the incessant rising of the water. The dark, deep water. We could not run from water. It found us wherever we went. We tried to swim, but there’s something there. Something in the water that swallows even our screams. Something our fires cannot see, for fire cannot penetrate that black, wet curtain. Many of us are gone, swept behind that curtain, never to be seen again.

And so, we have gathered. Gathered to choose. We will choose only the strongest and bravest amongst us. For the first time in hundreds of years, a Kurocelaran will set foot OUTSIDE the caves. They will see the oceans once again. They will see what has become of the Umbeasts. They will take that first dangerous journey through a world that has not been ours for an age.

Armed with sword, spear, bow and fire, they carry the hopes and fears of a whole village on their shoulders. We cannot keep living like this. We must trust in these few – our ‘final hope’. We must trust in them.

We must trust in YOU.

Good luck.