Epilogue
The Storm has now fully closed in on the lands of the Calm, bringing turmoil and a return to strife. It will rage for generations before the next reprieve. But hope still burns, secreted away. Beneath the lands the labyrinth still twists, its halls sustained by mysterious purpose. Beneath the churning waves a city of scholars waits, shielded by innovation. In stranger seas the Watcher waits until the waters once more grow still. In the far flung distance, among the twinkling stars, other worlds continue on in the spaces spared the storm’s wrath, and yet new worlds bloom into being.
But the greatest remnant of this Calm is the city of Aurora, formerly Alleyway Junction. Though the Storm whorls around it, the city remains firm in its identity. The people rebuild and live as they can, and newcomers arrive from places unknown. This place within the storm is uniquely a beacon for the Lost.
In another quiet place, pages turn as a small circle of figures ponder the possibilities of what could be.
—
Thank you all for playing Stormflux. We built this game to explore a number of ideas and themes, risk and reward, transhumanism, the joys of exploration. But the theme closest to my heart was the sorrowful inevitability of drifting apart. It means the world to me to have met with you for a meal in the tavern after the end of the world. I hope that this story is something you can carry with you when we cannot be together, and in sharing these memories we can stay connected even a moment longer.
-Eric
Stormflux takes place in a world saturated with a mystical energy known as Potentia. Potentia suffuses all things, and is responsive to willpower, conviction, and sympathy. Condensed Potentia is traded freely as currency, and can be forcibly extracted from weakened entities through a painful and lethal act known as Siphoning. Potentia can be infused into weapons and armor in order to fight, and can be shaped through various practices and rituals into magical evocations and curses. All living things can sense Potentia, and are drawn to great collections of this energy in order to feed. Even animals and plants can use this energy to grow and change themselves, adapting in a struggle to survive. “Human” has become an increasingly odd descriptor, as some humans have learned to grow scales and claws, while some plant life has risen to sophisticated intelligence.
The world that existed before Potentia is lost. A great gulf of unaccounted time known as “The Lost Age” entails the rise of Potentia and the fall of all things prior. During this time, the influence of Potentia was much greater, and nothing was impossible. For reasons unknown, the energies of Potentia have diminished, and certain feats have become impossible - in the current age, it is impossible to travel through time, modify motives and memories, conjure illusions apart from oneself, become truly invisible, or grossly alter physics.
Ever looming in the distance is a great and terrible storm. As smaller storms sweep across the land, they bring change and confusion, wearing away old edifices, revealing lost treasures, and rousing monsters. The influence of the storm, or perhaps some other base condition of the world, plays tricks on travelers. Distance and direction do not function properly, and traveling the same course can lead to different destinations. Most people have lived their entire lives in a close area around their home, though some groups call no place home and have wandered nomadically through endless landscapes of forest, sea, or desert. Recently, a method for traveling and exploring somewhat reliably has been established. This practice is known as Pathfinding. One who understands the methods of Pathfinding can travel to places with which they are most familiar. Travelers carry a bevy of mementos and souvenirs to strengthen their recollections of friends and family - of home. Explorers set forth with flags, symbols, and signs, seeking to make the wild into something they can recognize.
In the past few years, a group known as the Wayfarers, the engineers of Pathfinding, have encountered and brought together various groups. Each of these groups has a different accounting of history, documenting differing and sometimes strange periods of time and recounting events and phenomena that should be impossible. It is agreed that the first contact of such groups marks the onset of the Age of Discovery. Stormflux began in 2 A.O.D, the real-world year of 2017. It is only recently that people of different cultures have begun to meet one another, mingle, trade, and conflict.
Our story takes place in the Wayfarer outpost of Crashpointe, founded by Trade Prince Cynwrig, and home to opportunity seekers of varying backgrounds. It is here that our players will fight, struggle, and barter as they explore the world and build upon the ruins. Still looming is the threat of monstrous attack, and the winds of change that beckon the next great storm.