Cataclysm
The Sun Plague extinguished the stars in my home galaxy and snuffed out the stars around us before anyone knew it was coming. Few survived as they fled the dying galaxy. We suspect the plague was caused by a scientific experiment gone awry.


Exodus
A ragtag fleet of ships carried my ancestors to the Forge. The technology that powered those ships (experimental FTL drives) is said to be the source of the Sundering; a fracturing of reality that plagues us today. The experimental drives used by the Exodus fleet are now forbidden, but the damage is done. The Sundering spreads across reality like cracks on an icy pond. Those fissures unleash even more perilous realities upon our own. Were these drives related to the Sun Plague and did we inadvertently create another one here?


Communities
Few survived the journey to the Forge and were scattered to the winds. Settlements are often small, starved for resources, and on the brink of ruin. Hundreds of far-flung settlements are lost and isolated within the untamed chaos of this galaxy and their fate is unknown.


Laws
Much of the settled domain is a lawless frontier. Criminal factions and corrupt leaders often hold sway. Powers rise and fall in the Forge, so any authority is fleeting. In the end, we must fend for ourselves. A few communities are bastions of successful autonomy, but many are corrupted or preyed upon by petty despots, criminals, and raiders.


Religion
Our faith is as diverse as our people. Some have no religion or occasionally pray out of habit. Others pay homage to the gods of our ancestors, idealize the natural order of the universe, or worship the Primordials - gods of a fallen people who once dwelt here.


Magic
The Sundering unleashed unnatural forces through the Forge. Soon after their arrival, some displayed the ability to harness the Forge's energies. Magic and science became two sides of the same coin. Today, mystics invoke these powers to manipulate matter or see beyond the veil of this universe. But this can be a corrupting force, and the most powerful mystics are respected and feared in equal measure.


Communication And Data
Much was lost when we came to the Forge. It is a dark age. The knowledge that remains is a commodity as valuable as the rarest resource. Information is collected, hoarded, and jealously guarded. Ships and outposts endure prolonged periods of isolation, and rumors or disinformation are used to gain advantage or undermine foes.


Medicine
Our advanced medical technologies and expertise were lost during the Exodus. Healers are rare and ill-equipped. Untold numbers have succumbed to sickness, injury, and disease. Those who survive often bear the scars of a hard and dangerous life in the Forge.


Artificial Intelligence
We no longer have access to advanced computer systems. Instead, we must rely on the seers we call Adepts. Our computers are limited to simple digital systems and the most basic intelligence. This is because the energies of the Forge corrupt advanced systems. The Adepts serve in place of those systems. They utilize mind-altering drugs to see the universe as a dazzling lattice of data, identifying trends and predicting outcomes with uncanny accuracy. But to gain this insight they sacrifice much of themselves.


War
War never ends. Talented weaponsmiths and shipwrights craft deadly, high-tech tools of destruction. Dominant factions wield mighty fleets and battle-hardened troops. Those in power have access to weapons of horrific destructive potential. Skirmishes and wars flare across the settled domains, and most are pawns or casualties in these destructive campaigns.


Lifeforms
Life in the Forge was seeded and engineered by the Essentia; ancient entities who enact their inscrutable will in this galaxy. The Essentia are the architects of life within the Forge. These omniscient beings are rarely encountered, and have powers and purpose beyond our comprehension. Some worship them. Others resist or rebel against them. But trying to defy the will of the Essentia is like standing at the shore of an ocean to thwart the tide. They are inevitable.


Precursors
 The Ascendancy, an advanced spacefaring empire, once ruled the entirety of the Forge. Vaults of inscrutable purpose are all that remain to mark the Ascendancy's legacy, but those places are untethered from our own reality. Ascendancy vaults can appear spontaneously, washed up like flotsam in the tides of time. Their gravity and atmospheres pay no heed to natural laws. Some are corrupted and ruined. Others are unmarred and intact. Some are both at once. They are chaos.


Horrors
Most insist that horrors aren't real. Spacers know the truth. When you travel the depths of the Forge, be wary. Some say we are cursed by those who did not survive the cataclysm, and the veil between life and death is forever weakened. Supernatural occurrences and entities are especially common near a white dwarf star. These stellar objects, which spacers call ghost lights, are the decaying remnants of a dead star.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:05, Thu 23 June 2022.