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Welcome to The End of History (A PbtA Dying Earth Game)

13:48, 3rd December 2024 (GMT+0)

The End of History (A PbtA Dying Earth Game)

It is, from one possible point of view, the end of the world.

It's been over five billion years since humans first left their planet to reach for the moon... how much over five billion, no one is certain.

The sun has long since turned into a red giant and then died out, though the world continues to drift through space on its own.

A lot of what's left of humanity live in The Ziggurat, a several-miles high, mostly-empty structure with a population of about 20,000 humans, living fairly peacefully with about 10,000 non-humans.

Anyone leaving The Ziggurat would see the moon (unless it was on the other side of the planet at that moment), from which most exterior light comes (okay almost all of it but there are a few exceptions), shining dimly because of extremely huge lamps pointed toward the planet. No one remembers what powers the lamps nor exactly how they work.

The planet is warmed to a comfortable temperature (aside from the occasional random month or two when it's a little too hot or too cold) by what's left of volcanic activity. Everyone agrees that there's really no way that "volcanic activity" should possibly be enough, but that's what most people believe anyway.

But almost no one in The Ziggurat ever leaves it, and not just because it's dark out there-- there are (among other things) inhuman monsters and other horrors, some of which can be bargained with, most of which can't.

But.

But recently, a weak, incomplete, barely-understandable message has come in, from The Cloister, saying that there are humans there, too.

Hurried research turned up the fact that there was another, smaller structure of some sort that was supposed to be built (on the same planet, not the moon) around the time that The Ziggurat was built, another refuge for humanity, called The Cloister.

Well, apparently they did build it.

No more could be understood from the message: only that The Cloister still exists (the message was in code, a code as close to unbreakable by anyone not in The Ziggurat as could be imaginable, and passed every test of veracity), and that there are still humans there (or so the message claims). That's it.

It's not (at all) clear if the incomplete message was meant to be a plea for help, or if it was just an invitation to come and visit, or something else.

But some want to go and find out... and on the small list of those who want to go and find out... there's you.