War, aggression, and deceit.

All of these are found to be unnecessary at the end of the day. Yet through it all some find the reason to bring them to light, to enact events that cost millions their very lives.

One country.

One city.

One man.

One simple whisper of a threat was all it took to get to such a state. Children forced out into the unruly world to die for a higher purpose they had no knowledge of. Abandoned in that very moment they wondered, why?

To find out where we are we have to find out how we got there.

More than five hundred years ago, the earth's leading nations were pushed to the brink of survival. Contamination of fresh water, international blighted food shortage, complete depletion of fossil fuels, and a worsening climate drove all nations into a frenzy. Power struggles resulted from the closing of common trade in order to adhere to the needs of their own citizens. But even so, that wasn’t enough to supply the masses with the proper needs of survival. With this choice; many suffered and found themselves lost for life. Hopeless.

In the year 2111 society as we knew it collapsed, countries dragged out to make the difficult decision to partake in nuclear research to gain a foothold on the last few resources that remained. All development invested in a newfound nuclear energy that could empower their efforts and means of devastation. Mere chances of survival became ones worth fighting for.

BOOM!

Bombs rained down for weeks on end in the early spring, countless cities uprooted and demolished by the first conflict's end. The unprotected structures of man were reduced to mere rubble. As people died and nations fell, many rushed to gain world domination but only one made the jump successfully: Russia.

They stomped their way forward and out into the limelight of the world’s impending annihilation with an iron boot. A single man named Dr. Adrik Zima was able to take the necessary steps and press his sole deep into the muddled earth. His footprint left a lasting imprint in the creation of a new bomb far more catastrophic than any before it. It was something national leaders referred to as a country killer. Many saw it as the start of the end times.

The Kraven bomb.

Packed with the power of 1,000,000 megatons of radioactive destruction, the soon leaked design was spread across the globe. Most nations did what they could to replicate the monstrous weapon, while some forfeited their designation of integrity over to Russia. Knots tied and strands cut loose, the second wave was on the rise. Within the mere six months that had passed since the leak, smaller countries found themselves absorbed by those with far more capability for the forsaken day coming. The earth’s people reduced to loyal dedications given to one of eleven mega countries fighting for control.

For the right to live.

Yet the day of infamy arrived, one vaguely remembered as a fleeting fairy tale by the human-like species of the new modern age. An infamous tragedy. Complete extermination.

The day the sky rained fire.

No country was left standing. As the dust settled, the world's population had dropped to a near 0.01% left to find a means of survival in a now decimated world. All modern advances of society were washed away in fire, electronics inoperative in aftermath, radiation plaguing the world in its entirety. Change was the first thing to take place as the environments we had grown used to in the past adapted to the end times. Our understanding of them diminished with the years that passed after the invoked radioactive world wide winter. A new ice age.

While many died out shortly after the onslaught of the ashen mushroom clouds that covered every square inch of the earth, those that lived strived to make it out to the other side of this insufferable hell. Animals, plants, and people alike that made it into the new era found themselves different by the time the skies cleared. The Sun’s intensified rays from a weakened stratosphere their greeting to the acceptance of what they had evolved into.

Blessings.

Their bodies went through drastic adaptations over the years to find their place in this new scorched world. Environments pushed to their limits as they refined themselves intensely to keep up with the radiation levels in the sky that left gaping holes in the ozone. New terrifying storms the resulting factor that scourged the earth for centuries until the dust settled.

Our world as we know it was gone. Reshaped.

Man was no longer at the top of the food chain. Kicked off the pedestal by their own creation, they toppled down to a mere rival in a larger den of beasts. One of many fighting for the right to call earth home.

Hundreds of years passed.

The planet’s continents had changed shape themselves, tectonic plates entirely shifted by the earth shattering bombs that surmounted into global shudders. A reborn Pangea present once again.

In this recessed world, isolated humans evolved into divided environmental factions, specifically six major known groups: Soliuns, Udinians, Wendigins, Ikappons, Entsons, and the Paladinians. Each developed from the baseline foundation of humans that were at a perfect distance from impact sites to develop radiated genes fit for the habitat they settled within. Where it was hunkered down in the caves beneath the surface, or elevated in the mountaintops that reached above the clouds, man found refuge from the earth’s reset.

Helmed as one of the stronger environmental factions, the Paladinians made their land claims known over the years. Cave dwellers that stepped out into the sunlight following a solar flare surge, they found themselves populated across the ashen gravel sandy seas of the new world.

Raised in the elevated cliffside grasslands, the Paladinian's migrated and lived on the tops of stone pillared rock mounds to thrive. Adapted with heightened senses and brute strength, most remained capable of taking on the invasive world around them. Something the past fell short of.

As man progressed the advancements of nature couldn’t be ignored. Strange hybrid beasts and forsaken humanoid creatures populated the wildlands, living out in the radioactive storms that swept over our regressed world. Just one of many other challenges man confronted in their venture to reclaim control over the earth. To establish themselves as predators over the mere superior prey of this forsaken world.

Humans always find a way, a will to push on.

Exotic cultures and beliefs became the prime motivator toward the Paladinian growth as clansmen, many clans divided within the greater populous of the species. The single uplifted following dedicated their praises to the highest holy known to the dwelling of man that crawled out from the earth: the Sun.

Praised as a holier being capable of bestowing power, the Paladinian people came together and elevated themselves into a hierarchy of strength equivalent to that of early feudal Japan.

Crowned above all sovereign blessed citizens but below the Sun herself, or Amaterasu as they called her, the High Priest was delegated as the physical embodiment of authority. The one who dictated all for the betterment of the clan, the Sunretsu clan, a central native leader above those in bordering realms. Below him a declining hierarchy of diocesans, chieftains, and warriors that instilled the High Priest’s jurisdiction over the Paladinian lands.

Through time and acceptance of these foundational beliefs, customs became integral to the system of the Sunretsu clan. One’s use and future were decided solely by the blessing of Ameretsu blessed upon them at birth. Priestess’ the ones able to mitigate such a decision.

Women, adopted or born, of the Chieftain dedicated their time to the arrival and development of the children born into the crude world around them. Their lives a centerpiece of hope.