Meta

in Crux Umbra

A gateway to the world beyond the shattered Veil

Post-Apocalyptic

Dark Fantasy

Dystopian

Existential Horror

Motivation

I want to explore what survival truly means: not just keeping a body alive, but keeping a soul intact. In Crux Umbra, even monsters can remember being human, and the broken can become montsters themselves. The apocalypse isn’t just scenery; it’s the crucible of transformation.

What I'm building

Short term, this is a character-driven series narrative. On the long run, I hope to create a custom RPG setting where others can step in, choose their scars, and face the same brutal, beautiful question: what does it take to endure and who do you become?

What is different

This isn’t a setting of "monsters vs. humans”, but the blur between them. Desperation, power, and decay twist the living as surely as magic does. Crux Umbra weds apocalyptic ruin to moral philosophy: when the edge arrives, can humanity stay human?

Feel

Oppressive, uncertain, raw

Survival in Crux Umbra is not a triumph; it’s an ordeal. Every step is a negotiation with despair, every decision a fracture in the soul. The path forward is uncertain and raw, a relentless journey through a world where survival often demands the sacrifice of one’s morals. The air feels burdened by memory. Ruins whisper of civilizations long dead, and the tension between hope and hopelessness hangs thick over every survivor. In this shattered reality, even the act of breathing can feel like defiance. Here, humanity - fragile, trembling, and unyielding - is tested endlessly by the horrors that surround it… and the shadows that bloom within.

Agency

Choice is power and punishment.

Fate can be shaped, but only at a cost. Every decision in Crux Umbra is a gamble, its ripples spreading through lives, ruins, and souls alike. The freedom to act exists , but it is narrow, perilous, and laced with consequence. Survivors must navigate a landscape that resists them: a moral wasteland where desire collides with duty, and mercy can be fatal. In such a world, every act of will is both rebellion and surrender; a spark against the dark, soon swallowed, but never meaningless.

Tone

Where despair endures, so does defiance.

Crux Umbra is a world of endless struggle: grim, ambiguous, and heavy with loss. Humanity stands fractured, its remnants clinging to the faint warmth of what once was. Hope lingers, but only as a fragile ember amid ash. And yet, within the decay, something refuses to die. A quiet, stubborn hope persists, flickering in the hearts of those who have lost everything. Beauty and horror intertwine here, each giving meaning to the other.

Themes

Endure first. Question later

Even as the world collapses, the will to live persists. But what is the meaning of survival when the price is one’s morality, love, or very humanity. When survival becomes the only goal, what remains of the person who survives?

Every gift burns

Magic, monsters, even hope, all demand a toll. Power reshapes those who wield it, stripping pieces that cannot be regained. The pursuit of strength in Crux Umbra is never triumph; it is sacrifice measured in scars.

There are no saints in the ashes.

Good and evil dissolve into necessity. Every choice cuts both ways, and salvation often wears the face of damnation. The line between monster and human blurs until neither is sure which side they stand on.

The world moves beneath your grasp.

Reality rebels. Forces unseen - spirits, surges, the chaotic pulse of magic - twist the laws of nature into something unknowable. Crux Umbra is a place where understanding falters and fear becomes faith.

From rot rise the roots of tomorrow.

Everything erodes: empires, creeds, flesh. Yet within ruin lies the seed of renewal. New forms, new thoughts, new lives crawl from the wreckage, proving that even extinction cannot silence creation.

Change is the last mercy left.

Survivors are never who they were. In adapting to endure, they shed old selves; sometimes willingly, sometimes not. Humanity and monstrosity become reflections in the same broken mirror.

The final war is fought within.

In a world unraveling, to remain human is a constant act of defiance. The temptation to abandon empathy for survival is endless, yet the memory of what was once human haunts every choice. Crux Umbra asks: how long can that memory last?

Timeline

The world ended in fire and devastation; a reckoning born of arrogance and the price of hubris. When the Immortal Lords revealed themselves, their secret war spilled into the open, consuming the world in its wake. The skies burned, and nations fell beneath the weight of their conflict.

In desperation, the mages gathered for one final act: a ritual meant to cleanse the earth of its predators once and for all. Instead, their working tore the Veil asunder, setting reality itself ablaze and shattering the boundaries between what was possible and what should never have been.

Thirty years later, the flames have drowned, leaving only ashes and a smoke that still darkens what remains of the world.

2007–2012 AD: The End War

Centuries of hidden vampiric dominion collapse as rival Immortals turn on each other. Their civil war spills into mortal nations, igniting global conflict.
2012 AD: The Salem Ritual

United by desperation, the mages attempt to annihilate the Immortal Lords. The working fails catastrophically, shattering the Veil and setting the world aflame.
2012–2013 AD: The Cataclysm

Firestorms, plagues, and Wyld Surges ravage the earth. Cities burn, seas boil, reality fractures. Vampires are maimed but endure; the mages are unmade by their own craft.
2013–2030 AD: The Long Night

Civilization collapses into silence and ash. Survivors endure in scattered enclaves, haunted by ghosts and starving gods. The sun rises, but warmth is gone.
2042 AD: The Present Age

The world persists; cracked, haunted and unhealed. Vampires rebuild courts of hunger; mages hide and scheme; humanity claws at the dust between them. The Ritual's shadow remains.

Focus Points

Environment

Crumbling cities and buried relics whisper of what came before. In their ruins lie both knowledge and peril; echoes of brilliance turned to dust. Every step through these hollow places reminds survivors that even the dead still have stories to tell.

Hazards

The barrier between life and spirit lies in tatters. Ghosts roam, myths breathe, and reality bends where the Veil bled. Every crossing twists the mind, the flesh, and the world itself, leaving behind fractures in time and sanity that no spell or faith can mend.

Monsters and Men

The difference between predator and prey is a heartbeat. Corruption reshapes the living; compassion can damn. In this world, every survivor must choose what kind of monster they’ll become: whether to cling to their fading humanity or embrace the darkness that keeps them alive.

Dominion

Vampires, mages, and mortals war for what remains of the world. Their alliances are fragile, their betrayals constant, and every victory turns to ash. Power is never shared - only stolen, held briefly, and lost again to hunger, vengeance, or despair.

Rules

Nature is unstable. Death is negotiable. Magic saturates reality and warps its laws until even gravity and time lie. Near the scars of the Veil, life refuses its endings, twisting those who linger into things that shouldn’t exist but somehow do.

Cosmology

A war of shadows birthed the end. The mages sought to sever the Immortal Lords through the Salem Ritual, but betrayal turned salvation to ruin. The Veil shattered, reality tore, and from the ashes of their failure, the age of fire and ghosts began.

Geography

The earth itself bears the wound. Rifts claw through cities and forests; mountains twist into spires of glass and bone. Plains lie cracked and ashen, carved by storms of dust and sorrow. The Veil Breaks mark these lands, where nature’s rules fray into nightmares.

Motives

Humanity craves shelter from the madness clawing at the Veil. Vampires seek blood and dominion. Mages hunt redemption in the ruins of their pride. Mutants and outcasts only wish to exist without the hunt. Yet all are bound by the same need: to survive, no matter the cost.

Echoes of the Past

Before the Fall

Before the Cataclysm, the world thrived in a fragile balance of power. Humanity forged empires of steel and light; the mages wove reality itself through the Four Pillars; and the Immortal Lords ruled unseen, feeding on both faith and blood. Their ambitions intertwined until war consumed them all and the world burned beneath their pride.

The Last Diviner’s Prophecy

The Heir to the Rift

Before the Veil shattered, the last diviner spoke of a soul who would walk through the scar of the Veil. Their coming would mark either renewal or extinction. Now, rumor twists into faith and fear. Some would guard this savior, others would hunt them. Somewhere, someone carries the weight of the world without even knowing it.

The World That Remains

Survivors

Scattered, hardened, and haunted. They live in enclaves and ruins, bound by desperation, memory, or madness.
Vampires

Weakened but unbroken. They rule shattered citadels or stalk the wastes as lords of famine and fear.
Mages

Frayed and exiled. Relics of a dead age, hunted by their own failures and the magic that betrayed them.
Mutants

Born of Wyld Surges and broken laws. Half-human, half-something else; feared, pitied, and necessary.
Other Beings

Eldritch remnants, spirits, and creatures from beyond the Veil. Their motives are alien; their presence, inescapable.

A Thank You Note

Crux Umbra began as a simple "what if” whispered during a game night: a spark born from a TTRPG that refused to fade. What followed grew into a novel on the making and a world of its own, shaped by curiosity and persistence.

To everyone who reads, comments, and walks these ruins with me: thank you. Your presence gives this world its pulse and gives me the motivation to keep shaping it.

A special thank you to arktouro, whose constant support and imagination make every idea worth chasing. Finally, all my love and gratitude to three fellow Anvilites - Tyrdal, Rumengol, and Keon Croucher - whose enthusiasm for Crux Umbra has been a light of its own. Your excitement and encouragement remind me why I love building this world.

Author Profile

I’m Make Lore, Not War - or, as some might know me, Imagica. I’m a cat mother of three and, in real life, a chef with a passion for Italian cuisine. By heart, I’m a restless storyteller and a writer always chasing to shape of stories. Crux Umbra is my reflection in the dark: a world born from stories, ashes, and the quiet hope that something human can still emerge from the wreckage.

When I’m not weaving tales, you’ll likely find me lost in the worlds of TTRPGs, painting minis, reading, building terrain, or (lately) tumbling down the rabbit hole that is CSS.

Worldbuilding, for me, is equal parts craft and obsession; the art of shaping questions into places.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for walking these ruins with me.

And, if you’d like to support my work or help me keep creating worlds like Crux Umbra, you can find me here on Ko-fi.

Every bit of encouragement helps and I'd be eternally grateful!