Everburning Eye

Regions

Flaming Wastes

The very ground is perpetually aflame from a source only the Old Gods know, and they no longer speak. Walking the wastes, living off the abundant energy are the Kaiju, titanic beasts with hides strong against the flames. They fight each other over territory, driven by commands written into their very biology by ancient masters. The masters are gone, but their drive remains.

Factory Bastions

The Factory Bastions are stark onyx pyramids, created during the Godswar, but they don't house people. They house the machines and resources necessary to build and rebuild the Mechauton to continue battles that are long irrelevant. As the centuries stretched on more and more Mechauton were created from the parts of the destroyed, not from the ancient templates. Even the ancient templates are breaking down. This is causing aberrant behavior in the Mechauton, who are intelligent — they have to be to war effectively — and less and less constrained by their programming. As such, individuality is growing among the Mechauton.

Stronghold Mountains

Artificial Mountains that are strong against the flames, the ancient strongholds are all that remains of Pre-Godswar societies. Full of machines that their inhabitants could never build, they struggle to keep them running. Failure of the machines means death. Looming over the stronghold mountains are the ancient Battle Constructs, failing mechanism of mass destruction.

History

Godswar

The Sphere was once a hub of trade, culture, and discovery. As such it was a valuable prize during the Godswar. All sides fought over control of its landscape and its people. The Foreclaimers created the Stronghold Mountains to protect themselves from the conflict, commissioning the Battle Constructs to defend them from the Kaiju that were becoming common tools of war on the Sphere.

The Long Flame

Then the Old Gods left, as did the Dragons, and behind them the Sphere continued to burn. Generations of Foreclaimers huddled in their strongholds, focused on surviving for an unknown future. As they did, over the centuries, the knowledge of how to build the machines that protected them faded. Without the infrastructure to build new, they became holy relics of a bygone era. Those that maintained the machines becoming a priestly caste that horded the ancient knowledge.

The Failing Era

No machine lasts forever, no matter how carefully maintained. As the machines began to fail, the Machine Priests sent out raiders to other strongholds to take what technology they needed. This raiding and eventually open warfare accelerated the decline of the ancient machines. Strongholds were slaughtered by ancient allies, their technology required to survive stolen. Those that survived the raids had nowhere to flee once their stronghold was disabled. Nowhere but the Kaiju.

Refugees discovered that the Kaiju, with their thick armored hide, had places on their bodies where people could live in, survive in. That by forming a symbiotic relationship with the Kaijus, they could live within its crags and scales. And so the Rider Communities were formed. Living out their days moving without control over their Kaiju they traveled the Flaming Wastes, savaging the remains of the pre-Godswar era, destroyed Factory Bastions, and abandoned Stronghold Mountains . Trading what they could with each other and with the surviving Mountain Strongholds they eke out a life on the shoulders of giants that don't even comprehend their presence. They live under constant threat of their home's destruction as it comes across another Kaiju.

Government

Most societies on Everburning Eye are democratic at their roots as that was the norm before the Godswar. Occasionally a charismatic Warlord or Priest King will arise, but their control is rarely absolute, relying on at least some of the community's support. And they usually devolve back to democracy as their heirs fail to live up to their example and lose the trust of the people.

The Machine Priests

The Machine Priests tend to exist in a hierarchical meritocracy, where knowledge and skill in maintaining the ancient machines is rewarded by advancement. Authority flows from a singular Chief Engineer of a settlement, down the line through the Machine Masters, through the vast pool of Engineers, to the Initiates struggling to understand. While education about the ancient machines is jealously guarded from outsiders, the necessity of transmission to new generations of Machine Priests, means that information is freely available after initiation into the local order. There is no connections of Machine Priests between settlements and each settlement has an independent hierarchy.

Religion

In all the Spheres, the people of the Everburning Eye are atheists. They know the Old Gods are dead or have abandoned them. As such they never believed the offering of Pacts by Spirits to be anything but temporary madness brought on by stress or nihilism. Relying solely on the technology of the time before the Godswar, the Machine Priests have maintained a small understanding of the Old Wizardry, developing new understanding is rare under the strictures of the Machine Priests.

There is some reverence of the Ancient Machines and the Kaiju by the people, but not enough to raise them to Saint status. It is just passing thanks for what they provide and prayers to keep them from failing.

And the Mechauton do not have faith, they just have what remains of their programming to follow commands laid down in the Godswar that survive through generation after generation of being built and rebuilt.