This is a brief history of Alaraes, Ouran, and the Universe. It is intended to both fill you in on the suggested lore of the setting, as well as inspire with for potential campaign ideas and plot hooks. It doesn't hurt if you don't read it, or if players do. There are no spoilers here for the included adventure seeds in Appendix F

In the beginning Astrea, the mother of time, and Ouranos the father of space came into being. Together they bore a son who quickly grew jealous and resentful of his parents affections for each other. Arkon battled his father for his mothers hand but was eventually defeated by Astrea and Ouranos' combined might. However his fall did not come without a price, Arkon had mortally wounded his father, who used the last of his strength to create the material plane as a prison for Arkon.

After the chaos of the material planes creation finally settled, Astrea sought out the heart of this material plane, the focal point of Arkons' prison seals. She found this focal point in the shape of a planet orbited by three moons in a binary star system. Astrea named the planet after her lost husband calling it Ouran. It was shortly after this that she discovered that the primordial energies unleashed during her and Ouranos' battle with their son had coalesced into minor deities. She mentored these beings in the use of their powers, and before long left for parts and reasons unknown.

The names of this first pantheon are lost to time, but without Astrea to guide them these deities soon grew board and sought to create life. First they created the Senmorta, immortal but infertile demi-gods. They taught they Senmorta nearly all that they knew, saving for themselves only the knowledge of how to create life. Possessing a strength to nearly rival their creators, they were treated as favored children by the gods, and given the task of mentoring the races that would come after them. While the Senmorta numbered less than two hundred¹⁾ their younger siblings numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and given the the ability to reproduce. This made the Senmorta furious. Enraged that their lesser siblings were given so many more gifts, their massive numbers, their ability to create life, and their ability to wield magic as well, the Senmorta rebelled against their creators.

They rallied behind the strongest of their number, the War Queen Boadicea and pursued the destruction of the First Pantheon with fierce tenacity. Though immortal this brutal clash caused many deaths among the Senmorta, as the Pantheon knew the secret to their unmaking. Only a third²⁾ of their number survived the war. Though Senmortan losses were great, the Pantheon was successfully driven to a pocket dimension from which they could not escape. This was when the true horrors began for Mortal Kind. The Senmorta set out to subjugate their brethren races in a viscous and bloody campaign. The Senmorta crushed resistance to their rule under their heel thoroughly and swiftly. The mortal races had not yet learned the secrets of magic, and had only just begun mastering iron when the war began. The only real resistance Queen Boadicea faced came from within her own ranks. Her left hand lieutenant, a trusted advisor named Aeraed, defected from the Senmortan cause taking a small band of soldiers with him³⁾. Aeraed taught the Mortal races the secrets of magic and how to harness the powers of technology. He fought at their side, helped them defend their homes, and eventually lost. Aeraed fled to parts unknown, disguising himself as a wanderer.

With the war won, Queen Boadicea began setting up the Senmorta as the new gods of Ouran. Her ambitions were cut short however, as her right hand lieutenant Valla betrayed her and instigated a coup. The coup is swift and decisive, with Valla defeating Boadicea in single combat. Valla named herself the God Queen, and set herself and the last six remaining Senmorta up as deities. Through the worship of the newly subjugated mortal races, the God Queen Valla and her remaining brothers and sisters rule the hearts and minds of the mortal races of Ouran and its moons⁴⁾.

The planet of Ouran before The Collapse was a bustling mecca of magic and science, the two blending together nearly seamlessly. Mega-corporations operate with unchecked power, interstellar trade is booming, and the gods sit idle on their thrones as the world churns beneath their notice. Wonders of magic and technology, currently undreamed of, infuse ever mundane aspect of life. Then it all falls apart. It is unknown what caused the collapse, almost all knowledge of this time was kept digitally and was lost. Some say it was the gods, bored and idle, hitting the reset button on Ouran. Some say that an interstellar war broke out and the planet narrowly escaped being glassed. Whatever the cause, eons of technological and magical progress were lost, and the continent of Alaraes was sent back to the stone age.

It's been centuries since the collapse, but today life on Alaraes continues much as it always has. People live, laugh, love, fight, and die. People still dig through the wreckage of the old world, hoping to find the secrets of lost tech, or just a quick buck. Society today thrives on the skeleton of yesterdays. People and cities cluster around the few remaining Foundries that are still functional, clinging to the trinkets and toys of the old world in the hopes that one day it might be rebuilt. God Queen Valla sits on her deific throne, accepting worship and praise under a pseudonym.