Golemgame

Many thousands of years ago, two great empires came to dominate the world. Eventually, their expansion brought them into conflict with one another, escalating into an all-out war with a front line stretching across two continents. Both nations, skilled in the arts of artifice and golemcraft, constructed mighty colossi that towered over the tallest castle wall. These creatures did battle with one another, with both empires sinking more and more of their resources into building more powerful golems with stronger armour. After a while, it was clear that this war was at a standstill, and the battles began to be fought by assassins under the cover of darkness, cutting bloody swathes through the artificers and wizards who built and controlled these things, destroying their research and labs. When their grim work was done, everybody realized that the machines they had built with the mineral wealth of their nations and sent out to fight now couldn't be controlled.

Economies crumbled and the empires collapsed. The golems didn't care, and kept fighting with one another because there was nobody left to tell them to stop. Civilization was forced to flee either north or south to avoid the conflict. Entire cities were abandoned, pounded into dust, or both. Weather patterns and landscapes were forever altered by the superweapons the creatures were given. Eventually, society adapted. Combat wizardry was never held in high regard again, and anyone who summoned or built minions was summarily hunted and executed for fear of another colossus being created. Instead, armies became populated with warriors bred for the task, though many standing armies continued to employ supernaturally augmented troops. Because this kind of soldier required careful attention to bloodlines, magic passed along through that means became more and more common, especially as the practices of bookish wizardry were dying out. This new kind of soldier quickly became popular, as lesser kingdoms squabbled for the lands of their former overlords, and slowly reclaimed the frontiers of the golem battlefields, aided by cunning and well-paid scouts. Caravans braved these zones, connecting the north and south once again. Scavengers ventured into what was left of the old empires, and some even returned alive.

Then the first of the golems finally fell.

Suddenly everything flew into chaos as the logical brains of the golems recalculated new positions. Caravans thinking they were taking safe routes were torn to pieces by stray attacks overnight. Entire cities built too close to the shifting line of battle were obliterated. While governments were still doing damage control, somebody pointed out that there was now a wealth of ancient knowledge and power lying in the desert. While lumbering armies try to mobilize and secure the area, adventurers, scavengers and mercenaries are already on their way to grab what they can before anyone else does. You are among those people - men and women of some renown and considerable skill, and far more worthy to control the secrets of the past than the vultures already pecking at the fallen golem's impenetrable shell.

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