The World of Terrene Gall

The Warring Factions

The game of Dragon Front takes place during the Second Great War.  In this time, The World of Terrene Gall has been broken into different factions, each warring for one cause or another under the guiding hands of one of the six Gods.  These Gods have empowered their Champions to lead armies in their name.

Each faction is thematically and tactically distinct, providing a player the ability to craft a deck of cards led by a Champion unit.  These decks are then sent into battle against others, with each match telling the tale of the Second Great War.

The Three Great Epochs

While much was lost regarding the formation and nature of the cosmos, on this, we all agree: the fulcrum upon which the cosmos tilted was a world known as Terrene Gall.  We stand at the end of things.  Civilization clings to fragments of the world, drifting inevitably toward a final closure. 

I have waited centuries for the threads of fate to converge, to give us one last chance to change history, itself.  This has led me to you; a great general, defending these ruined fragments of a world against the unspeakable hordes that seek to consume all and return this multiverse back to the timeless primordial mass that it once was. That is the goal, and what lies ahead of us. 

The history however, the turning of events that led us to this moment, is what is important for now.  If you are to change history, you must know happened.

The major Epochs:

1. Prehistory -- the longest period, consisting of the timelessness before the First Forms, and lasting through to the end of the Schism.
2. The Gods Cycle -- the victory of the gods and their cycle of dormancy and dominance throughout the time period during the Age of Mortals.
3. The Long Decay -- our current epoch. We barely need cover the hellish nature of our current plight .

Prehistory: The First Forms and The First Great War

All scholars agree that the true beginning of everything was Creation: The eruption of possibility and existence.  After this was a period of chaos and timelessness that cannot be fully understood.  Cosmic law was unwritten, form was a loose concept. The best we can conclude is that it was.

Eventually, the First Forms awakened.  Most acknowledge these to be the Celestials.  It is now that cosmic laws are established; time and space begin to have meaning.  More than one million years will pass with the First Forms diligently constructing the cosmos from the chaotic possibility of Creation.  Somewhere in this period, the world of Terrene Gall is forged.

Sometime after this, new concepts are brought forth.  “Life” and “Death” are established to book-end existence.  Other forms of existence, mortal and immortal, are shaped.

As life begat life and the cosmos began to turn without the guiding hand of the Celestials and their ilk, the immortals rebelled against their makers.  This is known as the Schism: The First Great War.

This First Great War of the Cosmos wore on for millennia, pitting the Celestials against the early Gods.  Ancient man watched the stars rage and entire worlds burn.

In the end, the last battle was fought on a world known as Terrene Gall.  Here, the Gods established their dominance and cast-out the First Forms.  With their victory, the Gods rule Terrene Gall unquestioned, administering the mortals of the world as they saw fit.

When the Schism ends, Prehistory ends.  More than three million years of creation and cultivation brought low in a few millennia.

The gods cycle: The Stewards of the Center

The six greatest gods established the seat of their power on Terrene Gall.  They worked together to guide the mortals of that world to greater and greater heights.  For almost four millennia, relative peace reigned across the Cosmos.

The six great gods:

The Gods Cycle: The Rise of Mortals

To solidify their power, the Gods set about erasing any final vestiges of the Celestial powers that once were, and bringing a unified version of history that celebrated the Gods.

Over time, the Gods each focused on their individual religions, exhorting their followers to greater displays of reverence.  This became a war of ideals, sweeping across Terrene Gall and causing small-scale, fierce rivalries to develop.

Countless skirmishes forced the churches to press the peasantry into military service. The conscription decree forced men to rebel against the faiths.  Churches and temples were toppled, and a new government, under stewardship of those known as the Wardens, was formed. 

This new empire unites Terrene Gall under a peaceful rule, flowing from the center of the world and out to the farthest reaches.

The Gods were all but forgotten, relegated to minor roles in people’s lives, eventually withering from lack of faith.

The Gods Cycle: The Great Decline

After nearly a millennium of mostly peaceful rule under the Wardens, corruption and mistrust began to erode confidence in the Empire.  Cults rose to challenge regional governors, exposing the crimes of the nobility and encouraging the populace to rebel.

Slowly, territory after territory fell to the discontent of the various populations.  Cults grew into religions and nations.  The Warden Empire broke apart and became the four major nations of Scales, Strife, Thorns, the Northern Fields, as well as the minor states of the Eastern Free Territories.

With the worship of man strong once more, the gods rose from obscurity to power.  To entrench their rulership, the gods imbued beings with a spark of divine power.  These Champions became the anchors around which the Second Great War would begin.

Mimmir called his children, the great dragons, to waken from the bones of the earth – kindling the war forges of Nymeer and the sacrificial pits of Korrad Dur.  As the dragons came to answer his call, Giant’s Pass, long dividing the Nation of Scales from the war grounds of Strife, was opened.  The forests of Thorns attempted to isolate themselves, and amidst it all, the Wardens of Scales held steadfast, defending their lands against all attacks.

Sensing opportunity in discord, Stygia advanced. The Northern Fields fell to a great darkness. The people of the Marble City, the city that would become the capital of the Nation of Eclipse, were slaughtered en masse. When news reached the other nations, the armies of Scales marched northward. For the first time in centuries, they saw the power of necromancy rekindled.

Facing enemies on all fronts, Scales declared formal war against both Strife and Eclipse.

The Second Great War had started.

The Gods Cycle: Prelude to the End, The Second Great War

To summarize the Second Great War is too great a task.  Countless battles and skirmishes swept Terrene Gall.  It is enough to understand that no one was left untouched by the war – and in the end, the world was shattered. 

Timeline of major events during the Second Great War

• Scales marches north to conquer Eclipse before it grows too powerful.
• The alliance of the necromancers with the shades breaks the invading Scales army.
• Scales retreats and maintains its borders against both Eclipse and Strife.
• The warbands of Strife seem content to raid both the Nations of Scales and Thorns.
• Eclipse looks to change the static nature of the war, sending agents to the Trade City of Steelgate in the great deserts.
• Scales, hearing of this threat, sends the Tower of Argos at the head of a mercenary army to stop Eclipse.
• The resulting war destroys the great city of Steelgate, causing the people of the desert to gather as the new Nation of Silence, bent on vengeance against both Scales and Eclipse.
• Strife shows that they are more than just mindless beasts bent on bloodshed, launching a massive offensive against Scales.
• The dragons of Strife are rallied to the bloodshed and carry a large strikeforce across the Nation of Scales to the heart of the ether mines of Essence.
• The ensuing raid forces the neutral kingdom of Essence to turn its efforts toward war production.
• This new focus means that ether shipments to the dwarves of Red Rock are suspended, forcing Scales to seek new ways to power their factories.
• This leads to mercenary armies invading the forests of Thorns, seeking to steal the secrets of bio-fuel.
• Thorns enters the war after years of isolation.

The Long Decay: The Death of Terrene Gall

All of this was a prelude.  In the end, it was the harbingers of extinction that sealed the fate of mortal and cosmos.  The six great nations, and the Gods that ruled them, were embroiled in war and chaos.  Far to the South, few even noticed when Delirium arrived.

The heralds of destruction slipped between realities, emerging on the southern edge of the world.  Their madness and chaos was helmed by Xilith, the Devourer of Dreams.  Neither God nor Celestial, the nightmarish entity drove the armies before it.

As the Second Great War raged, the six Gods could not unify the mortal realm to combat this new, great threat.  In the end, the forces of Delirium terraformed far too much of Terrene Gall.  In response, the Gods shattered the world, sending shards of the planet through the cosmos in an attempt to save what they could.

Thus ended the Second Great War, and ushered in our current epoch: the Long Decay.

Delirium’s oneironauts drift across the cosmos, seeking the nightmares of mortals.  We are hunted to extinction.  It is only a matter of time.

If we are to change things, it must be during the Second Great War.  We must choose a side and win this war.  When Delirium arrives, we must be united, prepared.

We must change our fate, and to do that, we will need the greatest general: you.