The Ark::: Backstory

The Ark


An RPG Game Campaign by Fengathor and Morgothrond


INTRODUCTION


Blessed are the works of man.


Throughout the ages--and long before the invention and development of nuclear weapons--there had been those who prophesied that the world would end because of man's wickedness. Such prophesies were always believed, no matter how many times they had been proved wrong in the past. There was a wish for, as well as a fear of, punishment.


Punishment.


Blessed are the works of man, it is said. Whose works then, must we consider… damned?


Once nuclear weapons were invented, the prophecies gained plausibility, although now they were couched in lay terms rather than religious ones. Evidence, the more convincing because governments tried to suppress it, proved that the world could be ended at the touch of a button.
If an inhabitant of one of the few parts of the world that did not change was asked to tell what happened that destroyed our world, he’d say that no record remains that can shed some light on what happened. Those old enough to remember it are long dead, and the legends they pass down from father to son speak of turmoil in the lands, earthquakes and floods. The moon turning red and the big fire that consumed it all.
The golden encyclopedia describes in detail the astral body that came too close to our planet. The tidal waves, earthquakes and magnetic energies it unleashed in our planet causing it to shift its axis. Vegetation died and sprung anew, climates shifted, froze, burnt and dried out. The golden knowledge can fill you with that information. Nevertheless, it cannot say who unleashed the fire of god upon mankind. Perhaps it was god Himself, as the select few who can access the knowledge believe, a dying caste: “The myriad souls for one god” cult.


Was it a result of the definite and terraforming effects that the meteor left in its wake? Was a short circuit caused by a flooding somewhere inside a nuclear silo responsible for the death of the planet? It is true that by the end of the XXII century mankind lacked no reason to obliterate itself.
Punishment.


Then came the meteor, the changes to the face of the earth. Whole continents swallowed by the ocean and others risen from the depths. After the effects had waned, after decades of tsunamis and earthquakes, mankind joined together, and found itself made strong by this near extinction event, the United Nations grew stronger in its presence in the governments of the world. Against all odds, the human race had hope, had endured, and lastly, while recuperating, had witnessed, in the climax of their joyous celebration, the huge and monstrous mushroom shaped clouds of fire and brimstone hanging in every major city left in the world for a moment, suspended, frozen in an instant of horror and realization, but above all in doubt. Mankind died with a question on its lips.


Then the fire consumed it all.


Blessed are the works of men.