The Origin of Thaloria
It came without warning—a phantom mass of dark matter, vast as a planet, sliding through the cosmos like a wraith. In the year 2112, humanity had reached its zenith: quantum computers solved previously impossible equations, nanobots eradicated most diseases, and artificial intelligence managed our gleaming metropolises.
We had colonized the ocean floors, built cities that touched the clouds, and mastered the construction of massive space elevators that reached into low Earth orbit. Our automated factories churned out marvels of engineering, while steam-powered innovations—a nostalgic fashion that had become surprisingly practical due to breakthrough thermal recycling technology—gave our cities their distinctive bronze and brass character.
We thought ourselves masters of nature. We were wrong.
The dark matter entity passed through our atmosphere like a whisper, invisible to our most advanced space anomaly detection systems. It burrowed through the Earth’s crust with the same ethereal silence, reaching the planet’s core—and there, it awakened something primordial. Something that had slumbered since the Earth’s formation.
The first signs were subtle: strange fluctuations in electromagnetic fields that made compass needles spin wildly and disrupted our quantum communication networks. Steam pressure gauges across the world began registering impossible readings. Deep beneath the surface, the Earth’s core began to boil like a pot of molten metal left too long on the fire.
Then came the cataclysm.
The ground split open with explosive force, as if giant gears beneath the Earth’s crust had suddenly begun turning in new directions. Volcanic eruptions formed chains of fire that circled the globe. Mountains rose and fell like waves in a storm, their movements accompanied by the grotesque sound of grinding stone and twisting metal. The seas rose in mile-high walls of water, swallowing coastal cities whole. Through the chaos, strange energies were released—ancient forces that had been trapped in the Earth’s core since its formation, now unleashed by the dark matter’s disturbance.
This event would become known as “The Shift,” and it reshaped more than just the Earth’s surface. The laws of nature themselves seemed to bend and warp in its wake. New elements formed in the crucible of chaos, metals with impossible properties, crystals that hummed with inner energy, and minerals that defied gravity.
Ninety-nine percent of Earth’s population perished in those first weeks. A fortunate few found salvation in caverns and cave systems—places that, for reasons unknown, remained untouched by The Shift’s chaos. These sanctuaries would later become the seeds from which humanity would regrow.
When the survivors emerged from their underground havens two years later, they found a world transformed. South of the equator, a new continent had risen from the seafloor—Thaloria, a land born of catastrophe. Here, the impossible had become commonplace—crystals charged with strange energies, and minerals that seemed to defy the laws of thermodynamics.
By 32 AS (After the Shift), Thaloria had evolved into a realm where the remnants of the old world’s technology merged with new, inexplicable phenomena. Settlements arose, some built near precious resources while others were constructed on top of old-world supply caches. Merchants piloted retrofitted airships, their steam engines modified to harness the mysterious new energy sources that The Shift had created.
Lord Solomon, a figure as enigmatic as the new world itself, rose to power, establishing dominion over much of the continent. Under his rule, a new society emerged where the boundaries between science, religion, and the supernatural blurred beyond recognition.
The ruins of the old world still dot the landscape, occasionally one might find the remnants of an old world transport or a tin can or a crate of medical equipment. But the people of Thaloria look forward, not back. They have learned to harness steam and strange crystals alike, to build new wonders from the ashes of the old world.
In this realm of brass and mist, of mechanical marvels and metaphysical mysteries, humanity endures. Though The Shift destroyed the world we knew, it gave birth to something new—a place where adventure lurks around every corner, where ancient technology and new phenomena intertwine, and where the next great discovery might lie within the next steam-powered invention or crystalline formation.
This is Thaloria—a realm where steam meets brass, where ancient mysteries and new wonders intertwine, and where every horizon promises new adventures.
