CW: This campaign contains themes of supernatural horror, action-oriented violence, and warfare. References to Biblical and religious themes are not intended to be disrespectful or prejudicial in any way, and are implemented to establish the history of the setting. They are told from the anecdotal perspective of the oral histories of the survivors of the Exodus from Earth.
PROLOGUE
From The Histories, Volume One
as laid down by Argus Hobbes, Chronicler
It was the late 21st Century - Mankind had broken the bonds that held us to the Earth-That-Was and ventured out into local space. Colonies and settlements were established throughout the Solar system. Orbital stations were the first springboard. Soon, domed cities arose on Luna, then Mars. Major asteroids in the Asteroid Belt became the first outposts in The Reach as they were carved into stations to gather the materials that humanity needed to continue to expand. Stations and settlements on and around the Jovian moons were next. But the inherent desire of our species to explore, to expand... to consume... was insatiable.
Fundamentalists of many religions on Earth-That-Was had preached for decades of the risk of Mankind's hubris. Factions disagreed on dogmatic interpretations, but they all had one tenet in common - it was heresy to dare to try and touch the Face of God. They were ridiculed by many, outright reviled by some...
But they were right.
By the end of the 22nd Century, the people of Earth-That-Was, and all of the children of the Sun, were poised on the brink of the next Great Leap Forward when it happened. Physicists had developed the means for ships to reach other stars, to seek other worlds to settle, to explore... to exploit.
To touch the Face of God.
They called it the "Eidolon Drive" - the pinnacle of human technological achievement. But they neglected to consider the other meaning of the word... a meaning the people of Earth-That-Was would all soon discover.
In the year 2199 A.D., the Prometheus, the first prototype starship, was ready for its first test. It would be the beginning of a new Age... and the end of one, as it so happens. People all over the Solar system watched the countdown - some anxious, some hopeful. When that brave crew initiated their jump, a sound resonated, impossibly, through space... and then the Heavens split open. Nearly deafened, the pioneers in The Reach looked on in horror as, one by one, the stars winked out and went dark.
Another meaning of Eidolon is "a specter or phantom" - and that is what emerged from the rift that the Prometheus had torn open as it vanished into interstellar space, never to be seen again. Ephemeral, glowing beings descended upon Earth-That-Was with a literal vengeance. Some called them demons, many called them Angels.
In the few short days that followed, millions - no, billions of people vanished, without a trace, from the face of the world. Even a few out among the settlements and stations of The Reach went missing inexplicably. Then, almost as quickly as it had begun, the Angels vanished as well. God, in whatever fashion Mankind saw Him, was dead... along with most of Humanity.
And then the Endwars began. Fanatical sects, driven by the Vanishing, embarked upon attacks of terror, then fell upon one another. Soon, the conflict engulfed entire nations. Much of the world was consumed in nuclear fire as missiles filled the sky. Citizens of the Lunar cities watched in horror as the Big Blue Marble, the Cradle of Humanity, became a funeral pyre. Oceans boiled and the sky filled with ash.
Self-sufficiency was limited among the non-terrestrial settlements and outposts. Stations and colonies were still dependent upon Earth-That-Was for certain things that could not be easily grown or manufactured in space. The human race would be doomed to a slow but inevitable death.
Scientists on Luna and Mars worked frantically as the second hand of the metaphorical Doomsday Clock swept inexorably toward Midnight. The only answer seemed to be the very thing that had begun the End of Days - the Eidolon Drive. Reluctant to bet the last remnants of humanity on another jump, physicists and engineers were were able to adapt the technology to develop ships capable of slow, but constant, acceleration to near-light speeds.
Hope, however slim it might be, was all that the survivors had left. Vast colony ships were constructed for a journey to the only light that still shone in the skies of the Ever-Night - a globular cluster known only as NSC 8412. The Exodus of thousands of light years would take generations, even at near-light speeds. Eleven generations would live and die aboard the Ironhomes as those fragile bubbles carried the seeds of Humanity toward a new home, but something more like two millennia passed in the Void outside.
No one is exactly sure how long it truly was before the Ironhomes reached NSC 8412, but the old reckoning was no longer relevant anyhow. In the year we now call Year One, those Great Arks located worlds that were habitable for colonization. But our new home was not the most hospitable. Chaotic energy storms raged in this nuclear star cluster. The children of the Exodus dubbed this new home cluster "The Forge" because of the balefires that threatened the new colonies and the fragile trade routes between them.
The Exodus had carried us from the proverbial Eden... to Hell itself.