S T O R Y

Ancient texts. Hymns. Histories recorded in scrolls and slabs. Forgotten ruins, paintings on walls, oral traditions passed down from generation to generation -- they all agree.

The gods once walked among us.

The weather titan, Storm.

Harvest, patron of growth and nature.

The heavenly siblings: Sun and Moon.

Dream and Fortune, the ethereal parent and child.

The gods walked the islands and swam the seas; they waged wars and won them; they held audiences with mortals, and some mortals even survived. But those days are gone. There was a cataclysm. A great clash between the deities of the Godsea razed the planet and killed untold numbers. It was so destructive that few records remain of the period now simply known as the Godgoing.

For the gods did go.

They left. They still bless worshipful devouts with magic ability. They still lend protection to those who follow them. Their powers still exude through every drop of the Godsea. The pantheon still reigns -- but it's from above. They are found in temples, not on thrones. And so: gods control the maelstroms, the magic, the heavenly bodies.

But man controls the cannons.

Though Sun's blessings stream down from a bright cerulean sky, and Moon's ocean sparkles green as emeralds below, the world is a dangerous place without the gods. Maelstroms, disease, boiling seas -- there is no question that the gods' blessings are still sorely needed.

And so, an ocean's worth of fighting, scrabbling, warring nations and peoples take up the peace-banner once per year to meet at a central city, capable of holding them all: Port Heritage.

Though the Dragon of Port Heritage, Admiral Hylaine, has no love for her (many) trade and political adversaries, even she, it seems, will not spite the gods.

The annual Godgoing Festival memorializes the day when the gods, for their own unknown purposes, took their hands off the mortal world to let it spin on its axis alone. Port Heritage's streets are strung with paper lanterns, pennants, and garlands, the sidewalks lined with stalls of fried honey and curried octopus, the squares bursting with music, the taverns overflowing with frothy brown beer -- and, at the end of the day, the entire city is invited to Skygardens for a somber ceremony entreating the gods' return. The various figureheads of the Godsea, from Admiral Hylaine to the Red King, light six candles as one.

At last, the weeklong festival ends, the streets clear, and anyone left in Port Heritage without papers has hell to pay. It's the best gods-damned party of the year.

But this one goes a bit... astray.

This year's Godsgoing Festival is disrupted when COMMANDER HARTLEY leads the Red Dynasty forces to attack High Hall -- during the religious ceremony.

In defense, ADMIRAL HYLAINE sheds her blood on the altar, opening up a portal. Demons fly into the city, driving the Red Dynasty away before escaping.

As the rubble settles, ADMIRAL HYLAINE gathers you all in High Hall to explain the truth: With the ever-looming danger of the Red Dynasty's eternal expansion, Port Heritage has been secretly working to investigate whether the rumors of a Seventh god are indeed true -- and if that god's sigils could give them an edge against the invaders. In the process, they discovered what seemed to be a mighty magic force, locked away deep under the Godsea -- the same force HYLAINE appealed to on Festival night.

The same force your souls are now bound to.

HYLAINE has entreated you all to aid her in retrieving the gods' six keys from Temples around the Godsea, in order to tighten the now-loosened chains holding the creature below the waves.

But it's not so easy.

Everyone present at High Hall who came into contact with the open portal now bears a glowing red circle on the back of their hand, signifying that after death, their souls will descend to the bottom of the Godsea where the imprisoned force is held.

Meanwhile, the Red Dynasty is hunting you all as heretics, demons are flooding the skies, and some of the gods may not be so pleased to relinquish the keys they used to imprison the dark force millennia ago.

The fate of the world -- and your own souls -- is in your hands.