This world was old before the gods arrived.

It has been found in many a text, and curiously carved into the ruins on Eastlight. Aegea certainly proves it true. The continent is dotted with ruins of the previous culture. The gods, exiled to this world by their children, named it after the sea of their homeland and began a war of colonization against the native deities, who they labeled demons.

More than anything, the war between the divines left its mark upon the land. Hyperion’s son, Helios, died in battle. His fall severed the continent with a deep canyon and left a desert, Teshur, where once there a garden stood.

All of this was ancient history by Phoebe’s death, but ruins have a way of creeping out the ground, and Hyperion’s knights remain vigilant against the demons’ return.

Aegea is divided into poli, city states, each of which have their patron deity and many of whom contend with their neighbors over resources, which are dwindling since the moon’s death.

The landscape varies from rock shores to flat plains. There are mountains to the northwest and veiny river systems to the east. All of this lends itself to microclimates, though these are often attributed to after effects of the gods’ war.

Aegea’s most prominent feature in these years is the Grief, a creeping mist of blood-hungry ghosts who rise each night, chasing the living to the shelter of a fire, if they can afford it. The Grief is the unfortunate side effect of the moon’s demise, something the knights of Hyperion stress is a necessary evil after the Hierarch, the head of Hyperion’s faith, declared that it must be so.

Whether or not that is true, the cycle of life and birth is slowing. Aegea is dying and the night may come when there is no one to worship neither god or demon.

Map by Jake Shandy: https://jakeshandy.com/

Dark Moon, Shallow Sea by David R. Slayton available October 31, 2023 from Blackstone Publishing