TEXT: The World of AbAddon
  
  The World of AbAddon
  ChApTer
  
  100 YeArs Ago
  The heAvens CrY ouT
  From out of the dark and forbidding heavens hurtles a great 
  meteor, black as night itself; it carves through Abaddon’s 
  atmosphere, calves into massive sections and 
  rains down upon the world in great shards. 
  It obliterates cities, shatters the living rock, 
  sends tidal waves swamping over islands 
  and drowns the coasts, ignites volcanoes, 
  and sets the ground quaking.
  Eight in ten or more of the sentient population 
  of Abaddon are killed in moments. No sorcery, 
  no prayer, no force of arms, nor cunning with 
  the builder’s craft can stand against the destruc-
  tion. Those who survive find themselves in the ruins 
  of civilization, surrounded by the corpses of their 
  nations, overwhelmed by death, and living beneath a 
  soot-black sky.
  Their suffering does not end there. The meteor was a black, 
  hellish thing, infused with vast amounts of necrotic energy. The 
  survivors witness in horror as the power of the meteor’s frag-
  ments and its dust wakes the dead. Few of the remaining cities 
  survive the onslaught of their own deceased.
  The deaths, the trauma, the spiritual and necromantic energy, all 
  released at once, change something fundamental on Abaddon. 
  A rarity and a curiosity before the cataclysm, psionic abilities 
  start to manifest amongst the survivors and those few children 
  born of these years, apparently as a reaction to the failings of 
  magic and prayer. It is a sea-change of the mind, a singular gift 
  that permits a few to survive.
  pAndemiC of Ash
  Particles of the obliterated meteor, combined with volcanic ash, 
  vaporized water, and the miasma rising from the charnel piles 
  of the deceased create a great ash fall that comes down all over 
  Abaddon.  No region of the world is spared from this blanket 
  of greasy soot. Within it come varied necromantic plagues, 
  infused with horrible persistence and beyond all the healing 
  magics yet known. These diseases cut a swathe through the 
  surviving plants, animals and people and what they do not kill 
  are often changed, made strange, and adapted to this dark and 
  death-ruled world.
  Cold blACk WinTer
  The Pandemic of Ash fills the sky with dust and smoke that 
  still persists to this day. While today the sky is a perpetual 
  twilight, a dim gloaming, a gray-black cloud that blocks out 
  sun and stars and moon, at its inception it looms as black as 
  night, and the warmth of Abaddon’s sun can barely penetrate 
  it. In its wake, a great winter falls and the glaciers march from 
  the poles, swallowing up lands that have already passed into 
  legend, slaying the great forests and jungles and reducing them 
  to frozen rot. Crops do not grow, animals cannot graze and only 
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  The Cataclysm
  The fall of the meteor is known by many names, as is the meteor 
  itself and its remnant fragments. Most common of these names 
  is “the Cataclysm,” but different races and peoples have their own 
  terms, such as Night Fall, The Rising, The End of Times and The 
  Blackness. The meteor itself is frequently nameless, talking of it being 
  widely considered bad luck as though it might call another, though 
  a few call it The Father of Death, Godshatter, Fallen Sky and The 
  Omenstone.
  Necromantic Disease
  Even today the Pandemic of Ash is not yet over. Wanderers in the 
  wastes or those who happen upon fragments of the meteor may find 
  themselves infected with strange new diseases, bringing them back 
  to civilization as short-lived plagues before they burn themselves out. 
  Some of these infections are even rumored to be intelligent and to be 
  able to infect the dead, or even the inanimate rock itself.
  The Death of the Forests
  The jungles and forests of Abaddon are all but destroyed, in a few 
  places here and there magic and sacrifice was able to keep a germ 
  of life alive and seeds have drifted in from other planes but even so 
  there is little but rot where once the great woods rose and the jungle 
  canopies made the sky dark and green. Famine is only ever a hair’s 
  breadth away and the only reliable sources of sustenance are magic, 
  or aphotosynthetic fungi.
  Celestials & Fiends
  Celestials and fiends alike have been trapped on Abaddon in large 
  numbers following the cataclysm. While opposing forces they find 
  themselves with a common resentment over their entrapment and 
  common enemies in the undead who regard both as dangerous wild 
  cards – though angels more than fiends. Both have been forced to 
  settle and have interbred with the mortal populace, or even each 
  other.
  The Shaan
  The Shaan people were a great empire long before the cataclysm, 
  but they were an empire that had fallen into decline. Renowned 
  as philosophers, artists and alchemists. their warlike past was long 
  forgotten until the legions of old rose from the tomb cities after the 
  cataclysm. There is nothing left now of the Shaan save empty tombs 
  and some dimly remembered philosophies of calm and detachment 
  that seem to have little to no application on Abaddon today.
  Chains or Death?
  It may seem that there is little choice between slavery and death but 
  no freedom can be enjoyed if one is dead. Many of Abaddon’s people 
  have a pragmatic and fatalistic mindset and slavery is considered 
  better than death. In the domains of a few undead lords favored 
  slaves are all but free, save for the ability to leave, and in others some 
  are pampered, like pets or prized possessions. Slavery wears many 
  faces though it is always a constriction upon one’s freedom.
  magic and alchemy keeps the huddled survivors alive in their 
  ruins and caves. A century later, that cold is abating, though 
  with terrible slowness.
  The nighTWAll fAlls
  Though few if any comprehend how or why, rarely the necro-
  mantic and psionic energy suspended in Abaddon’s atmo-
  sphere blends and creates storms of energy that ground out 
  into Abaddon’s surface at random. These events are known as 
  ‘Nightwall’ and when the energy falls, like a necrotic aurora 
  borealis, those caught within it are empowered psychically and 
  charged with negative energy, strengthening the undead while 
  they stand within its unearthly glow. Nightwall events persist 
  today, but at the time immediately following the cataclysm the 
  energy was stronger. Survivors recall that over much of the 
  land the Nightwall was all but permanent, a golden age for the 
  undead and for the power of the mind.
  deATh WAlks
  It is in the Tomb Cities of the Shaan that the first great undead 
  empire arises from the ashes. The great warrior-kings of the 
  past wake with their servants and warriors and open the sealed 
  portals of their necropolis, united under the banner of the 
  Shaan’s greatest king, the mummy Asi Magnor. He rips through 
  the surviving living Shaan and the shambling hordes of direc-
  tionless undead the cataclysm had birthed to create his own 
  empire of the damned in the aftermath. Ruthless and brutal, he 
  seems the natural inheritor of a dead world.
  75 YeArs Ago
  The dYing World
  After the impact of the meteor, the world is at first glance dead 
  or dying and very few spots of true life persist in what seems 
  like a seething cauldron of unlife. There are still living folk yet, 
  hidden away in the few surviving cities, towns and villages, 
  huddled in caves, even hiding in vaults deep underground. To 
  these secret people the first generation of post-cataclysm chil-
  dren are born and, perhaps in compensation for all the deaths 
  that have occurred, and are occurring, families are large and 
  fecund – and begun in youth. Out of those that do survive child-
  hood many more than usual manifest psychic or magical abili-
  ties. Despite this, things continue to worsen, slowly now rather 
  than disastrously and abruptly, and these tiny communities 
  must weather not only the scant resources and many dangers of 
  their new world but also the apparent futility of their struggle.
  ClimATe ChAnge
  The worst effects of the Cold Black Winter have begun to 
  ease and a little warmth is returning to Abaddon. The icecaps 
  cease their advance and hold steady, but they have swallowed 
  up much of the sea and much of the moisture from the air. 
  Abaddon is now a colder, drier place than it has been for tens 
  of thousands of years, a place of frozen deserts and permafrost, 
  of ashen dunes where the only heat comes from the great cracks 
  in the earth, the volcanoes and the few unshrouded places that 
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  The World of Abaddon
  
  Abaddon’s sun can reach and heat. The dust and smoke remains 
  in the atmosphere, sustained and held aloft by the erupting 
  volcanoes and the smoke pouring from the cracks in the crust, 
  resulting in a perpetual twilight that will last centuries.
  TrApped
  New people and beings begin to arrive on Abaddon and are 
  unable to leave. The necromantic and psionic energy infusing 
  the planet, combined with the souls of the dead, act as a vast 
  trap allowing entities to enter Abaddon, but never to leave. 
  Travelling adventurers, angels, spirits, demons and elementals, 
  and planar beings of all kinds, are trapped on Abaddon like 
  insects in a jar and are forced to try and make a new life and 
  place for themselves on the shattered world.
  life persisTs
  Living survivors and their children begin to emerge, to try to 
  found new settlements on the surface and to pick over the ruins 
  of the lost cities for anything that can help them rebuild and live 
  on. News of other survivors comes as a welcome surprise, but 
  these fragile settlements are easy prey for the undead armies.
  The hunger
  With so many undead in the world and so few mortals to feed 
  upon, the different undead factions begin to battle one another 
  over the spoils and their hunting grounds. Asi Magnor draws 
  perhaps a third of the known world beneath his sway when his 
  first real challenger appears: a vampire named Calix Sabinus. 
  Sabinus thwarts one of Asi Magnor’s armies at the Battle of 
  Black Crescent and defies the mummy’s imperial ambitions, 
  uniting many lesser undead powers under his banner, against 
  the emperor.
  The AngriesT Angel
  A celestial angel, known as Zebadiah, arrives and is trapped 
  upon Abaddon. An agent of Law and a servant of the gods of 
  light on another plane, Zebadiah is appalled and horrified by 
  what he finds on Abaddon and begins to formulate a plan to 
  change things. Unnoticed by the warring undead powers, he 
  moves amongst the living, learning and scheming to make a 
  better future.
  50 YeArs Ago
  WArs of The deAd
  The decades of wars of the undead consumed many years, 
  many lives, and many unlives. The great factions clash with 
  one another and their constant demand for new troops and 
  new sustenance makes any living survivors  the most valu-
  able resource for either side. ‘Farms’ are set up by the more 
  canny undead to raise flesh to feed and renew their armies and 
  many fledgling survivor communities are simply swallowed up 
  into the unliving empires. Foul experiments and punishments 
  intended to control the populations, or make self-sufficient 
  spawn lead to the first true instances of Harrowed being born, 
  half-dead abominations that could not exist on any other world. 
  These atrocities become seemingly mundane hardships of war 
  poured on top of the daily struggle for mere survival.
  The ChAnge
  Losing ground against a renewed assault by Asi Magnor, Calix 
  Sabinus switches to defensive tactics of war by attrition, and 
  spends his empire’s looted treasure to pay plane-trapped merce-
  naries to fight in his stead. Meanwhile he frenziedly studies lost, 
  forgotten, and forbidden arts. Finally empowering himself, he 
  transcends the vampiric to become a lich. His power renewed, 
  and his armies rebuilt, he goes back on the offensive and with 
  his new-found power appears to be virtually unstoppable.
  The Children of ZebAdiAh
  While the undead powers continue to war with one another, 
  Zebadiah discovers and unites other stranded celestials. 
  They move in secret amongst the mortal populace, fathering 
  hundreds of children upon mortal women and taking mortal 
  seed to their own bodies in order to birth new young infused 
  with their angelic power. These children, called Exalted, are 
  destined to become protectors and foci of hope for the living 
  survivors, though fear and resentments surround many of these 
  pregnancies.
  bATTle of The deAd
  Asi Magnor’s legions and Calix Sabinus’ army of mercenaries, 
  personal spawn and alliances of lesser undead clash repeat-
  edly throughout Abaddon. Both the undead emperor and the 
  vampiric lich lord lend their strength personally in many of 
  these battles. The struggle is epic, but Calix Sabinus’ adapt-
  ability and cunning wins the day in most of these confronta-
  tions. Some surviving living communities aid Sabinus, enslave-
  ment being considered a better prospect than death at the hands 
  of Asi Magnor’s ravening hordes. Asi Magnor is slowly, but 
  surely, beaten back to the gates of the Shaan necropolis.
  of gods And devils
  Taking his opportunity following the great battle at the gates 
  of Asi Magnor’s necropolis, Zebadiah and a wing of celestials 
  sweep in, hoping to strike down Calix Sabinus. In the mighty 
  battle many of Zebadiah’s cohort are destroyed. Calix is 
  severely wounded but Zebadiah is defeated and brought low. 
  His broken body is used as a battle standard by Calix Sabinus’ 
  mortal mercenaries for this last great battle. Calix banishes 
  the angel to live, forever, beyond his lands in the wilder-
  ness, binding his command with great magics and consigning 
  Zebadiah to an eternity as a mere observer.
  sAbinus’ Triumph
  With Zebadiah’s broken and tortured form as a battle standard, 
  Calix Sabinus’ mortal mercenaries penetrate Asi Magnor’s 
  lines as a hot knife will cut through butter, the undead falling 
  before the angel’s radiance as a candle melts before a flame. 
  Following this spearhead Calix Sabinus’ forces overwhelm 
  Asi Magnor’s battle lines and the undead emperor is cut down, 
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  burned and scattered to the winds. Calix Sabinus is now the 
  uncontested ruler of the known world.
  blood As flesh 
  Destroyed in the necromantic inferno of the cataclysm, beings 
  called the Khymer finally learn to overcome their bodiless 
  state and begin to appear, walking the land in their old bodies, 
  a source of consternation to undead and mortal alike. Their 
  cities are considered dead, their people destroyed, but now they 
  come, remembering the past, and seeking relics and knowledge 
  from before the cataclysm to make themselves whole.
  The reTurn of life
  So much undead strength has been spent in the wars that mortal 
  settlements freely colonize Abaddon’s wastes. The living 
  occupy some of the old ruins and the unmolested towns and 
  cities begin to grow. Birth rates are still high and the arrival 
  of wanderers from the other planes often forms the nucleus 
  around which a new settlement can grow. True to his word, 
  Calix Sabinus offers living slavery to the human settlements 
  under his sway but it will take some time before his armies can 
  renew themselves and reassert his authority over his demesne.
  10 YeArs Ago
  life in ChAins
  In the decades following the war Calix Sabinus imposes 
  his dominion over his lands, placing virtually every mortal 
  settlement in chains and servitude to an undead lord, their 
  pyrrhic reward for their loyal wartime service. His vassal lords 
  squabble with each other over crumbs from Calix Sabinus’ 
  table and take a variety of different approaches to the mortals 
  under their care: from cruel tyrants to callous indifference, even 
  treating them patronizingly as pets. People continue to struggle 
  as they have since the cataclysm, but despite the depredations 
  of their lords the mortal population continues to grow and grow 
  as their rulers and superiors fight and posture.
  deAl WiTh The devil
  The mortal mercenaries who fought for Calix Sabinus have 
  not won their freedom but they have won some security for 
  themselves and their families. Where Asi Magnor would 
  simply have had them killed, eaten or made into undead for 
  his armies, Calix Sabinus and his allies are more interested in 
  ‘farming’. Some are still taken and suffer horrible ends, but 
  most are simply slaves, supplying their toil and blood, and the 
  occasional person is selected as a tithe in exchange for safety, 
  security and protection. In the dire circumstances of Abaddon 
  this does not seem such a terrible deal to strike.
  rise of The exAlTed
  The Exalted are now to be found all across Abaddon, seeded by 
  Zebadiah and his angels and still brought into being by those 
  celestials who escaped massacre at the hands of Calix Sabinus. 
  Later generations of Exalted, fathered or mothered by other 
  Exalted, are now being born and while they never gather in 
  great numbers, the presence of these light souls is a comfort to 
  the enslaved populace. Bands of Exalted and their allies begin 
  to prey upon the slavers and trade caravans of the undead lords 
  in acts of unprecedented open defiance.
  ouT of The Wilds
  From the deep wilds, the Lykians, previously little but a rumor, 
  make themselves felt; traveling as traders, hiring on as merce-
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  The World of Abaddon
  
  naries, and preying upon unwary travelers. Perhaps they have 
  always existed, hidden as lycanthrope tribes, but with the cata-
  clysm they have come into their own, both unable to hide and 
  lacking any need to hide any longer, as they are uniquely well 
  suited to life on Abaddon and surviving. So successful are they 
  that they have swelled in numbers and have been forced out of 
  the deep wilds and the frigid deserts into contact with civiliza-
  tion – such as it is.
  The hArroWed gheTTos
  As the towns and cities have settled, and as the undead lords 
  have taken their seats, many have found themselves ‘diver-
  sions’ amongst the mortal populace or and their undead troops 
  have acted like all occupying armies, with or without official 
  sanction. Some lords have punished their serfs with foul visi-
  tations for both true and imagined slights or rebellions. This 
  has lead to an explosion of Harrowed, ‘royal’ bastards and the 
  foundling children of undead rule. This glut has come of age. 
  Neither fully mortal nor fully dead, they have founded their 
  own communities in the undead cities and towns, seeking a 
  place for themselves and causing trouble as they do so.
  The slAve TrAde
  The undead lords trade with each other the one commodity 
  that they all really need, mortals. With no need for ordinary 
  food or the staples of many other forms of trade, living people 
  have become the cattle of Abaddon . Skilled, strong, or merely 
  fertile, slaves are the stock that the lords vie for, buying and 
  selling, even selling the future born before they wail their 
  first cry, and using their slaves as a basis for currency. Slaver 
  caravans crisscross the wastes from settlement to settlement, 
  transporting the life blood of the trade, and slaving parties, 
  both undead and mortal, scour the wastes searching for bands 
  of survivors they can turn in for a reward.
  The peTTY WArs
  Calix Sabinus’ alliance was never the strongest and without the 
  common enemy of Asi Magnor to unite them the petty undead 
  lords have turned upon each other. Open warfare has not yet 
  erupted, but there are constant clashes and deadly intrigues 
  between the various powers. For whatever reason, Calix 
  Sabinus has not seen fit to put a stop to this and some suggest 
  that he may even be behind them. Certainly, all the infighting 
  prevents any minor undead lord from uniting his peers and 
  challenging Calix Sabinus’ position. These pointless clashes, 
  along with gladiatorial contests between the slave champions 
  of different lords, do provide a way in which a slave can earn 
  the status of ‘Chainless,’ a true free man, one of very few in 
  this benighted world.
  noW
  The fighT for freedom
  With the undead lords concentrating on their infighting, and 
  the withdrawal of Calix Sabinus into the lofty seclusion of 
  imperial rule, the time has come for the mortals to reassert 
  themselves over the unnatural rule of the damned. Generations 
  after the cataclysm, the children of the new age do not suffer 
  from nightmares of those fateful years, nor the memory of 
  things lost. They dream of what might be and chafe under the 
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  rule of the undead, not content to be safe, but wanting to be 
  free. Rebellions are on the rise and the peoples of Abaddon 
  trade stories of the Exalted and other heroes around their night 
  fires, inspired and emboldened by the tales. The ruins of the 
  past hold secrets that many seek to restore their people. But to 
  get to the lore and treasures of the greatest value the undead 
  aristocrats must be toppled, as an obstacle to the reclamation 
  of the living’s rightful place as masters of their own destiny.
  The osiriAn uprising
  The Osirians have long been targets for the undead, as ever 
  since the cataclysm they have been a thorn in the side of the 
  undead lords and have retained some of the few free cities to 
  be found on Abaddon. This has not prevented a great many 
  of them falling to the chains of slavers or to the executioner’s 
  axe. Their vaults have been invaded and their people dragged 
  out, killed or captured on the whims of the undead lords. The 
  Osirians have, however, known freedom and more than any 
  other people they chafe under the whips and bonds of their 
  undead overseers. This has spilled out as a direct rising against 
  the ghast lord Kalbna. He has managed to keep the state of 
  affairs largely secret but an army of former slaves, Osirians and 
  others, has taken several settlements in his domain and their 
  numbers swell with every passing week, readying themselves 
  to take on the lord himself.
  hope`s lighT
  For the first time in generations the light of Abaddon’s sun 
  has been seen to pierce the clouds that blanket the sky. Here 
  and there, now and then, a shaft of light will strike through 
  the darkness, seemingly blinding in its intensity and then the 
  clouds will close and snuff it out once more. Even so, this brief 
  and blinding glimpse of radiance is enough to reignite feelings 
  of hope in people who have all but given up, and strike fear into 
  the cold hearts of those undead who are vulnerable to its light.
  fooTsTeps of ZebAdiAh
  Zebadiah is barred from Calix Sabinus’ lands, but he prowls 
  the edge of his binding like a tiger in a cage, wandering the 
  ashen deserts and meeting with bandits, adventurers, refugees 
  and wanderers in a variety of guises, desperate for news and 
  dispensing wisdom and aid where he can to continue to stir 
  things up within Calix Sabinus’ empire. His words and his 
  influence still breach the border, even if he does not.
  disuniTY of deATh
  Calix Sabinus’ alliance is falling apart at the seams. The undead 
  lords cannot keep their ambition or their mutual hatred under 
  wraps for long and their squabbles and skirmishes are rapidly 
  becoming assassinations and battles. They are forming their 
  own alliances outside of Sabinus’ hierarchy.  Some factions 
  even risk spreading mortal and undead dissent against their 
  emperor’s rule. They have become a house divided against 
  itself. Some of the undead lords are even said to have sympa-
  thies with the rebels, or at least are willing to ally with the 
  rebellions for some short term gain against their rivals.
  AngrY ghosTs
  The spirits released during the cataclysm were scared, confused, 
  and barely sentient, an outpouring of pain and suffering that 
  would lash out at anything that came close to them, being little 
  more than necromantic energy themselves, free and wildly 
  animating the dead. In the years since the cataclysm however, 
  the character of the dead has changed. Those who die today die 
  with hatred for the lords on their minds, with revenge and cries 
  of freedom on their lips. The ghosts of today are the spirits of 
  vengeance, and are no allies to the lords or to Calix Sabinus. 
  Even the dead themselves are turning against the powers that 
  be.
  The spiriT knife
  Psionics were virtually unknown before the cataclysm but they 
  did exist. What little tutelage was available for psions came 
  from the secretive order, known as the Spirit Book. With the 
  cataclysm and the rising of so many more psions the Spirit 
  Book, virtually shattered along with every other pre-cataclysm 
  organization, took on new purpose and strength and, as the 
  undead began to extend their rule, became a force against them. 
  The Spirit Book became the Spirit Knife, training and honing 
  psychic warriors, ready for the time that they might be able 
  to strike a blow for freedom against the undead oppressors. 
  This was not only the fulfillment of their modern passion for 
  freedom but also dream of the psions of old, to become a force 
  as strong and as important as magic in the world.
  ChAnges To The 
  World of AbAddon
  When the Dark Star fell, it brought with it a massive amount 
  of negative energy, intermixed with wild and uncontrolled 
  magical energy born of unknown stars and the emptiness of the 
  void. From the moment it hit the atmosphere, to the second it 
  struck the world, and in the minutes, days and years thereafter, 
  that energy has roiled through the planet and wrought cata-
  strophic changes on the planet, its inhabitants, and even the 
  very magic that permeates the world.
  The first consequence of the Cataclysm was the complete 
  disruption of the dimensional field of the planet. Pocket dimen-
  sions tied to the world imploded, sucking in massive amounts 
  of wild and negative magic, and annihilating all within. Bags of 
  holding and similar items became conduits for killing blasts of 
  dark, matter-twisting magic as they were ripped asunder.
  Teleportation spells and those that naturally or frequently 
  traversed dimensions found themselves transported through 
  a miasma of ripped dimensions, negative energy, and chaotic 
  magic. Teleporters and plane shifters seeking to flee the 
  disaster were ripped apart in transit, and the exit and entry 
  points became holes in space that disgorged massive amounts 
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  The World of Abaddon
  
  of destructive magical power, in many cases destroying the 
  very places and people they were fleeing from and fleeing to.
  Lastly, a wave of wild magic spread with the shockwave 
  around the world, disjuncting magical items and spells and 
  making them centers of attraction for magical energies. Those 
  laden down with items and spells of magic, or in magically 
  defended abodes, were ripped apart by explosive wild magic 
  and negative energies as their spells failed or were triggered en 
  masse. In particular, those flying and who thought themselves 
  out of danger found themselves in often very long distance falls 
  even if they survived the destruction of their magic.
  The combined effects of this disruption virtually annihilated 
  the most powerful, wealthiest, and most experienced figures on 
  the planet, as they were the locus of the most powerful spells 
  and magical items. The only magical items that survived this 
  shockwave were those buried underground or sealed away in 
  non-magical surroundings. The gutting of magical knowledge 
  and power by the destruction of the magically powerful and 
  their abodes was incredible.
  The combination of planar trauma and negative energy tempo-
  rarily prevented the flow of positive energy, so that healing 
  power was almost completely lost. Uncounted numbers of 
  people perished from wounds that a mere short time before 
  could have been magically healed away. Those attempting to 
  channel such powers found themselves instead fonts of uncon-
  trolled negative energy that killed them and all those nearby 
  when invoked.
  The living perished by the tens of millions, and in the dark 
  storm of negative energy, arose by the tens of millions. Even 
  uncontrolled minor undead have an inborn hatred of the living, 
  and the powerful undead now had next to no resistance to 
  their strength. Bodies erupted out of graveyards shorn of their 
  blessed protections, and those slain by cataclysm twitched and 
  rose to their feet, and turned to prey upon the living.
  The saviors of the living during this time period were a highly 
  unlikely pairing – the ghouls and their ghastly masters, and the 
  vampires.
  Ghasts and vampires realized that their specific hungers 
  required the living to satisfy, or they would simply devolve 
  into maddened desires for blood and flesh that would simply 
  no longer be available. After temporarily exulting in their new 
  power, and their newfound ability to rove free upon a land that 
  had no sun and slaughter and feed as they wished, they soon 
  came to realize the rapidly increasing scarcity of the living, and 
  began to take at first hesitant, then extremely forceful steps to 
  protect their own future.
  Other undead, not tied to such corporeal appetites, had no such 
  qualms. Still, the intelligent among them realized that undead 
  do not reproduce themselves, it takes the living to generate 
  more undead. As the monstrous egos of the undead lords and 
  masters began to clash, and their armies to take shape, the idea 
  of replacing fallen minions stirred a pragmatic and ruthless 
  desire to shepherd living assets, and so living survivors were 
  corralled and rounded up to serve as breeding stock for a new 
  generation of undead.
  Free-willed and roving undead possessed of no desire but to 
  hunt the living were themselves hunted down by their undead 
  kin to safeguard the priceless humanoid cattle. Surviving 
  members of the living were gathered up to serve as breeding 
  stock and slaves, or slain and converted into more compliant 
  undead minions if they resisted.
  The combination of wild magic and negative energy that swept 
  the world inflicted catastrophic harm on the natural ecology. 
  With the lack of sunlight, the only plant life that survived was 
  that which spontaneously mutated to being able to endure on 
  the energies of death and rot, and fungi which could naturally 
  survive on the decaying plant life around itself. In so doing, 
  many of the plants turned poisonous or inedible to normal crea-
  tures…or became predators themselves.
  Bodies and spirits were inundated with necromantic and wild 
  magicks, and even sentient creatures began to rapidly change 
  and adapt. Elves, ever part of the environment, changed with 
  uncanny speed to reflect the new world they lived in, or, 
  rarely, managed to defy it and cling to an old, non-existent 
  paradigm. The dwarves fought the change with all their tena-
  cious willpower, and succeeded only in cursing their entire 
  race. Gnomekind’s emotional links to the First World were 
  crushed under a tide of negative energy, giving the entire race 
  a black mindset and affinity for the undead. The Halfling race 
  degenerated from a lucky, easy-going race of content folk with 
  ties to the land, into feral, seemingly cursed savages clawing 
  for survival.
  Humankind shifted and split. Those shepherded by ghasts and 
  vampires, or clinging defiantly to ancient ways, grew tough and 
  resistant, veritable fountains of life energy their masters found 
  appealing, made the best of cattle. Those who survived under 
  the cares of wights, mummies and other undead were born with 
  affinity for negative energy, and became almost half-undead 
  themselves, dispirited and grim souls slaving away until their 
  masters decided to convert into undead. One free race of Men 
  underwent a mass magical ceremony, forever branding them-
  selves with evolving tattoos to resist the necromantic powers 
  around them.
  The tearing and healing of the dimensional tides had several 
  more effects. The first and most noticeable of these was the 
  effect on Summoned and Conjured beings.
  As the negative tides of magic settled down, the ravaged 
  dimensional barriers lost their ability to serve as conduits for 
  travel. While passage from outside could be punched through 
  the Obsidian Veil, it proved impassable in the opposite direc-
  tion. The making of dimensional hidey-holes, teleporting, 
  and similar dimension-afflicting magic decayed into either 
  extremely short durations, risked exposure to wild death ener-
  Obsidian Apocalypse 
  Page 8
  
  gies prowling the Obsidian Veil, or were sharply limited in 
  distance.
  Called creatures brought through the Obsidian Veil found 
  themselves stranded and unable to return home. Their essen-
  tial natures rapidly and forcibly changed, so that even death 
  or destruction would not send them home, but instead 
  kill them forever. Summoned creatures fared even 
  worse, with their true selves being called and hurled 
  into battle by callous spellcasters, and only the end 
  of the spell returning them to self-control rather than 
  returning to their point of origin.
  Those extraplanar beings who survived their first 
  battles, and the almost inevitable turning on their 
  masters or escape, spread rapidly into the wild, 
  and quickly intermixed with the native wildlife, 
  to the point that summoning extraplanar entities 
  as breeding stock and food became a common 
  practice for arcane casters. Such creatures 
  were hardly free of extraplanar influences, 
  which spread to those that consumed them. 
  Outside the Obsidian Veil, spirits and entities 
  marked the world as a black hole that all who 
  responded disappeared into, and could only 
  be gathered in by brutal force.
  The new Obsidian Veil has the effect of 
  absolutely barring the divine traffic of 
  souls and prayer, such that no individual 
  deity can see into, hear, or gain power 
  from their followers on the world. The 
  souls of the departed do not pass the 
  Obsidian Veil to other worlds, but either 
  dissipate into the ravaged world-aura of 
  the planet, or are infused with negative 
  energy and returned as the motivating 
  forces for yet more undead. Minions sent 
  inwards to assess the situation were unable 
  to return home, so the divine powers are 
  unsure if anything lives on the world at all.
  The chaotic and negative energies of the world 
  have had a temporizing effect on the outsiders 
  brought in here, redefining them less as exemplars 
  of their alignments and into compromises resembling 
  mortal mindsets and views. Knowing they can be slain 
  forever on this world, and there are no more of their kind 
  willingly coming, as well as being severed from the static 
  and extreme influence of their home planes and greater enti-
  ties thereon, has resulted in behavior unthinkably ‘mortal’ in 
  term and view from the outsiders trapped here. They, too, have 
  been gathering, herding, recruiting, and capturing mortals, with 
  an eye towards creating progeny that can carry onwards if they 
  themselves are slain…while instinctively furthering the cause 
  of their alignments, and granting them the emotional subsis-
  tence they crave. 
  Page 9 
  The World of Abaddon
  
  Real HeRoes Do Not PRay foR aN easy life, 
  Real HeRoes PRay foR stReNgtH to eNDuRe a Difficult oNe.
  Post-aPocalyPtic suRvival HoRRoR foR PatHfiNDeR
  comiNg iN sePtembeR 2012
  leaRN moRe about obsiDiaN aPocalyPse at www.lPjDesigN.com
  
  Bestiary of armageddon Contest
  This contest is giving you a chance to monster / template design where the 
  fans of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game get to test their skills and abili-
  ties designing amazing monsters / templates that will be judged by many 
  LPJ Design staff members.  Those wanting to prove themselves as game 
  designers will be able to create monsters or  monster templates to fit into 
  the upcoming Obsidian Apocalypse campaign setting and even the original 
  Obsidian Twilight setting.
  Learn more aBout this Contest at www.LPJdesign.Com
  or our faCeBook Page at www.faCeBook.Com/LouisPorterJrdesign
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Pathfinder/1st Edition/3rd Party/Louis Porter Jr. Design/LPJOA-WOA - Obsidian Apocalypse - World of Abaddon.pdf