It is the last city on a dying world. Far away from anything you or I have ever known. It is ringed by mountains so smooth and high that they are impossible to scale. The city’s name is Ending.
Ten thousand years ago, the sentient races of that world started dying. All their magic, science, and medicine couldn’t figure out why. All wars ended, all hostilities ceased, and all hatred disappeared.
The great gods that had looked over the world for over five hundred billion years were also affected by this blight. In a last attempt to save those that the gods loved so dearly they gave up their power to the god of the earth. Terhan, used all the powers available to create Ending, the only safe place on a dying world. It weakened him to the point of almost being mortal. He has ruled, uncontested, as king for ten thousand years.
The great king who was a god, hasn’t been seen in a millennia, it is rumoured that he is sick or dead. These rumours are spoken in whispers, in fear that the king’s death harkens the death of the city. He has never taken a wife and never had an heir.
In an attempt to save the world, or what’s left of its people, the Academy has been researching ways to leave the planet. They have lost too much knowledge and none of their attempts have been successful. The light of the sun grows darker and redder every year. Soon there will be nothing but darkness.
Until then there is Ending, a city whose name had seemed ironic when it was built. It had been a place of beauty, shinning pillars of stone. Lush rooftop gardens, and the Ivory tower of light that soared above the city as a beacon to all sentient creatures that there was still hope.
The stone now crumbles, the garden’s rot, and the tower collapsed long ago. Nothing but a battered stump remains. Worst of all, people have started dying without reason. The healer priests of Terhan deny that it’s the ancient plague but no one believes them. Unlike other time and places, there is no panic. No violence. There is only despair.
The castle guards, who were once the pillars of honour, have been kidnapping people. Some from the streets, others from their beds, but all of them have one thing in common. They are all marked at birth, with magical sigils on their bodies. It gives them powers that no other mortal has. They are the only ones the scream and rage against the dying of that city. They are the Marked and they have almost all been taken to castle, never to return.
The Marked are that worlds last hope for survival. Only they can, find a cure for the plague, save the dying world, and lead their people to prosperity.