The History of Eden

The year is 1900.

As the century turned, so too did the trajectory of mankind.

They say that the Founders knew that Eden, even back then, would eventually be torn apart for its resources, and so they endeavored to protect it–to seal it off from the outside world. Some say it was more than that; that they knew, somehow, that Eden was also the house of a great evil.

And so the ancient founders of Eden performed a ritual. They worked both in the physical: patrolling borders, distracting and dissuading intruders, swearing utter, solemn silence about this place– and in means beyond the ordinary.

Families were born here. Love abounded. Entire generations lived and died happily within Eden’s gardens. But with each passing year, the boundary between Eden and the rest of the world wore thin. With each word whispered about its prosperity, the magic weakened, and the evil encased within began to stir.

While the exact founding of Eden as a society has been by and large lost to time, in the quiet corners of it’s lush forests whispers speak of Eden’s ancient founders feeling pulled, almost compelled, to plant roots in this very soil.
The founders came from all walks of life and corners of the Earth, brought together by the universal desire to build something lasting.

Eden was heavy with bounty. Its hills were rich with gold, its woods filled with animals, its very heart slick with oil. Blinded by Eden’s many prospects, the founders didn’t,—couldn’t see the evil lurking just below the surface. Not at first.

The foundation

Containment

Summer

1899.

A new century was about to be born, and the air was filled with the pleasant sounds of dreaming, of aspirations. What would the future of Eden hold? People had begun to speak of leaving, to finally see what the rest of the world had to offer, though none dared actually leave its comfort. Then, one day, a brave child of Eden only known now by the name ‘The Innocent’, left. They wanted to share their good fortune, to know the outside world and perhaps be known in turn, too. But they were unfamiliar with the cruelty of the common man, with all of their avarice and power hungry, narrow-minded ways. Their desire to share the wealth of Eden was quickly taken advantage of. A dream soon became a nightmare.

paradise lost

Betrayed by the very same people they sought to help, they say the Innocent was murdered in cold blood soon after they crossed the threshold back into Eden. It was that fateful night that the first Red Moon rose high in the sky.

.As the ground tore open and the dead began to rise, so too did the evils hidden in the hearts of humanity. Towns and communities fell in a matter of weeks. The Council of Eden’s Elders collapsed. Brother turned against brother, spurred on by an inexplicable Malice.

Eden was once a paradise. It was the kind of place only known in books–a kind of utopia, unmarred by the ever changing, ever present violence and greed of the outside world.

But now, today…Eden is The Root of All Rot, the Heart of Death, and The beginning of the End.

A kind of psychosomatic condition that surfaced just after the appearance of the Blood Moon.

This condition seems to be both deeply psychological and physical, granting the afflicted increased strength and endurance at the cost of intense aggression. The Malice, on the surface, seems comparable to a virus like rabies, though it presents itself distinctly. Its transmission vector is unknown–it simply seems to appear.

Those afflicted with the Malice are hard to ignore. They have strange, spidering black veins across their body that seem to emit their own bioluminescence. Their eyes are red and bloodshot. Those who have succumbed fully to the Malice are a mere shell of themselves—stripped of their identity, unable to be reasoned with, and have lost complete control over their own motor functions.