Rachina

Fifty-one years ago, the weakened Rachina Empire suffered its final blow when Empress Nikoleta Thetis committed suicide. Her death came less than one year after she had successfully led an overnight coup that deposed of her predecessor.   Without an established lineage of her own, a power vacuum followed in Nikoleta’s wake. Lacking clear leadership, the capital city of Racine fell at the hands of its own people when vying factions of the public and military waged a short-lived civil war that culminated in an act of arson that left the city’s core burning for a span of nine days. The magical flames left a perilous abyss in their wake.   The empire fractured. Key cities have reformed themselves as city-states, offering some shelter to the neighboring rural communities. Other regions continue to struggle. Remote communities find themselves at the mercy of newly formed cults, tribal factions, and bandits as lawlessness continues to reign. What's worse, the demons and monsters held at bay by the Empire's military might have grown stronger and more plentiful...   Our story starts in the cliffside city-state of Naphio in the year 2281 ARC, where a timeless seer assembles the Court of Eight for the first time in thousands of years in a bid to rebalance the world.