Imperium is a tabletop RPG and novel series.
This website is intended to provide an introduction to the setting of Imperium. There will be samples of the novel, artwork, character bios, and side-stories.
Imperium takes place in the year 2385 PC (~9100 CE). Humanity has endured two galactic wars and came close to the brink of extinction 2400 years ago. We have regained control over a swath of the previously colonized systems in the Perseus Arm, outward and up-spin of Old Earth. The current level of technology and expansion, however, pales compared to the golden ages surrounding the first galactic war.
The universe is much more than what it would seem on the surface. There are deeper realms within our reality. One of those, known as the Hub, has made interstellar travel possible. The inner realms exposed us to fantastical elements. Energy, known as the Flux, serves as a source of power that is harnessed for both magical and technological purposes.
Humanity shares our galaxy with several other alien species. As we expanded outward, we encountered the Lacir, a truly ancient civilization. Enigmatic and mostly indifferent, they have been occasional allies throughout human history.
Aggressive expansion coreward caused conflict with primordial entities around the galactic core. Humanity toiled against them for an age, presumably prevailing. All knowledge of the exact length of the war and how it ended was lost in the depths of time.
Shortly after the First Galactic War, entropy accelerated within the Milky Way galaxy. This was a phenomenon known as “Stellar Decay.” It was beyond human science and the exact nature of it, or why it stopped, is unknown. The comparatively rapid decay of red dwarf stars devastated a third alien civilization. The Morocaschics were driven to search for habitable systems, and to find a reason for their plight. After a time, they found us.
A plague swept through human space along with a wave of violence and sabotage, which threatened to topple everything we had built. Later, we discovered the Morocaschics were mimics. Having infiltrated our society for hundreds of years, it was they who brought both the plague and strife before they struck openly. Our very survival was in jeopardy until the Lacir intervened and changed our fate in the war.
Human civilization continued to collapse after the war was over. Reaching a point of pre-industrial societies on hundreds of scattered worlds, cut off from each other and without hope.
Our species is indomitable. We rebuilt and expanded again. Covetous empires rose and fell, infighting stymied our progress. However, waves of explorers rediscovered thousands of worlds previously lost to us. Old technology was regained and old territory reclaimed. Much was lost forever to the frozen wastes, left behind by the Stellar Decay.
Out of the ashes. Five powerful nations, the religious Isylorian Order, and dozens of massive corporations have risen to grip the reigns of humanity. Each seeking to steer our species towards their ideal vision of the future. After two and a half millennia, we are finally on the cusp of reclaiming our position as a major player on the galactic stage.
However, there is another war brewing. Not a war between nations, corporations, or aliens, but of ideologies. Each faction is vying to come out of top and solidify their power over the galaxy and beyond. This war is currently unseen on the surface, but the machinations of the shadow war are churning beneath the facade all the same.
It’s only a matter of time before the balance of power is tipped, and the galaxy is plunged back into conflict. This brings us to our current era…