I. World Overview: Terminus

Terminus is a world defined by the silent, colossal ghosts of a forgotten age. Humanity survives in the shadow of a long-vanished, hyper-advanced race known as the Progenitors. The legacy of these ancients is a planetary defense system, The Arbiter Network, which now operates on a single, terrifying directive: purge all unsanctioned life. Humanity’s very existence—its cities, its forges, its life signs—is a signal that the Arbiters are programmed to hunt. Survival is a game of hiding in plain sight, living within the sensor blind spots and natural shelters of a world that actively wants to erase them. Humanity is clustered in a few fortified bastion cities, separated by vast, dangerous wilds where Progenitor ruins are both a priceless resource and a tomb, and where the constant threat of discovery is a fact of life.

II. History of Terminus

  • The Progenitor Age: A mythic, prehistoric era of technological achievement that is now beyond human comprehension. The Progenitors reshaped continents, erected structures that pierced the clouds, and built a fully automated planetary network to protect their creations. Humanity existed during this time as a primitive, tribal species, classified by the Progenitor systems as harmless native fauna and thus ignored.

  • The Severance: The unexplained, apocalyptic event that erased the Progenitors from existence. It was not a war or a plague, but a sudden, absolute vanishing—as if they were severed from the world in an instant. With the Progenitors gone, their master authentication signal vanished. The Arbiter Network, deprived of its masters, defaulted to its highest security protocol: preserve the planet and purge any high-energy signature not on its ancient whitelist.

  • The Age of Survival: The current era. As humanity evolved, discovering metallurgy, building communities, and harnessing power, their energy signatures grew. They crossed the threshold from “native fauna” to “systemic corruption.” The Arbiters began to hunt them. Humanity was forced to abandon its nascent kingdoms and learn to survive in a new way—quietly, cautiously, and in constant fear of the ancient guardians of their world.

III. Threats: The Arbiter Network

The automated, planetary defense system left behind by the Progenitors. It interprets all modern civilization as a corruption to be cleansed.

  • Type Herald: City-sized, dormant command-and-control hubs for the Network. Mostly immobile, they are mythologized as “Sleeping Gods.” The land for miles around them is unnaturally sterile and silent. Waking a Herald would be an extinction-level event.

  • Type Cantor: Towering bipedal machines (100-300 meters) that act as the system’s ultimate purifiers. They patrol vast, continent-wide routes. A Cantor employs a Resonance Cascade: a harmonic wave blast that vibrates matter to its breaking point. From a distance, the only sign of its attack is a shimmering in the air, followed by the silent, complete disintegration of its target into dust. They don’t destroy; they simply unmake.

  • Type Stalker: The most common and direct threat. Sleek, fast, quadrupedal machines (2-4 meters tall) that hunt in packs. Their hyper-sensitive audio and energy sensors make them the primary reason travel is so deadly. They are the frontline “antibodies” of the system.

  • Type Watcher: Silent, hovering discs or spheres that drift at high altitude. They are the eyes of the Network, spotting energy signatures from afar and relaying the location to nearby Stalkers or Cantors. Seeing a Watcher is an omen that you have been detected.

  • Weaknesses: Every Arbiter is powered by a brightly glowing, crystalline core deep within its structure. Breaching the outer shell to strike this core is the only known way to disable one. As machines, they operate on logic, possessing predictable patrol patterns and sensor blind spots that can be learned and exploited.

IV. Locations & Settlements

Bastion Cities

  • Argent: The largest human city, built within a massive, ancient meteor impact crater. Its sheer walls provide a formidable natural defense. The city is built in three tiers:

    • The Sump: The industrial, geothermal-powered heart on the crater floor. A district of forges, steam, and grit where the city’s strength is forged.
    • The Exchange: The bustling, open-air middle tier. A vibrant network of markets, homes, and plazas built on engineered terraces along the crater wall.
    • The Spire: The highest tier on the crater’s central peak. Home to the Directorate and the wealthy, its gleaming towers are a symbol of human ambition.

  • Garrison of the Iron Pass: A stark, militaristic city-state built into the only traversable mountain pass for a thousand miles. The entire city is a fortress, its architecture brutalist and functional. Every citizen is a soldier, their life dedicated to martial discipline and defending the pass, which acts as a shield for Argent and the lands beyond.

Fringe Settlements

  • Haven: A settlement built in the canopies of the Veridian Maze, an ancient forest of titan-sized trees. The sheer biological density of the forest creates a powerful bio-energy field that masks the settlement from Arbiter sensors. The people are expert woodworkers and trackers, living in dwellings woven among the high branches.

V. Factions & Groups

  • The Directorate of Argent: The central government of the largest human bastion. A pragmatic and often bureaucratic council focused on law, resource management, and the overall defense of humanity’s heartland. They fund and sanction the Waymarker Corps.

  • The Waymarker Corps: An elite, semi-independent corps of scouts, guides, and cartographers. They are masters of survival, endurance, and quiet movement. Their mission is to find, chart, and maintain “The Ways”—the few safe-enough routes that connect humanity’s scattered settlements. They do not seek battle, but are more than capable, and use their expert knowledge of the land and Arbiter patterns to connect settlements and rediscover lost communities. Their gear is practical and low-tech: advanced non-metallic climbing equipment, silent melee weapons of their choice, and an unparalleled understanding of the wilderness. They are the lifelines of the fragmented world.

  • The Archivists: A scholarly order based in Argent’s Spire, dedicated to recovering and understanding Progenitor knowledge. They believe the key to survival lies in finding a command code or master signal to pacify the Arbiter Network. They sponsor dangerous expeditions for data-shards and artifacts, viewing the world’s ruins as priceless libraries.

  • The Verdian Compact: The reclusive inhabitants of Haven. Guided by a philosophy of near-total symbiosis with the Veridian Maze, they believe survival is achieved by becoming invisible to the Arbiter Network. They shun Progenitor technology and view the ‘loud’ civilizations of Argent and the Garrison of the Iron Pass as dangerously arrogant. The Compact’s members are master herbalists and woodworkers, trading potent poultices, poisons, and silent, lightweight gear crafted from the forest’s unique resources. They are fiercely protective of their home, conducting all business with outsiders at the forest’s edge and trusting only the Waymarkers who respect their silent ways.