There is no haven for the ordinary. Not in this realm.

  Since the dawn of thought, when humankind first raised its gaze from soil to stars, the chronicles speak of a time when certain mortals bore gifts that should never have belonged to flesh and bone. Their power was neither of sinew nor of intellect, but of something far more perilous, an inheritance of the elements themselves.

  These chosen ones ascended above their kin, enthroned as gods and warlords. Temples rose to their names, and legends clothed them in glory. Yet not all who bore such gifts chose the path of mercy. Kingdoms bent, empires burned, and from their tyranny the realm itself trembled.

  Centuries passed, and human reason sharpened. Through the forge of study they uncovered new arts called sorcery, the weaving of thought into spell. Beside the mortals, these sorcerers took arms against the Elemental gods who had ruled in cruelty. In victory, they swore an eternal oath: to guard the balance of the realm, not as overlords, but as companions of humankind.

  Yet even oaths are fragile. Some sorcerers strayed, delving into the black roots of magic. Twisted by their own hunger, they shed both flesh and name, becoming horrors unbound. Cast into a pit where heat and frost gnawed alike, they endured their exile until vengeance birthed them anew. From the abyss they returned, clad in nightmare, and the world learned to dread the whisper of their name—the Abyssal faction.

  Despair had near consumed the realm when deliverance descended from the firmament. Celestial knights are radiant, ineffable—strode from the heavens with grace and wrath entwined. Alongside mortals, sorcerers, and even repentant elementalists, they drove the Abyss back into the chasm. But when the last seal was struck, the Celestials vanished, leaving only rumor, omen, and skyborne marvels to testify that they had ever walked among mortals.

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  Thus the ages turned. Wars of kings bled the land, until four centuries past, strangers of another kind unveiled themselves. They were called the Extraterrestrials beings not of earth nor sky, but of distant spheres. Their tongues were strange, their bearing regal, their weapons unlike anything the realm had known. These relics, as mortals came to name them, bound themselves to chosen hands, and with them were forged a new breed of warrior: the Weapon Masters.

  In time, ingenuity itself became a faction. Relic fused with contrivance, metal met steam, and sparks birthed invention. Eccentric and unyielding, these artificers named themselves the Cogworks Consortium, and from their forges came wonders and terrors alike.

  So the factions fractured, seven great powers standing astride the mortals: Elementalists, Sorcerers, Abyssals, Celestials, Extraterrestrials, Weapon Masters, and the Cogworks. Their rivalries flared into war, a clash that raged for ten long years, until half the world lay in ruin. From the ashes rose a new dominion: the All-Realm, governed not by human kings but by a council of seven, each a sovereign of their own faction, seated as the Council of Power.

  Now, in the fifth year of its second generation, their names are spoken with awe and dread alike:

  Leroy J Livingstone, the Green Wraith of the Weapon Masters.

  Cygnus Spellbane, Sorcerer Supreme.

  Starmist, emissary of the Extraterrestrials.

  Amaterasu, flame-goddess Elementalist.

  Lucretius von Black, the Fallen Knight of the Abyss.

  Bjorn Markovich, the Plague of Cogworks.

  And Elysius, the All-Seeing Celestial.

  Seven pillars of dominion. Seven lords of a realm still scarred by war.

  The All Realms rests in a fragile balance, the seven powers bound together by the scars of a shared hardship years ago.

  Yet superhumans cannot remain equal for long—for all their power, they are still human at heart.

  All it takes is a spark and when it comes, who will clash, and who will unite?