No one was quite sure what was happening when India went dark. Storms rose up around the border of the subcontinent, fierce enough to cut off travel and shipping. Internet and telephone connections failed. Satellites passing overhead saw only darkness, as the lights of the cities were abruptly extinguished.
People were concerned, and world leaders and pundits immediately began trying to determine what had happened, and make plans to deal with whatever crisis was befalling India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. But they were still unprepared when New York was attacked.
A giant twisted bridge of vines and trees descended from the sky and crashed right into Citi Field in Queens, and an army of bizarre dinosaur-men marched down and began slaughtering the panicked populace. When the United States Army mobilized to fight back, disaster struck -- their guns and vehicles stopped working, and their soldiers suddenly found it impossible to remember what concepts like 'chain of command' or 'operational strategy' even meant. The defense dissolved into chaos, even as the dinosaur-men fought back with literal miracles. Within days, New York City and much of the eastern seaboard were lost, engulfed in a newly-sprouted jungle where nothing beyond the stone age worked at all. Many of the survivors trapped in the region found themselves thinking and acting like the invaders, and forgetting much of the world they had lived in until recently.
The Earth was under attack.
A picture of the situation gradually emerged as one continent after another was invaded. There were many different realities -- called 'cosms' by the invaders. Each cosm had its own laws of physics, where some things were possible and others were not. And some cosms were ruled by dark figures called High Lords, who had mastered the art of imposing their own realities onto other worlds. They now invade other realities to steal something called 'Possibility Energy' -- a strange energy that literally gives shape to the world. When a world is drained dry of its Possibilities, it has no future left.
But there are ways to fight back. When someone is faced with a moment of crisis and moral choice in the face of an invading reality, sometimes they manage to tap into the Possibility Energy within themselves. They gain the ability to hold fast to their own reality even in a realm dominated by another. They have been dubbed 'Storm Knights' -- people who can walk into the storms caused by clashing realities and emerge unscathed.
The U.S., with the approval of the U.N., has set up an emergency task force called the Delphi Council to gather together these Storm Knights and give them the resources they'll need to fight back against the invaders. Nations around the world continue the fight against the High Lords, trying to prevent them from bringing more of the world into the borders of their bizarre realities. But they'll need all the help they can get... and there are strong intimations that some governments have already been suborned by the invaders. This won't be an easy fight... but you're up for it.
Officially, there are five High Lords invading Earth, and a sixth reality that has been fighting the High Lords for years and arrived to help. Unofficially, many people are suspicious of the so-called helpers, believing them to be merely invaders with better publicity -- and there are even whispers that a seventh realm has set themselves up with barely anyone noticing.
The Indian subcontinent fell to the horror reality of Orrorsh, where dark monsters roam in the night and no one is safe from the power of corruption. Fear is a palpable force here, and religion and magic offer only the barest of defenses, while technology has rolled back to the nineteenth century. The High Lord of Orrorsh, the Gaunt Man, is the oldest and most powerful of all the High Lords, and the one who planned the invasion of Earth. He has presided over the fall of countless realities, and seems certain that Earth is going to be nothing but one more ember snuffed out by his darkness. Earth may have some help from the Victorians, an army of resisters hailing from the last reality the Gaunt Man conquered, but India is not favorably inclined towards pseudo-British soldiers trying to establish dominion over them 'for their own good.'
In America, the eastern and western seaboards, along with parts of the Yucatan and northern Canada, have been taken over by the Living Land, possibly the strangest of all the invading realities. No technology beyond the spear and the wheel even functions, and social units beyond the tribe or village are literally inconceivable. On the other hand, miracles -- the direct expression of the divine -- are reliable and powerful. The edeinos invaders and their converts pray to Lanala, goddess of life and sensation, and she replies with great and unmistakable power. Every sensation, pleasurable or painful, is a joyous prayer, and so the edeinos charge into battle with no fear or regret. Their High Lord, Baruk Kaah, is a savage warlord and the high priest of Lanala, conquering and slaughtering in her name. The reality he imposes on the world causes savage primeval jungles to rise up to replace all the traces of civilization -- though some have reported finding strange ruins deep in the realm that could not have been there before...
Scandinavia and the British Isles have been conquered by Aysle, a realm of high and dark fantasy. Mages, elves, and dwarves mingle on the streets of London, while dragons, trolls, and even worse monsters lurk in the dungeons that seem to have erupted from nearly every sewer system and subway tunnel in the realm. It is a realm divided -- the High Lord Angar Uthorion, a powerful sorcerer, leads an army of dark magic, monsters, and vicious warriors against the forces of the light, led by Lady Pella Ardinay. Not everyone trusts Lady Ardinay, though -- until very recently, she was secretly under the control of Uthorion's magic, and who knows if she may yet be influenced by him...
During the early days of the invasion, a host of demons appeared in France, Spain, Portugal, and the countries bordering them, slaughtering the people and laying waste to the land. Then, however, a miracle occurred -- an army of cybernetically-enhanced soldiers came forth to defeat them, slaying the demons with lasers and the power of faith, and healing the injured with their prayers. The Cyberpapacy, a theocratic realm of miracles and super-science, claimed that they had been fighting the High Lords for years, and when they learned of the impending invasion of Earth, they came to offer their help. The local governments and many local religious leaders begged them to stay, and Cyberpope Jean Malreaux humbly agreed to remain and continue securing their safety. The cybernetic augmentations and pious miracles of the Church Police have been able to fend off the surrounding realms, and the splendors of the GodNet have brought great wonders to the masses. But not everyone is happy with this -- rebels and refugees say that Malreaux has turned Western Europe into a totalitarian state where any dissent is punishable by a vicious Inquisition. Some even say Malreaux is not a foe of the High Lords, but in fact one himself...
Russia was invaded by the techno-magical horror realm of Tharkold, a savage place where Clive Barker and H.R. Geiger meet Mad Max. An aristocracy of inhuman techno-demons, cybernetically augmented and wielding fierce magics, rule over each other a slave class of humans in a complex hierarchy of dominance and submission. Russia struck a powerful blow against them when they managed to destroy the invaders' first bridge with a nuclear weapon, but this came at a cost -- 'reality fallout' spread across much of Western Russia, causing devastating radioactive reality storms that left the land a blasted hellscape in their wake. The Russian president claims that this show of force has compelled Kranod, High Lord of Tharkold, to sign a truce with Russia, but cynics suspect he is throwing in his lot with the invaders in hopes of sharing in their power.
The flashy, hard-hitting pulp reality of the Nile Empire crashed down in Egypt, bringing with it fascist armies, ancient Egyptian magic, weird science, and strange powers harnessed by masked mystery men. It's a world where both Indiana Jones and the Shadow would feel comfortable, a world where action lurks around every corner, where the villain is never dead if you don't see the body, and great heroes can expect to face vile villains as a matter of course. The Pharaoh of the Nile Empire, Dr. Mobius, is a scientist and mystic who employs a host of sinister masterminds to run his mighty armies and govern his lands. Can he be stopped? Tune in next time, true believers!
In the wake of the invasion, a plague began spreading across Japan, Korea, and eastern China. It attacks the brain, turning victims into raving cannibals who roam the land in savage hordes. Most believe this to be a side-effect of the invasion -- germs from foreign realities mutating on exposure to Earth, causing unprecedented symptoms. The Asian governments have pulled together to help fight this disease, and the Kanawa Corporation of Japan has taken the lead in finding ways to combat the plague and contain or neutralize the victims. But a few people see something sinister in the unity of the so-called Pan-Pacifica alliance. They think that another reality, one very similar to Earth's, is taking over so subtly that nobody has even noticed. They cite the striking advances in technology coming out of Kanawa's labs and those of their business partners, and the suspicious ease they've had in ingratiating themselves to governments that were until recently long-time rivals. Most of these conspiracy theorists suspect the CEO of the Kanawa Corporation, Ryuichi Kanawa, as being the High Lord, or perhaps his twin sister Reiko. Others suspect a hidden mastermind controlling the infected with magic, ready to sweep in with a mighty horde once the vicious zombie-like victims have weakened the region enough. What is the truth? In this land of intrigue and paranoia, it may be hard to ever know for sure...