CHAPTER 01
The World of Viper
Long before the kingdoms of the modern world, an extraordinary civilisation rose to heights of knowledge and magic never since recovered.
Today, they are known simply as the Ancients.
Their cities stretched across vast regions of the world. They mastered forms of magic, engineering and medicine that modern scholars still struggle to understand, and remnants of their civilisation can still be found beneath mountains, forgotten forests, volcanic lands and even the foundations of modern settlements.
For centuries, the Ancients prospered during an era remembered as the Age of Ascension.
Then, nearly five thousand years ago, everything changed.
CHAPTER 02
The Sundering
Ancient civilisation was destroyed during a catastrophic event now known as the Sundering.
Exactly what happened remains one of the greatest mysteries in recorded history.
Most historians believe the Ancients became increasingly dependent upon powers they did not fully understand. Whether through ambition, experimentation or simple miscalculation, something went terribly wrong.
Their cities fell.
Ancient systems failed.
Entire regions were transformed.
Creatures spread from abandoned places and much of the knowledge accumulated over centuries disappeared within only a few generations.
The greatest civilisation the world had ever known vanished.
CHAPTER 03
The Age of Ash
The centuries that followed became known as the Age of Ash.
Survivors were scattered across a dangerous and fractured world. Trade routes disappeared, knowledge was lost and once-great cities became ruins.
Yet humanity endured.
Fragments of Ancient teaching survived amongst isolated communities and, over generations, these traditions gradually developed into the Six Paths followed by adventurers today:
Warrior. Archer. Mage. Mystik. Monk. Fisher.
Civilisation eventually rebuilt.
New cities rose amongst Ancient ruins. Kingdoms formed. Trade returned. Guilds and academies flourished.
But the old world was never truly forgotten.
CHAPTER 04
The Legacy of the Ancients
Ancient ruins still exist throughout Viper.
Some have been explored for generations.
Others remain sealed.
Many contain mechanisms that no living scholar understands.
Rare artefacts recovered from these sites can be worth fortunes, and none are more famous than the mysterious Viper Coins, objects traditionally believed to have once belonged to the Ancient economy.
The Ancients themselves have become something between history and legend.
Stories speak of impossible weapons, hidden cities, machines that still function after thousands of years and places where the laws of magic seem different.
How much is truth and how much is myth remains uncertain.
CHAPTER 05
The Viper
One name appears repeatedly throughout the oldest legends:
Viper.
Its meaning has been lost.
Some traditions describe the Viper as a serpent sleeping beneath the world.
Others remember it as a god, a guardian, a destroyer or simply a symbol of forbidden knowledge.
Many modern scholars consider these stories little more than mythology.
Others are not so certain.
Whatever the truth, the image of the Viper has survived for thousands of years.
CHAPTER 06
A New Age of Exploration
The modern world is entering an extraordinary period.
A new generation of adventurers is growing stronger and travelling farther than those before them.
Ruins once considered inaccessible are being entered.
Lost artefacts are being recovered.
Unusual creatures are being discovered.
Fishers are returning from deep waters with stories few people believe.
And scholars are beginning to uncover evidence that does not always fit the history they were taught.
For most people, these are simply signs of a new age of exploration.
But across the world, strange reports are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Ancient mechanisms have begun moving again.
Creatures have appeared where they do not belong.
Old places are revealing new secrets.
And for the first time in centuries, some have begun to ask a dangerous question:
What if the past is not as dead as we believed?
Welcome to Viper.
Explore the world. Follow the Six Paths. Discover its secrets.
The truth is buried deeper than anyone remembers.