Uzunda

Uzunda, also known as The Broken World, is a world located within the Outer Cosmos. Formerly the home of the unborn god Uzu, the native Uzudoran decided to abort the deity and take its power for their own. The slaying of Uzu caused a chain reaction of magical and environmental disasters that destroyed the surface of Uzunda. Now, the planet lies in smoldering devastation and corroded ruin, plagued with many geological, chemical and magical hazards, most famous among them the Uuz. All life that managed to survive has grown vicious and cruel, as the deadly environs of Uzunda demand. Despite what little of the planet remains intact, a series of factions have risen up to wage war and fight for the future of the dead planet.

History
Uzunda's recorded history is split into 2 primary eras: First Era, pre-destruction, and the Second Era, post-destruction.

Creation
Uzunda formed within the Outer Cosmos as most worlds did, the mass accumulation of matter and mana. In particular, Uzunda's crust had a substantial amount of Dead Iron, a metal notorious for resisting the distorting effects of mana and magic. This slowed down the forming of the god Uzunda would be named for, Uzu, significantly, and life on the world would develop without any direct influence from a god for eons.

The Uzudoran
Intelligent life formed on the surface of Uzunda in the form of the Uzudoran, a race of curious, spiritual, magic-savvy reptilians. Inventive and independent in the absence of a greater power to guide them, Uzudoran society advanced slowly but surely as they developed their cultures. The Uzudoran discovered quickly the properties of Dead Iron, and were able to utilize in it the creation of magitek that manipulated the abundant pockets of mana residing within the world and in the heavens above. They also took notice of the heavens that sprawled out above them, and the star-seasons that affected the climate of their world, charting out their movement and the order of the seasons.

All this culminated in the development of an advanced society that quickly mastered magic, technology, and their environment. The united Uzudoran were a flourishing people with a prospering future ahead of them, looking even beyond their world into the Outer Cosmos. Their path would inevitably change however with the discovery of the sleeping god that rested within their world and its own sleeping influence on Uzunda.

Death of Uzu
Uzudoran astronomers, having charted out the paths of the stars for years to come, made a prediction that the sleeping god would continue to draw from the mana within the world and soon emerge from the crust fully formed. Many existential concerns arose, such as how to share Uzunda with its rightful god when they had already made a life without them, and whether Uzu would have their own designs for the world. As advanced as the Uzudoran had become, doubts remained they could oppose a fully formed god that sought to end them. Thus came the question of whether to wait for the gods emergence and communicate with it, or to slay the still-gestating god before it could threaten them.

Vicious, uproarious debate flooded Uzudoran society for years. The act of killing a god and removing such a core aspect of the magical ecosystem of their world was a disturbing and horrific precedent, but the image of an enraged or uncaring god with the power to mold the surface of their world like clay was also a terrifying image. Their ruling leaders were slow to act, consumed with thought, but ultimately picked their sides. The resolution came to be an all-out war between each side, one fighting to slay Uzu and the other defending their life. At the end, the militant ones bent on Uzu's destruction won over, and it was decided to end the life of the sleeping god.

A great machine was constructed to carry out the destruction of Uzu, called the Sky-Splitter, that would harness the power of the stars to destroy the fetal god.

Geography
In the wake of Uzu's death, much of Uzunda's topography has been destructively twisted by the corrupting blood and latent mana that congeals all across Uzu. Tectonic plates have been up-heaved, broken apart, and sometimes outright obliterated; in consequence mountain ranges are jagged and uneven, great shelves of earth jut out unceremoniously, and volcanic vents spew out magically irradiated magma and noxious gases frequently. Great cliffs and canyons wind throughout the surface like battle-scars, where life occasionally takes shelter from the vicious storms of Uuz. Rare bones that once lived within the body of Uzu may now be seen spearing out from the surface of the earth, like claws digging through charred flesh.

Great rivers of Uzu's blood and warped water flows within the cracks of the land, often pooling into great bodies of toxic, congealing slime. Strange and perverse lifeforms may flock to these pools of god-blood for sustenance. Surrounding the whole of Uzunda and its continents is the Sea of Acid, a great ocean of bile and extremely warped water that burns all those who approach it except for a few monstrous beings. Clouds of acid rain may gather over the sea and flock to land, pouring down cascades of corrosion. The only remaining sources of clean water are thought to be secluded underground springs untouched by the surface world, though even these may become corrupted by the far-reaching influence of the Uuz.

Uzunda's ecology has shifted greatly to adapt to the cataclysmic wasteland it has become. Most ecosystems revolve around specialized fungi that manage to endure the conditions of the world. These can take the form of sheets of nutritious mold that line cliff sides and the insides of caves and sinkholes, or of small forests of mushroom trees that sprout in sheltered locales.

Continents
Uzunda in its ancient age was made up of several disparate continents disconnected from one another. After the rise of the Uzudoran Masters, their technology and magic allowed them to bridge the gap between these continents and unite the world under their rule. These continents have all suffered uniquely following the devastation, and the united world crafted by the Masters of old is no more, with the continents splintered and crumbling apart.

Lost City
A labyrinthine series of urban ruins left to deteriorate in the shadow of Uzu.

Shatterlands
A great expanse of easterly mountains split at the peaks and rifted by winding canyons.

Gorgazan
A great flood plain that collected the fetid blood of Uzu, forming a great acidic blood-bog rife with Uuz.

Cindarr
A series of low-lying ash-covered valleys broken by volcanic peaks and blasted by fiery winds.

Volfan
Distant western realm that drifted far from the uzundan mainland, now blighted by bitter cold.

Kin of Uzu

 * Uzudoran
 * Kuzu
 * Yondarr

Mutant-Born

 * Maktorra
 * Dakkadri
 * Shabalma
 * Zyguma
 * Jambana

Wildlife

 * Cliffrunners
 * Burrowbeasts
 * Uzunda Buzzards
 * Bone-Pickers
 * Acid Snakes
 * Warp-Walkers
 * Warp-Gliders
 * Warpshell Goliaths