Garden of Sins

*"Those born of this garden have never been free of its poison. Cycles of atrocity and hatred, continued by those who've forgotten their reason for conflict. Children punished for the sins of their parents, suffering for the indiscriminately vengeful... and the shadow of eternal torment on those who have but committed temporary sin.*

*I'm tired. Ingel. I've borne these chains for a long, long time. From an old sinner to an innocent child; never trap yourself in this hell. Break the cycles. End the old grudges. Relieve all from their suffering. We've been mired in this abyss we've made for too long. Go forth with merciful intent, lad, and you'll be a legend for eternity."*

Neret to Ingel the Unifier just before the latter's journey to unite the remnants of the Garden.

The Garden of Sins is a Pool of Possibility located beyond the Weave Remnant on the edge of the Iridescent Web. The Garden is notable for being the graveyard of uncounted numbers of multiversal civilisations. The hegemons of the region are Makaeus and Sidiil.

## Description

The Garden of Sins describes a large Pool of Possibility on the border of the Iridescent Web. The region was named by the people of Makaeus, who are the unified successors of many of its ruined remnants. Prior to formation of Makaeus and its separatist counterpart Sidiil, the Garden of Sins hosted a number of warring polities. The period in which these warring states existed are largely regarded as a dark age, due to the sheer scale of violence, poverty and overall suffering dwarfing many other such periods preceding it.

The Pool of Possibility itself hosts a wide variety of realities with some anomalous phenomena due to the widespread use of strategic reality-altering weaponry. A large portion of the realities within the region are or were inhabited at some point and ruins are extremely common in these places. Scavengers and salvagers are common in these regions, where they make a living on selling artifacts or researching and reverse engineering technologies from fallen civilisations.

## History

In the hundreds of thousands of years before the formation of Makaeus, there existed six major powers, and several more minor polities. The major polities were the Ultir Dominion, Cambius Collective, Murus Pentarchy, Kaeruot Republic, Extus Federation and the Confederation of Mitus, collectively within an alliance known as the Ithiran League. Each of the polities were hegemons of their own parts of the Garden, influencing multiple lesser powers within their sphere.

#### Kaeruot Republic

Fifty thousand years before the founding of Makaeus marked the beginning of a period known as the Long Winter. The Kaeruot Republic came under attack by a close regional power known as the Maeites, who had been growing dissatisfied with the exploitative terms levied in their agreements from companies within the Republic. The Republic had been trading with the Maeites for a resource known as Moldone, a type of energy that had extremely versatile applications. For the Maeites, Moldone constituted their main source of food and what powered their technology. Early in the history of the Maeites, the Republic had fought multiple wars for the regions where the Maeites produced Moldone, eventually forcing a settlement on the lesser power where the Maeites were tithed a certain percent of their total Moldone production. Fueled by the inflow of Moldone, the Republic grew its economic, military and technological might, creating a free utopia for its own people. As the Republic grew, however, so did its appetite for the energy. Using their economic and political leverage, the Republic took greater percentages of the Maeite Moldone production, creating the rising tensions that led to the Maeite attack on Kaeruot.

In the beginning of the war, the Maeites made substantial progress in their offensives against the Republic, even managing to expel a substantial amount of the Kaeruot population in the regions near the Maeite border, but were eventually pushed back and crushed as a power. Effectively neutered as a polity, the Maeites were forced to accept humiliating and crippling terms of the treaty put forth by the Republic; the forfeiture of almost all the former's Moldone producing regions and the dismantling of a large portion of their technological infrastructure. Wanting to make an example of the Maeites to suppress potential opposition from other client states, the Republic made the following peace as harsh as possible. The treaty itself was designed by the Republic to cripple the Maeites permanently, with multiple clauses written specifically to cause immense suffering to future generations.

The effects were immediately felt; the entirety of the Maeite population were stricken by famine shortly afterwards, resulting in widespread unrest and riots. Maeites had a form of immortality that while maintained and fueled by Moldone, still partially persists without it. The result of starvation for a Maeite is a form of mummification, where the tissues of a Maeite individual shrivel and harden, while sensory functions gradually shut down. The eventual result is a shriveled husk, fully conscious but trapped in a state of sensory deprivation. As more and more Maeites fell to starvation, tomb complexes housing the mummies grew larger than the facilites for the living. Moldone deprivation for subsequent Maeite generations resulted in the stunting of growth in younger Maeities and the rise of physical abnormalities among the species.

Those Maeites still left were forced to fight amongst themselves, with the few Moldone producing regions left coming under the control of warlords whom arose from the fighting. The Kaeruot Republic backed certain warlords while sabotaging others, ensuring that the Maeites remained disunited. This state of affairs would continue for tens of thousands of years and multiple generations until the Republic was distracted with another rising polity that came into conflict with the Ithiran league, and in this chaos the Maeites came to be unified under a new generation of leaders.

#### Cambius Collective

A few millennia before the Long Winter, the Cambius Collective became the most recent member of the Ithiran League. The Collective arose in the more remote areas of the Garden, expanding to become the hegemon of the frontier regions. Cambiusi history was replete with civil wars, having once been fractious until one faction among the warring states discovered the realities of the Hadean Plains. The predecessors to the Collective had long since found a way for their souls to reincarnate after the discovery the Sendusan Sea; a region within the Garden with from which various powers and psychic abilites could be drawn from. This reincarnation could also be done with Cambiusi retaining their consciousness intact throughout every incarnation. This often resulted in grudges persisting indefinitely, as periods of violence and unrest tended to stoke tensions until they erupted into war. These wars in turn often lasted for centuries, until a faction could purge enough of their opponents at once to seize a sufficient amount of vital assets that the latter were left with too little power to further resist.

This, however, changed when the founders of the Collective found a way to imprison souls within the Hadean Plains, having found the location naturally suited to that purpose. The Plains were extremely difficult to navigate, with heavy distortion against a soul's senses and were nigh impossible to cross back into realities outside the Plains. Rumours had abounded of indescribable horrors lurking in those universes, but were left largely unconfirmed. Being able to deny reincarnation to their opponents, the founders subjugated their enemies until the rest of the factions willingly surrendered. While at first the Hadean Plains were largely left unused by the newly formed collective, over time new generations of Cambiusi who didn't experience the wanton violence of the past began imprisoning souls of those seen as undesirable within the Plains.

Over the millennia after the the Collective had joined the League, signs had emerged that the souls imprisoned were making headway into breaking out of the Hadean Plains. While these signs were at first written off as coincidences by the Collective, a point was reached two millennia after the beginning of the Long Winter. Breaches from the Plains opened into Collective space, whereupon the imprisoned Cambiusi souls poured out. The force of damned Cambiusi had found ways to interact with the world around them as disembodied souls, constructing new cybernetic bodies and building a working society within the Plains and had managed to find ways to breach the prison. Coming along with the damned were multiple Hadean entities that had either been tamed or swayed to act as diversions to the main force. Attempting to force their way out of Collective space, the Cambiusi rushed forward in an assault towards the borders of the polity. Initially caught by surprise, the Collective took a while to coordinate a response. During this chaos, the Cambiusi spread information on the Hadean Plains towards those in the Collective in order to sway the latter to assist in the former's escape.

The measure was successful in swaying a notable minority of the Collective, with the damned managing to make it halfway from their breach point to the border of Collective space. The response by the Collective, while slow to coordinate, was overwhelming and stopped the breakout attempt in its tracks. The damned were quickly banished deeper into the Plains alongside their collaboraters. Nevertheless, Pandora's box had been opened and more Cambiusi viewed the Collective's leadership with suspicion while dissent grew. This dissent would end up growing to encompasse to high profile figures, from prominent officials within the leadership itself to academics, businessmen and technical workers. As the Collective banished these dissenting citizens, the damned accelerated their development as the expertise of the former joined their ranks.

Several centuries later, another breakout was launched, This time the prisoners came closer to escaping the Collective, but were still overwhelmed from a more rapid response than the first attempt. While the prisoners had grown and developed their technology, the Collective was not staying still either; the latter learned from the first attempt and researched ways to prevent and break further attempts. An arms race had begun, as both sides tried to stay ahead of the other. Every couple of centuries, another breakout would be staged. Over time, some of the damned would slip through the cracks, establishing a small outpost outside of Collective territory. However, the rate of imprisonment and recapture still outpaced the rate of escape by multiple orders of magnitude. This status quo would change several millennia before the end of the Long Winter.

#### The Extus Federation

The Extus Federation had been one of the three founding members of the Ithiran League, the other two being the Murus Pentarchy and Kaeruot Republic. The Federation was a multi-species collective, built over several millennia. At first, the Federation was a largely isolationist power, until one of its smaller neighbours, the Undu, began to raid its borders for resources. The response by the Federation was at first slow and lackluster, emboldening the the smaller polity to make incursions deeper into Extus territory. The deeper incursions incurred an overwhelming retaliation by the Extus, whom invaded and occupied the entirety of Undu territory. Wanting to ensure that such didn't happen again, the Extus imposed its own systems of governance and laws upon the Undu. Over the course of the centuries of occupation, the Undu were forced to accept Extus systems of law and governance, as enough generations passed for the Extus to deem the Undu friendly enough for them to cease the occupation. While the Undu were forced to give up many of thier ways of life, the Extus had also ensured that the new Undu polity would thrive and prosper. This tempered much of the Undu's view on the Extus's occupation, enough so that the younger generations were willing to become the Federation's treaty allies.

With their first successful military operation, the Extus began to take a more and more interventionist stance against powers they were not friendly with. The interventions after the first were similarly successful, with dozens of polities successfully converted into Extus allies. As the older generations in the Federation began to be outnumbered by the younger ones, so too were the original purpose of the interventions falling to the wayside. Interventions changed from being viewed as a way of ensuring security for the Federation to being a way to spread Extus ideals; ideally through diplomacy, and through force if necessary. As the Extus belief in their manifest destiny increased, so too did the willingness to use military force whenever diplomacy failed to convert others to their values and laws.

This gradual change in view gradually affected the interventions that followed. The Federation's military adventures were gradually dictated less by pragmatism, and more by a belief in the superiority of Extus values. In the millennia that followed Extus military adventures accomplished fewer of their goals and met more failures. More polities on the edge of Extus space either existed in a worse state or had persisting problems after the Federation's occupation, sometimes even collapsing entirely as the very cultural and political ties that kept them together were undone.

As more and more failed expeditions accumulated, so did the number of enemies for the Extus increase. Word spread among other powers of the Extus's militaristic tendencies, leading to polities preparing for war with the Federation. Federation found themselves in grinding wars of attrition as they slowly slogged their way to victory. By the time formal peace agreements were signed, there was very little left of the original polity. Most of the vanquished were too weak to even offer token resistance against the Extus after the conclusion their occupation, but some had managed to rebuild into something resembling functional states. These weakened and broken polities gradually agglomerated together, cooperating against a common enemy in the Extus. While the Extus was preoccupied with its other military adventures, these states signed the Milus Pact, formalising what was once an unspoken coalition. While too lacking in power projection to assist Extus occupied powers outside of its immediate borders, the combined strength of the Pact was enough to stop both covert and overt interference from Federation within them. The Milus Pact gradually grew as more broken polities were willingly absorbed into its ranks.

Seeing the Pact, the Extus shifted more and more of their attention towards the Milus. Lacking the military strength to invade the rising power, it instead went for a campaign of containment using its allies to expand around the polity. The Pact kept pace with Extus expansion, always growing large enough to be just beyond containment. For multiple millennia the Extus and the pact were locked in a bitter cold war. The Extus kept a lead in their technology and abilities over the Milus, though the latter never trailed so far behind that the former had a decisive advantage. This stalemate would persist for several millennia into the Long Winter.

#### Confederation of Mitus

The Confederation of Mitus was a utopian state at the time of its joining of the Ithiran League. While the polity itself was a paradise for its citizens, the utopia was built upon the backs of countless others; none of which were able or allowed to partake in the fruits of their work. The Confederation was a well rounded state in terms of both its economic and military aspects, allowing them to leverage both into extractive polices on their neighbours.

#### Murus Pentarchy

A few thousand years before the founding of Makaeus, a singular event started a chain reaction that ended in the dissolution of the Ithiran league and began the end of the Long Winter. A polity that opposed the Ithiran league originated from a universe that had been subjugated by the Murus Pentarchy early in the Pentarchy's history. The native inhabitants of this reality were a Transcended adjacent category of being, whom had obtained their new state of existence from the Void protoplasm that had intermixed with the reality's own phenomena. This faction, known as the Metarchs, came under attack from the Pentarch (one of five god-emperors of the Pentarchy) Urdus when the latter was surveying locations for resource extraction. In response, the Metarchs resisted and enacted a scorched earth strategy, rendering much of their universe useless to the Pentarchy from chaotic phenomena and altered laws of reality. Unable to kill the Metarchs, the Pentarchy imprisoned the vast majority of the Metarchs in suspended animation, leaving only a few hidden individuals within the wreckage of their reality. The Pentarchy left behind a token force to act as wardens to the imprisoned Metarchs.

This reality counted as one amongst many conquests the Pentarchy had conducted throughout its history. The Pentarchy were a highly hierarchical society consisting of lower 'spirits' for ordinary citizens and higher ranked deities. In Pentarch society, a deity's status corresponded directly with the celestial body it had either possessed or built for itself. Minor deities had planetoids as their vessel, not exceeding a few thousand km in diameter. Lesser gods had bodies of rocky planets, while greater gods had those of gas giants. God princes had bodies of smaller stars, while god kings had those of larger stars and even attendant megastructures. The god emperors/Pentarchs themselves had physically networked bodies of hundreds of thousands of megastructures and stars. Despite the spiritual focus of their society, the powers and technologies wielded by those of the Pentarchy used a type of artificial energy that was more focused towards matter and energy manipulation known as Argus. Argus energy is a particularly user friendly power source for technology and abilities, allowing the rapid growth of Pentarchy civilisation. As an inbuilt mechanism for easy adoption among Pentarchy citizens, access to Argus energy was as simple as prolonged exposure to it in small amounts.

During the imprisonment of their kin, the Metarch remnant researched ways to increase their powers, eventually developing a process known as Singularity after studying the powers and technologies wielded by the Pentarchy. The remnants (and the imprisoned after they were freed) also adopted the usage of Argus energy, finding that passive exposure emanating from leftover devices and weapons gave them access to the power source. After a period of multiple million years, the remnant Metarchs had gathered enough resources to stage a mass breakout of their kin. Freed from their imprisonment and rapidly reestablishing their civilisation, the Pentarchy wardens were overwhelmed in short order. Through the process of Singularity, more and more Metarchs underwent a significant growth in power, allowing them to directly battle the minor/lesser and greater/royal deities of the Pentarchy individually and in small teams respectively. The wardens sent out a call of reinforcements, leading to Urdus himself to return with a large force of deities to subdue the Metarchs. Using data gathered from combat and the remains of slain gods, the Metarchs created an immense megastrucure that would come to be known as the 'God Devouring Star'.

The defence mounted by the Metarchs against the Pentarchy would become the first major victory among others for the former. As countless Singularity-enhanced Metarchs were engaged in combat against Urdus and his subordinates, the newly finished Metarch megastrucure would be brought to bear against the Pentarch in a decisive battle that resulted in the death and devouring of the god emperor by the megastructure. Crippled by the loss of their Pentarch, Urdus's remaining forces retreated back Pentarchy territory. The loss of both a strategic individual and leader of a faction turned the eyes of the Ithiran league to the new polity. This event set off a domino reaction, as other enemies of the league saw the opportunity to make their own moves.