Welcome to the Annigan…
…this mostly aquatic planet travels in a geosynchronous orbit around a small yellow sun. It’s set far enough back in the solar system’s Goldilocks Zone it maintains an atmosphere conducive to a wide variety of life.
Sentient creatures, terrestrial, marine or amphibious, share a hyper-fertility devoid of genetic boundaries. Any sentient creature may mate with any other and produce offspring.
Lumina basks in perpetual sunlight on one side of the Annigan. Humans dwell alongside many other sentient races thriving across its various continents and island chains. The fertility enriching rays of the sun, and the warmth of the Shallow Sea, support a vibrant and rich ecosystem.
Although life is abundant there, Lumina is hardly a serene place as you will see. Millennia of feuds, ruthless ambition and individual hatreds forged a fragile peace, barely sustained under the rule of the Great Houses.
Because of the incredible diversity of sentient creatures, all races, genders and hybrids in Lumina enjoy social equality, judging each as an individual based upon their own merits. Beneath the veneer of peace, however, dwells a hotbed of totalitarian torture, raider uprisings and a constant escalating cold war between the Great Houses.
Nocturn, languishes in constant darkness on the other side of the Annigan. Only moonlight, starlight and bioluminescence illuminates the land of endless night. Without the warming rays of the sun, Nocturn’s oceans froze over, but constant geothermal activity heats the land masses, creating a temperate and misty terrain teeming with exotic and predatory sentient races.
Imperialistic cat people rule aboveground and hive nations of humanoid mantises swarm beneath the surface. In the Ocean Deep, a race of sentient octopoids dwell in vast underwater cities worshiping the ancient ones of the abyss. You are predator or prey in Nocturn’s despotic societies.
The Twilight Lands reside at the fringes of the Annigan and remain in a constant gloaming. Here, warm and cold air currents clash, generating a perpetually stormy climate.
Ruled by the amphibian Bailian race, the Twilight Lands serve as a neutral zone for cultures from every corner of the Annigan. Many encountering the other races for the first time, and like the weather, their clashes can prove tempestuous.
Only the sun of Lumina keeps back the nocturnal predators of the dark side. Legends tell of a prophesied great eclipse stripping away all boundaries and igniting an apocalyptic war. Until then…
…these are the tales from the Annigan Cycle.