It’s currently the year 698. Historians estimate that it’s the 72nd time it’s been the year 698, but modern dating techniques and the advanced state of decay of some of the older ruins make it hard to be sure.
The world appears to be on an ever-repeating cycle of prosperity and apocalypse. Witness accounts of the First Day of our Cycle liken it to waking from a deep slumber as if sentience had just struck them from their stupor. The first generation found themselves in the ruins of cities reclaimed by nature in a way that implied hundreds of years without supervision. As they spread throughout the world, learning to fend for themselves, they saw that they weren’t the first to undergo this reset: cities constructed atop older cities, themselves built atop cities even older. Ancient keeps dotted the countryside, and excavations uncovered bygone tunnel systems layered with different cultures.
As best the Trust can tell, after some non-uniform period, the world ends. The current belief is that the same apocalypse has come multiple times, as the symptoms are consistent between cycles. All sentient life appears to vanish, as does almost all writing. Some inscriptions remain — most of them carved into metal. Art generally survives, and magic is entirely unaffected. Structures have large amounts of wear, implying that there’re centuries between the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next.
Due to magic’s resilience through the apocalypse, many hunt for riches by delving into ancient ruins from cycles long past in the hopes of retrieving artifacts and weaponry. Some cities, such as Illyara, have built power in their regions with tools uncovered from previous cycles; and the world as a whole has innovated far faster than would have been possible without reverse-engineering previous cycles’ technology.