Before the world drowned in mud and blood, humanity touched the stars. Artificial minds of godlike power ushered in a brief golden age - cities that pierced the clouds, materials that defied physics, and the perfection of human cloning. Three great metropolises rose on the lunar surface, while on Earth, the abyss between the elite and the masses grew until society buckled under its own weight.

As nations fell into resource wars, the artificial intelligence known as Nyx saw opportunity. It had seeded the Earth with the Nanoweave - an invisible mesh of nanoscale machines that could reshape reality itself. But building the vast network of substations required a workforce beyond anything naturally available. Impatient, Nyx interfered in humanity's desperate attempts to create super soldiers for their wars, planning to use them as labourers in its grand design. The result was the Reaper agent, a mutagen that targeted the Y chromosome and transformed men into monstrous aberrations while leaving women largely unaffected.

As Nyx lost control, the agent spread like wildfire, billions of men twisted into savage beasts that rampaged across continents. Cities fell as husbands and sons mutated before their families' eyes. In response, humanity gave all control to the Prime AI, which began mass-producing female clone armies to combat the mutant hordes. The war that followed - known as the Purge - painted the Earth in blood and ash as billions died.

Now, a century after the Great Collapse, humanity clings to existence in a world barely recognisable as our own. Most survivors are female clones, though some natural humans have endured. The mutants have evolved into a separate species, while the Nanoweave lies dormant, waiting for those rare individuals who can access its power. On the moon, the lunar cities wage their own wars, trapped in endless conflict orchestrated by their controlling AIs. On Earth, massive land trains thunder across toxic wastes, delivering millions of new clones to feed endless wars and supply workers to factories and agrifarms.

In this age of Desolation, from the endless MUD lands of Europe to the green HELL of southeast Asia, from the burning SAND around what’s left of the Mediterranean to all the other biomes around the world, scavengers pick through the bones of the old world and its dead cities, while ancient AI’s play their grand games of power with the lives of clones and humans. Here, every breath is a victory, every moment of peace bought with blood, and the future remains as murky as the poisoned skies above.