Engine's Maw

A generation and a half ago, the bridge between hell and the mortal realm was shattered. Fire and iron poured forth from the wound in reality to snuff out all life it came in contact with. An endless iron ceiling blocked out the sky. Oceans became acrid and boiling, forests became dense fungal backwoods, deserts became barren iron wastelands. 

With no gate to hold back the denizens of hell, generations of dead souls poured forth into the mortal realm. Drawn to the desiccated call of their mortal shells, corpses rose and began to prowl the lands, hungry for the warmth of living flesh. Most lost themselves in the tumult between life and death, but a few of the strongest souls managed to hold on to their sense of self, becoming powerful homunculi, capable of feats of strength beyond the limits of living flesh.

Last of all came the trains. No one ever saw who laid the track. One day it was just there, massive steel bars that stretched across the landscape, and carried with them engines of burning hunger and seething malice. The world’s civilizations shattered and it’s natural resources twisted and changed. The trains became the greatest assets to building new cities and societies. They could go out on the farthest expeditions, safe from the shambling corpses that populated the wastelands, and could haul in massive quantities of ore, food and other resources. But only those crews capable of satisfying the capricious appetites of the trains were capable of engineering them. Many crews became powerful, authoritarian cults, holding absolute rule over the communities they were responsible for keeping alive. 

But rumor tells of a crew with different motives. A force of powerful warriors, navigating a bronze engine. Rumor has it that this crew has a plan; a plan to close the rift and send the trains and the iron sky and the souls of the dead back to hell. But they are only rumors. Most don’t believe that the world will ever change again...