Backstory of Morbid Gems:
For awhile, there was an uneasy peace between the Seven Great Civilizations, but after a few years, when tensions were at their height, slayers from one nation, wearing their respective civilizations’ armor, started kill innocent citizens from a number of other nations. All of the Civilizations were attacked this way, all attempts to get answers from the others failed, and as a consequence, the Great War of Seven had begun. Each of the nations sent hundreds of their best warriors to a central battleground in order to keep their citizens safe. They didn’t fight over land or resources; they wanted answers and deep down, to see which Civilization was the best of the whole world.
In truth, the slayers were outcasts from their respective Civilizations that were taken up by the Cult of Cores. Kushear Scavenge, the cult’s leader, had his followers collect spirits from their victims for his sick use. By implementing dark magic, he changed his poltergeist into a dense spiritual core, drawing the spirits from his cult’s collection and the deaths from the war, which created the first and most powerful plarresma: Morbid. As it formed, Morbid transported over the battlefield, fed on the negative emotions of the surviving warriors, until it physically appeared before them. The warriors tried to attack the monster to no avail, and their numbers dropped fast.
As they retreated and ended the clash between the nations, Kushear was very pleased with his creation, until the plarresma betrayed him and killed his followers, adding their souls to his collection. Morbid was more powerful than anyone ever imagined. Kushear beseeched the help from the Seven Great Civilizations, and told them the truth about the monster’s creation. Knowing that he was the one that caused them despair, but also knowing a way to stop Morbid, they reluctantly sent the finest warriors from each Civilization to aid him. Kushear used a potion on their weapons, and they chopped Morbid into pieces that were sealed in thirteen gems. The remains were sealed in a statue, and the gems were scattered across the globe… thus the creation of the Thirteen Cursed Gems of Morbid.
Hundreds of years later, the world of Quelik is much different from the one of the past. Now there are bustling cities that are mixes of advanced technology and nature, and the Seven Great Civilizations are no more. They integrated after Morbid was defeated, knowing that when they work together, they make the world better.
Unfortunately, since Morbid’s creation, more and more spirits have been trying to replicate its success to try to “live again,” by becoming plarresmas to achieve a physical form. The spirit beings are more powerful than poltergeists; hence they can change into dense cores without dark magic. The drawback is they cannot control their form and become grotesque, out of control monsters unless they are very strong willed and energetically powerful, which is rarely the case. Living beings that are connected to the spirit realm are necessary to keep the spirits in check. Toolita Hopper, a hare with the ability to talk to the dead, helps spirits that have unfinished business in the living world cross over to the other side, so they do not try to become cores nor get sucked up by one. Her job also requires making sure the living beings that are connected to these spirits are safe, so she sometimes finds herself dealing with disturbed dead and living individuals.
One living individual in particular, Kormin Scavenge, Kushear’s descendent, thought that he could take over the world with his vast robot army. As he was testing one of his models on a small village by destroying structures and capturing the living residents, and when the resident spirits pleaded for Toolita’s help, she answered the call. She battled Kormin and his robots and thwarted his plan. This continued on with each model of robot, until Kormin decided to focus on the actual problem and make a type that a leaper can’t beat. He purposely attacked a ghost town to lure Toolita to him and used his new robots to try to take her down. Toolita was in serious trouble. Then, Walne Zoom, a cheetah mechanic that was testing his prototype bike nearby, saved her and helped destroy the robots. The duo took Kormin down and sent him to prison.
From that day on, Toolita and Zoom have been a team taking down any new schemes and robot designs Kormin thinks of when he escapes, meeting any challenge head on. As they approach Kormin’s final base, they’ll test his desperation to the breaking point…
