This is the planned second novel I have in the works. I wrote this primer as a way to convey the setting, characters and themes that the story will touch on. As this is an early version it is subject to changing for the final version. Due to my dyslexia the editing and grammar may be a tad rough at times. WARNING this story contains violence, gore, body horror and sensitive subjects such as PTSD and alcoholism.  Its been two thousand years since humanity lost their home planet and a thousand since they first made landfall on the world they now call home. The trip was long and fraught with danger but they managed to survive in no small part to the new gods they found along the way. The Celestial Court granted life to various forms of variant human species, sculpted to perfection as the next evolution for mankind. After a thousand years however humanity finds itself on the edge of collapse, as technology from the old world breaks down more and more the people of the new world are regressing into a more feudal state of living. As technology declines and degrades, magic and the supernatural has become the norm. Conflicts are on the rise between the different factions of the Celestial Empire all while the gods themselves watch from above silently.  At the edge of the world, past the fringes of the Empire there is a place where folks go to disappear. It is here that our main character Rann has chosen to retire and live out the rest of his days. What could drive a man to seek out such a miserable place to toil away his twilight years? The only thing for certain is that if the local fauna or bandits don't kill him, the shadows of his past surely will.