A single planet orbiting a tiny star, Daimalko was not always a dry, blasted world teeming with rampaging colossi and struggling survivors. Lush greenery once covered this world, sustaining two advanced civilizations: the psychic Confederation of Volkaria and the Holy Queendom of Ykarth, a state that claimed a divine mandate from the empyreal lord Duellona, the Warrior Maiden. Then, 200 years ago, in the course of a month, the planet's major oceans evaporated, its greenery withered, and earthquakes reverberated across the planet. From the rocky terrain of the empty seas rose nightmarish colossi—monstrosities covered in armored plates and bearing rows of tongues, teeth, and worse. The planet's population, consisting primarily of gray-skinned damais, dropped from many millions to just a few thousand. The shell-shocked survivors fled underground to subterranean enclaves collectively called the Refuge. After more than a century of subterranean survival, a brave group of leaders stumbled upon rune-scribed orbs that allowed them to empathically sense and steer the roving colossi aboveground. These leaders became the first Guardians, and they used the orbs to safely usher colonies back to the surface. Today, Daimalko is still a blasted ruin—its cliffs and valleys are largely desiccated seabeds, its forests long dead, leaving skeleton-like fields of petrified trunks. Yet a few salty seas and large freshwater lakes support tenacious lifeforms such as poisonous lichens, carnivorous vines, enormous mountain eagles, two-headed griffons, six-legged goats, and hairless yetis capable of psychic blasts. For the first time in generations, notable populations of humanoids have returned to the surface, primarily under the watchful eyes of the Guardians.