Worldweep
75 years after the death of the Alchemist, Golarion's future looks brighter than it has in mortal memory. Communities and institutions that were destroyed, suppressed, or deep in hiding have reclaimed their place in the world, and their people can pursue better lives without being smited by alchemical warheads. However, peace and prosperity have not yet come to all: In many places, the world's revitalization has only rekindled conflicts once buried. From the wicked heart of Cheliax to the haunted halls of Geb, it is a time of rebuilding, a time of struggle, and an age of power vacuums and old orders clashing against the dawn of something new.
After a long age of stagnation, even this chaos is a spark of HOPE. Golarion is healing. The Worldweep shaped by Atropos's wish returns souls to the land in a new cycle of life and death. New generations of heroes, building upon the success of those who came before, fight for kindness and justice against the forces of greed and authoritarianism. And throughout the world, more and more people finally have some promise of safety from the cruelties of man and nature.
But this tenuous age of renewal faces a new danger. The skies above the blasted remains of the Mana Wastes rip open. The lost city of Alkenstar, wiped off the face of Golarion by the Alchemist in the wake of her ascension, reappears in splintered ruins spread across the Spellscar Desert. Fragments of a strange and unknown crystal rain down upon the Wastes, then the rest of Garund, and soon the whole of Golarion itself.
It doesn’t stop at crystals. Sometimes, the rains bring beings from the Great Beyond: Angels, azata, daemons, devils, shades from the Netherworld, and even spiders from the horrid dimension Leng slip into The Universe for the first time in over a thousand years. Some of these extraplanar creatures are friends, and some are foes, but none of them should have been able to cross over. The Worldweep's barrier cutting the Unverse off from the rest of existence still stands. And though these visitors are cause for hope that the barrier could finally be destroyed, the impossibility of their arrival is cause for concern in a world of such tenuous safety. The world's heroes rally to protect the innocent from the Great Beyond's more malicious creatures while its greatest minds try to understand how they reached the Universe at all.
Teams of scholars, builders, and scouts gather in a small town at the edge of the Mana Wastes that they call Moonlit Junction, forming a small coalition of guilds. As dangerous as the ruins are, they hold extremely powerful and valuable relics far beyond the odd bits and pieces of old Alkenstar debris found in the desert before. Studying them might be the key to understanding the shardstorms–and if it isn’t, they could still make someone unbelievably rich.
There’s only one problem: The most valuable relics are encased in jagged shards of singing crystal. Explorers who come into contact with these crystals are stricken by the shardsickness—a state of delirious, supernatural madness that hasn’t been seen since the Worldweep was destroyed. The only ones who can handle the crystals safely are those touched by one of the “weepshards” fallen from the sky. The ones the world calls Shardbound.
It’s going to take a small army of adventurers to recover all the relics waiting in Alkenstar. They’ll have to face bandits, mutants, the beasts of the Mana Wastes, the perils of a shattered city forgotten by time, and all the rivals and monsters that would threaten their fragile haven and its overstressed supply lines. It’s going to take courage, heroism, a little bit of luck, and a group united in purpose. The fetchling brothers Adrian and Arlo, treasure hunters who witnessed the first shardstorm, propose a solution. A call to action for all the Shardbound of the world. And a new adventurer's guild established under their leadership, not so different from the one their grandmother built in another small town called Moonlit so many years ago.
The Harbor of Hearts is open for business.