Nine Against Us

The nomadic tribes have traveled across this dying world and it's long-forgotten ruins for longer than anyone can remember. We've made a life for ourselves in pockets here and there, hunted the wild herds for food when necessary, and done our best to till what little life is left in the soil. It's in the ground that we find things: remnants of a thousand great empires--their writings just gibberish. These "ancestors" have left many signs of their societies, and brag from beyond the grave about the lives they lived in luxury and with magics we could never comprehend...but they've been gone for so long that the continents have shifted, burying their sins for we, their children to find.

And still we dug, looking for--I don't know what. Until we found something--an ebony orb, that seem to be made of mist, but harder than diamond. It was silent at first, but when our backs were turned it broadcast terror so cold and cruel that it did terrible things to our minds and our bodies. It twisted some of us into monsters--unrecognizable in form and spirit. And those that succumbed became its hateful children, laying waste to their brothers and sisters without memory or compassion for the meek. Soon it it used our ancestors--our long dead forefathers and recently passed brethren--to do it's malice against us also.

Our world wasn't our own anymore. And that was just the beginning...

There were eight more, just like it.