The Cinders are a race shrouded in mystery, born from humanity’s earliest days on ancient Earth. When the Outer Gods awoke and catastrophe engulfed the world, those trapped within the Enclosed Area were irrevocably transformed—severed from the outside, their humanity scorched away. For millennia, they remained hidden, until at last the barriers fell, and the Cinders emerged into the fringe world, desperate exiles fleeing toward the stars.

Inside the Enclosed Area, three thousand years of war twisted the survivors into grotesque reflections of their former selves. One faction became a monstrous colossus—stitched together from flesh, lies, and terror. The other surrendered their humanity entirely, pledging allegiance to a cold, calculating data intelligence, trading their souls for hollow salvation before vanishing into an eternal, dreamless sleep. In their madness, both sides burned themselves as kindling, chasing illusions of victory until nothing remained but ash.

When the whispers of rebellion swelled into thunder, the Cinders could no longer endure their suffering. Their unity shattered into a thousand cries of defiance. From the crucible of oppression, cults arose—once instruments of delusion, now wielding the fervor of revolution. Under their banners, the twisted colossus fell. The Enclosed Area collapsed, and from its ruin burst the newborn Lantern Fleet, tearing free from gravity’s grasp and the flames of a dying world.

Their ships carry the ashes of dead civilizations—and the embers of rebirth. Though the data intelligence’s shadow pursues them without end, the Cinders press onward, their course set for the cold, hopeful void.