Lore

As the night falls, while children sleep, their fears and anxieties attract hungry monsters called Bugaboos. Invisible to human eyes, these creatures drain the Anima from the little ones, a pure essence of innocent souls, and flee to their realm, becoming stronger to repeat the cycle infinitely.

Between kids and bugaboos, there's only a last line of defense: plushies. Protective manifestations of virtue in the form of toys, every night these anonymous guardians hone their skills to endure battles against the invaders. The more difficult a child's life, the greater the threat.

For millennia, all these simple heroes could do was withstand the incessant attacks. Nobody knows how this war began and surviving one more night was all that ever mattered.

Then, everything has changed.

When an immemorial bugaboo escaped back to his realm taking an orphan's Anima, its guardian refused to accept defeat. In a gesture of desperation and love, he did not hesitate to pursue the creature to its decaying dimension. Despite the outburst of madness, such bravery moved the other plushies at the orphanage, and they joined in the lost cause.

Against all odds, the group miraculously survived. Unbending guardians departed, victorious legends returned.

With the new knowledge gained, the plushies were able to stabilize the portals between the two worlds, connecting the bedrooms of the entire planet for the first time. Joint forces of plushies organized pioneering incursions into the Bugaboo Realm, discovering new resources, opening trade routes and founding fledgling colonies.

But as the new ties brought cooperation, they also opened up rivalries, competitions, and conflicts between plushies. Against greater challenges and dangers, many have turned to the corrupted Bugaboo Domains to amplify their own powers. Some going too far.

Plushies would never be the same again.

The older ones called of Age of Shield the long defensive period that has ended, while the cease of plushie isolation ushered the Age of Sword. Now the guardians were not only survivors but pathfinders, conquerors, soldiers, waging war on the enemy on their terms and dealing with the rising ambitions and corruptions of their own race.

Meanwhile, among the horrors rooted in the depths of that plane, dark secrets of a forgotten past would emerge as the most dangerous. When crossing through a portal, no guardian can help but feel a chilling, uncomfortable familiarity.