The year is 1314 and the world is not our world, though it is superficially similar.
Europe has fallen before the might of the NecRoman Empire, with only the British Isles(and Ireland) along with Scandinavia holding out. The secret to the Roman Empire's power? The dead. The walking dead serve in their armies, work their fields and staff their factories. The poor sign over their corpses for reanimation after death in return for a pittance, and often the Imperial Necromancers collect their bodies well before natural death would have claimed them, while the rich are intentionally re-animated to continue lives of fame and power.
But not all is peaceful within the borders of the Empire. There are still those who see the dead as an abomination, who have a secret war with those who worship them, and the Vampires from recently-conquered Eastern Europe have not taken their defeat lying down. While some are content to raise cults for food within the Imperial borders, others strike at the Empire's necromancers, and an unlucky(but growing) minority have tasted dead flesh one time too many and become fearsome Ghouls.
In central and southern Africa the Roman advance is blunted by powerful shamans and elementals, as well as the half-beast creatures that stalk the night.
In Russia and most of Asia, the defeated Goths have united with the Mongol Khans who have sworn vengeance against the Undying Empire after it stopped their conquest of Europe. Now the Khans scour the north for a way across the Bering Strait, and their scouts sift through the ruins of Australia for anything that might help them defeat the Caesar his army.
China is a walled state, almost overwhelmed by the Mongols when suddenly the Terracotta Army sprung to life to defend it, but now no one knows how to stop them bisecting anyone, even the Chinese, who try to cross its borders!
Japan is likewise sealed away from the world, surrounded by the Kamikaze, the Divine Wind.
Australia is a dead and barren land, covered with the remnants of the Aborigine civilization, gone a hundred years ago, and populated with a few empty-eyed tribes of black men who claim they remember nothing of those who were there before. It is said that the civilization's Dreamwalkers saw the rise of the Undying Empire in the night and took their people Elsewhere.
In India, the Devas walk. Spirits of destruction demanding blood sacrifice, dominating all but the few Buddhist monasteries that dot the countryside, defended by masters of unarmed war who nonetheless only do battle to defend themselves.
Muslim, Jew and Christian have been forced to work together in the Middle East, borders secured by relics and reliquaries containing pieces of the martyred dead, enough to keep their borders safe, but not enough to push the Undying Empire's forces back.
North America is nomadic, except for the strange, icebound nations in the farthest north who worship the dread Wendigo.
In South America exists the one force that might rival the Undying Empire were they ever to meet in battle, the Aztecs whose legions of heartless dead are bogged down attempting to reach the Incan mountain strongholds.
