ravnuz

I've created a lore to explain all these things, and posted in some places: The ancient vintarians, let's just call them "The Ancients" (Stargate inspiration), were an advanced civilization that developed a series of new technologies centered around their greatest achievement - the discovery of an inexhaustible source of energy called "lux aeterna" (or whatever you wanna call), that enabled the creation of walking machines, advanced tools and the powerful matter-energy conversion units that powers the network of teleporters and translocators (Atlantis inspiration). Lately they were experimenting with the possibility of using this technology to time travel. During the test of a time-traveling bubble, a huge pulse of high energy violently radiated outward, destroying their world with great loss of life. It turns out that this cataclysmic event opened several temporal rifts to this alternate dimension that would later be known simply as "The Rust". This creepy realm is a reflection of current reality, but somwhat different, toxic and rusty - (à la the "Upside Down" of Stranger Things). During this terrible accident, some "Ancients" were transported to "The Rust". These quickly died of starvation or intoxication in this inhospitable place. At the same time, many horrendous mechanical creatures and other non-biological forms of life invaded "Vintaria" (the world of Ancients) and killed everyone along the way. Those who managed to escape being sucked into the "Rust" realm and not being killed by that alien creatures, were affected by the residual energy radiation from the temporal explosion and went mad or lost their memory completely. Over time this radiation lost energy and dropped, the portals gradually closed, most of the creatures returned to "Rust" and those that remained are trapped in this world, and life is blooming again in Vintaria. The zones of temporal instability and temporal storms that still plague this world are remnants of the old temporal rifts that destroyed the world of the Ancients. When a temporal storm passes over these areas, a power surge happens that reopens these portals once again. Those caught in the middle of the storm are momentarily transported to "Rust", where those fiendish creatures arise once more to take their victims. As a result of these terrible events, all ancient knowledge was lost and all memory of the former glory was forgotten, only to be rediscovered again by a magnificent new species, descendants of the "Ancients", who roam again in this wonderful world: the "Seraphs"

I just started to play VS, and yet have not heard about the VS Story, but thats how I imagined and posted on discord, It very much matched your story: That's how I imagine the world of Vintage Story. The ancient vintarians, let's just call them "The Ancients" (Stargate inspiration), were an advanced civilization that developed a series of new technologies centered around their greatest achievement - the discovery of an inexhaustible source of energy called "lux aeterna", that enabled the creation of walking machines, advanced tools and the powerful matter-energy conversion units that powers the network of teleporters and translocators. Lately they were experimenting with the possibility of using this technology to time travel. During the test of a time-traveling bubble, a huge pulse of high energy violently radiated outward, destroying their world with great loss of life. (Stargate and Atlantis inspiration) It turns out that this cataclysmic event opened several temporal rifts to this alternate dimension that would later be known simply as "The Rust". This creepy realm is a reflection of current reality, but somwhat different, toxic and rusty - (à la the "Upside Down" of Stranger Things). During this terrible accident, some "Ancients" were transported to "The Rust". These quickly died of starvation or intoxication in this inhospitable place. At the same time, many horrendous mechanical creatures and other non-biological forms of life invaded "Vintaria" (the world of Ancients) and killed everyone along the way. Those who managed to escape being sucked into the "Rust" realm and not being killed by that alien creatures, were affected by the residual energy radiation from the temporal explosion and went mad or lost their memory completely. Over time this radiation lost energy and dropped, the portals gradually closed, most of the creatures returned to "Rust" and those that remained are trapped in this world, and life is blooming again in Vintaria. The zones of temporal instability and temporal storms that still plague this world are remnants of the old temporal rifts that destroyed the world of the Ancients. When a temporal storm passes over these areas, a power surge happens that reopens these portals once again. Those caught in the middle of the storm are momentarily transported to "Rust", where those fiendish creatures arise once more to take their victims. As a result of these terrible events, all ancient knowledge was lost and all memory of the former glory was forgotten, only to be rediscovered again by a magnificent new species, descendants of the "Ancients", who roam again in this wonderful world: the "Seraphs"