The @Gingerbread of Everjoy are among the most wondrous and most endangered beings to walk the land—living confections shaped by ancient magic, bound to a curse older than any kingdom now standing. They trace their origin to @Backofenland, a mysterious island far from the mainland and home to the legendary Founding Cookie, the first and greatest of their kind. Stories told in @The Great Lebkuchen Kingdom say the Founding Cookie was created by a divine spark of winter magic, rising from the heat of an enchanted oven like a newborn star of dough and spice. From him came the recipe for life, and with it he brought forth the first Gingerbread People.
The Founding Cookie possessed power unmatched in any era. His magic could raise gingerbread from raw dough, breathe warmth into their frosting, and grant them thought and soul. But with that miracle came a darker truth: if a living Gingerbread Person is eaten by a member of any mortal race— @Human, @Gremlin, @Vermin, @Ice Goblin, @Elf—the devourer falls into a spiral of madness. The curse twists the mind and erodes restraint, transforming the eater into a ravenous creature obsessed only with consuming more Gingerbread.
What makes this curse most haunting is the tale of the Great Crumbling, a prophecy tied to the Founding Cookie’s unused power. It is said he could have shattered the island itself and awakened titans of gingerbread—mountain-sized colossi made of hardened dough and burning sugar—to march across the world until every city, forest, and kingdom lay flattened beneath their frosting-coated feet. Yet he never forged a single titan. Peace was his nature, not destruction. When he died, he carried the secret of his own recipe to the grave, leaving no path for others to wield such world-ending might.
For centuries after his passing, the Gingerbread People built settlements across @Backofenland, eventually forming the shining @The Great Lebkuchen Kingdom behind tall cookie-brick walls. Their society blossomed—sweet, industrious, and hopeful. But peace did not last. When the first human explorers reached the island, curiosity turned to tragedy. A single bite was all it took. The curse awakened in them, then in those they bit, and soon waves of madness swept through the invaders. More ships came after, filled with outsiders seeking discovery or conquest, only to fall to the same affliction.
Within a generation, Backofenland became overrun with @Feral Human, cursed wanderers who stalk the wilderness in crazed hunger for gingerbread flesh. To survive, the Gingerbread retreated behind the great walls of the Lebkuchen Kingdom, sealing themselves away from a world that would devour them.
Now the Crumb Scouts, the bravest of their people, venture beyond the walls to search for missing citizens, burn back the feral hordes, and one day reclaim their homeland. Their mission grows more desperate each year. Without intervention, the Gingerbread fear they will face extinction—and with their fall, the last link to the Founding Cookie’s peaceful legacy may crumble forever.
Crumb Scout:
@Aaron Yogurt
@Melody Udderman
@Almond Afoot
@Benedict Kiss