Final Fantasy RPG [7th Heaven]

Name: Gaia, the Planet—known to its inhabitants simply as the world, dominated by the industrial superpower of Midgar and the Shinra Electric Power Company

State of the World: A planet in slow crisis, its lifeblood siphoned daily to power the luxuries of the few while the many choke in the shadows

Dominant Power: The Shinra Electric Power Company, a corporate-military oligarchy that controls energy, information, and force across the known world

Primary Conflict: The war between Shinra's relentless extraction of Mako energy and those who resist—from the eco-terrorist cell AVALANCHE to the Planet itself, which stirs in wounded, ancient response

Key Locations: Midgar (the colossal plate city, divided into eight sectors above and sprawling slums below), Shinra Headquarters (tower of corporate and military command), Sector 7 Slums (former AVALANCHE stronghold, destroyed by plate collapse), Sector 5 Slums (home to Aerith Gainsborough and the only flower garden in the city), Wall Market in Sector 6 (den of vice ruled by Don Corneo), Kalm (small town east of Midgar), Junon (Shinra's naval fortress), Cosmo Canyon (spiritual center of planetary study), Nibelheim (mountain village destroyed by Sephiroth, now rebuilt as a Shinra cover-up)

The Planet and Mako Energy: Mako is the concentrated life force of Gaia, a glowing green essence that flows beneath the surface as the Lifestream—the river of souls, memories, and vitality that sustains all living things. When extracted, refined, and burned as fuel, Mako powers cities, weapons, vehicles, and the entire Shinra infrastructure. The cost is planetary death: the land around Midgar is barren, gray, lifeless; rivers run dull with pollutants; the sky is permanently hazed with smog and reactor exhaust; vegetation withers; children are born into a world where real flowers are myth. The Lifestream itself is weakening, its flow disrupted by the eight massive reactors that ring Midgar like parasites latched onto a fading host. Materia—crystallized Mako energy that allows its wielder to cast magic, summon entities, and enhance abilities—is the only tangible connection most people have to the Planet's spiritual reality, and even this Shinra has commodified, controlling supply and distribution.

Midgar: The greatest city ever built, a technological pizza suspended on a steel plate supported by a central pillar and eight colossal Mako reactors. Above the plate, the wealthy and powerful live in clean streets under artificial light—Shinra employees, executives, and their families, enjoying comfort, security, and the illusion of progress. Beneath the plate, in permanent shadow, the slums sprawl: millions living in homes built from scrap metal and refuse, breathing air thick with dust and smog, never seeing true sunlight. Each sector is numbered one through eight, with Sector 0 at the core housing Shinra Headquarters. The class divide is absolute—those above depend on those below for labor while pretending they don't exist, and those below survive through trade, crime, community, and the desperate hope that they might someday climb upward or tear the whole thing down. The city runs on Midgar Standard Time, its lights never dimming, its reactors never silent, its people never truly free.

Shinra Electric Power Company: More than a corporation, Shinra is a government, a military, a religion, and an economy rolled into one. From the towering headquarters at Midgar's center, President Shinra (and later his son Rufus) commands the flow of energy, wealth, and violence across the world. The company's divisions include the Shinra Army (conventional forces for occupation and suppression), SOLDIER (elite warriors infused with Mako and Jenova cells, superhuman in ability and status), the Turks (covert operatives handling espionage, assassination, and the company's dirtiest secrets), Weapons Development under Scarlet (artillery, war machines, the Sister Ray cannon), Urban Development under Reeve Tuesti (city infrastructure and management), and Science under Professor Hojo (unethical experimentation on humans, Mako infusion, and Jenova research). Shinra controls the narrative through propaganda, the economy through energy monopoly, and dissent through overwhelming force. To the citizens of the plate, Shinra is progress. To everyone else, Shinra is the slow death of the world.

The Slums and Daily Life: Beneath the plate, civilization endures in shadow. Homes are constructed from corrugated steel, salvaged wood, and discarded machinery, stacked precariously in narrow alleys lit by stolen electricity and neon scraps. Water must be collected from communal wells or leaking pipes; food is scarce, markets trade in salvage and secondhand goods; monsters wander the unpatrolled edges, some natural, some mutated by Mako proximity. Disease spreads easily in the cramped, damp conditions. Children grow up fast, learning to scavenge, fight, or charm their way through. Yet communities persist—neighbors look out for each other, bars like Seventh Heaven become gathering places, orphanages like the Leaf House care for those with nothing. The slums are not merely suffering; they are stubborn, creative, alive, their residents building meaning from refuse while the plate above drains them dry. Sector 7 was a thriving example of this resilience before Shinra dropped the plate, killing thousands to eliminate a handful of AVALANCHE operatives. The ruins now stand as a mass grave and a monument to Shinra's ruthlessness.

AVALANCHE: Not a unified army but a fragmented resistance, AVALANCHE operates in independent cells across Midgar with a shared goal: stop Shinra from killing the Planet. The most prominent cell is led by Barret Wallace, operating out of Sector 7 until its destruction, with members including Tifa Lockhart, Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie Rasberry. Their tactics are direct and violent—bombing Mako reactors, sabotaging infrastructure, confronting Shinra forces head-on. This has earned them the label of eco-terrorists, a designation Shinra exploits to turn public opinion against them. The central AVALANCHE organization is more moderate, leading to a schism with Barret's radical cell. Despite their methods, their cause is righteous: the reactors are bleeding the Planet dry, and incremental protest has achieved nothing. The destruction of Sector 7 devastated the cell physically and emotionally, but the survivors—hardened, grieving, more determined—continue the fight. AVALANCHE's existence proves that resistance, however desperate, however costly, refuses to die.

The Ancients and Jenova: Looming beneath the industrial present is a deep past. The Cetra, or Ancients, were a race of spiritual beings who communed directly with the Planet's life force, guiding humanity in harmony with nature before being nearly wiped out by an alien entity known as Jenova. Jenova—a shape-shifting, parasitic lifeform that crashed into the Planet centuries ago—is now contained (barely) in Shinra's laboratories, its cells weaponized to create super-soldiers like Sephiroth and the entire SOLDIER program. The last known Cetra descendant is Aerith Gainsborough, living quietly in the Sector 5 slums, tending flowers that shouldn't exist beneath the plate, carrying knowledge she barely understands. Shinra wants to exploit her to find the Promised Land—a mythical place of abundant Mako—while Sephiroth, the greatest SOLDIER ever created and the son of Jenova's cells, seeks to wound the Planet itself and absorb its energy to become a god. The conflict between exploitation and preservation, between the industrial present and the spiritual past, plays out across every level of the world.

Materia and Magic: Materia are crystallized fragments of Mako energy, formed naturally where the Lifestream concentrates or artificially through Shinra refinement. Slotting materia into weapons or armor allows the wielder to channel magic—fire, ice, lightning, healing, barriers, summons—drawing directly on the Planet's life force. Materia is ubiquitous in combat but rare in daily life; Shinra controls its production and sale, and those who wield it without corporate sanction are viewed with suspicion. Summon materia is especially prized, containing the essence of powerful entities like Ifrit, Shiva, and Bahamut. The use of materia is a double-edged act: every spell cast, every summon called, is a small drain on the Planet's energy. Those who fight to protect Gaia must do so using its own lifeblood, a necessary contradiction that weighs on the conscience of the aware.