Elemental: War of Magic Preview

Joystiq has cranked out another preview of Elemental: War of Magic, though this latest article reads almost like an interview as it's loaded with commentary from Stardock CEO Brad Wardell.
The story behind the game is complicated as well -- the collector's edition will come with a book called "The Hiergamanon," part of a series published by Random House, that sets up some of the centuries-old history of the game. The story revolves around the Forge of the Overlord, an item built to warp reality and create magical items, so powerful that just the creation of it attracted a race of superbeings called the Titans to Earth. Over a series of battles, they created the various races in the game, broke the Forge, and eventually imprisoned the world's magic in elemental shards found around the now barren game world, leaving the player to bring back life and magic to try and break out of the Titans' grasp.

Besides the regular sandbox mode, there is a full campaign attached -- "a single continuous story-driven campaign, written by Random House's writing team," says Wardell -- and beyond that, the modding tools are immense, with players able to create their own heroes, races, factions, questlines, maps, or whatever else they'd like to put together. The in-game campaign was created with the included tools, and it's easy to imagine players recreating famous D&D storylines or old-school RPG campaigns, along with their own original creations, all shared directly inside the game.