Welcome, to New Letia!
An ancient, but beautiful world full of flora and fauna, most of which hellbent on killing and devouring each other for survival.
Although old, the name New Letia was given to it by its latest arrivals; a humanoid species that had gotten displaced from their home world, and was transported here by those only known as The Ancients.
The Letians originated from a planet called “Letia”, and while they were a fairly evolved species, they did lack a certain imagination with the naming conventions, proving so by calling themselves “Letians” and their new home world “New Letia”.
Within a short time of the Letian’s arrival, the local flora and fauna rapidly adapted to their new exciting food source. As it turns out, The Ancients did in fact find a planet very similar to the original Letia, but they either overestimated the Letians or underestimated the original -and ravenously hungry- inhabitants.
The Letians didn’t quite get decimated, which would have been a significant improvement, as in a mere two months almost a third of the population had been mauled, shredded, poisoned, or simply been eaten alive.
By the time The Ancients came up with a good way to intervene that didn’t involve another few decades hunting for a new planet suitable for the Letian’s physiology, over half of the Letians had perished.
Casualties had been anticipated, but moving here was still preferable to staying on Letia; which had been tearing itself apart due to tidal disruption and would have meant the end for all Letians. Granted, New Letia seemed to have a pretty similar fate in mind for the newest arrivals, so once again The Ancients had to intervene.
Even though it went against their believes to intervene in such a massive scale, with relocating an entire species -or what was left of them at this point- to a new planet already stretching their moral code; leaving now and letting the species they had just saved go extinct would simply be too much, and a little rude.
They had mastered mixing organics and engineering centuries ago, and released a gene-editing virus that radically changed the Letians, altering them at a molecular level, to help them survive this a-smidge-too-hostile new home.
One night the Letians went to sleep afraid, suffering, and wondering who would be next to die a gruesome death, but the next morning they woke up stronger, faster, looking a little different and a tad worse for wear, especially when their new abilities awakened with them.
It was a sight to behold, people screaming in terror as they accidentally set things -and each other- on fire, tore trees out of the ground by bumping into them, and ending up halving their remaining population in very new and inventive ways before they figured out how to manage their newfound powers.
Witnessing this disaster, no matter how good their intentions were, The Ancients slunk away, for every time they tried to help, they fucked the situation up even further.
As the Letians -less than a quarter of those that had safely arrived on this new world- finally adapted to this new world, these new powers, and the now relatively harmless flora and fauna, The Ancients did keep an occasional eye on them to make sure things didn’t escalate even further, until they left them alone and faded into obscurity and legends.
This is where their new stories will start, many many years later, having fully adapted to this new world and their new bodies, and successfully expanding the population from barely sustainable numbers to a thriving society.