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Part 1: The Dawn Times and the Age of Wood
In the beginning, the world was new, and the people were frightened and alone.
Spirits, born of the dreams of the sleeping earth, tormented humanity, demanding tributes and power from the one race that could truly understand their wishes, and could therefore be bullied. Creatures from beyond the veil of space and time preyed upon them, devouring their Essence for their own desires and hopes. The world was fragile, and humanity was but an afterthought, a creature abandoned by an uncaring creator.
Who created the world is a matter of endless conjecture. Some say it was the very creatures who preyed upon humanity, the formless Primordials who observed the world, and sent malicious demons in to sow terror and destruction, or the strange Fae who walked the world, and then gave it up to return to their formless chaos through gates that humans could not travel. Others claim that it was a greated God, who abandoned the world in disgust at the weakness of humanity, leaving it to the dark things that lurk between worlds. Some say that no one created the world; it spawned itself, in its own dreams.
Ultimately, it matters only to scholars. Humanity was weak and enslaved, unable to advance far enough to truly defend itself. While the basics of agriculture and writing existed, they were confined to the lucky, for they drew the attention of the many creatures better-equipped than humanity to take them. Writings from this time are spotty, and exact knowledge of what transpired during it are reserved for the most powerful of Sorcerers.
The Dawn Times were nearly the Dusk, as well, an endless period of light and shadow that humanity seemed doomed to linger in forever. Then came the First Magus, whose name has been lost to time.
Part 2: The First Magus and the Age of Fire
According to legend, the First Magus was a priest of a greedy river-spirit, whose tribe was annihilated by the Fair Folk. Angered at the fact that all their sacrifices, all their pain, had been for nothing. The Magus trekked, bleeding and exhausted, to the river shrine that he and his village had so scrupulously kept for their god, the god who had abandoned them. There, he demanded of the god why it had not come to help when they needed it. For three days and nights he remained, neither eating nor sleeping, only repeating his question periodically. Finally, the god appeared.
Imperiously, the god announced that the Fae who had attacked the Magus's village were mighty, and it did not feel the need to risk its safety for mere mortals. The Magus stared as he was informed that, after all, mortals were easily replaced, but a god's life was far greater. When he opened his mouth to argue, the god struck him from the rock, sending him crashing to the ground. His experiences, his anger, and the power that still suffused the area combined, and the Magus passed through the First Gate and found true power. Before the god could react, he had turned his magic against it, finding it not so mighty after all, and bound it to serve him. Suffused with power, he set about finding other humans to share it, and began a war against the gods.
The war was long and bloody. The Magus spread his power to any who would accept it, raising an army of magi to challenge the gods and monsters. As his power spread, the gods began to rally against him, but they could not organize in their paranoia, and it was soon too late. In the end, after decades (possibly centuries) of violence, the gods were brought to heel, and the demons and fae were reduced to sniffing around the edges of the world, no longer ruling it openly.
Part 3: The Golden Era, the Age of Wind
Led by the Magus, the world began to advance in leaps and bounds. Slowly, the mages divided into those who could work the simple tasks, the thaumaturges, and those who passed beyond the Gates and found true power, the Sorcerers. Thaumaturges were widespread, but the Sorcerers were more rare, confined to those willing to take great risk for great power. Most sorcerers followed the teachings of the Magus, but a few greatly increased their power by taking what was called the “left-hand path”. Rather than open their Essence Gates slowly, harnessing some to fuel the others, they opened each in turn, gaining great power, at the cost of fragments of their own souls. Still, the sorcerers kept their fellows in line, and for hundreds of years, new magics and technologies were developed, and the world lay under a true golden age of prosperity, imagination as free as the wind.
It was doomed to end, however. As their power grew, the Sorcerers began to forget that not all were as they were. One of them, Tetranos, began to imagine a world in which everyone could freely pass through the gates, a world so suffused with Essence that any human could be a sorcerer. Although the world was a beautiful place, there were still constant incursions from demons and fae, and rogue spirits continued to cause trouble at times. With the power of the Sorcerers in all of humanity, the world could advance freely, he thought.
Tetranos’s dream required, in his mind, a great sacrifice, and he and his companions each walked the left-hand path to open all their Essence Gates. Marshalling all of his power and skill, he set about creating the most powerful spell in history, a spell that required five sorcerers of his newly increased magnitude and the combined power of all the Manses in a dozen kingdoms. Exactly what the spell did is not known. It is generally believed that it redirected the Essence flows of the sky, bringing them more strongly in contact with Creation, in order to suffuse the world with it. It succeeded, but the effect was catastrophic.
Part 4: The Long Dusk and the Age of Earth
Concentrated Essence scoured the land, warping it as it went. The power of the Essence was too much for the patterns of Creation, and they gave way under its onslaught. People were destroyed, or transformed into horrible monstrosities. And as time went on, the Sun grew ever-brighter, and the areas affected by the devastation continued to grow. Tetranos and his Circle were dead, destroyed by the power they had unleashed. The fae and demons laughed, using the damaged patterns to enter and wreck havoc on an unprepared world.
In order to combat the fae, sorcerers were forced to take the left-hand path, grasping for the power they need to do battle with the forces of Chaos. As they spread through the path, and the followers of the Magus were wiped out by their many enemies, the left-hand sorcerers became the majority, and their lands were the only ones that largely survived the apocalypse.
Finally, the greatest of the sorcerers successfully gathered, and enacted a massive ritual, sacrificing hundreds of souls in order to cast a spell every bit a match for the power that Tetranos had unleashed. Their magic created a vast cloud cover, suffused with souls, that combated the power of the sun and covered the world in a blessed shade. Spreading from the Blessed Isle, their spell encapsulated Creation itself.
Present Day: The Age of Water
The Age of Earth has been a grim one. The sorcerers have grown increasingly paranoid of each other and of the world, and whenever anything rises to challenge them, they strike it down. In particular, the strange events known as Wyld Flares are their greatest fears, sudden Essence flows breaking through the mystical defenses in order to ravage territories and even cities. In their wake, they leave twisted mutants, and the lucky few – glamourweavers, humans with the natural power to shift the flows of the Wyld and remake reality.
Now, however, the power of the Radiance is wearing away the world's defenses, as water wears away a cliff. Both Wyld Flares and complete breakdowns, in which whole regions are swiftly tainted, are becoming more common, even as the sorcerers turn on one another. Some sorcerers look for solutions, but most turn their back on humanity in search of power for their own purposes. Pride and lust for power have destroyed the Sorcerers, along with their own withdrawl from humanity. Can those who are sane, along with the glamourweavers, save Creation? Or is it doomed to collapse back into the Wyld?
