Tome of Antiquity

The Day the World Went Away
The moment that all the magic left was brief; it came and went without fanfare. Its visually explosive exit left no physical mark on the world, only an intangible one. When it departed, it took everything that was truly exceptional about the land with it. Gone were the races that were touched by the Gods; gone were the diviners, conjurers, and evokers that employed the sorcerous arts; and gone were the hallowed objects of antiquity that could heal the sick that drank from them. A vacuum was left in its absence. In its stead, all that remained were future charlatans and con artists who would make the common man deny that magic ever existed at all.

Those that lived through the captivating time told stories about it. They spoke of elves and goblins and beasts that would spirit you away into the night. Tales were told of warrior priestesses and their journeys across the land to vanquish devilish fiends. What was never known was that the arcane age of men and monsters was never intended to exist in the first place. The Age of Magic was what could be called a fortunate accident; the unintended side effect of divine intervention and needless death. Soon after its birth, it was on the verge of ending before it even began. At its peak, it was foretold that it would end. And it would take the same men, monsters, and Gods to save it.

The First Age: The Era of the Divine
History of the World to Come

Time is subjective. Everyone and everything experiences it differently. The only obligation of time that defines any interval is that it must constantly move forward, like the footsteps of a lumbering giant. The worlds that give significance to time provide means and opportunities to those that dwell upon them. The species that are provided these chances define the age by shaping the environment around them. Some ages make an impact on eternity and others slither by without as much as a second glance. The Age of Magic was the former. But before understanding what the age was, it must be understood what led up to it.

In the great beginning, that which dwelled there, begot the Gods. These were beings of divine authority that could exercise enormous power throughout existence. These actualities were only limited by Their imaginations. It was only Their individual ingenuity that separated the major from the minor Gods. They gave light to the vacant darkness and filled the Verse with worlds. These worlds were large and small, visible and imperceptible, here and sometimes there at the same time. There were worlds within worlds and a few just outside the perception of others. And the Material Plane was their crown jewel. It was the key that opened all the locked doors of actuality, connecting all the worlds and planes. The Material Plane was personified as a relatively small green planet in the middle of space. Its eight brothers and sisters resided all around it, a constant reminder that it had succeeded where they had failed.

Not long after this monumental achievement of creating the multiverse, the more introspective of the divine began to question Their very existence. It crept into Their awareness while They gave life to the worlds of the Verse. They understood how all things came to be because They created all things. They understood how all things worked because They designed all things to work a certain way. They understood everything, except

Themselves. This train of thought became the first paradox. If the Gods gave life to all things, who gave life to the Gods? This caused great debate among the divine when They gathered. The question remained unanswered for millennia.

The solution to this enigma made itself known when one of the Gods suggested a grand experiment during one of these gatherings. She recommended that all the pantheon create forms of life in Their image, infuse them with a divine spark and allow them to live within the Verse. Through observing, caring for, and studying Their children, the Gods would eventually find the answers They sought. The spark They would plant within all Their creations would be an ember of divinity. It would hypothetically allow the creations to eventually become the peers of their creators. It would become known as the soul. The plan put forth fueled the imaginations of some and aroused the ego of others. A concurrence was reached, and the Makers set forth in Their tasks.

The Second Age: The Era of the First People
The Second Age would begin with what future historians would call Prehistory. It brought about the demi-humans, the chromatic spectrum of dragons, monstrous races of all kinds, and the wondrous creatures that would live amongst them. Made perfect in the eyes of their Gods, these beings fashioned their homes in the many realities that laid before them. They also unexpectedly conveyed forth the original magics from the nameless void between moments, a place primordial in age and embryonic in nature, during their creation.

The magic’s potential was raw and uncultivated. It chose to lie hidden, quietly gestating within the muscle and sinew of the young formations. Some of the more cerebral groups would learn to tap into this well of energy and unleash it into the world in magnificent and complex ways. Others would draw it out naturally, using it in everyday life. With it, the ancient civilizations of the forefathers began to spring up like dandelions in a field. This is the history of the First People.

All things needed to sustain the lives of the creations were provided for by their creators. Separate but equal, all the First People lived their lives throughout the Verse within their own realms, without fear of one another because all were satisfied with their share. Avarice, selfishness, and savagery were distant concepts which never entered the minds and hearts of the children of the Gods. Life was good, and the everlasting beings lived in peace.

Red Hands and Black Deeds

At least this was the case until The Voice of the Darkness spoke His earliest words unto His offspring. Being a vain and prideful God, Torvax compelled his chromatic wyrms to take more than their fair share. The Dragon God played upon the majesty of the beasts and bestowed upon them a vision of what they could become when the smoke cleared and the blood dried. With unseen hands, the Gods changed the dragons physically. He molded large and powerful wings upon their backs. These enabled the wyrms to attack the nations of the First People from the skies. His interference was the first truly evil act. It would stain the multiverse from that moment on and spread through the planes like a pox, infecting all that came into connect with it.

In whispered tones, Torvax directed His wyrms to their prey via dimensional gateways and told them what to do when they got there. In certain areas of the world, the draconic army blotted out the sun in the sky with their numbers. Initially clumsy and awkward in their task, the wyrms became exceedingly efficient in their methods in short order within the first few attacks. And during this time, Death walked the realms of the living for the first time. The children of the Gods were given everlasting life, but not immortality. They could be killed. He who would become the Reaper of Souls drank deeply from the cup of that which was mortal life, taking the souls from the husks of the fallen and as He did, His thirst for more grew.

Seizing on the carnage, some the more opportunistic deities, emboldened by the actions of the Dragon God, tried to carve out their own fiefdoms on Earth by coercing Their own creatures to act in tandem with the magnificent and terrible beasts. The children of Torvax killed by the score and laid waste to the land until only a small percentage of the living remained.

Torvax’s victory would have been total, if not for the giant kind and their kin. The giants were no match for their draconic enemies, but they were able to force a stalemate between the warring factions. Cloud giants hurled lightning bolts from their castles in the sky dropping dragons to the earth while the hill and fire giants gripped and bashed the ground bound with fist and hammer, squeezing breath from lungs and brains from bodies. The storm giants pounded the children of Torvax with massive tidal waves drawn from the ocean floor.

Eventually, when the giants saw that the battles were lost, and their numbers were dwindling, they retreated from the battlefield. On both sides, the corpses of the fallen laid stiff and lifeless like marionettes cut from their strings.

When their hunger was quenched, the wyrms and their minions laid claim to the greatest of the empires built by the First People. The dragons made nests erected from their newly-acquired treasures and their sycophants ran off with what was left. And none stood in their way. The few lingering elves retreated into the dense forests, now and forever distrustful of those not of their kind. The dwarves dug deep into the ground beneath the mountain ranges, creating veritable fortresses within their depths. The rest that could not protect themselves from the onslaught ran as far away as their bodies could take them, into the territories and realms of other creatures and beings.

As the war waged on, those falling against Torvax and His dragons cried out and pleaded for their divine parents to save them. But no help came. For the Gods in the Heavens wept. They wept for Their children and They wept for Themselves. They had not come to the defense of Their children because of fear. It was a numbing sensation that They had never experienced before, and They froze before it. In ignorance, the pantheon believed that they had created a perfect world, and They had. But it was governed by beings that were not. Omnipotence and titanic power had entitled them, but this immense failure had humbled them. They learned that they were fallible. They were slaves to Their essential natures and the transgressions of almost half the pantheon showed that not all Their natures were the same.

The tears shed by the divine fell on the world and flooded the Earth. The meager numbers of those that survived the draconic siege were again cut by half, washed away by the aquatic influx. In due course the tides receded, the tears formed the oceans and rivers of the now blue sphere. The carcasses of the departed beneath the waters sunk deep into the soil. As they settled down and took root in the marine tomb, the magics held within them seeped from their bones as they decomposed to nothingness. The originally nonaligned essence amalgamated with both the good and evil intents of those that had died using it. This unintended marriage would become the catalyst that which all future schools of magic would be based on. Its normally straight road had now forked.

The effect of the change saturated the lands with a new breed of sorcery, becoming the new lifeblood of the Material Plane. It seeped beneath the cracks of the doors between planes and found safe harbor in the worlds beyond. The druids would call these emanations ley lines. Upon discovering this new font of arcane ability radiating throughout in the world below, the Gods quickly shifted their spheres of influence to account for it. Three of the elder Gods: Festus, Poneum and Elios became the keepers of all things arcane. Festus would claim the good, Elios the neutral, and Poneum the evil aspect of the sorcerous arts. This marked the end of the Second Age.

The Third Age: The Era of Mortality
The Reverberations of Near Annihilation

When the tears of the Gods dried, the pantheon gathered for a summit. They had to figure out what they were going to do with the world they had created. A handful of the more vocal deities began it by denouncing the actions of their brethren and especially those of the newly minted God of Evil, Torvax. They accused Him of trying to mold the world in His image and by doing so, nearly destroying it in the process. He defended His actions through a long-winded oration, which summed up, stated that Their creations needed to be tested. The many years of living in bliss had stagnated their growth. Only by culling the herd and separating the strong from the weak could They truly see the future potential of Their children and determine whether Their grand experiment would come to fruition.

The wisest of the Gods, Elios, agreed with Her brother grudgingly. She conceded to the fact that without adversity, there could be no change. Without change, there could be no growth. Some of the other more level-headed of the pantheon saw merit in Her words. There was no more speak of punishment, for most now feared Torvax. But in that fear, a few still cried foul and said that all that Elios’ offerings were half-measures in response to the genocide of Their children. This put the Elder Gods in a daunting situation. They could not raise and restore the dead because it would defeat the purpose of the experiment and the pantheon must remain united in purpose, if not in Their goals. However, they could not ignore that the divine beings who lost everything because of Torvax’s arrogance and self-serving nature, could cause problems in the future, if nothing was done in the present.

In another flash of insight, Elios proclaimed that the many lost children should be returned to life but not in their original forms. Based on the good and evil intents of the groups involved, a metaphoric line was drawn down the middle. Those that protected and defended their people would be raised as protectors, servants, and messengers of the divine beings they originally served. These would become the archangels and angels. Those that murdered, pillaged, and destroyed would become the same for their masters. They would become the devils and demons. The assertion brought no real peace to the grieving parents, but it averted war for the moment.

Next, the gathered pantheon deemed the dragons to be too powerful to remain unchecked as they were. Those that lost the most in the conflict proposed to remove them from the world and others even advocated that they be unmade and erased from existence. Torvax vehemently decried this action. He countered that His children were worth far more than any of the remaining species. He reaffirmed that the new purpose of Earth and their creations was to see if the pantheon could produce beings worthy of becoming Gods. And the product of the latest conflict proved that His great wyrms were the closest to this goal. And with false sincerity, He sermonized that the sins of the parent should not be the sins of the child. If He was not to be punished by His peers, then neither should His creations.

Festus, one of the elder Gods, offered another solution. Seeing through His sibling’s deceptions, He put forward a plan to raise the remains of the fallen dragons from the ground, give them new life, change their fundamental nature, and protect them from the influence of the Dragon God. These would be the first of the metallic versions of the species. They would become the antithesis of the chromatics that Torvax held sway over. The motion from Festus pacified the others. They knew that this strategy would vex Torvax greatly, for He would have no control over these beasts and to know that their power would rival His own on the Material Plane would leave Him seething for all time.

The creatures that aided the dragons in their campaign were not immune to consequences of the summit, but they did not receive the same leniency as those before them. Instead of clemency, they would become the scapegoats to satisfy the pantheon’s need for justice. It would long be believed that the minions were judged unfairly for their actions. It was decided that their bodies and minds would be changed to reflect the inner greedy and selfish temperaments of their parents. The picturesque orcs, goblins, ogres, and their ilk were distorted in shape, size, and color. Their most prominent physical features were altered to the point of near malevolent mockery. And the changes weren’t purely carnal. The minds of these poor creatures were also distorted. Past pursuits, which included breakthroughs in mathematics, arts, and sciences were replaced with brutally dogmatic religion, wanton violence, and individual power struggles that would stagnate the growth of these races for years to come.

The final consensus reached was that the deities could no longer directly intervene in the lives of their creations. They could inspire, but not effect change. They could influence, but not sway. The divine could no longer sustain Their children physically or emotionally. They could connect with them subconsciously, but only while being hidden behind the veil between worlds. All the creations had to be on even footing despite the beliefs of a few. Per the new parameters of the experiment, the Gods could test the peoples of the world in subtle, indirect ways. The living in the Verse were now mortal and would be allowed to grow and die as they saw fit. They would love, fear, worship and kill as they were always meant to, freely and of their own volition. This decision did not go over well with most of the attendees, but they reluctantly agreed in the end. This rule would be broken during the next few Ages by some of the more self-serving members of the pantheon.

The passage of time meant little to the creators. The assembly that they were participating in lasted thousands of years from the perspective of their creations and their worlds. As decisions and accords were made in the Heavens, the outcomes were applied to the worlds below and throughout the Verse. It was during this time that the world would meet the Drow, the Halflings, and the Gnomes. The Drow were a dark-skinned and more malicious version of the elves who dwelled deep within the earth. Their lives would be weighed and measured by the family they were born to and how highly those families were prized in the eyes of their Goddess. The Halflings stood no taller than a keg of beer but possessed a keener insight into the world around them than their childish outward appearance would portray. Nimble of foot and finger, the energetic and optimistic halflings would spawn stories of adventure that would make any bard proud. The Gnomes, small in stature like the Halflings but more similar in appearance to dwarves, would become some of the most technical but forgetful minds that the worlds would ever see. Their imaginations would give rise to aerial marvels and mechanical endeavors that would be both terrifying and awe-inspiring.

These were just a few of the countless other variants of the remaining original species which started re-populating the Material Plane and the planet Earth. It would prove a long-believed concept that even without the assistance of the creators, life would find a way.

Of Dust and Nations

Gods of all three calibers: Major, Intermediate, and Minor, joined the pantheon based on these new cultures and people. Most, if not all, the new divinities began as ideas in the minds and hearts of mortals. These ideas became beliefs, and through those beliefs rose new life. By the time the current age was over, the planes were practically bursting at the seams with divine power. This turn of events would be most perplexing to the original creators. In a timeless and hard-fought search for the source of Themselves through the grand experiment, they were beset on all sides by beings equal in power and grace but created through the mass belief of Their children. There was no precedent for such an occurrence. Many of the original pantheon embraced Their new brothers and sisters in friendship, others held Them in non-spiteful esteem, and a few felt that Their new brethren were abominations and usurpers, unworthy to even worship at the feet of the true Gods.

Hidden within all this change, a new race of people sprung up as a new contender for dominion over the planet. They, like many others of their time, were overlooked by the Gods. They evolved through a natural selection process from an ancestor that was initially made because its creator found it entertaining. Their potential was believed to be limited and their capability for intellect wanting. But they were the first true scions of the Material world. These unknown variables would later be called Man. They constructed primitive tools that defined their first period of life and would use these tools to protect their families and make hunting for food easier. The many more advanced species left them alone because they believed man to be an impermanent addition to the realm. Humankind was smart enough to be dangerous to themselves and dumb enough to pose no real threats to their elders.

There were a few amid their numbers that learned to access the integrated magic of the old and new world to varying degrees. Because of the exposures to good and evil, magic could now be used in assorted ways based on the aim of the user. Man was the first to classify them into different schools. The gifts were used to heal the sick, promote crop growth and generally improve the lives of the nomadic tribes of people. The more ambitious of the human tribes also found a more profitable way to utilize this power. They used it to make war with one another. As their influence grew and larger clans subdued the smaller, humans began to roam the lands less and less. They laid down roots in various areas of the world and as species, set their sights to new horizons. This marked the entirety of the Third Age.

The Fourth Age: The Era of Aberrations
During the Fourth Age, the humanity of Earth achieved more than all the other species gave them credit for. They also nearly destroyed themselves about six times, making more than a few enemies along the way. But despite their flaws, the Gods grew to love Their adopted children. Torvax most of all. Mankind’s capability for evil was unrivaled by all but one other species in the world. Greed for power and wealth drove them to profound and unsavory depths. Yet their capability for good was just as powerful. Bards would tell stories and sing songs of the bravery, virtue, and selfless nature of those who chose to embrace these parts of their temperament.

For the next few thousand years, things settled into a comfortable routine. Alliances and friendships were forged between people of all races. Cities all over the land were no longer drawn along racial lines. The people intermingled with one another, shared in new discoveries and better ways of furthering their cultures. Larger racial communities began to splinter into smaller, more diverse ones.

From the original elves and drow came three more different versions: the wood elves, high elves, and moon elves. The wood and moon elves would become the ambassadors and protectors of Earth and the Material Plane itself. They served as the first rangers and druids in written history.

The rangers thrived on the edges of civilization. Whether it was a forest, desert, swamp, or mountainous terrain, there would probably be a wood elf that was an expert in the area. They would travel the world as guides to those that needed them, protect the forests and the natural world from poachers, and control the populations of predators and monsters that would seek to make these areas their home or desecrate the land in the name of conquest. Their protection would extend to keeping outsiders with evil intent from invading the Material Plane. Solitary in nature, wood elves often kept animals of all kinds as companions during

the long days and nights in the wilds of the world. The connection between man and beast would not be that of master and servant. It would be of brotherhood or sisterhood between peers.

The silvery-skinned moon elves were inclined to be druids. Druids were a combination of wizards and priests that revered nature above all things. Their life goal was to pursue more of a mystic spiritualistic association with nature rather than complete devotion to any one divine entity. To the druid, nature was a force of nature, like death. All things were humbled before it and subject to it. It is the great Mother which continuously gives life to all things. They place its needs and agenda above laws of men and Gods. They were guardians of balance, no one thing would have dominion over any another. Fire, water, earth, and wind are the guardian spirits of the druid. They lived and traveled upon the older and larger sentient trees that possessed the capability to move through forests as they saw fit.

Blessed with an intangible and unequaled connection to the arcane magic of Earth, the high elves built upon and perfected what the humans started. Like all elves, they had extremely long lives and spent their time studying all aspects of arcane academia. The golden-skinned race possessed an intellect that was rivaled by few. They delved deeply into all the different schools and their offshoots. The oldest and most respected tomes on all these subjects were written by the high elves. The famous Ashhurst Academy, which specialized in the training and education of wizards and sorcerers, counted two high elf magi and a high elf sorcerer among its founding members.

The dwarves now had three clans: the mountain dwarves, the deep dwarves, and the hill dwarves. The mountain dwarves varied very little from those that fled to the peaked ranges in the days of the draconic siege. They are steeped in tradition, loyalty to clan, and an unwavering devotion to their Gods. Despite being stubbornly rigid and set in their ways, these dwarves were some of the most renowned craftsmen and craftswomen found anywhere.

Mountain dwarf wares always commanded the highest prices because they were made of the highest quality materials available. Weapons and armor were their bread and butter and no nation would be seen going to war without them.

The deep dwarves were another matter altogether. Like the halflings, the first impressions left upon others were deceiving. Smaller, dirtier, and dumber were usually the first adjectives used to describe them. Living in a world within a world, the deep dwarves were fringe dwellers. They lived in small groups in caves nearby or beneath dwarven communities within the mountains, in almost complete darkness. They had adapted to their surrounding and could see perfectly in the blackness. Deep dwarves can be easily distinguished from their brethren by their cat-like eyes. The homes they fashioned were often filled to the brim with bric-a-brac and oddments of all shapes and sizes.

They were scavengers. They scraped out a meager existence living off the waste and leftovers of their cousins. They held an uneasy alliance with their more upstanding relatives because of their almost supernatural relationship with the rocks and minerals that encircled them. They could deduce the exact composition and nature of these formations simply by touch or taste. Due to a very rudimentary use of language, which mostly consisted of grunts and noises, communications with the deep dwarves were limited.

Hill dwarves themselves, weren’t really any different from their mountain kin at all. They generally held the same beliefs, traditions, and customs. The first of their people were outcasts and pariahs that didn’t fit in mountain dwarf society. The majority questioned the status quo and were tossed out on their arses from their ancestral homes for non-conformity. Some created communities on the outskirts of dwarven strongholds, playing middleman between the outside world and their brethren. Other took to the roads and byways of the world. They sold their wares from wagons or set up shop in towns and cities across the land. While many things would be different in the Fourth Age, there would still be many things that stayed the same. War were still fought for power, land, and wealth. Advances in science and technology led to more effective ways of starting and maintaining these wars. Races still found prejudice among their rank and file when dealing with others outside their own species, and individuals still horded power and knowledge for themselves at the expense of mortal kind. The stronger would always bully and harass the weak. And the entitled would still suppress the downtrodden. Despite these peccadilloes, the children of Earth and their Gods prospered and flourished.

The Fifth Age: The Era of the Arcane
The Beginning of the End

As the Fifth Age began to wane, the world started to change, and most of the residents of the Material Plane were afraid to admit it. It began in secret. Wizards of all races noticed that powerful incantations were losing their luster. Enchantments weren’t maintaining the proper duration and potions couldn’t even hold a moderate shelf life. Sorcerers whose arcane power came naturally, saw birth rates of their kind drop dramatically.

The wielders of divine magic also suffered from the change. They could no longer return life to the dead or regenerate limbs lost in battle. The ignorant within their ranks proclaimed that it was a lack of faith or in more malicious cases, tried to cast down others by claiming that the afflicted transgressed against their God and the loss of power was proof of this. Worst of all, some clerics and priests claimed that they could no longer heard the voice or feel the presence of their Lords.

The world of men wasn’t the only one plagued by these problems. Plants and animals were affected. Crops that originally produced bountiful harvests were yielding less and less each year. Plants that possessed magical properties that were used for potions and salves were becoming harder and harder to find or maintain. Monstrous and magical creatures, most of all, took the brunt of this upheaval. The smaller and weakest went first, almost overnight. The students at Ashhurst Academy, the long-standing school for the study of the arcane arts, held an annual festival that would culminate in what was called, the Dance of the Fairies. Pixies and their kind, attracted by jars of sweet jellies, would come by the swarm, dancing and playing with the students. This tradition ended when no fairy folk arrived despite the numerous temptations. After this, no fairy or pixie folk were seen again--anywhere. When leaders of the world began to take notice, it was already too late. The consensus was reached shortly after and it told people what they already knew, the age of magic was ending.

This unprecedented happening did not go unnoticed by the Gods. There were even a few among them that foresaw the occurrences and the consequences that would befall both men and Gods alike. Warnings went unheeded by most of the others. Believing Themselves to be above the calamity and self-assured that if men and beast continued to worship them, they would persevere. Even as they scoffed at the warnings, some saw their influence on the Material Plane wane. There was no rhyme or reason to whom among the pantheon would be affected and whom would not be. Divine beings of all three statures felt the effects to one extent or another. But there were some amongst the divine that did not forsake such a foretelling.

Come All You Weary

The three Gods of magic: Festus, Poneum and Elios, decided to hold court with other divine beings to do something about the impending cataclysm. In attendance was Rygar the Blacksmith Above All, Kuthar-Khan Master of Space and Time and surprisingly, The Lord of Death, Azazel. Kuthar-Khan began the second great summit by explaining that He saw no future where the impending doom could be averted and no past moment where it could be prevented. But He did see that the coming of the event would be heralded by three sacrifices. The exact details were hazy, even for Him, due to the proximity of the event. Never had a God been so hindered in His or Her bailiwick before. Trepidation filled the meeting like a fog. Even Azazel the Unfeeling, felt the touch of it upon His skin.

To break the tension, Kuthar-Khan proposed a solution that would address what They did know and what They could do about it. The proposal was radical. They would save the magic that was left in the world by taking it all at once and leaving the Material Plane barren of this essence. The other planes of existence would remain but the grand door that connected them would be locked forever. The mission required the Gods of Magic to find folk that would preserve and grow the different schools of magic. The Blacksmith would create an object to unify and focus the magics, Kuthar-Khan would have to create a place for the object and the people to dwell, and the Reaper of Souls was tasked to find creatures or beings willing to protect the people and the object.

To the south of most of the civilized world was a smaller continent. Those who had mapped it believed it less to be a continent, and more like a big island. This land mass which would become to be known as Cydonia was full of varied terrains and climates. The magical ley lines that encircled the globe met and danced together beneath Cydonia, giving it the greatest potential for success. The magical decay affecting the rest of the world would decelerate to a more manageable rate while all involved could complete their preparations.

On the lands of Cydonia, the Gods of Magic cultivated their few to safeguard the future of their gifts. The Lords of the Arcane took the foretelling of their brethren to heart and acted. They drew humans, demi-humans, and creatures of all kinds to the haven. These deities learned the lesson of their sibling Torvax and avoided directly intervening in the lives and fates of the mortals. They subtly pushed in some areas and provided opportunities in other areas that would suit their plan. The mortals thrived in their new environment and established 8 tribes: Gryznak, Scuttlepuff, Jahtrostus, Philandrian, Zylvandrake, Ruplemore, Wiseaufang, and Stridehide.

To further the divine agenda, Poneum and Elios gave each of these tribes a school of magic. The Gryznak were given dominion over the school of Necromancy. Zylvandrake became the ultimate authority in the realm of Evocation. The Ruplemore clan were blessed with the school of Illusion. The Wiseaufang tribe became the greatest of the conjurers. Scuttlepuff commanded the power of Transmutation. To be a part of Stridehide was to live and breathe the school of Enchantment. Wielding arcane energy itself, or Abjuration, was the responsibility of the Philandrian. Divination was the specialty of the smallest and most aloof clan, the Jahtrostus.  This provided a focus to grow and evolve the individual schools without tipping the scales in any one tribe’s favor. The wizards and sorcerers could cast from any school they had access to but their true might lied within their chosen specialization school.

Festus took exceptional interest in the affairs of these mortals. When able, He took an earthly form as an advisor and storyteller named Osrick Kord. He would guide and assist the tribes when they needed it. Osrick showed no favorites. He split his time between all the clans and assisted them when he was able. He broke no divine accords because He forced nothing upon these beings. Either they chose to listen to his sage advice or they didn’t. As the event grew closer, Festus found Himself in the guise of Osrick more and more.

Rygar, always being the practical and straightforward sort, took to the more mechanically and artistically inclined peoples of Scuttlepuff straightaway. He guided them deep into the mountains, among the dwarves, where he could hone their individual talents and teach them the skills necessary to create the weapons and items that would provide the experience needed to conceive and develop the future Chalice that would convey the wizarding world within. This narrow focus would make the Scuttlepuffs some of the greatest artisans of the time, but the isolation of the people would keep them away from the rest of the clans until the Chalice was finished and presented.

Kuthar-Khan had the most multifaceted task of all those involved. He had to create a space that could exist all on all planes and have an existential presence is all timelines. This extra dimensional space would occupy a plane for a pre-determined amount of time, but it could not impede or hinder that space in any way. Nor could it effect or influence the flow or direction of any other timeline, all 23,837,992,778,901,867,113,900,417 of them. Although divine beings are known to be inexhaustible, what was needed to be done to make the extra-dimensional ark work and function for the foreseeable future would test the boundaries of the Elder God’s insurmountable endurance.

The work ranged from the utterly simplistic to the epically complex. Because of the nature of how and when the space would appear on a plane at any given time, something as simple as a patch of flowers could drastically affect that place or time. The patch could have to be moved and allowed to survive because one day, a rabbit would need to eat those same flowers. The same animal would then be shot and eaten by a hero in his, her or its time of need. And the life-giving energy transferred from beast to man would help the hero overcome some sort of obstacle their path. And not only would this patch of flowers have to be moved on one plane, it would have to be moved in alternate dimensions of the same plane, and every alternate version that would produce the same result. The devil was in the details.

Lastly, Azazel saw no urgency to do His portion. Death would always be a part of life, whether magic was in the world or not. He believed Himself to be less a divine being and more of a force of nature. Sentient creatures would pray and worship at His feet, whether they intended to or not. But He had existed long enough to have tempered His arrogance with wisdom and so had chosen to hedge His bets. Time is relative for something that lives forever, and He knew that sooner or later, the opportunity to fulfill His part of the pact would present itself sooner or later. And soon it did.

A roguish monster hunter named Lazarus St. James, along with his longtime troll companion, Nutmeg, had recently taken up the name and battle standard of a cursed legion of warriors from the past that owed a boon to the Lord of Death. This long dead warband had a direct connection to the Reaper of Souls. A century past, brethren of Azazel proposed a bargain that would give sole dominion of the legion members souls to Death. In exchange, Azazel was to sap the lifeforces of these warriors at a certain place and time. The deal went sideways when other divine beings interjected on the mortal’s behalf and in the end, Azazel received a mere half of the souls He was promised. The outcome had left the Unfeeling One livid. Many Gods and mortals entered bargains with Him, asking for more time or renewed vigor. He had come out on the winning side of such deals a lion’s share of the time. Never had He suffered such a loss.

While some of the pantheon was engaged in some internal strife and others were distracted with preparing for the coming upheaval, Azazel seized the opportunity and took what was His. The promised souls made their way to Him through all means accessible to the Reaper. Some died on the battlefield, some died in their beds. Others were taken through carefully constructed accidents and others still though not so carefully constructed ways. In the end, Azazel took what He was owed.

Seeing the members of the Midnight Suns, the company founded by St. James, raise the 13th Legion battle standard in the present day gave the Lord of Death an idea. He believed the initial bargain had no expiration date so if the standard of the faction was being carried in the Material Plane, the Reaper could still lay claim to the souls. In an unprecedented act of benevolence, Azazel offered a deal to the warfighter and his cohort. He offered to return the souls of the Legion forefathers and mothers to their Gods. He furthermore promises that the present-day member’s souls would not be taken from the party and in exchange, they were honor bound to protect the Chalice of Life and the wizards who controlled it by proxy, for as long as the Reaper saw fit.

All the remaining magical races were brought to Cydonia to prepare for the end. Those that stayed behind, chose to go with the tide instead of fighting against it. They had come to believe that the natural cycle of all things was to eventually end to make room for what is to come. More than a handful of the Gods chose to stay behind as well, the last guardians of those left behind. The Chalice of Life was presented to all the wizard tribes by the Scuttlepuff clan. And with this happening, all was in place. The time of the event that end the Age of Magic would soon be upon the Material Plane.

Into the Void

Hours before the upheaval, Kuthar-Khan, Lord of Space and Time, appeared before men and Gods alike. He bore bad tidings. Due to the waning of influence among the divine, Their connection to all things, and the incalculable amount of work that He had to do to prepare for this day, He announced that there was no way that He could stabilize the extra-dimensional space. He was weakening and despite everything He had done for thousands of years to prepare for it, He could not complete His momentous task.

He confessed that His spirit was willing, but His vessel was unable. The time of the First Sacrifice was upon the world. Festus, in an act of great kindness and love, chose to forsake His divinity for the cause. He presented His divine spark to the Master of Time. Kuthar-Khan accepted the offering and upon doing so, made the Second Sacrifice. He would surrender His freedom. For all to work as planned, He would have to work at it for the rest of time. The extra dimensional space would require constant attention to function properly. Never again would He walk with men or Gods.

At the appointed time, the continent of Cydonia disappeared from Earth and the Material Plane. Like an ark, the landmass carried away its passengers to the safety of the unknown. The grand gambit had worked. The extra dimensional space became the stopper placed in the arcane hemorrhage that plagued its predecessor. But the transition was far from seamless.

The area which Cydonia once resided on Earth would be plagued by strange happenings for years to come. Sea-faring ships and aerial vehicles would attempt to move through the area and disappear, never to be seen again. In the modern-age, this part of the planet would be called the Devil’s Triangle. It would spawn theories and stories of all kinds, from meteors crashing into the sea from space to be the former spot occupied by the fabled Atlantis.

Cydonia would appear on any given plane for a set amount of time, ranging from moments to days. Some of these locations would be random and others constant. Because of the intimate connection to the Material Plane and to Earth, the wizarding world would be accessible from there twice a year. For four days during the summer, during the span of name called July, a gateway between the domains would appear. The gateway would take the shape of an earthen and stone spiral. The other time that the gateway could be accessed from the Material Plane is during the twilight hours on the evening of the winter solstice. And this was the product of the Fifth Age.

The Sixth Age: The Era of Reconstitution
The Devils in Our Wake

For the first few months after departing Earth, the keepers of the Chalice of Life settled into a tentative peace. Festus, now permanently Osrick Kord, held the tribes together through the transition by years of cultivating relationships and creating bonds with the individual clans. His divine charisma and calming presence would help smother the embers of conflict between the factions. Now as a mortal, his work was much trickier. And now that hard-fought peace was falling away like sand in an hourglass. With the Great Upheaval behind them, the tribes found it more difficult to maintain a middle ground with their peers. When the sand stopped falling, the tribes of Cydonia found themselves at war. No one knew exactly what sparked the conflagration, there were rumors of all kinds that claim to be the source.

What is known is that the Stridehide and Philandrian struck first. They united to kill the first Queen of the Gryznak. They coveted the tribe’s power over life and death through necromancy and wanted it for themselves. They believed that if they defeated this rival, they could subjugate the rest of the clans, now known as Houses, and be the masters of the Chalice and the last refuge of the magical world. They succeeded in the assassination but didn’t gain the power they sought. Given another common enemy, the five remaining Houses banded together again and rained hell upon the attempted usurpers.

By the end of what would later be known as the Wizard Civil War, led by Osrick Kord and the second queen of the Gryznak, the betrayers of the Cup were killed near extinction. The few enemies remaining and those that aided them were banished to a prison of sorts. The Gloom is a small demi-plane just outside the perception of reality. It lingers between the Astral and Material Plane. Here the enemies of the remaining Houses are kept as punishment for their transgressions. Inmates dwell in an apparition-like state of existence. They can observe, but never interact with, the Material Plane. While incarcerated, the inmates do not age or require sustenance. Inmates are imprisoned and released from the Gloom via a specialized secret summoning circle accessible only by the Wizard King.

No one knows what happened to the Jahtrostus clan. They simply disappeared during the time of Wizard Civil War. Most believed that the Stridehide killed them off because of their ability to see into the future. Knowing that such knowledge in the hands of their enemies could spell doom for themselves, the sorcerers of Stridehide felt it was easier to just kill the small clan than to take chances with where they would place their loyalty in the civil war.

With the bloody war behind them, the leaders of the remaining Houses needed to find a long-term solution that would avoid such a calamity again. As the guardians and ambassadors of the last bastion of the world of magic, they couldn’t get caught up in the trivialities of egotism and selfishness again. No longer could the independent Houses serve themselves alone, coming together only during times of great strife.

They would need to unite under one banner, for now and for all time, if they were to thrive in their positions and responsibilities. Three Houses had already been lost in the fray. The loss of life was bad enough but the loss of the specialized knowledge in the areas of Divination, Abjuration, and Enchantment was worse. An assembly of all Houses and their members was convened to decide the future of all the people involved.

Capitalizing on his recent victory and previous relationships with all the Houses, Osrick Kord put forth a motion to unite the clans. During his tenure as an advisor, then later, as a general in the civil war, he had become very close to the Queen of the Gryznak. He admired her quick thinking, wry wit, and natural ability to effectively lead in the worst of circumstances. He had come to love her, and she came to love him. Osrick had recently proposed marriage and she had accepted. He would use their upcoming nuptial as the jumping off point for the future of their world. Instead of the private ceremony they originally intended, the occasion was open to one and all. No one House would be placed above any other and none would be placed below. Group merriment would replace individual grievances, happy new memories would replace old bitter ones.

Beside Us in Time

The initially planned one day assembly stretched into four. Osrick and his queen planted the seeds of compromise and unity where they could. In the end, a vote was taken, and the Houses unanimously ushered in the current time of peace. Osrick was named the Wizard King of Cydonia. He wouldn’t be a king in the traditional sense, but when the Houses found themselves at odds, the final decision of the Wizard King would be law. He would maintain this neutrality by having no House affiliation. All factions would hold a seat at his table and all would be given equal say. The anniversary of their wedding would become an annual tradition where all the Houses would gather in the same place and time. They would compete in games, surmount challenges, and air problems and concerns affect their Houses. The Ruplemore would aptly name this gathering the Wizard Party.

The gathering would serve a second purpose. The Chalice of Life, or Wizard Cup as it would later be called, required an annual recharge of magical energies to maintain its stabilization of the extra-dimensional space. It was the focal point of the little world and required a lot of power. It indirectly supped at the magical energies of the people that occupy the space and the world itself throughout the year. The competition between the Houses during Wizard Party would generate new energies to re-vitalize the space. The “points” generated by the Houses during the games of skill, chance, and might are more than they appear to be. The points are excess magical pools of energy collected by the medallions worn by the participants of the party. When the competition is over, and the winning House is announced, the Chalice will pull the resources from all the medallions and charge itself for another year. The greater the points, the greater the charge.

As time passed and the Wizard Party became larger and larger, it attracted visitors from the old Material Plane and modern-day Earth. No one can explain how the visitors are drawn there, but year after year, folks from all walks of life and means appear at the spiral gateway for another year of events and fellowship.