History (The Silver Lands Supplement)
History[edit]
Over thirty thousand years ago, the world that now calls itself the Silver Lands was known by a different name to the inhabitants: Equinox. The peoples who know live on the surface of this world (at least on the Northern Continent) now call that long-ago age the Golden Lands, in tribute to a distant memory of a better time, but this is simply a modern convenience. In that time, Tamara and Nial were one land, Valkar was connected to the Northern Continent, sharing a border with Rytha and Min-Taurus, and the island chain now known as the Rim of the World was a single continent, ripped apart by one of the many long-ago calamities. Geography was different, the inhabitants were different, even magic worked differently. The Silver Lands used to be a completely different place, but the Golden Lands left behind an undeniable legacy.
The Golden Lands[edit]
In the ancient times of the Golden Lands, or, as it is often known to the people of Min-Taurus and Aida-Han, “The Time of the Gods”, the world was inhabited by a race known as the Deva. The deva had built an empire that surpassed any that came before, they had built technological and magical marvels to rival all else that had come before them. Over the thousands of years that the deva built their empire, they eventually expanded to encompass what is now the Northern Continent, the Southern Continent, the Far West (beyond Min-Taurus), the Rim of the World, Nial and Tamara, and even the Far North. With this expansion brought diversity, as the various species of Deva began to grow further apart race-wise. In the east Northern Continent, the asharai, one of the subraces of the deva, settled down. In the Southern and west Northern Continent, the cydolan and hathori, two more species that magically took on the attributes of animals made their homes. The cydolan were the ancestors not only of the races of Min-Taurus, but also of the merrows and other halflings. The seraphs, another devan race, made their home in what is now Nial and Tamara. The vaetteran lived in what is now Gavrial, but eventually most vaetteran migrated to the Northern Continent as well. In the Far North, a reclusive group known as the aesir took residence, and the kama in the Far West. The hathori eventually migrated in some numbers to what are now known as the Elgador Islands. From the seraph race the fallen are the only known descendants (although the crysaeli and duergar both also claim seraph heritage), and all the races of Min-Taurus are descended from the cydolan. The asharai left behind the elves, faeries, sprites, banshees and changelings as their scions, and the vaetteran left behind the ogres, trolls, hobbs, goblins, coblyns and the ettins and uldras of Gavrial as their descendants. The hathori were the ancestors of not only the caetai, but also of the athames, manes, wendego, grugach, and even the elusive bodachan, while mingling their bloodlines with the asharai to create the roane. The aesir, of the north, gave birth to not only the valkaries, einherjar, and norns, but also to the salamanders. Most other races are either descended from one of these “founding eight”, or came into being through some other (often an extraplanar) force. The dragons, sphinxes and phoenixes, on the other hand, had called Equinox their home for millenniums, and most other “monsters” were created or bred by the deva. In those golden ages, the deva and their eight races of children also created the automations, which latter became known as “Relics". They originally created the automations for manual labor, but with more and more sophisticated magic and technology, they deva could create smarter and smarter automations.
Trouble[edit]
The Golden Lands were not as prosperous and peaceful as many modern texts make out, however. They were plagued not only by internal troubles, but also by the residual attacks of the Daemanon, a race that hailed from another plane of existence. The daemanon latter gave rise to the daemons and jinni, as well as the fae, who eventually seduced the asharai away from the deva. The daemanon attacked the deva, forcing them to come up with more and more desperate measures to defend themselves. Finally, they formed a plan that was, in their opinion, pure brilliance. They invented ways of raising undead troops. However, this plan backfired, when the daemanon found that bodies without souls, and even souls without bodies were more susceptible to their dark magic than normal mortals were. They corrupted the already unnatural undead, and turned them against their former masters. With the help of the treacherous asharai, the daemanon ripped the world apart, forcing the than separate continents of the east Northern Continent and the west Northern Continent together, which rose to form the Mountains of the Sun. They also broke apart the capitol of Equinox, forming the islands now known as the Rim of the World.
The End of the Golden Lands[edit]
The desperate deva, with the asharai having betrayed them, the cydolan, aesir, kama, and hathori scattered, and the seraphs having failed to defeat the undead, sacrificed themselves in an ancient magical ritual to save Equinox. The rip in the fabric of the universe that had caused the portal to the Daemanon World was closed, and the seas and mountains slowly settled down. The races that had arisen in the new Silver Lands got down to the business of rebuilding their civilization.
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