Thoranduril's Journal

The Book of Time: A History of Leann

by Thothie

I, Thoranduril, am your author, for this perusal. Not the Thoranduril, of course, but yet another lowly Child of Torkalath who was born to parents with lofty visions for their son, and thus chose to name him after, what I am increasingly beginning to believe, is an entirely fictitious Loreldian.

Blasphemy, you say? Well then, dear reader, be heartily forewarned, for I, Thoranduril, have spent my life - my much artificially extended life, I might add - studying our gods, and their predecessors, the Loreldians, in grand detail. I have traveled far beyond the bounds of Daragoth, and found ruins and artifacts the likes of which would drive a lesser man mad. I have communed with ancient beings of unimaginable power, some of which witnessed the very beginnings of our history here, first hand. My ears have been caressed by the words of long departed Apostles, rising up from the soul well itself, and I have even spoken with the horrid dragon, Rhudeanlorat, at length... Though that last tale of intrigue, and harrowing escape, is best fit for another work.

The only authentic record of my namesake, Thoranduril, the only one not written in this modern era of dramatic license, is the elven poem of Aren'dale. It references a flower and the discovery of magic. Now, as some have argued, it maybe this is an entirely metaphorical flower, and magic is instead a reference to Fate. But I believe, in our efforts to anthropomorphize our gods, to make them more personable, more like us, we have lost sight of just how far above us they really are. How beneath them a concept, such as a flower, or magic, or even discovery, would be, however metaphorical.

That having been said, let us continue with this work, in which I will attempt to transcribe the Ages of our world. For sake of convenience, I shall attempt to bring them under the headings of Ages and Eras that are generally accepted by the keepers of the various religious literary cannon, those most widely known and accepted, so that the layman can follow along, without feeling further blasphemed.

The Before Time

This is the name we grant to the time before the threads of Fate wove together to create the gods. A time before consciousness, before life, when all was but undefined energy, weaving itself together into ever more complex forms. The name, however, is a misnomer. Yes, time was here, even before the Loreldians. As were the sun, and the moon, despite the grandiose poets of our age who ascribe those creations to them. Any wizard who has dabbled in altering time knows this intuitively. However, time, left unobserved, is obviously meaningless, and perhaps more importantly, the War of Fate that followed, twisted time to such a degree that it actually broke much of causality - the mechanism of the universe that allows us to perceive and define time. So in that sense, yes, everything that precedes that event is, to our limited minds, indeed, before time.

This is also the era referred to by those who ascribed to the belief that there was an era when the Loreldians were more like us - that there was an era when they wandered the continents, including Daragoth, like savages. Perhaps, eventually, even building huts, and cities, or discovering magic, before their final, fatal discovery of Fate. But I do not ascribe to this fantasy. Yes, the Loreldians built grand structures, there is no doubt of this, but they built them by will, or willed into existence those beings that built them on their behalf, and not by the sweat of their own brows. I believe the Loreldians were born of Fate, immortal and godlike from the start. They were the first manifestation of will in the universe, and there were no laws of physics set in place to oppose them beyond the happenstance of random convergence that gave them ground to walk upon. That we walk upon that same ground is where the similarity between ourselves and the gods ends.

The War of Fate

Much has been written on the War of Fate by others, and much of it is too fanciful for me to even begin to correct within these leather bounds, so I will be brief. The systems of the universe that allowed for existence, that loose and vague weave of reality that even the Loreldians themselves depend on for the consistency in which to be, in which to think, to be aware, were very fragile in that primordial era. They had not the uncontested will of the gods to back them, as they do today, and were, again, a mere convergence, existing only by the whims of Fate. Thus, these Loreldian gods, who could bend the universe to their will, each and every one of them, soon found themselves in conflict with one another - pulling on the ropes that made up the net of the very reality that had birthed them, and held them all above oblivion - each pulling with their own selfish desire. Soon, that net began to unravel.

As the story goes, the result was that the Loreldian's broke up into two factions: those who collectively desired to abandon this reality, in order to save it from inevitable destruction at their own hands, ie. those banded behind the The Golden One, and those who wished to stay and dominate it for all time, and eventually became The Lost.

In reality, there were likely many more factions, ranging the gambit, and each offering any number of compromises and solutions. The war that resulted, however, was so harsh and final, that the bulk of these beings have had their very existence stripped from the universe for all time. This is why we have no names for any individual Lost Loreldian. It's not that they were forgotten. It is that they, literally, never existed.

"But then why do we know that The Lost ever existed?", the proverbial child would often ask in the halls of the temple. Ah, but that is as simple as it is insidious. Their individuality maybe lost, their memory wiped, even from the minds of the gods themselves, their consciousness maybe scattered to the winds, but like ashes in the wind, their collective will still exists. It's not a directly conscious will, mind you, not will as we generally understand it. It has no plans. It has no awareness. It is simply Hate. A madness that is forever on the edge of our own minds, a powerful madness, awaiting to infect any one of us willing, even for a moment, to be subsumed by it. Such is the legacy of The Lost.

In any case, as every child in the temple is also aware, the end result was the victory of Pathos and his army of gods over The Lost, their subsequent removal, and the remaining Loreldians, in a sense, following suit.

But three gods were left behind by Pathos to tend that fragile garden of reality. Left behind to prevent the threads of Fate from conjoining in such a way as to repeat this series of events, and to, attempt, to create, from the wisdom they had gained from this experience, some alternative form of life. To protect and nurture that life. This life would be the legacy of all the Loreldian's who had given up their own reality for the sake of creation, to be their children. Life that would, eventually, take the form of all of us here today.

The Age of Creation

But not immediately... Those three left behind: Felewyn, who had been the discipline of the armies of Pathos, Torkalath, who had been their fire and motivation, and Urdual, who had been their temperament and wisdom, all had their work cut out for them. The threads of Fate were lucid, the world we know as Leann, barely recognizable, in a state of continuous flux, the ruins of the once great Loreldian civilization, rippling all across its blasted surface.

I'll pause here a moment to note that some of the more radical theologians have suggested that the Age of Creation, as well as the ages that followed, would not have been such a struggle, if Pathos had instead opted to leave behind a single god, with a single plan. However, I find the most common counter this argument to be sufficient: Pathos knew well what he was doing. Nothing good, nothing truly lasting, can from a single, unopposed will. Creation, true creation, is only born from conflict.

And conflict there was... Just establishing the basic rules for existence - ones that guaranteed that anything they created would be forever denied the sort of power that could unravel the reality they lived in, while still allowing them to evolve and grow, as anyone who has studied these rules knows, was an epic battle of wills among the this new Triad. Felewyn opted for creations that would bend the world around them into organized structures, the insects, the birds, and so forth. Urdual opted to create listless heard animals that forever wandered in pendulum-like migratory patterns, the elk, the elephants, and the like. Torkalath, enraged by this, made the predators, such as the lion and the tiger, in order to break the uniformity of Felewyn's efforts, and drive Urdual's creations to greater heights in order to survive. Soon the variety of plant and animal life was so diverse, each creature adapting to the drives of its own creator, that it was no longer possible to distinguish from which mind the beast may have been imagined. Thus were begot all manner of beast with mixes of traits: the boar, the rat, the ape. It was not pure chaos, for the laws of survival prevailed; it was not pure order, for the world was savage; nor was in balance, for it was in constant flux. So, the gods were, all at once, both satisfied and displeased.

The Dragon Rhudeanlorat once described to me the wonderment in which this age began. Many sentient constructs and beings, creations of the Loreldians who had abandoned them, those who had not been lost to time, still wandered the land, but were largely ignored by the remaining gods. The gods seem to have a nostalgia for these creations, however. When they interfered with the newer creations, they were never slain, or vanished, but simply set aside. They were forced to live in various desolate areas - sometimes on islands, sometimes in caves, always apart from the newer creations. As the dragons looked on - and there were still many remaining in this era, left over from the War of Fate in which they represented the gods' collective rage towards one another - their wonderment slowly turned to bitterness. They began to lose hope that they could ever find a place in this new world forged by the Triad. And soon, many of these great wyrms fell into a sort of melancholy, and began to wither and die.

The Age of Rage

Eventually, the Triad tired of these games, and, by the observance of some beings of prehistory, had even began to lose interest. Thus, it was decided, the time had come to create "Enlightened Beings". Beings of consciousness, of will, and, potentially, at least, of language and culture.

This is where the more heavily gilded religious books tend to read, "more like the gods themselves!" - but again, I insist, these gods are so unlike us that no such comparison can be made. However, I will allow that there's a definite separation between the beasts of creation, and the Enlighten Beings we claim ourselves to be, however ambiguous and difficult to define that difference may sometimes be.

But all the books and accounts agree that it was that at this time the gods created the Enlightened Beings we see today, each modeling their creation after their own ideals. As we all know, Felewyn created the elves, long lived and disciplined, Urdual created the dwarves, sturdy and stable, and Torkalath created the humans, ambitious and ever reaching.

What isn't well known, is exactly how these first creations took shape. I myself have conflicting information on the subject. Some beings I have communed with have told me there were single, but paired, paragons created, while others describe whole tribes, numbering tens of thousands, all appearing at the same time. Some describe our ancestors being forged from dirt and mud, others manifest from nothing, and still others describe us being born from beasts of the previous age - and not all at once, but slowly molded, over time and over many generations. Whatever the case was, we're still in pre-history, and given that those who observed all this had no written word at the time, muddled and conflicting, sometimes, such history must be. This is also, probably not coincidentally, one of the areas where nearly all the dominant religious texts of today tend to conflict with one another.

Leaving that aside, eventually, there were tribes, and small civilizations... And eventually, these three civilizations came into contact... And there was war.

Bloody war, on a scale unimagined among mortals, up until, and possibly including, The Age of Blood.

The Age of Stone

The gods eventually intervened, in the form of Apostles. This was not in order to end the conflict that was killing so many of their creations, mind you, but to assist each of their own creations in winning said conflict, decisively. In this age, each god selected a member of his or her children, and granted them a portion of their power. This was intended to increase the conflict, and to bring about a clear winner - to prove which god was right, whom had the idealism best suited to dominate and guide the world.

But the addition of the Apostles had exactly the opposite effect. They became a stabilizing force, not just for their own nations, but for that of their enemies - for the Apostles, were immortal. They, effectively, could not harm one another, at least not permanently, and thus were free to communicate and learn from one another. Their respective populous worshipped them as avatars of the gods, and hung on their every word. When they told tales of their opposing Apostle, and spoke highly of them, elf praising dwarf, dwarf praising human, they began to see the world from the other side's perspective. They began to understand that their enemy, was as not at all that unlike themselves.

Thus, over a handful of generations, conflicts that had lasted centuries began, one by one, to come to an end. Sword and staff were laid down, and hammer and chisel were taken up in their stead. The races began to work together, and build great monuments, to trade with one another, and a sort of harmony, was almost established.

This turn of events had an impact even upon the gods themselves. In some ways, Urdual had won, not through winning the war, but through the stability that resulted in its end. While Felewyn and Torkalath's disagreement was as fierce as it was eternal, both held a certain respect for the venerated Loreldian, and even began to muse that perhaps a balance of their ideologies, weighed in peace, was the best way to move forward.

But as conflict begot creation, peace, begot stagnation. For a long time, little change or advancement was seen among the people of Leann. Long forgotten was the race to find the better killing magic, to become stronger than their piers. The dwarves were particularly influential in this era, and had parted to each of the other races methods for creating structures of unequaled stability, that would last nearly forever, and thus few dared tried to improve on these masterful designs. So, while there was some competition to be found in innovations of construction, at first, to find a better way to create cities and provide for the people, soon, the best methodologies were largely settled upon, and the creations of one race, began to look much like that of another.

But, like all periods of stability, this one was not to last...

The Crystal Aeon

Towards the end of the Age of Stone, Felewyn's Apostle, Ela'derot, could no longer find use for herself among her people. This apathy was not uncommon among the Apostles, who had been granted powers for war and conflict, and were of little use in an age of stability, but only Ela'derot was so heavily afflicted with this listlessness that she voluntarily decided to move beyond the realm. Effectively, extinguishing her own life.

At the time, this had been unprecedented. Never before had an Apostle chosen to leave Leann. In haste, Felewyn sought a replacement. She settled upon the then elven king, Alu-deral. Unlike most of the Apostles, who had been chosen from relatively unremarkable beginnings, Alu-deral was a ruler. He believed he knew what was best, not just for his people, but for all the people of the world.

Like his goddess, Alu-deral desired peace and order above else. ...And while the world was largely peaceful, there were still pockets of conflicts in the outlying lands of Daragoth, mostly among the humans who had struck out to colonize such distant and dangerous lands. Alu-deral took it upon himself to end these conflicts, by force.

Additionally, Alu-deral was prideful. He saw the dwarven machinations scattered throughout his kingdom as a blight. They were functional, yes, but they were not always orderly - often ungraceful and loud, billowing smoke and grinding unceasingly. He sought to replace them with the majesty of his own race's creations, and soon, the elves were driving dwarven architects from their lands, tearing down their works, in favor of their own, more beautiful, if not more efficient, designs.

And so it was that the Kingdom of Melanion, soon after dubbed the Eswen Empire, brought its iron grasp upon all the realm. Driving the dwarves back into their mountain holds, and constraining the humans to but a sliver of the coast. For their part, the humans were too concerned with their own internal conflicts to oppose the magical might of the elven empire, and the dwarves had no interest in doing so, when they could simply hide in their underground strongholds.

What had been a peaceful stagnation, quickly devolved into an unrelenting draconian rule of law. No dwarf dared walk the surface. No human dared move beyond the walls of Selan, and even within the walls, the fear of displeasing the Elven Kingdom, and the massacre that would follow, forced the human rulers to clamp down on their own subjects in turn. The Elven Empire outlawed all trade between the other races, citing the potential conflict it would create, and ceased their own trade, citing security, save where it served to force dependency on the empire.

So constrained was the human spirit, that Torkalath's Apostle Kurgoth, unable to move his people into action in any other way, took his own life, in one last desperate effort to bring his people out of their stupor. ...and it worked, for a time. The grief stricken human's raged forth, and fought with all their might. But their atrophied armies were no match the disciplined forces of Alu-deral's, and, combined with a betrayal within their own ranks, the last gasp of human spirit only served to seal their defeat and ensure their submission, for nearly a thousand years.

The capital of Melanion spread far and wide, as did the elven populous, declaring more and more territory as they went - often even claiming yet unexplored and unoccupied territory, in name of "safety" for the other races. For King Alu-deral's pride was infectious, and it was believed that only the elves were competent enough to push the boundaries of the known world.

But pride, as they say, cometh before the fall.

The Age of Blood

Urdual saw this happenstance as a direct result of the stagnation that preceded it, and had no desire to intervene for the remainder of the age. Torkalath pleaded with him, citing that, what they had learned during the Age of Stone was that the balance of their will was critical, and in the name of balance, something had to be done. Eventually, Urdual and Torkalath confronted Felewyn, and even she agreed that she had seen too much blood split by her people.

That dawn, Alu-deral was riding forth, with great fervor, the mightiest of his armies behind him, ready to lay waste to the last human city of Selan. Too long had its chaos and debauchery blighted his lands. As he approached the walls, sounding his evlish war horn, suddenly, he collapsed. Felewyn had revoked his Apostlehood, without warning, and to the horror of his troops, he died, on the spot. Grief-stricken, the army retreated from the walls of Selan, and returned to Melanion, with the body of their former king in tow.

While Felewyn sought a replacement, one with a gentler heart, Torkalath sought out one of his own - one with an indomitable heart. His people were weak, and his search was long, but, eventually, he came upon a young farm boy. One, who unlike those around him, understood the teachings of his god intuitively and precisely, and in return, those around him persecuted him for it. They assigned him to menial duties, restricted or forbade his worship, and dolled out harsh punishments without reason... Yet, for all his trials, he kept on, strong in his beliefs. Torakalath watched this one patiently. Eventually, the boy was driven to such extremes by his convictions, that he murdered his own brother in their name. It was in that moment of passion that Torkalath decided that this boy, now a young man named Jiro, extreme though he was - no, because he was so extreme - would be his new Apostle.

But Torkalath knew, from Kurgoth's example, that a mere new Apostle would not be enough to tip the scales - such was the damage done to the human spirit by ages of harsh elven rule. So Torkalath granted his new Apostle two new gifts, in addition to all the power being an Apostle entailed. First of these was the Orcat - a new race of fierce warriors spawned from the boy's own will. Second, was the ability to raise and control the will of the dead - of any number, and from any distance. Combined, these were to replace the armies of humans who, Torkalath assumed in disdain, would not have the spirit follow their new Apostle.

• The Age of Revival {MSC era}

• The Age of Ascension {MSS era}

• The Grand Schism {MSS endgame}

1, the "monad" represents unity. 2, the "dyad" represents diversity. 3, the "triad" represents harmony since it is equal to unity plus diversity. Also, because 2 is the first female number and 3 is the first male number, the passage of three days not only harmonises unity and diversity, but also the male and female aspects of the psyche. By the end of three days, the Lower Self was ready to enter into union with the Higher Self, and the Higher Self, now freed from attachment to a primitive Lower Self, could enter into union with the True God, called Abraxas by the Illuminati. Both Mithras and Abraxas are equated to a number of 365 in numerology i.e. the number of days in the year.