Introduction
In the days of the Age of Perfection, when Celestium was ordered and the Light of the Keeper shone brightly across the vast realm, it was the Keeper’s pleasure to sit upon his throne at Asavaa Tao and survey the glory of all that he had created. He was attended by the seven Athervannir and three of the mightiest of his smiths, the Lotharvannir, led by their master and the Keeper’s most loyal servant Olbrathan. The Keeper relied upon the Athervannir to control the realm of Damnation, which to his consternation appeared to grow and change its shape. He commanded the Lotharvannir to build the mightiest defences of the Celestial Realm, the Banthakh fortresses where the Athervannir Damophereon commanded a mighty army of stone sentinels, as a barrier between the Celestial Realm and Damnation. As his attention wandered away from his own realm and fixed upon the problem of Damnation, the Keeper did not perceive the changes that were afoot at the very edge of his domain.
Syandethai - The Moment of Emergence
In the mists at the edges of the Celestial Realm, new life began to form. The energies within the Athervannir radiated outwards from their physical forms and brought forth life from the air, the light and the stone of Celestium itself. When the Keeper perceived this new life he was shocked and afraid, his belief that he was the sole architect of life in the universe was challenged and he became angry. The Keeper’s first instinct was to destroy the new beings that had been born into Celestium and who now rejoiced in its light and beauty. However, the Keeper realised that the new beings that had been born, were the product of the Athervannir and killing them would be tantamount to an act of war on his own subjects. The Keeper, perhaps recognising that he was unable to act absolute tyrant even in his own realm, decided to approach the offspring of the Athervannir in a different way. Gathering together the new beings, who called themselves the Tralanvannir or ‘people of the early light’, he appeared before them in all his might and majesty, commanding them to bow before their ‘father’. Most of the Tralanvannir rejoiced in hearing that their creator had found them, but for some the explanation of how they came to be was something they greeted with suspicion. The moment of emergence that all Graces remember and use as point of reference with each other is called Syandethai. In that moment, three tribes of Tralanvannir emerged, the Nurathani, the Ordathani and the Lyrathani.
The Nurathani
The Nurathani Tralanvannir were the first to recognise the Keeper as their father and as a result were favoured by him greatly. The Light of the Keeper fell upon them and they were given places amongst his order. The Anshanavannir (the Keeper’s priesthood) were drawn mainly from the Nurathani. After Thaladican’s rebellion, the Nurathani comprised most of the Phalanx who fought the Keeper’s subsequent wars in Damnation and the Mortal Realm.
The Ordathani
The Ordathani were considered to be inferior to the Nurathani, and the Keeper was content to encourage division and resentment amongst the Tralanvannir. He sent many of the Ordathani to man the fortresses of the Banthakh where they learned to fight the Legion of Damnation and became some of the Keeper’s most deadly warriors during the Devourer War.
The Lyrathani
The Lyrathani were considered to be the lowest caste of the Tralanvannir and were barely acknowledged by the Keeper at all. He gave the Lotharvannir the task of ruling these Graces, and they taught their wards all of the skills of crafting and smithing that they had used to build Celestium with. Not only did the Lyrathani build mighty palaces for their brethren across Celestium, but they also learned of the secret worlds created by the Lotharvannir that the Athervannir kept hidden from their master’s gaze.
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