A Kinda Brief History Part 1

In the beginning- Long ago there existed a race of supreme beings we refer to simply as "The Ancestors". These were beings of such advanced technologies and immense power that they could rearrange the very constellations if they found them displeasing. There were not many of these beings, but they had no need of large populations. So potent was each individual that they were nations and cultures in their own right. They existed on their vast mechanical world of science and furious magics, a complex machine the size of a planet. But nothing is above the natural order and The Ancestors were not an enlightened people, for they did not regard life as sacred. We know not how or why, but the Universe came to collect the debts of The Ancestors and they sought to retaliate as Uncreation gnawed upon their world, their machinations and their very existence. All they could muster and all they could bring to bear was in vain; ineffectual. They were powerful, but power alone does not define nor justify itself.

One of their kind spoke up and made a strange suggestion. What if they made a world, a natural world, the Universe had not accounted for? It would mean starting again, but they would avoid the fate of being unmade. And so atop their world they constructed a new one, seeding it with life and magic and just before it was finished they stopped and beheld what they had made. Just before they finished their salvation, they turned upon one another. What began as a contest for the first to step onto the world became a viscous war. If I cannot have it then no one will. As they warred, Uncreation boiled up from the bottom of their world and it began to sink with the infant world still docked atop. The Ancestors wiped themselves out before Uncreation could claim them, for they did not regard life as sacred. Not even their own.

For reasons still unknown, as the Force of Uncreation reached the halfway point of the machine world, it abruptly ceased to sink. Perhaps the death of The Ancestors was its goal? Maybe a failsafe had occurred? Whatever the case, the new young world of Artifice was left literally and metaphorically atop the corpse of the Old World, buoyed along the currents of the Oceans of Magic that Separate Worlds. At any moment it could all sink and be unmade. But until then, life is sacred and it found a way.

It is unclear how long the seeded races blundered around the chaotic and dangerously unstable infant world. Terrible storms and cataclysms tore at the world and shaped it around them. As the last of the birthing pains subsided the mortal races began to roam and evolve and they discovered a relentless enemy: The Abomination. Our earliest ancestors would be plagued by these monsters over the many millennia and in growing numbers. The world seemed to know the danger these creatures posed for even nature reviled and retaliated against them. As the Jungle overgrew and the Abomination grew beyond confrontation the mortal races were forced back into smaller regions. Still they invented and adapted, discovering the means to make Archives and recording history. And then, the dragons arrived. We know not why they came or what they fled from, but their numbers were relatively small. This did not stop them from trying to take the world for their own. They began converting Arcana into new and harmful types of magic. The arcanist races knew terrible pain when exposed to the founts of magic the dragons crafted. The dragons were enemies of the Abomination as well, but were ruthless with the mortal races. With enemies all around the populations of the mortal races began to dwindle and they were forced into the center of Baldorra. Hope seemed lost. But then, the world seemed to wake up to its own mortality and a conflux of events began.

As dragons and abominations warred over the land Nulls began to appear amid the mortal races. They showed a numbness to magic and could survive the magic founts the dragons made. In time, they founded an order of dragon slayers and could now take the fight to the dragons and abominations alike. At this time a massive discovery was made, for out East was found a number of giant vessels, like boats that floated overland. These proved a powerful advantage and the Slayers used these as mobile fortresses. However, they proved to be obvious targets to the Abomination and one by one they fell until only Five remained. Taken to the heartland of SahlHaven they became instrumental in the expansion of the final fortifications. Nulls grew more numerous and hope blossomed again. And then, the exceptional beings were born...