On the nature of the world

In the beginning

There was Balance.

All in perfect harmony

No creature of the world could gain an upper hand against its oppressors, and no predator was able to hunt without impunity. Just enough danger, with just enough safety. One eye opened. One eye closed. The world breathed and exhaled in perfect rhythm. Plants, elements, and creatures shared within the vast landscapes their bounty yet all aspirations for more quickly turned to dust.

Until...

Balance was compromised. No one can recall why or how, for there were no creatures that recorded such history taking place. Some may claim that the point of tipped Balance occurred 9000 years back. And yet, even fewer dare guess what truly caused it.
Perhaps a lone basilisk wandered where it shouldn't, mistook the great Balance for a meal and scratched it with its teeth? A dent so tiny, that no change could be sensed within its lifespan, nor the one after. It took many hundreds of years to cause great floods, famine, rock slides. And even longer than that to affect the creatures of Midrast Wain themselves. Basilisks grew fangs that held venom. Monstrous animals grew in size and hunger. Overpopulation of one caused the strife of others. When once these carnivores struggled to hunt, now they brought their prey to the brink of extinction...

by Velannal

Balance was weakened

But it was not powerless. It still held true to its Purpose. And to address the issues caused by some of its animals becoming too dominant for their own good - it began a desperate ploy. Introducing self-aware creatures strong enough, capable of sustaining themselves, and fighting back against lesser witless predators. To help the Balance, new predators had to Arrive. Those would cause only a minor imbalance, a cost for preventing further destruction to the environment and creatures therein.

The First Arrival

Kateraks, Cretures of many limbs, and buglike appearance, skilled with affecting their environment, yet vulnerable to the aspects of the Dreamscape, a plane of Dreams and aspirations. And Ancients or later known as Er'Wain, were the exact opposite - masterful in shaping the Dreams and influencing mind and thought, elements and supernatural, yet nearly incapable of interacting with the physical world directly.

These two arrivals slowed down the widespread carnage of the monstrous beings, yet it didn't halt it. They needed help, and neither of the two races liked the other one. Instead of cooperating to help fill one another's weaknesses, hostilities between them grew. Balance was desperate.

The Second Arrival

Gryphons were the natural choice to address the lack of pushback against wild predators. Yet when they first Arrived in the feral lands of Midrast Wain, they struggled to survive. Between the Dream-altering powers of Er'Wain and the lack of coordination that Kateraks innately had access to, Gryphons simply had to flee in search of safety. Thankfully, mountains offered shelter to some, and Kateraks earned the trust of a few individuals themselves - teaching those the value of crafts and darkness while the wild ones grew in strength under the light of the sun.

The Third Arrival

by Dradmon

Dragons, creatures fit to fight and craft, Already, the Balance outfitted them in two variations upon seeing the development of Gryphonkind. And yet, nobody was there to help them. Kateraks and Gryphons saw these intruders as anything but a threat, forcing the Sun Dragons to flee using their majestic wings, while Moon dragons had no such ability and had to rely on staying hidden and complement their weaknesses with crafts and later on - Artificing
Whether the Balance intended this or not - the Third Arrival was the start of a bitter conflict between these three races. Ancients, naturally reclusive only observed at first, but some of those spectral beings already noted an opportunity. Perhaps... There was a way to connect with these physical beings and form together a being with no flaws... The only thing needed was to gain their trust first.

The Sundering

After many more years, Er'wain managed to assert themselves and gain the respect of most of Sun dragon populations, appearing before them as otherworldly apparitions akin to gods. Yet the same trick did not work on Moon dragons, who were able to sense something off about these 'gods'.
Yet in spite of it all, a terrible catastrophe hit the Continent. Nobody knows exactly what caused the terrible scarring and few were able to predict it. Whatever the intent of Er'Wain was, their meddling with the polar opposites of the Physical realm and Dreamscape caused them all to disappear in a flash of blinding heat - and the shockwave that followed shook the very earth, indirectly causing many more deaths amongst Kateraks living underground as they were buried alive.
Other Midrastians were not left unscathed either. Dragons and Gryphons of both sides living close to the epicentre either died instantly or had their bodies altered beyond recognition in the aftermath of this shockwave. These survivors came to be known under different names over time, shunned for their strangeness of appearance by their former kin, the first uneasy treaties between these afflicted dragons and gryphons sprang up, creating new tribes to piece their shattered lives back together in a world that no longer made any sense.

by Danero

The Path anew

Afflicted Sun dragons and Diurnal gryphons underwent changes that altered their scales into a hide of deeper orange, red and black hues, with greater temper, passion and resistance to pain. They separated themselves into a collective thus calling themselves Paráž [Para:ʒ], aka the Fallen Guards.
While not as many Moon Dragons fell victim to the Cataclysm, there were those that lived in the surrounding forests and ended up affected by the same shockwave. Instead of scales, they sprouted hide and fur, and another set of eyes but they lost much of their height. These former Moon dragons however gained a strange new ability to peer beyond the Physical world and strike at the vulnerable connection between Dream and Body, temporarily confusing their targets. This ability comes at a painful cost to the user, so the Jungle dragons use it only in dire need (name WIP), but what they lost in size, they gained in the ability to glide and fly short distances.
Those unfortunate Nocturnal gryphons to be caught by the shockwave were by many accounts turned into big ravenous beasts, yet the dubbed Scarflays were simply altered in such a way that made them impossible to understand. Whereas languages and spoken words for previously changed Midrastians were not an issue, only a matter of different pitch or depth after their transformation - vocal cords of Scarflays changed, allowing them to only make screech-like noises. It fell upon them and their descendants to invent a new language using a series of gestures using wings, head, crest and forelimbs. Still, their heads carry two sets of eyes and similarly to their draconic counterparts, they are able to confuse their targets via an outburst of their own vitality to the centre of connection between one's Dream and Body. And while originally Nocturnals were able to fly well, Scarflays wings weakened while their limbs and bodies grew in size.
These events have not gone unnoticed by the Balance. And the great Sundering has likely caused much damage to its own plans. After all, the shockwave has not altered only dragons and gryphons, but some of the wildlife too. And yet - for the moment, the warring was paused. All the surviving Midrastians now had more concerns about their own survival. Whether it be because their allies were dead or transformed, or because of the lack of leadership once provided by Er'Wain and Kateraks, the tribes were left to fend for their own...

by xRashana

Enliterrah

The Second Continent, as yet, unreachable, unknown and its existence in equal measures disputed and shrouded in mystery... There - The Balance begins its work anew~
In centuries past, more strange dragons start appearing along the coast of the First Continent. Fishers who have a remarkable affinity to life underwater and Warborn, strangely dimorphous species of large stature and unparalleled crafting skills. Though it is presumed Fishers may have braved the oceans and travelled here from someplace else, history has very few explanations on how Warborn managed to settle without anyone noticing either the Arrival or a host of dragons flying through the air. Some theories suggest that they may have swum from the nearby islands, or perhaps found an underground passage opened after the Sundering. Regardless, these two draconic species do not have any recorded Arrival date on the first Continent.


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