Faen
When the first men of Thamrysis departed from the ancestral continent of Tuen, they travelled as nomads around the continent and settled in tribes over the early centuries of history. The world at that time was a wild and chaotic place, and many of the creatures and monsters of myth and legend roamed free.
Chief amongst these ancient precursors were the Faen. The ancient, the unknowable - those that came before, who taught men the secrets of magic. The First Enemy.
The Faen were powerful, ancient, and possibly not of this world. Little is known of the time of their coming - scholars call this period the Unknown Age, a time when the world was supposedly ruled by titanic creatures and populated with animal life long now extinct.
Basic Information
Growth Rate & Stages
Unknown - there is no record of any "children" among the Faen, nor "elderly." All Faen are depicted as being eternally of an unknown age.
Ecology and Habitats
Little details exist of the needs of the Faen, except they appear to have been tied to structures they had built or brought with them to Thamrysis, known as Toran. These structures appear to have been of great importance to the Faen, as either a source of power or a resource they required for continued existence.
Biological Cycle
It is written that the Faen could not die, and that come sunrise fallen Faen would rise from death and walk again - it was only through the power of Ars wielded against them that they could be brought low.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Amongst the known Faen there seems to be no names in their own language or tradition, instead only names given to them by the early Onerans. These appear to be more titles than anything else, with honorifics such as "The Oracle," "The Knowing One," and "The Opener of Doors." Due to records often having several titles for the same Faen or similar titles for two different Faen, it's unclear just how many Faen were actually known to exist.
History
The earliest recorded mention of the Faen appears in the 9th century AE document The Record of Stars, specifically a mention of "The Masters of the Stars." The Faen are explained in this document to be the original inhabitants of Onera but not its natives, travelers who settled the region and had lived there for unknown centuries before the coming of the first men of Onera, the so-called Stone Kings tribe of the Hundred Kings. The document goes on to say that the Faen made a safe place in the wilds of Onera for the tribe that encountered them and taught the early Onerans the power of Ars, which was then used to draw out the Jade Throne from Parthan Mountain.
Early Onerans swore fealty to the Faen, who dubbed Oneranus the First the "Emperor of All Men." There is little information about what this relationship entailed, though the existence of the four Mahals of old Onera suggest the relationship was one of supplicant and deity, though it's unclear how much the Faen interacted with their vassals. It is also known that their presence in the area of the Old Onera empire seemed to create a heavenly garden with rich diversity of flora and fauna.
Partial documents also record the story of Zoran Kuzents or "Zoran the Cruel," a Hoksark tribal leader who lead a force to attempt and sack the lost city of Sizien, a city recorded as being downstream from Parthonera, the lost capital of Old Onera. The record states that Oneranus II enlisted the aid of an entity called The Oracle, a Faen with the powers of foresight, to contact the deceased soul of his father for advice.
At some point at the beginning of the 26th century AE, Latizan incursions into the continent reached Thamrysis, and the Faen make their greatest appearance in history since the dawn of Old Onera, striking down fleets and causing a series of natural disasters that ultimately thwart all Latizan occupation of the continent and drive them out of Thamrysis. Sentiment for the Faen sours amongst the Onerans, and The First Cabal is founded to decode the yet-unknown secrets of the Faens mystic powers to break the bond between Faen and Man.
The Faenwar began in 2630 AE, and over the course of it several of the Faen were defeated. It's unclear if the Faen are destroyed, killed, banished, dispersed, bound or otherwise imprisoned, but it is known that several of them were bested by the members of the First Cabal. Untold death and destruction comes to Old Onera in the year that the Faenwar rages, and it is said the very geography of the region was radically altered by the conflict. Objects of power sacred to the Faen known as Toran are toppled or destroyed, and the Faens great and terrible power is hobbled. The Faen, once masters and benefactors of the Old Oneran Empire, are driven out and seem to disappear from history.
Historical Figures
The Oracle
The Knowing One
It Never Dies
That Which Walks the Night
The Opener of Doors
The Sunrisen
She
Hunter and Hunted
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
The long term consequences of the Faen's presence in Thamrysis is difficult to gauge, as their existence proceeds much of written history, and the tablets that survive from the time of the Old Empire are in pieces, incomplete, or written with religious awe that occludes historical accuracy.
The common belief, supported by the few sources surviving the time, is that the Daiduna of Thamrysis had little direct interaction with the Faen before the coming of men, with the exception of the Syl, who appear to have made contact with the Faen before the Old Empire. Curiously, the Rites of Inscyrption, the art by which the Pattern of an object can be altered permanently, were first practiced by the Myr and appear to be parallel in practice to the working of the Ars taught to men.
Cobbodonyr appear to have no historical relationship with the Faen.
Duerva similarly seem to have no historical relationship with the Faen, though to have had an effect on any practice of Ars the Duerva would have attempted in their early history.
Lifespan
Functionally Immortal
Geographic Distribution
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