History and Myth
When storytellers relate the history of Theros, they always speak in the most general terms. An event of just ten years past happened "many years ago," and the founding of Meletis in the distant past happened "many, many years ago." In Theros, history transforms into myth more quickly than it does in other worlds, becoming generalized, vague, and moralistic. And because the gods are so deeply involved in mortal affairs, it's often impossible to distinguish between the myths of divine activities and the scraps of historical fact in these records.
The Sealing of the Titans
Thousands of years ago, before the current gods of Theros rose to power, the titans — horrific primal urges made flesh — roamed the mortal realm, sowing death and destruction in their wake. The mortals, powerless to defend themselves, turned to prayer in their hour of need. From this prayer, this concentrated devotion, sprang forth the gods themselves. The oldest of the currents gods, often considered siblings and some sort of offshoot from the Titans, are Klothys and Kruphix. Perhaps the former arose from a sense of inevitability, and the latter of a sense of mystery. From them, the third generation of deities were born: sun-crowned Heliod, deep-dwelling Thassa, bleak-hearted Erebos, bronze-blooded Purphoros and keen-sighted Nylea. The other eight gods, the fourth generation, are their offspring.
Imbued with incredible power by the faith of mortals, the gods sealed the titans away in the Underworld. Klothys, the god of fate, volunteered to act as jailer and sequestered herself in the Underworld for eternity. While Erebos rules this realm beyond death, it was Klothys who acted as an eternal seal, ensuring the titans remained trapped.
Age of Trax
Human history vaguely recalls an era just before the birth of modern human civilization, called the Age of Trax. This semi-mythical era, nestled several centuries back in the fog of historical memory, is marked by the rule of supernatural beings called archons.
The archons of Trax are said to have come from unknown lands to the north and established a heavy-handed rule over the humanoids of Theros. Many peoples remember this as a time of oppressive servitude, when they were forced into the armies of the tyrant Agnomakhos. The archons dubiously suggested that their rule actually protected the weaker species—centaurs, humans, leonin, minotaurs, and satyrs—from the dangers of far more powerful beings. Giants, demons, and medusas are said to have ruled kingdoms of their own in those days, and tales tell of Agnomakhos leading his leonin soldiers to repel an invading army of giants. Dragons, krakens, and hydras are also said to have grown to even greater size in those days than they do now, annihilating whole nations and carving untold catastrophes across the land.
Birth of the Poleis
The end of the Age of Trax corresponds roughly with the rise of the fourth and latest generation of gods, whose interests lie in the application of more abstract principles to the realities of mortal life. Three of these gods—Ephara, Iroas, and Karametra—played significant roles in the establishment of human civilization, in opposition to the archons.
The goddess Ephara inspired and equipped two human heroes, Kynaios and Tiro, to overthrow the archon Agnomakhos. Divergent tales describe their history following the defeat of the tyrant. Some claim that they warred with each other for control over the region and that only their eventual death paved the way for the peace that allowed the new polis of Meletis to flourish. The truth is that they ruled Meletis peacefully together, established its legal code, and defended it for decades.
After the fall of Agnomakhos and the other archons of Trax, humans and minotaurs waged a bloody war in the highlands. The poleis of Akros and Skophos were born from that bloodshed, inspired by the martial doctrines of Iroas and Mogis rather than the legal code of Ephara. Eventually the years of war settled into an uneasy peace with the badlands of Phoberos as a barrier separating the poleis from each other.
Meletis, Akros, and Skophos perpetuated the stark division between civilization and nature that was inherent in the archons' rule. While most humans (and minotaurs) embraced that division, the god Karametra tried to teach people a new way of living in harmony with nature, leading to the founding of Setessa.
Age of Heroes
The uncounted centuries since the fall of the archons have been marked by the exploits of great heroes, many of which are recorded in works of epic prose and poetry. Three major narratives remain widely retold and studied: The Akroan War, The Callapheia, and The Theriad.
The epic tale of the Akroan War is only nominally a history of the long siege of Akros, precipitated by the queen of Olantin abandoning her husband and going to live with the Akroan king. With the war as a backdrop, a nameless poet spins tales of gods and heroes, victories and tragedies. The death of the triton queen Korinna, and the resulting birth of the Dakra Isles from Thassa's falling tears, is a tale told incidentally, by way of comparison to the grief of the Olantian king. The tale of Phenax escaping from the Underworld is told to explain the origin of a phalanx of the Returned that comes to fight alongside the Olantian forces. And when the sphinx oracle Medomai appears and foretells the fall of Olantin, the poet tells of Medomai's earlier prophecy of the destruction of Alephne—a tragedy that could have been averted had anyone believed the sphinx's dire warning.
The saga of Callaphe the Mariner, told in The Callapheiea, is a more coherent narrative focused on a single hero and her exploits. Known as the greatest mariner who ever lived, Callaphe was a human trickster from Meletis who sailed a ship called The Monsoon. She was the first mortal to decipher the secret patterns of the winds (provoking Thassa's ire), and she sailed over the edge of the world and into Nyx to claim her place among the stars. The tales of her adventures are a mythic tour of the Dakra Isles and the coastlands of Theros, describing a panoply of creatures, nations, and marvelous phenomena—some of which still exist as described in its verses, though others are lost to history or myth.
The Theriad is a different sort of epic, closely associated with the worship of Heliod. At a glance, it appears to be about a champion of Heliod who is never named but simply called "the Champion." A closer read, though, reveals that the tales take place over the span of centuries and the identity of the Champion changes from tale to tale. In fact, The Theriad is a compilation of tales describing the exploits of many different champions of the sun god. It is widely believed that some tales are actually prophecies of champions yet to come.
Recent Memory
The Age of Heroes has not yet come to an end, and more epics will surely be sung and written as more heroes take their destinies into their own hands and chart their paths to the stars. The heroes of recent memory—Haktos the Unscarred, Siona and her crew on the Pyleas, Kytheon Iora, Elspeth and Daxos, Anax and Cymede, Ajani Goldmane, and countless others—are no less heroic than the protagonists of age-old epics, even if their deeds aren’t yet as widely known. Beyond individuals— a kraken attack on Meletis; the fall of the monstrous hydra Polukranos; the Nyxborn assault on Akros; Erebos’s titan felled by Heliod’s champion; the apotheosis and destruction of the mortal-turned-god Xenagos—the epic events of the recent past are already remembered and retold as mythic deeds.
Like white-hot bronze on the smith’s anvil, Theros is ready to be forged by the deeds of today’s heroes and ushered into the next great era of its history.
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