Age of Sorcery

Every single thing upon the face of the world is composed of matter, in various combinations of the base elements.
But magic is the binding force, injecting the spark of life and intelligence into each living creature. Various cultures describe it as the ‘soul’, the ‘life energy’ or the ‘essence’. It is only with magic that life may be created from nothing, that the crude meat, bone and flesh they makes up a human or an elf may become a breathing, sentient creature.
The gods had used magic in all their creations. What they had never anticipated was that those creations might discover how to harness this power themselves. 
Elves immense lifespans, uncommon beauty and keen intellects made all things seem possible to them. Great art, philosophy and scientific progress all came easily to them. As they studied they inadvertently stumbled upon the very power of creation itself – magic.
With such a miraculous discovery, the elves elevated themselves yet further above the humans and dwarfs with whom they shared the world. 
Early human mages were taught by the elves as the two noble races became ever more closely entwined with one another. Though they lacked the lifespan and iron will of the elves, human mages made up for this with discipline and focus, driven by fear of their own mortal frames and the limitations these placed upon them. The elves came to admire this spirit, indeed it is said that the first love affair between man and elf came about between an elven mage and his human protégé. This led to the birth the darkest and most dangerous of all the arcane arts – Necromancy.
Driven harder to test their bounds and to escape the embrace of death itself, by the time Bhanek and Shobik realised it was too late events and circumstances had been set in motion.
The knowledge that magic could be used to halt or even reverse the ravages of time was known to the elves of course – their command of the breadth and depth of possibilities afforded by magic was unrivalled. But they had no need of its use. They were near immortal creatures, capable in their long lifespans of perfecting any craft to which their attentions were turned. The concept of regret, of feeling as if one’s life had been lived incompletely, was alien to them. Not so, to humans.
Whether it was in fact the love between a human and an elf which first prompted this obsession with the shortness of span afforded the former is not known, though given the fact that the first human mages were taught by elves, and the closeness that was fostered between such apprentices and their masters, it seems likely. Seeing such beauty and accomplishment at close hand and knowing that it was the result – among other things – of a lifespan many times that afforded to themselves, it stands to reason that this would be a factor in triggering the obsession with magical resurrection and rejuvenation which would eventually morph into the foul art of Necromancy in all its many forms.
The elven appetite for knowledge was unending. Reaching out to touch the mortal boundaries of the temporal, glimpsing the spaces between worlds, beyond even the stars in the skies above them.
It was on one such journey that the elves drew the attention of the beings known to antiquity as the Celestians.  
Category:Timeline