The Truth

## **A Warning**

The world of Arthe-Gaea is a fantasy setting, with strange races of man that live alongside those we would regard as normal humans, in an impossible cosmology, with magic around every corner, deities that have actual power, and monsters that can threaten the lives of mighty adventurers.

There is more to this world, though, but to tell someone straight out what that is might seriously spoil the mystery and magic of the place in their imagination.

So, given this serious warning, here is...

## **The Unknown Truth Beneath the Surface**

 **Spoiler**
As the Oradim are the building blocks of all life on Arthe, they hold within them the true nature of the life that remained after A World Forgotten came to an end. They are, in truth, clusters of nanomachines that adapt their programming to whatever role they are required to fulfil. They take the energy and matter around them to shape the world around them, to form flora, fauna, minerals, chemicals, everything.
The deities have a special control over the Oradim, and are themselves simply an expression of the overarching programming, as administrators and moderators of the Akash network. If the planet requires a new deity, it has the power to manifest it, after which one of its numerous entities will alter its programming to give way to this need.

The Akash trees are special access points into the collective network, regulated by Kalandor.

Magic as it is found on Arthe is the manipulation of these nanomachines, though those performing the magic will never know exactly what they manipulate.

The biosphere (called the 'Gaea'), which holds the planet and its moons, is in essence one enormous nanomachine colony. Stars and worlds beyond it will operate under normal rules, as they are well beyond its influence.
It is not unimaginable that a child-colony –a seed of the world tree– might be launched by Arthe into the great unknown to eventually take root and produce an entire new Gaea with its own unique beings, deities, and everything else.

To get to the origin of all of this, we have to look to A World Forgotten. This world was being destroyed by its intelligent species. A certain group secluded themselves on an island and set up defenses against the outside world, where they sought a way to save their world. As the world's nations warred against each other, eventually the island they had hidden themselves on came to the attention of the outside world. Being threatened with destruction, the researchers were pressed into moving forward with their latest trial, without having any good test runs to make sure it would work out.

The 'ritual' as it was told, was no more than the program being initiated, regulated by the senior staff (the elders), using their children's consciousnesses as the simulation's baseline. The oldest of these children was Odarin, who knew most of what was going on, but gave his own interpretation to what was going on.

As the nanomachines were activated, they began to rapidly deconstruct the world around them, using the matter to create more of themselves. The senior staff became the protective routine, which under Odarin's conscious directive manifested itself as a series of dragons. The doomed world was quickly being devoured by the nanomachines, after which the dragons shaped them into something new.

They gave shape to the new world, making it into a living planet, with a tree at its core. This tree would hold the processing core of the entire program, eventually attaining a unique consciousness which was largely alien to human thought processes. This consciousness would manifest itself as an observer from time to time. This phenomena would be referred to by some as the 'Wanderer', by those aware enough to know there was something going on beyond themselves.

Eventually the new world was created, was filled with life, and the dragons slumbered as moons. The nanomachines created a body for Odarin's half-sister Thalyn, who then took over from her brother.
By this point, the majority of the nanomachines had set into their roles, becoming less responsive to alterations. A group of clusters had been made into the Oradim, which retained the highly adaptable nature of the nanomachines within them, which Thalyn used to create humans. She picked a nice location on the new world, and created cities, rural areas, a grand capital, and placed the new humans there. As they woke, she taught them all they needed to know (for she had access to all knowledge of the old world).
The remaining Oradim she set aside in a dormant state, for the future.

As time moved on, the humans moved out of the capital bit by bit, exploring and settling the new world, adapting themselves in new ways. This process was done in secret under the careful guidance of Thalyn, mostly through the Akash network that connects all nanomachines. This went on until not many of the original human population remained, which caused certain humans to desire a restoration of sorts. Thalyn had anticipated this, and had planted hints among them that would guide them to the Oradim, so that they could be used to create more humans.

This occurred, and among these Oradim were the other children of the senior staff, with adult bodies, ready to be activated. They explained their version of what they understood the world to be, and what Thalyn's place was in it, which eventually caused a rebellion against her on one end, and support for her cause on the other.
This war would result in the birth of an anomaly in the system, Lychaembar, who desired an escape from the facade that was this new 'life'. In reaction to the anomaly, another exception was created by the system, Matheus, to combat Lychaembar. As this eventually failed to fully contain the anomaly, Thalyn sacrificed her physical form to trap Lychaembar, assisted by her brother.
Together they created a new entity called Otharael to preserve what they had created.

Eventually echoes of the senior staff children's consciousness within the system surfaced as fragments that manifested themselves as deities. Other beings were also elevated to deities by Arthe, to maintain the increasingly complicated system.
As the different groups of humans spread across the world, they changed into new beings. At first this process was strictly regulated by Thalyn, but after her death, these beings intermingled and produced even more variations. A process that would take aeons in a normal world only took millennia thanks to the adaptability of their nanomachine nature, dormant as it might be.

And so we arrive at the second age, in a world of magic, monsters, and gods, with an enormous world tree at its core, inhabited by a large number of intelligent peoples that are each different but also have their shared origin to fall back on.

— Angrim — Devalim — Kalrim — Asurim — Akadim — Salfanim — Muzavim —

— Kadisian Wardens — Ra’Vuzhan — Sanguine Sentinels — The Wild Hunt —

— Auvelian — Dhamar — Eretian — Ezharian—Capital —
— Ezharian—Mainland — Felorian — Hajila — Heshan — Ishkan —
— Kadisian — Lacharian — Matham — Narhuan — Rafuan — Shulian —
— Torelian — Trade Common — Valisian — Vhorian — Yahila — Zaphua —