The First Age

An Age in the chronology of Ydur. Commonly abbreviated as B.S.A. (Before Second Age) due to the utility of counting backwards from the founding of The Grand Historical Order rather than counting forward from the beginning of time, which occurred an unknown number of millennia ago. It is often referred to as "pre-history" or "The Lost Age". Much of the information that follows is not known by the inhabitants of Ydur, and is merely background information presented for the reader's sake.

The First Age starts at the beginning of time, and ends with the founding of The Grand Historical Order. It is easily the longest age, with records of events from it only extending about as far back as 300 B.S.A. Everything that occurred before then is shrouded in a mist of myth and speculation.

In its beginning, the world was a roiling mess of ethereal dust, writhing through space and time. Eventually, this dust would congregate and find a globular form that it agreed suited it, and upon which it could house all sorts of new and vicious phenomena. After endless millennia as an untamed, desolate and primordial land, it finally decided to bear life upon itself. The seething tides of raw cosmic magic that bombarded it and emanated from within it twisted and collided against the heavy atmosphere and rocky planet in beautiful and terrible ways, until the flickering first sparks of life caught. After even more countless centuries, The Shared Ancestors arose along the Griyarn, where it meets with the Green Sea, on the continent of Barruhn. They were the first beings of Ydur imbued with what we may call sentience, but theirs was of a lower, more rudimentary nature that would quickly evolve through the epochs. The Shared Ancestors began to spread out from their northern land, some walking east, and others walking around the sea to the west.

Those who walked east were met by the Spine, and as they crossed through the large mountain range, the group split:

* Some decided to stay among the crags, feeling safe within the caves, surrounded by stone. These people would become the Dwarves.
* Those who kept walking eventually crossed the northern land bridge between Barruhn and Relya, and turned to the north. Once out of the mountains, most decided they were done with the sharp peaks, preferring the comparatively much flatter lands of Brogmirn and the surrounding taiga. However, this climate proved equally challenging with its frigid temperatures and sparse vegetation. The people became isolated from the rest of the world that lied to the south of the Creon mountains, spending generations adapting to the harsh climate they called home, and only occasionally crossing the precipitous cliffs. The shortage of resources available to them often resulted in infighting, and only the strongest and most ferocious could survive. These people became the Orcs.

Those who walked to the west stayed fairly similar and uniform in their evolution for a large period of time. They came down from around the Green Sea, diffusing further south into the large swaths of prairie and grassland that make up the heartland of Barruhn.

* The first major splitting of this group occurred long after the splitting of the eastbound group. Some decided to brave the Spine, and crossed it, finding the rim of forest between its eastern edge and the Dukora lowlands to be quite hospitable. They developed a love for the thick forest, which had appeared to them as a sanctuary after many had perished traversing the Spine's sharp peaks and steep cliffs. They pushed further into the forest, heading southeast into a seemingly unending temperate expanse of lush foliage. Those who crossed these mountains into the southeast of Barruhn eventually became the Elves.
	+ It is around this time that Vexx Drothul, the mythical paladin of Asmodeus, would be buried in exile under the moors of Dukora. The corruption from the Talisman of Asmodeus that was buried with him would forever change the surrounding environment, sapping the life from it and turning the ancient marshland into a blistering desert.

* The group who had remained west of the Spine kept traveling, spreading further and further. While some would settle down at particularly habitable locations, others kept trekking. They spread further west onto what would eventually become the Tillekar peninsula (which at the time was still joined with Daema, Merna, and Fior), and south across the small, southernmost mountains of the Spine into the thickly-forested south-central portion of the continent (of which Heimbald was still a part).
	+ The islands of Fior and Merna actually broke away from the Tillekar Peninsula long before Daema did and, in that time, their inhabitants changed noticeably. Mostly, they shrank due to a random result of genetic drift. In addition to their physical changes, the tropical climate and bountiful environments of the islands they found themselves on left an indelible mark on the personalities and culture of the islanders, causing a nearly unbreakable sense of optimism. The people on Fior would eventually give rise to the Halflings, while those on Merna eventually became the Gnomes.
		- NOTE: The gnomes we know today are not solely the products of natural selection. At some point in the First Age, creatures from the world of the Fey entered this world seeking refuge from an unknown entity that had forced them from their homes. They arrived on Ydur in the jungles of Merna, and soon had interbred with the indigenous population. These half-Fey/half-Ydurian offspring would go on to produce the clever, mischief-loving race that we call “gnomes”.

Eventually, Heimbald broke away from the mainland of Barruhn, becoming its own continent. The people on Heimbald grew different from their mainland ancestors, becoming slightly shorter (an average of 5 feet) and developing a thick, hardy skin which allowed them to thrive in the evergreen forests, taiga and tundra brought about by their new latitude. In addition, while magic became more commonplace on the larger continents, the people on Heimbald never learned of its more precise practice. They were aware of its existence, but only as a part of the world around them. As such, the casting and use of magic is not a part of their everyday lives, and most are incapable of doing so. That being said, they do have a connection with their natural world that allows them to command animals, as well as a robust natural pheromone system which allows a rudimentary form of telepathic communication from one individual to another across short distances. These people are now known as the Rova.

The Orcs, Elves, Halflings, Gnomes, and Rova branched off due to relative isolation from other populations of The Shared Ancestors. But those who had instead decided to build settlements along the way never stopped interacting with one another. They fought, they allied, they traveled, and they built villages. They lived in climates ranging from the arctic surrounding the Windwalls to the grasslands of the west and the thick forests of the south. Their lack of physical boundaries allowed for continuous intermingling, and even more importantly, a desire to stake out one’s own territory. They mixed with one another, and so became a very adaptable people, finding themselves able to call nearly any climate or environment home. They would later become the first to create boats, and would use these to spread themselves to even further corners of the world. Their search for more land and their desire to establish colonies and settlements knew no bounds. This ambitious group would become the Humans.

As the centuries of pre-history went on, eventually the races of Ydur began to organize into societies. The Elves eventually came together and formed Ydur’s first standard written language, which marked the end of the First Age. Until this point, all history, religion, mythology, and knowledge of other planes was either verbal or crudely expressed through pictographs, and was open to personal interpretation and embellishment. With this first language, which has gone largely unchanged over the millennia, came the era of records. The elves who began to record all that was known of history and events thought of themselves as the keepers of times gone by and archivists of all that made Ydur what it was, so they decided to mark the beginning of a new Age, and declared this era to begin with the founding of their association: The Grand Historical Order. Over the centuries, the Grand Historical Order has developed into a vast hall of scholarly record keeping. As the oldest known contemporary institution on Ydur, it is widely regarded as the definitive historical authority of the world, and it holds this reputation proudly, doing all in its power to remain politically neutral as its members record the history of the planet and the people upon it.