Age of Myth

***Preceded by:** Creation / **Followed by:** Age of Tribes*

The period of time leading up to the creation of humans and orcs. The Age of Myth is considered by most scholars to have begun at the moment of Lyssium's birth and covers everything from then till the Age of Tribes. Until the arrival of Grell and creation of the dwarven race, none bothered to record written texts. Consequently anything that predates them is only known from myths and stories. During this age, magic ran wild and truly extraordinary beings roamed the world. Dragons miles in length, spells pulled from the very air without word or sign, and artifacts crafted in abundance. It is this combination of fragmented information and extraordinary events that inspired the period's name.

After the birth of her children and creation of the elves, Madrian is said to have wandered the newly formed world. Exhausted, but not yet ready to sleep, the Goddess observed the creations her progeny brought forth as the roamed in their youth. The young gods for their part experimented with the world spread out before them. They created various fey, living things and landscapes to amuse themselves and their family.

In time, Grell found the world as he explored the reaches of the Void. The dwarven god introduced himself to Madrian and stayed as her guest. In time he came to love the world she and her children had created, and the Goddess invited him to make it his home. He made his forge in a great fiery mountain and crafted the dwarves.

As the dwarves began the dig into the mountains for precious ores and create with them, another god grew curious. Kravos, lord of giants and destruction was drawn to the sound of dwarven anvils. Myth says that the fierce god brought earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and great hurricanes and binding the world's giants into an army. The dwarves taught the elves to make weapons and armor to face these marauders. During this time of conflict, the Great Riddle had secreted itself into the world. So as the great war between dwarves, elves and giants raged on, dragons began to appear throughout the most wild spaces of the world.

Grell and Evangellein were eventually able to beat Kravos and chased him to the deep wastelands of the Fey Realm. The giant tribes however still rampaged across the land, so it was that Grell created the Throne of the Giant King, giving it to a wise stone giant. Now bound underneath a single great ruler, the giants settled down and found their place in the world.

With this done the world settled into a period of epic legend. Mythic heroes fought monsters for glory and were recorded in the oldest ballads. The elves learned druidic and the arcane study of elemental magics. Grell came to be taken with the goddess Cyliss. Appreciating her kind heart and mercurial moods, he courted her. With the help of the Great Riddle, he crafted a dragon of pure mithral so large that it could rest in the heavens opposite the sun. He named this dragon Lunas and presented it to Cyliss as a gift. The Great Riddle asked only for a stone of rough, yet perfect dimensions. The dragon god gave the stone power over its children then according to legend; "Tossed it somewhere."

In time the young gods, having explored the material plane and claimed their homes, went to wander the deepest reaches of the Fey Realm. They grew distant and quiet.

**The Brothers**

Two elven brothers lived in a far wilderness among mountain valleys. The elder of the two brothers was known for his mastery over earth magic and his brother over that of fire. Songs say that the elder grew jealous of his brother's more flamboyant spells. With encouragement from a strange wanderer of sinister aspect this jealousy grew into hatred. The elder learned from the stranger ways to shift his spells to a darker purpose, using these techniques he buried the younger alive and murdered him.

The wanderer dug up the younger's corpse, which had been reduced to pieces by scavengers. He then took it to the then High King of Dwarves, teaching the king how to craft armor which would replace what was missing and restore life of a kind. Adrianna became enraged by the unnatural magic at work and the circumvention of death. Unaware of the stranger, the goddess snuffed out the High King's life and after he was sealed in his tomb, cursed him with undeath.

Thus resurrected, the younger brother raised an army, convincing the dwarves that it was his brother to be blamed for the fate of their king. With this army rallying fire giants, red dragons and those beings of flame to his cause. In response the elder brother appealed to the elves, warning that their forests would be burned by this great army of flame. He gathered them along with the stone giants, then jinni and other creatures of stone and earth. The two great armies nearly tore the land asunder. Finally, as the brothers faced each other, an old hermit appeared and warned the armies to stand down. The brothers refused and mocked the frail looking figure, who then revealed himself to be Phades. The god brought vengeance to the two and placed the weight of guilt upon their armies. For their part the kingdoms of elves and dwarves were overshadowed by a great shame for their roles in the war. The last act of the war was for the two races to hide away the bodies of the two brothers. Each was buried in an elaborate crypt filled with traps, mechanical and magical, sealed away and forgotten.

**The Imp King, the Dwarf and the Dragon Stone**

Many hundreds of years a scholar from a race of fire imps would set out across the old continent. He gathered a group into what many scholars believe was the first recorded adventuring party. Translations of various texts are fragmentary and often contradictory, especially when compared against the Imp King's own writings. Certain events seem consistent across accounts. All records indicate constant betrayal, madness and murder.

The Imp King wandered across the old continent to an obscure shore. There he found doorways to other realms and a sea elf woman he took as a bride. He became involved in dangerous arcane experiments. Because of this his children were born mutated. Conflict with a circle of druids resulted in the disappearance of his children and a swath of destruction along the coast by powerful magics. The whole region was fragmented and broken by the Mad Imp's personal conflicts. He gathered goblins, kobolds, gnomes and others under the idea that taller races persecuted them and built a great clockwork walled city.

An assassin failing to kill the Imp, had instead found the Dragon Stone in the possession of druids. Discovering it's secrets, the stone was taken to a volcano in the Imp's Kings domain and thrown in. Thus, awakening dragons that had been sleeping since the early days of creation.

As dragons of mythic size rose from the bowels of the earth, seas formed, great canyons ripped across the land and the continent was split in two. Great caches of hidden dragon eggs hatched and thousands of the wyrms took to the skies. Cultists freed the undead High King of Dwarves from his prison. With an army of duergar he marched toward the volcano gathering the loyalties of evil dragons as he went. In response the good dragons gathered various kingdoms together to oppose them. The Imp King, gathered his own kingdom, with clockwork creations, mutated beasts, dark alchemy and cataclysmic magics. The battle that resulted between the various armies on the edge of the Imp King's domain lasted years. Victories large and small swung the tide among the gathered forces. The land itself was reformed over and over by the magic used. Castles were raised, sieged and tore down. Finally, the Imp King mastered a dark alchemical secret that allowed him to create a fog which turned all his enemies to stone. The High King of Dwarves was returned to his prison. The Imp King settled upon his throne and history moved on, the worship of his people raising him to the status of demi-god.

In time his kingdom would be passed through the hands of other monarchs. Before finally collapsing under the rule of a forgotten king, even more mad and paranoid than the Imp King himself.

**Birth of Humans & Orcs**

The great upheaval of the Imp King's war had awoken Madrian herself. As she wandered the land, she saw continents reformed and the last of the elder wyrms filling the skies. These massive dragons drew the attention of a beast even great in size and strength. The god-beast, Jongura, which would ravage the land even further until the arrival of the Great Hunter. The Great Hunter killed the Jongura and Madrian found herself drawn to the god. They took shelter beneath a massive baobab tree. They made love there and the sweat of the gods mixed with the blood of the Jongura, forming humans.

Before returning to wilds of the divine realms the Great Hunter made a land from the bones of the Jongura. The new land took the beasts name, as well as it's savagery and grandeur. He taught the humans to hunt in this new land and to fight the monsters formed from the dead god's rotting hide. The most savage of these, the tarasque, he took it to the dwarves and had bound in chains until the destruction of the world. The Great Hunter then went upon his way. The humans formed tribes and began to spread out. Some of these tribes hunted as they had been taught, others lingered around the last remains of the Jongura. These tribes ate of the beast's flesh and became as beasts themselves, the first orcs.

Thus ended the Age of Myth.

*See Also; the Quiet Empires*