Humanity's Cradle

# Humanity's Cradle and the Beginning of Human Civilization

## The Beginnings

It can be assumed that humans have not been around for particularly long relative to the existence of Dranul. There are beings alive to this day that may have seen the beginnings of human civilization, though they are in hiding and have not been encountered by any human who lived to tell the tale.

It is approximated that the first humans appeared around three hundred million years ago, whether this be because a God had placed them in the world or the result of an experiment of another aptitudal race is unclear, and honestly irrelevant. Factually, the first records of human activity, also by the limited recounts of non-human races that humans have managed to communicate with, date back to approximately three hundred million years before the Cataclysm.

The first humans, also named Precursors, were likely not intrinsically gifted with the ability to manipulate Aetir as they seem to have developed this several millions of years later. It is unclear how they managed to survive the incredibly hostile world of Dranul, seeing how there were several other intelligent races besides larger hordes of monsters and creatures on what is today mostly human-dominated soil. Some opinions say that humans even back then had their own way of utilizing Aetir to kill, in ways similar to modern day runic arrays.

It is unquestioned that humans back then lived in constant fear, though. They hid in caves, deep forests and spatial folds trying to evade the gaze of powerful predators and other tyrannical species. The corner of Dranul that humans first came into being then was still a place of the law of the jungle in a capacity that is unimaginable today. What seems to have saved humanity from certain destruction are a combination of creative and innovative spirit, unrelenting determination, a tendency for conquest and desire for unstoppable growth as well as the eventual mutations that later led to Aptitudes being born in the general population.

## The Path out of the Escape

The true and exact turning point seems to be one specific point in history that most resources in human cultural literature describe very similarly. It is centered around the appearance of the first 7th Circle Aetra, Gatrius Ilius Stahlgrim, the undisputed original Guardian of the human race and founder of the original Dranulian League.

Gatrius Ilius Stahlgrim, in short, carved a permanent place for humanity and enabled them to finally truly settle and develop. The introduced institutionalization of education on Tainen'ar laying the foundation for the modern Aetra Academy. Most of humanity's virtues today such as striving for knowledge, power and the militaristic perspective most Aetras have on themselves is derived from this time. It also founded the so-called Reign, from when on Aetra held nearly all administrative and exectuive as well as legislative power in every human proto-state that grew out of the Dranulian League.

By virtue of society being structured around it's mightiest, humans quickly proved to be successful at curbing many outside threats, and by standing united against other species and monsters they were able to employ cooperation on the highest levels possible. Leading this endeavor was the Dranulian League at the forefront of human continental interests. Whenever there was an intelligent enemy that was not worth fighting, the League would conduct diplomatic negotiations, whenever a war was necessary the League would lead humanity into it.

In such a way humans found themselves able to establish themselves on what is called the Olekthar Peninsula, which is the South-Western part of a super continent called Aerda.

## Domination of a Landmass

With the domination of the Olekthar Peninsula and the fortification towards the outwards borders of what is considered collective humanity, the hegemony of the Dranulian League began to lose it's meaning. Fading were the days of collective cooperation under a shared banner, many territories splitting away from the League. A lot of new kingdoms, holding different constitutions, political systems and beliefs had already developed on the fringes of the peninsula at this point, now annexing small parts of the League. While the Cradle of Human Civilization would forever stay on the grounds of the League, and so would the epicenter of education and martial prowess, many other governments strengthened themselves.

The tendency towards equality through strength within the Dranulian League was undermined by superficial concepts of authority, and some countries now have rulers that are weaker than some of their subjects, something that would be unthinkable during the Hegemony of the League. The amount of Aetra drastically increased, however, and so did the general population on the peninsula, now that it wasn't curbed by constant war with non-human species or mighty monsters.

There are rough estimates that say that within a few hundred to a thousand years, the human population grew fifty fold. Plagues spread, mainly ravaging the impoverished parts of the non-aptitudes, yet not harming the Aetra or the general population growth much. Through the immense increasie in humans, there was an increasing amount of Academies and other Institutions formed. It got to the point of whole noble families forming around Aetra, and some Aetra even becoming merecenaries. It is estimated that over nine in ten Academies were formed in this period of time, the ones that survived from the time before the population explosion being granted the title "dignified Academy" internationally.