Overview

*(Looking for a shorter overview? Try here. Or, see the timeline here.)*

Once upon a time, there was a planet. A fairly ordinary planet, with lakes and rivers and mountains and plains, with icy tundras and expansive deserts, populated by a variety of animals and plant life. This was the planet that would become Ankou, but in this time, it had no name, for there was no one to give it one. For an indeterminate amount of time, which would later come to be known as The Before, this little world continued to turn, the time passing without any record of it, simple animals living and dying without any knowledge of what they lived for.

And then came something new.

A being, from out beyond the furthest stars, from a realm entirely unimaginable. This was the Gryphon Mother. She was a formless, genderless entity, but as she approached the planet, she took the form of an elegant gryphon. The moment her talons touched the surface of the planet, it was forever changed, for the Mother brought with her something that had not previously existed in this realm: magic.

Like a living, thriving force, the magic spread across the surface of the planet until everything was touched by it. While much of the earth and plant life were not visibly affected, the living animals were changed immediately: they developed sentience. With this newfound cognizance came language, complex thoughts, and identity. They were no longer simple animals, but intelligent creatures. Alongside the newly-intelligent natural animals came the creation of entirely new creatures. First were the phoenixes, followed by the gryphons and the dragons. The first-created member of each magical species were later known as The First.

The Mother spoke to them all, natural and magical alike, explaining that she had brought these gifts to this planet in order to see it grow and thrive, and that she was to be their caretaker and guardian. This first year was known as Year Zero; it is the first year with recorded history, and it marks the start of the era known as The Beginning.

Over the next five hundred years, the population of the planet grew significantly. With help from the Mother, the creatures began building their own civilizations. The place where the Mother first landed on the planet, on the western edge of the main peninsula, would eventually become the Mother's City. True to her word, the Mother helped guide the creatures, making sure they were cared for but also striving for them to be independent. As the years went by, the Ankouvian creatures became more and more self-reliant, until the Mother knew that they were able to care for themselves now.

In y408 the Gryphon Mother became acquainted with a fox named Kefara. The two grew close, eventually falling in love. Kefara was entranced by the Mother, not because of her power or her status but because of her kind heart and her intelligence, while the Mother was equally enthralled to meet a creature that she felt truly saw her as an individual, rather than an all-powerful entity. In y429, the Mother gifted Kefara with immortality and a level of magic that neared the Mother's own, in order that the two need never be separated.

Five hundred years after she first landed on the planet, the Mother informed the creatures that while she would always be present on the planet, she would no longer be a direct force in their lives. She left the Mother's City and disappeared into the depths of the Silverwood Forest, where she let her form peacefully pass away. This action marked the end of The Beginning, and the start of the Age of Kingdoms.

This was not the end of the Gryphon Mother, of course. It simply began her cycle of reincarnation, the first of which was as a lynx in the forests of Lyndoreth, one of the kingdoms that was founded near the end of the first era.