From The Sound of Starfall:
Pages Scrawled in Insa Rolin’s Hand
If I’m to understand the world, then I’m to understand its history. If I’m to create, I must understand what created me. Thus, the notes I’ve compiled here are for reference purposes only, and by no means extensive. I want to, at a glance, recall the major events that shaped this world so I can better understand how to shape it myself.
I have translated most of the notes into the common tongue from the language of the Druids, a beautiful, musical language it is, and so I’ve included the Mal words and spellings for many of the “ages”. I am not fully convinced in the truth of this, but alas, not much else was ever written in this time when the skies were new. Truth is only as true as you make it.
These notes are for my eyes and mine alone. Alas, if they should ever be found, I warn you, reader, that once you delve down the tunnel of history’s mysteries, you can’t go back. What you read here, you won’t be able to un-read. It will burrow into you like a tick.
Insa Rolin
6000 years before Starfall…
The Fall (Faëlmæ):
The stars fell, and with them came the Creators. Wearing the names of Karaat, and Gilga. The Otherworld was infected and completely destroyed. The old gods of the Remembered Lands died, and new gods, the Creators, filled their place. Their song drowned out all others, and the world was theirs to do with as they pleased.
The Remembered Lands were kept in ill repair by their previous gods and run ragged by Nature. Karaat brought light and life to the world. Gilga brought darkness and death. One could not live without the other. They created, one in opposition to the other, the sun, the moon, the stars. Where once on this plain Nature’s song had deemed all immortal, shrouded in eternal half-light, now She wept as Her most flawless harmony was soiled by discord—kept in a constant flux of life and death, darkness and light.
And from that turmoil was born a new dawn.
Dawn Age ( Faer á’læ):
Giy’er, who we easterners call giants, and fairies roamed the north. Fairies were not yet banned below the earth. Some legends say that fairies even had wings. Cyclops and mammoths roamed too. Giy’er and cyclops fought, and there are stories of the Giy’er defeating the cyclops kings. These creatures call themselves Nature’s Children, and they lived in a world quite unlike our own.
The race of Old Gods, called Dawnkin, still roamed in great numbers—beastly figures who walked upright and had their own language and culture. They resembled wolves, and owls, stags, crows, and even trees. They shared kinship with all of the beasts of the wild. They claimed Gilga, the Old One, as their Maker.
Brindled mongrel races and dragons roamed Edura, krakens roamed the seas, these were Karaat’s Creations.
There are many known races that cannot mate with Humans: Mongrels of the Mongrel Hills. The Hairy Folk of Gomb who have tails and leathery palms. And the Mantis-kin of the Shaded Arbor with rubbery bones and webbed eyes without pupils, to name a few. These are thought to be failed creations.
Age of Creation (Cær Miundarë):
In the Southeast, Karaat created the race of Sorcerers.
In the Northeast, Gilga created the Abori.
Nature, in response, created her own Humanoids, of all colours and shapes. But it wasn’t long before other gods, small and large, swooped down and claimed these Humans' beliefs.
The Druids were born from the leaves of the first nytewoods, the Feldarra from the stones of the Mountains of the Mother. The Daggs from the ocean, the Ayelish from the mud, and the Esheri from the sands. The native peoples of Ryne, and Lavesh, and Rhosanti all burst forth from the earth in wonderful ways, too, with the elements to fuel them.
Accounts at this time were not written, so only oral tradition survives, however, the tradition accounts for much conflict between the new Human race and the races that already lived here—Giy’er, faeries, cyclops, mammoths, Druids, and of course, the Rangers of the arbors, collectively known as Nature’s Children.
In the north, Druids fought wars against the race of Old Gods, also known as the Dawnkin, they fought giy’er and earth fairies, endlessly for centuries. The Druids worshipped the Old One, Gilga, whose worship was taught to them by the Dawnkin to begin with, and buried themselves in great barrows. They laid in pools of quicksilver and used spells to talk to Gilga. They used dark magics.
Central Ardura, in Rhosanti and Ayeland, they had their own battles. Ayeland fought the swamp people that were born from the cackle mire
In Ryne, the merpeople fought each other.
In Rhosanti, a great schism took place. The sect known as the Edarions fought another called the Edellians—Edarians were people of the purple that drank the lifeblood of humans. The Edellians were the folk born of the gold lion Edell when Edarion bit the Edell mountains and they spilled forth. *For more on Edarions and Edellians, see The Kingdoms of Ardura—the Hesterlands.*
The Sorcerers created grand cities, their capital being the Golden City of Ailar. The Sorcerers, in an attempt to please their Creator and to ascend close to His heights, created the Warlocks. Like a plague, the Warlocks spread, and with them, the Word of Karaat.
Gilga’s believers became more and more secluded.
Daggland and Northern Ardura:
Daggland (land of fire in Yehvenki) called something different back then, conquered the native races of the Fells, Mal Hallow, Ayeland, Ryne, and northern Rhosanti—above the cape of lions. The Druids of Mal Hallow were in a war of extinction against the race of Dawnkin that roamed the land. When Daggland came to conquer, they helped the Druids defeat the race and were involved in the Pact. Daggland built towers and forts from stone. They started using the Druid rituals to tie their souls to the standing stones.
The Pact (Á Si’dáel):
An ancient pact exists between the race of Old Gods and Druids. It states that the Old Gods would leave this world and Ascend, but only under the pretext that they would leave a group of their own kind here to establish themselves as gods in the Otherworld, and that Druids, and their descendants, worship them as such. Most importantly they must burn the bodies of all of their dead rather than bury them in barrows, to send their bodies as smoke to fuel the clouds.
Thus, the Druids gave up their god of Gilga, the Old One, and started the new burial ritual—of oak and thorn and ash. They left their barrows barren from then on.
The Age of Heroes (Cær A’rwæ):
Now that the Humanoids had reigned dominance over the other races of the world they were born into, they began to carve their own kingdoms, hewn from the rocks and hills and rivers and coastlines of Ardura. These went by different names over time, but they are essentially the same shape, one settlement being built on top of a pre-existing one. The roads they carved at this time still, mostly, follow the same routes, the dirt, gravel, and mud roads replaced by better ones over time. The foundations of Ardura were set in this time.
So, what was going on in Edura during this age? The Druids seemed unconcerned by that, and so a large blank spot arises in our little history, though, maybe it's best we don't know. Every light casts a shadow of equal intensity, and Yehven was a very bright light indeed.
It is in this age where we get the stories of the mythical heroes that helped to found kingdoms. Emmer, Ossian the Blue Knight, Berend the Black who defeated the Giy’er tribes and earth fairies, and Aonis—leader of the Rangers who helped to defeat the Old Gods.
Stories of mythical heroes emerged from each kingdom, and they traded these stories as they traded other commodities, further establishing the web of cultures, myths, and histories that was growing wider and deeper across Ardura.
Kallahorn, that nefarious place, had already been built when the heroes of the north first settled it, though it is believed that many of the Druid kings and queens of old shunned the place as they thought it to be haunted. It may have been built even before the Creators fell. It was believed that Kelson was the first to settle the ancient castle, and he had to fight the demons and ghosts that lived there. In the end, many believe that it drove Kelson mad.
The Age of Empire (Cær ý Giy’ræ):
The Yehvenki Empire:
The Yehvenki Empire ruled Edura, Sothurra, and all of southern Ardura (below the cape of lions)
Used to be ruled by a race of Sorcerers who mysteriously “Ascended” and disappeared in a single night.
The Yehvenki Empire took over most of the Known Lands, only the alliance of Druids and Daggs, and the Abori of the far-north eluded their power.
Yehven, appears in Ardura now, and helped to establish cities in the south. Sareen and Rhosanti being two of the first, along with the three grand cities of Lavesh. Over centuries of trading with the Druids of the north, the Yehvenki culture slowly spread as bloodlines melded, and the city of Solace was built in Ayeland, and then Elurra in the Glenn. The cities were connected by Yehvenki built roads.
The Dagglandic Empire:
This is when Daggland came to the Fells, Ryne, Mal Hallow, and northern Ayeland and built their ringforts.
After centuries of war, the Daggs and Druids allied in another great pact with the combined interest of defending the north from Yehvenki invasion. The pact was broken a few times over the years, though never very badly—only petty squabbles from Dagglandic corsair kings. It was thought that the Daggland kings started hiring the Druids to perform ancient rituals that would trap the Daggland rulers' souls inside of these magical standing stones that the Druids had built. Daggland rulers started doing performing this rutual, and their families would make pilgrimages to visit them every couple of years. Soon, the standing stones of the Fells and Mal Hallow became sacred places for the Daggs and Druids alike, and their cultures melded even further as many Daggs made homes there to be closer to there ancestors souls.
The Starfall (syr’thitim ý seræ):
The Sorcerers Ascended, all disappearing mysteriously in a single night, leaving all of their empire to their creation, the Warlocks. The Warlocks were less disciplined. Nepotists, they abused the powers that were gifted them. They spread the Words of Karaat and enslaved the gods of old. They broke the commandments which the Sorcerers had laid out for them on seven alabaster tablets. And soon, Nature Herself stood up to the Creators to halt them in their place. A star was called upon from the heavens to be brought down upon us. The same star that burns the sky above me as I scrawl these pages.
The rest hasn’t happened yet, but it’s not too hard to see at this point. I don’t have to be a soothsayer to tell you that Nature allied with Gilga, the Old One, with the intention to destroy Karaat, forever. And the Abori, oh yes, believe me, it was them, brought a star down on the Golden City of Ailar and ended the race of Warlocks.
But not all. Oh hah ho haha. No, not all. Not me.