Post by Dracula on Sept 20, 2021 20:18:57 GMT -8
A Primer of Antediluvian History
Morpheus
Morpheus
There was history before we started writing it down, this much is known. Before we wrote it down, we heard of it in our stories and we looked upon it in our dreams. Before we wrote history and before we told history in story, there was a deeper history to us. A history that is lost to us. I am Morpheus- a descendant of Shaman- a dreamwalker. At great risk, I have shared in the dreams of sleeping gods and I write to you now so that lost stories and forgotten dreams can be written for you to know in the future. I have seen the first cities. The first beasts. The first man. I watched him walk in a world that was young when things were just starting to become old. I share this story now so that you might know.
In the time after the first city and after the fourth fall of the First Man, peoples left the cradle of their birth and scattered to the winds. They were not alone in their journey. Creatures born of blackness, hunger, and sin followed them. Though born of the souls of the dead, these creatures lacked any such semblance of life. They sowed only destruction, the felt only hunger, they consumed endlessly without remorse or concern. With a hole in their chest and no life to speak of, these beasts were name Hollow. In their pursuit, Man was pushed further and further away from their homeland. They would not be without their protectors though. In the bloodline of the First Man came born the Shaman- men and women that had not yet fallen like their brothers. They still possessed the power of the First and with that brilliant power they were able to keep humanity alive. On the backs of the Shaman, the first civilizations of men began to form.
But men were not free of the sins they had left behind. Great kings would form legendary kingdoms. Brave heroes would go on perilous quests. But they would all inevitably come to the Fifth Fall of Man.
In ancient Europe, a man named himself King and he was good. He named his castle city Stadersten. Though there was bloodshed when he carved a home out of this world, he ruled just and good. He, his son, and his son's son maintained the power of the First Man and so gained the names of Sky Kings of Europe. In the third generation, King Allein, would come to rule without his fathers to guide him. Though this man was good, he desired the world his fathers lived in; a time before the borders of his kingdom were established. Under his rule, Stadersten became an engine of war. He marched east to the borders of Europe and subject all man and beast in the realm. Allein II marched south to retake the cradle of man but the old gods that still lingered in that part of the world took his life. Allein III marched further east until he came into conflict with his equal with a Sky King from the East. Defeated, pushed back, and having lost territory Allein changed his name to Ritter.
Driven mad by defeat and humiliation, King Ritter set his sights upon a different expanse.
To the west, across the great ocean,