What's Here:

• Messge 002: Averan and the Founding of the Second Kingdom
  Ancient History, the founding of the second era
• Message 003: The Primordial Gods
  The Ancient primordial Gods that underpins most of the panheons of Aroen.
• Message 004: The Basic Cosmology of Aroen

This message was last edited by the GM at 11:57, Thu 19 Nov 2020.

There are three eras recorded the history of Aroen.

The first was in the land of our origin, the mythical land of Eleran, which was overcome by the Endless Ice, a foe so implacable in it's advances that not even the united mages of the Great Eleran Skola could stop it.

Averan was king then, barely more than a child when his father died.  Having finally sued for peace with a neighboring kingdom, the onslaught of Endless Winter left him nearly powerless to protect his people.  To feed them, as the ocne fertile valleys of Eleran had become prematurely barren and unyielding.

The Mages of the Eleran Skola divined and conjured and studied and meditated.  And in the end, determined that the Endless Ice was not a natural phenomenom, but rather the natural world's reaction to an unnatural phenomenom.  But what had triggered this new ice-age was beyond their kenning.

It is said that twenty cycles of scrabbling and fighting and losing more and more of the lands of Eleran took it's toll, and eventually Averan admitted defeat.

Cursing the Gods that would let their people perish, Averan turned his back on the twelve, vowed to wipe their very names from the annals of recorded history.  And, emblazoned by frustration and brado in equal measure, he gathered those who remained to chase the setting sun across the Teides Sea--a feat unmatched before or since.

 Full a third of those who traveled with him perished on the journey, for the Sea did not look kindly upon them, neither.   They made landfall, however,  in a deep natural inlet on a vast continent sheltered by a chain of islands that provided solace from the stormy seas.

The land was vast.  There was no Godwood here, no living vestiges of the Ancient trees.  The land had it's own spirits, it's own pulse.  It was no Eleran.  But it was a sanctuary from the travails that had claimed millions of people.  Now, there were a  few paltry thousand, left to rebuild the glories of Old Eleran.   Averan set his staff on dry land, and named the place Sanctuary in the old tongue:  Druvir.

The Endless Ice was here, too, but it's effects were much diminished, and though the land was different and the beasts and flowers were different, there was enough for the remnants of the Eleran nation to rebuild...

Averan paid for his folly, though.  In turning his back on the Gods, he misunderstood the power of faith.  Whether there were Gods or no wasn't the question.  It was how to harness the sheer power of faith.  Five years after planting his staff in the harbor of Druvir, Averan was killed by the Followers of Gemin, he who would later become the first Sage.

--
OOC:

So... Rakoth is the big bad that the people of Aroen fought against in the Dark War (Great War).     What is not known to the people is that Rakoth, as an entity "not of this reality" caused some severe shockwaves when he forced his way6 into this reality.   This triggered a small ice-age.  The same ice-age which forced Averan to abandon old Eleran and travel across the Teides Sea seeking a new home for his people.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:49, Wed 18 Nov 2020.

Kumlaren Gods:
When Averan turned his back on the twelve, he upset a lot of people.  When he stuck to it even after founding Druvir, it caused some dissension, much of which still hasn't subsided even today, centuries later.

While the twelve live on mostly as mythology and legends of a people long past, thereis a predominant

The fumdamental Creation Myth:
First came Ena, the Eternal Shadow, always pregnant, mother of all that is and all that will be.

Ena slept in the nothing, and in her dreams, she yearned for something else.  But she knew not what else there could be beyond herself.  In order to understand "otherness", Ena dismembered herself into three Vesmas:

• Lisma, The Flame
• Siena, the Empty Wall
• Lita, the Obscure,(never seen but always there)

What we call reality is but the moving shadows on the body of Siena, formed by the light of Lisma on Lita.  Without Lisma, there is no shadow-play.  Without Lita, there is no shadow.  Without Siena, there is no canvas on which the shadows are cast.

Reality is a delicate balance of all three:  the light, the canvas an the dark between.

Averan, when he turned his back on the twelve resurrected the recognition of the Ancient Gods, the triad-mothers.  Gemin, as First Sage, was required to push the orthodoxy of the mother-triad. To some extent, he was able to work in his own dualistic views into the shadow/flame analogy, lessening the relative importance and acknowledgement of Siena, the Empty Wall, the canvas on which reality plays out.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 11:56, Thu 19 Nov 2020.

In this game, there are three constantly intersecting realities:

• The Known world - That that is
• The Underworld - That that was  (the dead and memories)
• The Otherworld - That that might be (dream and the spirit world)

There are places that are believed to be gates between the three worlds.  The covnergence of ley-lines typically tend to be conducive to seeing into the other worlds, though travel isn't generally believed to be possible.

The Tarenti and the Cyrenni both claim to have relationships with the spirit world/otherworld.  SO, whether travel between the three worlds is possible remains to be verified.