So the gods drift off into slumber, they can still perceive the movements of the cosmos, but they become distant, mere observers to the many things they've set into motion.

An Age of Conflict

It is only two short generations before the brewing conflicts fully explode. The final spark to ignite the tinder was a magical prank conducted by a child in one of the City States. He thought it would be funny to turn a little old lady blue. Only he did not realize the mana he bought was tainted, it was now pure celestia mana, but had traces of Gael power. When he turned her blue he inadvertently gave her sharp teeth and a hunger for flesh. She killed three people on her street before she was killed. The blubbering child confessed his crimes, in response the Purists had him lynched. That ignited outrage among the magical practitioners for such a harsh punishment against a child. Thus began the Great Purge.

This conflict had been building for years and as such, both sides were well armed. The Purists had a great many purifying wands cut from the branches of the trees at the poles, the arcane supports had magic. What came next was bloody and brutal and quick.

With no true armies to fight their causes the battles were fought in skirmishes and brawls, it was largely an urban conflict with many streets being soaked in blood or warped by unleashed magic. A simple night of drinking at the bar could turn into a battleground if the wrong person happened inside. Some City States who had supported the Purists before the Great Purge marshaled militias who started to go door to door and hunt out these arcane. The magic users fought back, but the purifying wands were designed by divine hands for the very purpose of purifying, wherever the two met, magic lost. So magicians were forced to fight indirectly, to strike unseen, or to retreat.

With a war that does not have clear sides or terms for engagement, it was inevitable it would spill out beyond the City States. News of the clash spread like wildfire and no one was truly beyond it, you either supported magic or you opposed it. None were allowed to stand by idly. In rural communities magic was actually proving more popular, this sentiment fostered by the use of managriculture to nourish their crops. Then there were the Enlightened who were strong proponents of magic and its ability to empower mortals. When they chose to support magical practitioners the stakes of the conflict were significantly raised. Suddenly the magicians had an army fighting for them.

But these were untrained armies. This was the first real conflict the void had seen, there were no hardened soldiers to be found, only men and women fighting for their ideals. Many of them reacted poorly when faced with violence or aggression, war crimes abounded on all sides.

Even Celestia, so far away, was not entirely safe. Several leylines were severed by enough purifying wands being gathered in a single place. Some of the most extreme Purists even steeled themselves to ride the leylines to travel to Celestia, there they tried to bring the war directly to the most obviously magical people of all. While some murders occurred, there was no widespread violence as the Purists obviously couldn't send their most potent weapons to Celestia, without the purifying wands these attempts at violence were short lived. (Though a number of Krys lost their magic permanently when The Darkest Cures were invoked by these dying Purists. It was quite traumatic for these individuals.)

Zantel the Smith came to be known for the armors he forged for the Holy Nation which were without peer. Ethaestra flourished fed by blood money, everyone was eager to buy their cutting edge weapons and finely crafted bows and spears. There was a new surge of Agraciada communities who tethered themselves to these sea leviathans, as the war was not so prevalent beneath the seas. The Aspiring were a quiet, but stable force, their long trained warriors finally being called to duty. Many refugees were protected, though few of them were faithful enough to find true protection at the Falls of Aspiration. One shaman became famed for holding back a force of Purists for three days single handed which bought enough time for refugees to flee before he turned into an elemental.

There were no glorious battles in this war, no true heroes or generals emerged. It was a prolonged, bloody affair which ravaged cities and villages alike.

And the Spectral Plane was filled with a great many souls.

And Collapse

Finally after nearly a decade, civilization couldn't withstand the pressures of constant battle. Supply lines failed, crops lay untended and famine spread, disease ran rampant from the unburied dead. In these dark few years, several changes unfolded.

Most surprisingly, the Enlightened Empire collapsed. One of the most powerful factions for most of the time mortals had existed, it was not immune to unrest. When hunger and discord spread ambitious factions within sought to obtain power. In the end there were a few short years of infighting and the Enlightened territory was divvied up by the victors, but these lasted only a few short years. Then the Enlightened became a memory, their schools lay abandoned and their libraries were now treasure troves waiting to be pillaged.

The City States, hit hardest by the conflict, also fell into ruin. Many residents fled these urban centers to get away from the greatest of the violence. Without citizens to feed their economies and provide services these centers of civilizations fell into disrepair and prompted more to leave. Villages sprang up all across Uguay, though these were fearful insular towns, wary that any new traveler might bring conflict to their new homes.

The Holy Nation also fell during these years. Without a divine hand to guide it and with rumors fed by the Tree of Knowledge itself that their gods were dead, cynicism had eaten away at the once pious cloth of this nation. The religious heads had become increasingly disaffected by their own faiths and this was felt by their flock. There was no grand war that marked this dissolution of this old empire. It quietly faded. The many holy symbols still adorning its cities lost their meaning and became relics of the past.

And Still Time Passes

And so the long festering war comes and goes. In its wake it leaves shell shocked societies who have seen widespread violence and atrocities. The structure of civilized powers had been reformed as some of them most powerful groups had fallen. This power vacuum leaves space for new powers to grow. And there are certainly new groups waiting.

The City of the Fall, quiet through all of this conflict, is unscathed due to the protections placed on it by Vor. The dueling nature religions of the Green Speakers and the Aspiring are arguably stronger than ever. The seeds sown by the Pantheon of Unity could not stop the coming war, but they start to help the world heal now that the greatest conflict has passed. The Rokuto Seed lives and still grows and the Makers still build.

So the gods still slumber, while the world rebuilds itself. More is yet to come.

With the Great Purge having passed magic still remains in mortal societies, the Purge having only successfully carved out sharp divides between those who practice magic and those who don't. The Purists are a greatly reduced faction, their hard line stances proving unpalatable to many after they resulted in so much violence. Magic also continues to be too important a factor in many societies to simply be discarded. Now in the wake of the violence these societies rebuild.

Aspiring for a New Society

With the dust settling the Aspiring emerge from their relative seclusion. With the Enlightened gone, the City States largely dissolved and agrarian communities everywhere there is a dire need for education and teaching lest all the advancements mortals have made be lost. In that regard, the Aspiring step up to fill the gap. Aspiring mentors journey out to far flung villages and set up schools. The greatest of these schools have a grove of biomancy trees grown up around them by the Priests of Biomancy and serve as visible symbol of favor that the Aspiring have given that village. Shaman are increasingly seen coming out from the wild places, those who have taken the Warrior's Blessing, and they act as guardians ensuring areas are save from roaming bandits or the occasional Purist lynching troupe.

Where once the Aspiring were a fringe element, their name and teachings come to be the foundation of society in this era of rebuilding. They had carefully laid out their ethos, built up their ranks and been carefully guided along a path of enlightenment and intellectualism and now that long work was coming to fruition.

The Blossomed Rokoto

While the world fell to pieces, something else was blossoming. Far away from the strife, the Rokoto Seed was no longer a seed. Each year it grew a little taller and its shadow fell a little further and in that shadow life blossomed. In only a few short decades rather than centuries a whole forest had sprung up and was rich with creeping moss, leafy ferns, all manner of flowers and ivies. As the trees had grown so the dryads had arrived and then the Green Speakers had found their way to their new forest. They declared it a holy place and that not a single tree should be felled by mortal hands. They welcomed their flock to live here so long as they lived as part of the forest and did not to try impose their will upon it. All shelters built there used naturally fallen limbs or trees, paths through the forest were winding trails that naturally contoured to the landscape and the shrines and temples were situated in natural hollows and groves. Everywhere the blessings of the Green Speakers could be found. This was truly their holy land. And at the center of it all the Rokoto Tree stood, still growing each year.

The Makers and the Clockwork City

But not all societies had retreated away from innovation and mortal ingenuity to retreat towards naturalism. Once the City of the Fall, that ancient legacy was now thoroughly forgotten. This had become the Clockwork City. Here, granted divine protection from the violence that surged across Oceaus the Makers and their small but devout flock had existed peacefully. These seemingly ageless Makers had plenty of time to hone their craft and the things they had begun to create were true marvels. Precise devices with ticking gears at their hearts, the entire was gradually rebuilt over time. Everywhere these innovations could be found, from towers that would twist on a screw-like shaft to rise and fall with the movements of the sun, wagons that pulled themselves along (But not with the metal-magic of runesmithing but strange internal locomotion driven by steam and torque.) tools that could be folded into new shapes and serve as other tools. The list of innovations went on and on. Other mortals from across the continent would flock to the Clockwork City to buy up these miraculous items or try to tempt away a clockwork engineer to come live in their village and bring their expertise with them.

Several secret societies had also relocated to the Clockwork City, attracted by the lack of violence ensuring they could not be attacked there. At least not attacked directly, while violence was stopped by divine hand, indirect attacks could still be accomplished. Poisonings and sabotaged mechanisms were the favored form of settling disputes if they escalated to that level.

The Tricksters and the Travelers

Meanwhile the Travelers continue to be an element of chaos. Their moods remain fickle, their notions of right and wrong are as warped as their mana twisted forms. They have become the stuff of stories and legends in societies, tales of them exist in some form of every culture. They retain their legacy of being capricious and their moods fickle and unexpected. But what has changed are tales of Tricksters, they look like their Traveler kin, but their antics are more focused, they have a fondness for punishing those who a greedy or cruel, often with ironic works of magic. The presence of these Tricksters serves as an external pressure, knowledge that if one misbehaves they might become the target of these magical vigilantes.

The Mayfly Kingdoms

The Elevated and the Foreseen continue to be born each generation when their predecessors perish. Elevated Kings continue to found kingdoms, and these kingdoms inevitably collapse when their Elevated King eventually dies. As such, Elevated Kingdoms tend to a destabilizing force in the world overall. Regardless of how cruel or kind their leader is, they are eventually fated to perish and when they do all their work inevitably collapses as so much of it required their great telepathic powers to maintain law, order or ensure loyalty. Cagey citizens will flock to these kingdoms early in their founding, enjoy the stability and peace and stability, then eventually start to trickle away as the king gets older or if rumors of infirmity spread. These reminders of their own mortality tend to push Elevated Kings towards madness near the end of their reigns which certainly speeds up their collapse.

Divinely Appointed Thieves

Meanwhile the many artifacts of the Void are quietly and steadily stolen away. The Krys had been old by Ferenghir to collect the artifacts and they had been doing just that. One of the first to be stole (Again in this case) was the Tome of the Moons where it was secreted away from the Osu'ixie in the dead of night. The Tricolor orb had also been recovered from Yazul, though it took many Krys lives to brave that dangerous moon, the Vorian Rosetta had also been obtained. All of these were taken to the Temple of Harmony and cast into the Manaflow chamber giving those at the Temple unprecedented control over the leylines. With so many artifacts gathered they're even able to send out new leylines which helps to repair some of those damaged by purifying stones in the past.

Only the Stones of Darkness remain outside Krys hands. Those wielders of those stones are too violent and powerful to be robbed. One resides of Celestia, there he rules over his reshaped monsters of flesh. The other is on Oceaus where a cabal has formed in the former University where they push the boundaries of Gael magic using this artifact. Both of them command terrible monsters and continue to fashion more, though they are content in their little fiefdoms and only pose a threat to those who venture too near.

So the gods start to wake from their slumber. The conflict has come and gone. Mortals survive though not all cultures have. The Enlightened and Holy Nation are both relics of a prior age. Now the Aspiring are one of the greater powers that be. Agrarian and rural societies are the predominant communities and many are underpinned by Jyssan philosophy, the philosophy of cooperation and compromise favored by both pacifists and tyrants. Naturalism is the dominant form of thought with both Green Speakers and Aspiring prefer to live at one with the land, but the Makers and the Clockwork city have maintained the tradition of innovation and advancement among mortals.

During these quiet hours Narcissa and Eregor are consumed by Paradox and the family of the gods grows smaller. The gods will soon awaken to this more peaceful era. They can feel their time growing short though, the era of gods is drawing to a close. This will be the shortest Aeon, the gods will have three Days to enact their final mark upon creation.

Plan well gods.

OOC: The final Aeon will open on 6/8. Gods will start with one Act and the Aeon will last for three days.

Arcturus wishes to honor the Gods in the final Aeon. He descends to the entrance of The Clockwork City and begins to build. He sculpts a grand work of art. A massive and lavish sculpture begins on one side and arches across the road entering the city and continues down the other side. Each God is represented in this masterpiece.

For Vaunht, we see the tree of knowledge.
For Osalus, a recreation of the Tome of Moons.
For Ferenghir, a crisscrossing section to represent the laylines.
For Savios, delicate depiction of auroras from the most colorful glass.
For Vor, an enchanting outline of the Vorian Rosetta.

On it continues showcasing all of the Gods who have come and gone through the void. Creations both great and terrible captured in one breathtaking piece.

In the common language, Arcturus titles the piece Divinity.

Acts: Arcturus designs a magnificent piece of art in honor of the gods at the entrance to The Clockwork City and names it Divinity.

Finally, Arcturus looks upon the void and all of creation, smiles, and departs.

Osalus upset that his tome was stolen travels to the temple of Harmony. Once there he smiles playfully and instead of moving one artifact he simply scatters the lot of them. The god didn't care where they went the only concern he had was to make sure they did not end up in Krys possession.

Act 1: Osalus scatters the Artifacts into the void

Osalus then reaches out and modifies one of the demon creatures of Gael, this one he gives greater intelligence. He gives it a will and desire of its own. The ability to sense mana in all its forms, as well as Knowledge of the Stones of Darkness and their location. For with the stone it would be able to control all the other demons of Gael.

Act 2: Osalus crafts the Greater Demon Gael'Nar the darkone.



Osalus lastly reaches out to his children the Osu'ixie and blesses them with an increase in population.

Act 3: Osalus gives the Osu'ixie a increase in numbers.

Savios looked upon the Void once more, this time with the eyes of an old man gazing fondly on the state of the mortals. While there had been much torment and suffering, mostly because of magic, there had been much progress too. He was amazed at how empires had risen and fallen since the last time they were awake. How wars had broken out and been quelled and now, there seemed to be a sense of peace and unity amongst the creations of the gods. He mourned for the Enlightened as they were still his children, but their hubris had led to their own downfall. Now, the Aspiring spread across Oceaus and he was delighted to see that they had stuck to their core beliefs and managed to survive. Even the Shaman had taken their place as guardians of the innocent, and he beamed with pride down at them. He knew there was not much time left before he faded from this existence, gone from the creations he had partaken in and cherished. It was time to leave his children with a last gift, but what else could he grant them that they did not already have?

He thought long and hard about this decision as he allowed his divine power to gather, and he smiled fondly at Arcturus’ gesture. He too wanted to create something to be remembered by, and he was glad that the Trees of Biomancy were populated around the schools that the Aspiring established. But if they wanted to expand further, they would need to be able to exist in places that they were not comfortable with or accustomed to. So, he reached down one last time into the Void and Acted in the realms of enlightenment and intellectualism once again. He found a collection of scholars who loved to teach but had yet to find a passion of their own to research and pursue. Thus, he decided to grant these teachers with a new kind of knowledge, one that Savios hoped would benefit them into the future. He embedded into their aspiring and ambitious minds a new science that he called Bio-Architecture – the practice of using one’s available resources to create ecofriendly sustainable buildings regardless of environment. He realized that this was a significant boon and he had already experienced Ao’s Wrath one too many times before in his lifetime, so he invested all of his Acts into its creation and distribution in hopes to appease the great Overseer one last time.

Savios uses all three Acts in the creation and distribution of Bio-Architecture, the knowledge of using one’s available resources to create sustainable buildings in different environments.

Foreseeing the end of things, Vor muses on the nature of Ao's experiment and their own place within it. They smile, foreseeing the end of their own influence too and wishing for a kind of permanence to outlast them

Act: Vor blesses the City of the Fall with sentience
Act: Vor blesses the Makers with the power to imbue their clockwork toys with life
Act: Vor blesses the City of the Fall with means to commune with these living toys