"Ar an Draoidh"

Era beginning/end

"Ar an Draoidh" or the Age of Fear, a time when humanity was hunted nearly to extinction by the iron machines of the giants. The Kunkal forced humanity into subterranean dwellings as they hid in darkness and despair with only the dreams of rising from the world as their solitude.

Ar an Draoidh came when the Dawn Kingdom of the Jotnar reached its end and the formerly restrained advancement in magic and engineering was let loose by the loss of a singular agenda and political entity for the giants. Humanity, long seen with disgust and contempt by the giants was set loose on the world by the gods but soon came into conflict with the giants who used their prized machines, the Kunkal, against them. The Kunkal were the pinnacle of Jotnar weapon technology and a perfect combination of their adept use of magic and machinery as within the Kunkal burned a mysterious force of tempered fire only known to the Jotun mages and craftsmen who built them. Using this tempered fire, the Kunkal reaped fiery death on mankind who hid in mountaintop and subterranean caves to escape their fiery reapers. Fear gripped humanity for a great extent of time and around waning fires they told stories of their eventual revenge-filled triumph over the giants. Mankind's state attracted the pity of the gods and soon their aid helped mankind emerge from their dwellings and finally fight back against the giants and the Kunkal. Led by the gods themselves and a cavalcade of ancient heroes, wars erupted between this coalition and the Jotnar who had abandoned their use of the terrifying Kunkal. These conflicts, mostly long forgotten, scarred the young landscape of the world, and through a great effort from both man and their divine allies, the giants were defeated and mankind gained its preeminent position as the most powerful of the two mortal races.