The Tale of Woe

Extract from "Journeys in the Northern Wastes: An Investigation of the People, Politics, and Magic that caused the Cataclysm"

— by Egiten Aizuain

Tales of Beginnings

Life in the Northern Wastes is a precarious adventure at best, and the fascinating people who make their homes on the edge of it, the Izotza have limited access to tools central to the writing profession. Instead, much of their history is conveyed across generations through more ancient techniques such as legends, storytelling, and songs.
These oral traditions and legends speak the story of the Cataclysm in a manner alien to modern thought. According to these tales, the magical leylines of the land are personified and are eternally vengeful, as told in this short version of "The Tale of Woe", commonly taught to children, and recited by shamans around evening campfires.

You must never use magic in the land of the north. It enrages the leys, and they will not forgive.
In ancient times, before the leys strove against each other, Hotzari, queen of the frigid world slept below the land. And the people wandered upon the world without fear, for Suaren the mighty sat on his rightful thone in the sky, and gave warmth and life to his brother Lurreko of the land, and caressed his bride Urari who watered the land with rivers abundant. And Haizea, the spirit of wind, was a playful child, and madness had not fallen upon her and devoured her soul.
And the foolish of the humans, the Aztia, who dwelt in the garden of Ergela where the rivers met and proceeded upon the land, thought to trick the leys, and tame them to be their slaves and serve at their beck and call. And so the leaders of the Aztia spoke to the people, and unknowing, they prepared a great feast to honor their gods, and to it they invited all the leys, save one, for they did not know Hotzari, who slumbered in her rest.
When the feast was laid, the gods arrived thinking to be honored, and the Azitia instead entrapped them with magic, and the gods were compelled to do their bidding. And the Aztia locked the gods in heavy chains of magic and took them to a stronghold and imprisoned them there. But the Izotza, the people of the ice, who had helped prepare the feast, saw that the gods were dishonored, and they took council together. And when it came about that it was their turn to guard the gods, they left the door to the prison unlocked, but they knew not how to unlock the chains that bound the leys.
And seeing this, Sauren caused great heat to consume the magic of his bindings, and he rescued his bride Urari, and they escaped from the prison of the Aztia. But he was unable to free the other gods, for the Aztia came upon them and they had power to chain Sauren to their will, and he fled before their face. Then Lurreko bestirred himself, and he called out to Hotzari in her sleep, and she heard his voice and arose full of wrath, and Hotzari froze the Atzia in their castles, and freed the gods who Sauren could not rescue, and the gods were wrathful together and killed the people who lived upon the land. But Sauren warmed the way of the Izotza through the bitter cold, for they had repented their sin of compelling the gods and aided him and Urari his bride to escape the bondage of the Aztia, and so the Izotza escaped to the edge of the land far to the south.
And it was found that when Haizea was released, that her sanity was gone, and madness had consumed her. And Hotzari took the child into her care, and they became inseparable. Then the gods swore to make the land inhospitable to the humans and to forbid the practice of magic in the land.
And so the foolishness of the Aztia wrought destruction to the realm of Lurreko and death to those who had wandered it, and the leys held dominion. The northern lands became a forbidden thing, filled with bitter cold and howling wind, running with rivers of molten stone, and covered in plains of ice. Yet Sauren and Urari remember the kindness of the Izotza, and make a place for them on the fringe of the wastes, and provide for their needs when they ask with proper reverence and avoid the practice of magic.

Of interest to note, the "Tale of Woe" is a remarkably coherent account for a culture based on oral histories of the probable cause of the Cataclysm. The recent discovery of the library of Linus Dalton uncovered new documents that provide evidence of the Affinity Spell. This Affinity Spell was first cast in an attempt to control and "balance" the power of the magic leylines that intersect in the vicinity of the University of the Arcane in Magetown where the Reliquary of Ergela is located.

How Did we Get Here?

And Then What Happened?

Other Customs Derived from the Cataclysm