The Vanished People

The Before is a time most people know nothing about. More than three thousand years stand between us and the time before The Pulse. It is hard to imagine what life was like back then. What horrors unchained the cataclysmic event that changed our world forever. All we have left are books and scrolls which survived the destruction The Pulse caused. Most of them are hidden away in secret libraries, off limits to anyone except a select few. But secrets can be uncovered if one is willing to search hard enough.

— Pulse Etiologist Nykàl Muvali

That there once existed a second humanoid species is something very few know about outside the field of the Obscure Sciences. On the contrary, most deny there ever was a sapient species other than humans. They base their denial on the lack of tangible evidence. But for those who are willing to search through dusty scrolls, or are able to read tomes written in ancient languages, the proof is undeniable. There was a time long ago when humans were not the only sapient species.

Wild Nature

Once they were known as dryandae by our ancestors. A people as wild and untamed as the woodlands they called home. For them Mistwood was more than home though, it was a sacred place. Every plant and animal was worshipped by them. This was the main reason for their conflicts with humans. Whenever humans cut down parts of Mistwood the Dryandae saw it as a personal attack on them, the killing of forest animals as sacrilege. From what can be found in documents from the Before, we know that there where times where both humans and dryandae lived in peace. But it seems our ancenstors, true to human nature , coveted that which was not theirs. And so there were times where they took from Mistwood what was not theirs to take.

Appearance

Descriptions are remarkably similar no matter which source. Their skin seems to have resembled tree bark, while their hair had the color of moss. Leaves and other plant materials were woven into their hair, while their clothes were made from plant materials or shedded fur from animals which they collected from the forest.

EXTINCT

Origin/Ancestry

Unknown

Geographic Distribution

• West Eghea

The West Eghean Empire

We know that before the Pulse the humans of West Eghea were united by an Empire. Human cities and villages where found all around the coastline and up toward the edge of Mistwood. Little is known about the Emperor who ruled in the days before the Pulse though. What we can deduce from ancient texts is that he was a warmongering man set on cutting large parts of Mystwood for resources and expansion. Perhaps he was the man only remembered as The Witchmaster. Perhaps he somehow caused the Pulse.