How did we get here? How did all of this come to be? Who came before Tuloni the First and the events that heralded the beginning of the First Age?— A Human Philosopher challenges his students
In the Beginning...
Experience teaches us that all stories begin somewhere. Plants bare their seeds which fall to the ground. Those seeds are nurtured by the sun and the rain. They grow into their own right, bearing fruit, and eventually releasing seeds of their own.
We see this play out in our children, and in our forefathers. The cycle of life repeats itself over and over again. Each story begins where the previous ends. And yet, it leaves one to ponder where, and when, and how the cycle began. Has it always existed? Or was there a time before?
And so it is not unexpected given what we can see with our eyes, hear with our ears, feel on our skin, and know in our hearts that in the quiet and reflective moments of our lives some turn to these same questions. Has this beautiful land we call Gokrenxia always existed? Have the
Myndikin and
Kynekin peoples always roamed these lands? Was there a time before and if so, how did we come to be?
Let us explore what we know.
The Grand Celebration
No discussion around our shared story could be complete without including the records captured by our long-lived
Elven cousins. In fact, much of what we know about the early years of the First Age stems from their meticulous writings. While volumes of information were lost throughout the Kyne push Eastward during the Great War, there still exist a plethora of wonderfully detailed sources from which we may draw. These help us to understand what life, art, food, and fashion were like in those ancient times.
One of the oldest surviving Elven documents of which we are aware today, the
Sangleyd Sommvarn Harsvore or Song of the Summer King, is an ancient tablet that beautifully describes the pomp and circumstance around the declaration of
Tuloni I as the Elven High Lord and Overseer of all Gokrenxia. By
all accounts this celebration is the first and earliest historical event appearing in Elven records.
Grigory Vogrem & The Great Unwritten
But what happened before
Tuloni I? Who were his parents? Where did he come from? These are questions many scholars across the land have pondered. During the First Age, around 89 1A, a Dwarven Historian named Grigory of House Vogrem traveled the land interviewing and cataloging conversations with some of the eldest Elves of his day, many of whom were firsthand participants in the Grand Celebration during their youth. What he found was that while those who attended the event could recall exquisite details about the joyous music, the exotic foods, the opulent sights, and unusual smells, not a single surviving witness could recall a time before that event.
It is from those interviews we learn of the phenomenon the Elves refer to as
The Praznidat. Loosely translated, we believe this unusual phrase means roughly "The Great Unwritten." It appears to have been a generally understood and accepted concept in early Elven society that
something occurred before the Grand Celebration. Whether that something was magical or supernatural, celestial, or perhaps some combination therein, is unclear. They believed this event wiped out all traces of what came before. Adding to the oddity of the anomaly, the witnesses were ambivalent about the gap in their knowledge, seeming to be perfectly content not to know. When pressed, interviewees became irrate and/or abruptly ended their sessions.
Magic and The Praznidat - A Cautionary Tale
Around 217 1A, a small group of young and intrepid humans studying the arcane arts at an academy in Lysandre conceived a radical idea: Sneak onto the revered historical site of Tunloni I's purported coronation and under cover of night attempt to use their burgeoning powers to conduct a dangerous ritual. Its effect: to peer back through time.
Guards at the site reported a thick, foul-smelling, choking black smoke rising from the temple, followed by the sounds of unnatural screams. By the time the smoke cleared, there was little left of the mages-in-training but a pile of broken bodies and rivers of blood.
The message to all who might follow in their footsteps was abundantly clear:
Leave the past, in the past.
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