First Appearance of the Old Ones

Era beginning/end

Ten thousand years ago, the world lay in the grip of a persistent and numbing ice age and then came the Old Ones in their silver star ships.

Fifteen thousand years ago, the world lay in the grip of a persistent and numbing ice age.
To the north, all the lands as far as what is now Araby were barren, cold tundra. Those creatures that lived upon the globe were mostly confined to the equatorial regions - amongst them were the ancestors of Elves, Dwarfs, and Humans. Little more than animals, they roamed over the forests and tundra, hunting wild beasts and grubbing for roots in the ground. But then came the Old Ones, creatures of cosmic intelligence, beings whose whims would make a lasting impact upon the fate of the planet and its evolving inhabitants.
The Old Ones were an ancient race. Countless millions of years ago, they originated upon an unknown world, many light-years across the galaxy. They were strange, unfathomable, and powerful beyond imagining. In their civilisation, astrophysics, mystic-philosophy, and arcane-magic were as one and their lives were directed by thoughts and emotions unknown and unknowable by such paltry minds as live upon the planet today.   They learned how to travel from world to world via a system of complex inter-dimensional gateways - and they also learned of the perils of the voids between space, of the lurking horrors that inhabited the regions of Chaos into which their gateways led. During their domination of the universe, the Old Ones travelled to many worlds, including this one...   Over many millennia, the Old Ones were frequent visitors, bringing new plants and animals and encouraging the development of those they had brought before. They tinkered with the genetic structures - presumably to meet some strange need of their own - and they even moved the orbit of the planet so that the climate grew warmer. The ice-sheets retreated and, gradually, deep forests spread over the area that was later to be known as the Old World. Encouraged by the improved climate, creatures began to move northwards to inhabit the new lands and foremost amongst them were the Elves. The young race grew to love the woodlands and were taught to cultivate the natural harvest of trees and plants.   From their great city on the western continent, the Old Ones kept a careful eye on the progress of the Elves. Even before the Elves had gained any real measure of civilisation, the Slann transported some of them away from the Old World, relocating them on a vast island between the main continental masses. There the Elves were carefully nurtured so that a flourishing and sophisticated society grew in the land that is known today as Ulthuan, the Elven Kingdoms.   By now, the Dwarfs had begun to migrate northwards, following the route which the Elves had taken. Finding the Old World to their liking, they began to build crude rock shelters amongst the mountains and to husband the wild beasts for their skins, meat, and milk.   The rise of Humanity as a civilised race was still long-distant and the few inarticulate savages that lived amongst the forests posed no real threat to the early Dwarfs.   The plans of the Old Ones seem to be progressing well. The planet was warmer and more hospitable to the new creatures developing upon it. The emerging races were developing fast and the direction of their evolution lay firmly in the hands of the Old Ones.  The purpose of all this experimentation remains a mystery. Perhaps the races of Elves, Dwarfs, and Humans were destined to become slaves, servants, or helpmates of the Old Ones. Perhaps they were nothing more than a fascinating experiment carried out by creatures whose powers extended into the fabric of space and the voids of ultimate terror. Whatever the truth, it seems unlikely that it will ever be discovered, for the experiment was cut short by events elsewhere in the Galaxy.