The Elder Races

In the early times, when the world was still young and Lomara had not yet stepped down to earth, there were the elder races.

These were the first races to be given the gift of speech, and they used it to the full. They spoke, and they learnt, and quickly they knew much of what there was to know.

Then came the time of Kalar. In his envy, he sent the Riddlers onto the world to distort the nature of reality. The laws of physics became mutable, and the elder races learnt that they could alter the very essence of things. They began to tamper with nature.

They learnt the art of creation, and stole the gift of Elna, giving life to creatures of their own imaginings.

And so were born the younger races.

Soon they tired of this game, and began to corrupt their own creations. They took the races they had made, and combined them with animals, creating the wolfmen and the lizardmen and many other travesties of nature.

It was not long before the elder races had attracted the wrath of Elna.

In these times, the Beast Kylax was not under the control of Elna, so she had only her own words to persuade the elder races of the blasphemy of their ways.

"You have stolen that which belongs to the gods." she said.

"We have stolen nothing." they argued. "We have only used that which was freely given. We have learnt, as was expected of us."

And Elna had no answer to this, so went back to the gods in defeat.

But unbeknownst to her, Kalar had his own plans for the elder races. The Riddlers were being defeated by the agents of the gods, so he sought other means of sowing chaos in the world.

He taught the elder races deception.

The elder races learnt to distrust each other. Suspicion grew, and suspicion became hostility, and hostility became war.

With such power at their disposal, the war of the elder races was a terrible thing. The Beast Kylax roamed freely through the world, taking everything within its reach. Yorcas stood triumphant as all the speaking races came under his sway.

Only the dragons remained aloof. They alone, of all the elder races, saw the consequences of war. They alone saw what Kalar was doing, and that he would succeed.

But they also saw that they alone of the elder races would live.

And so it came to pass that only the younger races, the creations and abominations of the elder races' experiments and games, survived to share the world with the dragons. All that remained of the once omnipotent people were ruins and artefacts.

The Legacy of the Elder Races

The elder races each gave rise to a family of the races to be found in the world today.

The Elohin were an aloof and perfectionist race. They favoured aesthetic and spiritual heights. They created the elven races.

The Onbastin were a materialistic race. They sought satisfaction in structure, placing value in objects. They created the humans and dwarves.

The Golgotha were an unsubtle race that revelled in transitory, physical pleasures. They created the goblin races.

Together they represented Art, Science and Instinct.

The Dragons, the last of the elder races, were a race of ascetics and decadents. They took little interest in the creation and manipulation of the lesser races, although a few examples of their tamperings can be found. They were the mediators and philosophers, but are now content to occupy themselves in trivial amusements.

In the world today, there are many creatures that seem to fulfil no useful role in nature, or are combinations of a number of other creatures. They are invariably the result of the tamperings of the elder races.