Battle of the Sixth Age

And the Sixth Age did rise the SåpeSønner
Scions of Såpe.
He saw that which had come before
And made the SåpeSønner to renew the world
Fair creatures
Prismatic Hair
Prismatic Irises
Prismatic Skin
All the colors
All the gifts they possessed
The magic of the Simsaur
The science of the Abysmal
The spirit of the Gods
The patience of the Middle Folk
And the might of Bleyok.
They built their cities
On music and crystal
Light and Air
Glorious and Honorable
They slowly began to rebuild the world
To Cleans it of that which had stained it
But the seeds of evil were deep
Planted, so long ago.
There was a great war
In which the SåpeSønner
Led the remaining races against the scions
of Bleyok
Ravenous they were
And mighty and hairy and disgusting
And smelly
They multiplied like rabbits
But each time the mighty SåpeSønner
threw them down.
For a thousand years
The seeds of Bleyok unleashed upon the earth
Stealing the gifts of the SåpeSønner
And turning them dire
But the SåpeSønner triumphed
And at last the world was cleansed of their evil.
And the SåpeSønner looked to the heavens
And went to the other worlds in mighty ships
That sailed the stars.
Leaving almost all of the SåpeSønner.
And time passed.
And they grew to be an idle race
Caught forever in the past
Demanding honorifics from the other races
That they had so gloriously saved
And at first it was given
But as the years passed, they chafed in annoyance
And the Simsaur, and the Abysmal and the Middle Folk
All retreated and hid from the SåpeSønner.
And the Gods howled on the Desert World
Imprisoned there where they could do no more harm.
And the SåpeSønner began to die off
One by one
Until there were only a few left
There was the occasional renewal
A brief flurry of glory and hope
But by the end of the sixth age
The world was ready for something new.

Darkness of the Fifth Age

And Bleyok came to Power
And the Four before him wept
For in their slumbering power
They saw darkness
And Sa and Fa recalled the echoes of Hil
And very nearly destroyed the world
But their loneliness was great
And their perspective wide
And they knew that this too would pass.

And on the first turning of the fifth age
War plagued the land once again
The beaver folk hid
The Abysmal retreated
The Simsaur were nearly driven to extinction
The gods snuffed out one by one
All life was nearly made extinct
And only when Bleyok
Saw that all his toys
Would go away
Should he slay them all
Did he stay his hand

And on the second turning
He took the free will
Of every living thing
Forcing them into acts
Of dire depravity
Whilst their imprisoned minds
Were forced to watch and live and live again
For six hundred hundred years
The world itself cried out in pain
Until only madness ruled.

And on the third turning
Bleyok saw that his time
Was drawing to an end
And he sneered with fury
And frustration
Leaving darkened seeds
Of evil scattered about the land
Corrupting all he could corrupt
Blighting the sky itself
In his final act of fury
He unleashed an attack
Upon Sa and Fa
Only to be locked in a cage.
Sa and Fa
Has seen this coming
Far in advance.
There would not be another Hil.

The Fourth Age

And Jagan came in the Midst of All Things
And he shaped the Vord
Who built their dams on the third world
And watched
And waited.
They were a peaceful folk.
And whilst there were minor wars
Between the Abysmal
And the Simsaur
There was peace for a time
In large part
And the world settled into a slight routine.
Whilst the Vord watched
And expanded
And lay in the sun.
No great cities did they build
Nor great sciences or magics did they achieve
But they lived well
And they had peace.
But like all such things
It was not to last.
And so to passed the forth age
And it was far too short.
Almost oddly so
As noted by future generations.

The Passing of the Third Age

And High Whithy Fly
Did the Abysmal Go
To the Yellow World
To Die.
They took their walkers
With water inside
And explored it
From head to toe.
And therein the world
Did the Sandstone speak
And say, "You're not welcome here."
But the squids ignored
What was implored
And soon did they all disappear.

And the Third Age began
Enter stage right Slint.
And he found the Yellow world
To his liking.
And he found, like Nowa
That he liked the Green world too.
But he wasn't so happy
About the Blue world.
But he left them alone
Save by twisting their ability
To see the future
So that their devices
Always came with a terrible curse
When they used their gift.
There was now a price.
The Abysmal fell.
One by one.
And Slint watched them fall apart.
He was quite content.
And long and silent was the world.
And the descendants and servants
Of the Sim'saur slowly retook the land.
Dragons and Lizardkin
Ruled the land.
And the Abysmal,
Even in their degraded state
Ruled the Seas.
And the Yellow world was still silent.
And thus passed the third age.

And Slint watched
Indifferent.
He felt no need
To intercede a second time
Until he found
Himself compelled
By Fa and Sa
To make something
Rather than simply destroy.
So Slint made Gods.
Creatures of the desert.
Incredibly capricious and powerful.
The gods demanded rule
And gave favor in return.
Thus was Slint's joke on Fa and Sa.
They didn't seem to get it.
The gods began to aquire worship
Amongst the Abysmal
And the Sim'saur's children.
And the Sim'saur.
And L'cin'bok and Nowa
Were wroth.
But there was nothing
That they could do about it.
And thus passed the third age.

The War of Ages

The magic of the Simsaur
And the science of the Abysmal
Raged for centuries.
Thousands died.
Millions died.
And the world bled.
But eventually the Simsaur were reduced to primitives.
Only a few hiding deep within the mountains
Retained their ancient secrets.
The rest falling ever farther
Into a state of perpetual barbarism.
And the Abysmal were triumphant.
Vast was their empire
Stretching between two worlds.
Their science did not truly progress
For their secret lay in knowing the end
Before the beginning
But they still grew.
Alas, it was only in the secrets of crafting
That they had forsight
For they did not see the height of their folly
As they cast their envious and greedful gaze to the heavens
And toward the Yellow World.

The Second Age - Conflict in the Depths

And thus was born Nowa,

And Nowa looked and saw the Blue World

And she was captivated by its depths.

And so within them she created The Abysmal.

Prismatic they were

With glittering eyes

And beautiful tentacles tipped with pearls

And beaks as sharp and hard as stone.

Above all she gifted them

With the knowledge of foresight.

This vision did not betray

The Law of Time as dictated

By Sa and Ma.

No one could see the future.

Rather by instinct

The sunken creatures

Saw the clever mechanics of natural law

At its best.

At its most refined.

Soon their cities

Began to light up in the night

From harnessed lightening

And shifting transports.

And the Simsaur looked up to the heavens.

And saw the Blue world

And were jealous.

So they unleashed their minions

In the dead of night

Though a backway gate that slew

Thousands of their eggs.

And Nowa was wroth

And demanded reciprocity

From L’cin’bok.

L’cin’bok would have none of it.

And he laughed at his sister’s plight.

For all for him was order

And she had her jurisdiction

And he had his own.

How was it his fault if she could not protect her playthings?

And Nowa showed L’cin’bok

That Hila hath no fury

Like a woman scorned

And with a motion of her power

Widened the gate

Pouring a third of the blue world

To that of the green

Covering its surface with ocean.

Killing millions of the Simsaur.

Now L’cin’bok was wroth.

And moved to exude his power

To destroy Nowa.

But he could not.

For the second age was Nowa’s now.

And whilst Nowa could not undo

That which had come before

She could forestall her brother’s actions.

So it was,

That war began between the Abysmal and the Simsaur.

The First Age

The Simsaur were lizards; giant lizards. They had great power granted to them by L’cn’Bok, who granted them the ability to act as his stewards, placing them over the Seven worlds and the inhabitants thereof. A part of them was thus in license to control these things and to grant over themselves as well.

Their power came through a small gland in the back of their head that tied their essenence to L’cn’Bok. Their eyes were large but only capable of seeing in black and white since they were not tied to any of the seven worlds directly. They did not have hands, and only had very limited intelligence at first. They ate, drank, mated and moved about the realm in tranquility. They dance by moving in tide with the stars in the heavens. They were not stoppable by any of the creatures on Green, and could eat and do as they wished with no harm or fear. They worshiped L’cn’Bok through their slow low rumbles in the night.

2^nd Passing – The S’ims’aur began to change when a few of them created a cave network within a mountain as shelter from the rain and elements of the planet, since Green was quietly against them since L’cn’Bok had given them license over her without her permission. Nothing overt of course, but here and there a little hostility and consternation where she could. Once the other S’ims’aur saw this they began to follow suit. More importantly, they began to try and think of other ways to improve their situation.

The first S’ims’aur to realize the qualities of life were passed on to other life did so before any other major discovery was made by their people. They already lived very long lives and thus began a series of agricultural breakthroughs that greatly improved their food stores. As time improved they began to have more time for other pursuits. Eventually, one of them realized the same principles could be applied toward non plant species.

First, they began to use this to improve themselves. Before, they had simply selected whatever random traits appealed to each other, including social grace and physical appearance. All of this went by the wayside as they determined that mental agility and spiritual essence were the most critical to their well being as a species. They planned very long term. There were some false starts, since they believed that by improving themselves they would improve their progeny further until this was disproved, but in the process they facilitated new and improved methods of learning. With all of this focus on the intellect and learning new things, combined with their extra time that they could spend in the cities, they began to want for things to focus their newfound time and intelligence upon.

The S’ims’aur realized that they could breed their livestock and other animals for intelligence as well. They began to increase the intelligence of one animal in particular, the Gorinfa, which they had amused themselves with by watching its aggressive behavior towards others of its own kind, a concept alien to the S’ims’aur. At one point, the Gorinfa rebelled against the S’ims’aur, but it was a primitive and paltry thing, easily put down. Still, the S’ims’aur learned the lesson well and began to also breed tameness and loyalty toward the S’ims’aur into them as well.

At one point, an idle bet between S’ims’aur showed the strength and aggression that they were willing to show towards one another in a whole new light. What started as small individual matches, soon began to be organized team events. Eventually, one of the S’ims’aur houses realized how effective that they were at other things, and quietly used their Gorinfa to assault a rival house.

This caused a major uproar among them, with many who were determined to find the culprit. An investigation ensued, and the Gorinfa were destroyed and their owners banished to the world of Indigo. However, once the tactic had been used once, little by little the old order passed away as armed city-states began to rise up. Fierce warlords began to fight each other and lay waste to the countryside all around them.

Green wailed at the blood being spilled on her sacred soil. She called to L’cn’Bok in pain and pleaded with him to reign in the S’ims’aur. L’cn’Bok was moved and so he commanded the S’ims’aur to stop fighting one another. Green rejoiced, and for a time there was peace. However, as long as the S’ims’aur were, they eventually died away, and when the fourth generation after L’cn’Bok’s mandate had died, they began to once again pick up the powers of war, and breeding Gorinfa in large numbers.

One amongst their number, Ka’las’sade, remembered the warnings of L’cn’Bok and was afeared that the S’ims’aur would lose their powers and dominion if they were not stopped. He tried using reason first, but proved unable to do so. So he used his mind, and used his powers to grant of his essence, and the essence of Green (who gave her consent) to give the Gorinfa power to defeat the smaller armies of the S’ims’aur. Bit by bit he conquered them until he united them all into one dominion that covered all of the face of the land.

3^rd Passing – The empire reigned for tens of thousands of years. Massive works were built, and two other servant races were created; the Gorfim, flying reptiles with extremely agile hands, and the Gorhiss, slow but powerful humanoids that had the strength of the S’ims’aur but the shape and utility of the Gorinfa. The Gorhiss were far more docile, even almost pacifistic. When further rebellions were attempted, the Gorinfa’s numbers slowly began to decline because they were seen as weapons of war and a threat to the state.

There were those who saw the number of S’ims’aur as a threat since they had no natural enemies on the planet. Since they had no natural or unnatural enemies besides themselves, and since war had long since been almost eradicated among them, their numbers swelled until they began to become more than the world of Green could handle. It did not help that Green did everything in her power to harm them. Their license over her, granted by L’cn’Bok limited what she could do against them, but in the end it was enough to cause S’ims’aur to begin to want for food; at least the poorest among them. While even the least S’ims’aur had tremendous magical power, they were not able to replenish their essence with magic. They could force Green to obey them, but since they were not able to harness its essence, they were forced to use their own or that of other lesser creatures. This could create food, but the law of entropy showed that sooner or later they would run out of resources.

As the population began to increase, the pressure for revolt grew. Eventually, the emperor was slain and several large city-states emerged yet again, ruled by bands of powerful families that claimed lineage to the first emperor. During this time, two of the states threw off the shackles of the previous ruling class and established a new order. The first, St’orh’ista, claimed rule by power. They had the backing of the clerics of L’cn’Bok and claimed that any government should be based on the usage of the powers granted them by their god. The second, Ls’ys’tra claimed government by intelligence. Those who were the best educated and well versed in the vast stores of knowledge that had been accumulated over time were the most fit to rule. Wisdom, in their view, was the source of triumph, not power or blood.

They were far more efficient in the organization of their societies than the cities that ran on the old ways. The St’orh’istan and Ls’ys’tran ideologies grew stronger and more popular, with factions in every city believing in their way of life. Finally, St’orh’istan managed to convert another city to their way of thought through a bloodless revolution. Ls’ys’tran would have none of it and began to increase their pressure on other cities. Soon, almost all of the cities had formed with one league or another. War, real war, the likes of which the world had never seen loomed on the horizon.

It started civilly enough at first. Both sides wanted to maintain moral superiority over the other, so they agreed to a code of conduct with each other. They maintained this for a while, but things began to escalate and the stakes became higher. Finally, a surprise attack on the city of St’orh’ista caused them to panicky. They pulled out all the stops and began to attack the softer targets that they had honorably ignored before. Problems began to arise.

They began to work on larger and larger weapons until finally they were able to store up enough destructive energy into a stored essence crystal that they could destroy an entire city. The devastation was tremendous, and three cities were destroyed before they finally realized the horror of what they were doing. As magical recreations of their efforts were passed around from place to place, people demanded that they take action.