Civilization's Dawn
The sun rises on a new world- a world not like that you may know. Shattered by a catastrophic impact not long after the extinction of the dinosaurs, Earth is not as it should be. This impact, a star falling to earth, changed not only the shape of the world, but also her content; this star bore strange light and strange crystals, warping and altering the planet where humanity slowly arose.
A thousand generations. Ten thousand generations? Longer, perhaps. Uncounted years had spun onwards since the fall of the star that was the herald of a different world, years unmarked by any man or beast, for when that celestial body plummeted to embrace the bosom of Mother Earth man had not even conceived of his first thought or his lungs filled with his first breath.
And yet, the echoes of that cosmic event still swept the world, their symphony molding the forefathers of mankind. Today he was not even aware of ought which might have been different, a path he might have taken, but it was one different nonetheless. Knowing or ignorant, mankind now looks out at the horizon marked by a thousand luminescent stars and stands to take his own place in the world- greater even than the fell and mystical creatures that roam the lands of Earth, his mind a burning thing so much more potent than even the fiercest of beasts and creeping things.
Anthropologists might call this a dreaming time, a time before men sang the first songs or wrote the first stories- when lives were so simple they left no mark on the tapestry of the ages, stamped no impact into the fabric of the planet to come. But to the men and women who lived such ages, who ate and breathed and hoped for what might be, these ages are only too real. A time of discovery, and innovation, and joy, and death.
The time of Civilization's Dawn.
Sundered by leagues, languages, and alien customs, nearly a dozen small bands of mankind look out to see that dawn. Some are awakened by the singing and cries of strange beasts and birds, others by the crashing of the waves, others still by nothing other than the silence of the wind rising over sunlit mountains and plains. Their traditions are different, their tools, their cultures, but they are united by one thing- a bright future full of uncertainty and danger, but also possibilities that are limitless.
Upon the banks of a wild stream the tribe of Fergdun Clan rises to greet the dawn, waving fields of green grass upon the emerald hillocks of their home rippling under the morning breeze. Here and there feral cotton plants make their homes in the rich soil and muck of the river's edge. Also within the lands they know of are abundant deposits of red rubies poking from the hillsides, fur-bearing beavers that make their homes in the stream, and isolated strands of edible grasses.
Near the roaring breakers of the sea, upon a tempest-tossed bay, the people of the Cadmian Clan make their homes under jagged cliffs. Here and there great fields of wheat course down from the hilltops to near the sandy edges of the sea, a primary food source for the Clan alongside the small fish that teem in the nearby bay. At times strange black-shelled creatures can be seen within the briny depths near the home of the Cadmians, and in the cliffs brilliant white marble makes a fine evidence of material wealth to come.
Far away from the azure sea, the folk of Xcotl make their homes on arid highland steppes broken by crags and mountainous outcroppings. In the harsh but bountiful lands these people work dun brown deposits of cassiterite, hammered until it glitters with a near golden-hue into primitive jewelry hung on strands of grass. In the fields of their home teem fierce dust-colored bulls which no man has tamed, and immense as long as two men which hunt them and, occasionally, the Xcotl. Alongside the occasional hunted bull the people of Xcotl survive on small low-lying Psarmelon bushes which give a bitter but nutritious fruit.
On rolling green plains as flat as the sea Clan Tafari makes its claim, nomadic wanderers now given to harvesting the rolling water-weeds that journey across the plains alongside immense herds of wild horses. Hunted for food as well as sinew and bones, these mighty creatures form a large part of the foundation of the Tafari culture. The clan-fathers also know of lumbering rock-crabs as tall as houses which wander the plains, the only landmarks in an otherwise featureless countryside, and have occasionally stumbled across scrapes of rare and valuable silver.
Near by the rumbling sea the Hvasskyn, the Keen-Folk, make their homes in forest giants who cluster beneath the eaves of windswept dells. Their lives sustained by the bountiful cattle that roam the wooded forests, the Hvasskyn make use of crude tools of beaten copper hewn from under the sea-hills and spice their meals with salt and medicinal herbs of uncommon provenance gathered from the nearby river-flats of a large delta.
Far to the south, beyond boreal forests of deep silent eaves, the Chance Clan wanders the snowy tundra. Hardy by nature, garbed in the skins of the great antlered elk that roam the frozen southlands, the Chance Clan crack rare fire-shards to heat their meals in gouts of warmth, cut from the forbidding landscape with humble copper tools likewise crafted by the keen fingers of the tribe. Though the landscape is barren and swept of all life most of the year, in the brief summer months giant brilliantly white birds with wingspans greater than an entire tribe stood fingertip to fingertip nest in the wastes, raising their young on teeming insects for a time before departing back to the north.
Under the eaves of mighty broken peaks that no man has climbed the Maelon make their home, houses cut into caves of burnished stone. Brilliant blood-red hematite litters the cliffs about their lands, the heart-stone of civilization joined at intervals by flecks of glimmering white crystal. Upon apple trees of the temperate vale the Maelon subside, and the goats that roam fearlessly across even the highest mountains without ever losing their footing.
In the land of the rising sun, where dawn is red and clear, the Nure Clan's abundant fires oftentimes hold the night at bay even until the sun returns, fed by endless supplies of burning stone the color of midnight which they have taken to as a fuel source. Hotter burning than the quick-growing bamboo trees that litter the nearby wetlands and river delta, the folk of the Clan mark their bodies with the coal that is their province, using it to conceal themselves when they hunt rare carnivorous night-tigers or wild yak who it takes a hundred spears to down.
Upon the edges of an endless desert the people of Hyr Gwydh make their homes, sheltered from the sweltering sun by trees of vast height whose fragrant bark is a fine perfume. Upon the rippling heat-waves pools of deepest crude make an appearance, and journeying creatures of frightening speed who seem almost like men, but the color sand. Thankfully the Hyrkin subside upon a succulent diet of figs extracted from the nearby oases.
Along the shores of the chill sea live the sons of Zhou, recently come from a nomadic life to huddle by the mouth of a great river. Cold are the nights and cold the days, the mighty pine forests of the east looming over all as wild elk roam the forest depths. But within the waters of the river can be found at times oysters filled with, if fortune smiles, glinting pearls, and the rare dye-snail whose blood weeps regal purple.
To the east live the folk of the Herrian Tribe, proud hunters and warriors. Upon the migratory herds of great mammoth they prey, rarely but occasionally slaying the immense creatures for food, themselves hunted in turn by the scaled-cats which roam the harsh tundra that is their home. Far to the east can be seen the peaks of mighty mountains, whose bones are in evidence in the lands of the Herrian people in the form of rocky outcroppings rich with native copper and brilliant emerald.
In the bosom of a fertile river valley the people of Ekaru, farmers and foragers in the days of the sun. Within the vale grows the wild fire-wheat, near boulders of gleaming galena. Here and there strange lights of violet and aquamarine can be seen wandering the fields, occasionally resting over the shoals of fish which teem in the shallow pools and eddies of the river.
Last but not least of the sons of men are those folk of Lordaeron, men who live upon a broken archipelago far out to sea. Beneath the shade trees and steaming mountains they live in veritable plenty, untroubled by any predation or want, feasting on abundant shorefish and coconuts that provide both drink and flesh for the eating. In the volcanic peaks rusty hematite is abundant, for those who wish to experiment with it, and mighty armor-whales spout often in the bays of the land, coming to either calve their young or for some purpose not yet divined by men.
This is the account of the first of the sons of men.
