| Birthright |
| Realms |
Retired
| Reality Fault |
General Info
 |
| Realms: Birthright |
The Book of Ages -- the Summaries
by Eowyn W. Cenek, Birthright GM
as Kept by Limera, Daughter of Mother Earth
The Age Before
"A seed sprouted into a three leafed clover, and each was a leaf..."
"A star burst, and inside they lay, waiting to be born into this cold world..."
"The Progenitor cried three tears. The first was Brother Sun who burned him. The second was Father Sky who cooled his burned skin and froze it. The third was Mother Earth, who comforted him..."
A thousand voices tell a thousand legends of the births of Mother Earth, Father Sky, and Brother Sun. And all they can agree upon is that after their birth, it was Mother Earth and Father Sky who made the Children, while Brother Sun sheltered them and kept them warm.
And so the legends go on. Each is believed by its believers and each could be the ultimate truth. I cannot choose, and my mother's mother remains silent on the subject. She remains silent on most subjects.
But always it is Mother Earth who birthed the Firstborn, and Father Sky who fathered them. So let it be recorded: Mother Earth and Father Sky gave birth to the Firstborn.
And the Children they bore did not count the seasons, and time passed unnoticed. And the Firstborn themselves had children. Each child found its own path. Sunni became the Moon in all its aspects, Muirwen the river, and their children became the Mother and the Father Star, which would come to lead travelers to haven. Luriel, the Stormwinds, and Potapka, our little Crown, were born. And Lachlan, lady of Wheat, and her brother Lurithain the Bull. And as the ages passed slowly the children came. Mother Earth had fallen silent and Father Sky smiled at Lachlan. And Ungfallen, brother-husband, and Merial the Hearth Mother, and I, Limera sister-wife, came to be.
The First Age of Dispersal
As the Children grew in number, we could not stay in one house, and began to build our homes apart from one another. Our numbers grew, and we began to follow the paths of our ancestors. Agla had taught us to build machines to ease our comforts and Lachlan taught us the ways of growing plants. But we were sometimes cruel, and sometimes heedless, and sometimes heartless. My first son, Lifall, was born in a year when there were no other children. First Daughter, wife to Luriel was fond of the boy, and would often ask to watch him play, and Luriel would join them. To tease Ungfallen, Luriel would pick Lifall up in his winds and swing him about, and Lifall would laugh in delight. One day when Luriel picked up Lifall, he carelessly put him down behind the mountains. And it was weeks before we found the lifeless body of our Lifall. Luriel did not know then the pain of losing a child, and teased Ungfallen for his tears. Thus was the cause of our leaving. And with our departure the Children ceased to live in one community.
We were not the only group to leave First Home. Wanfar, follower of Luriel, and Ice his mate, quarreled with Far Seer, who was born to little Celidan, who had trapped Luriel in her mill. Ice led her Stormwind children into the mountains, where Wanfar fell grievously ill and often came close to dying. Here the Stormwinds eschewed the dull lives of the Flatlanders and became hunters, imitating the predators they found.
Those who remained formed a close-knit community, taking pride in the name of Flatlander, which had once been bestowed upon them as insult by the Stormwinds. They worked to improve their skills of husbandry, and as their leisure time slowly grew, they developed a thirst for learning.
The Age of Legends
There were now three communities. The Flatlanders, living close to the Muir River, lived in small villages following the paths of the waterways that fed the mighty river. The Stormwinds were almost forgotten by the Flatlanders, remembered only in the stories that the Tale Spinners would tell and the books that I began to keep in the home that Ungfallen had built for us, deep under the mountains.
The Stormwinds had not, however, forgotten the Flatlanders. When their Masters of Memory spoke of the Flatlanders it was with scorn at the weakness of their brethren, who were content to live the life of prey, rather than the life of the predator. Timron, a mighty leader of the tribe, vowed to lead his people back to the flatlands where lives were long and children grew to the Age of Decision. His people trained in war for many years before falling upon the flatlands.
In that Age Glia-Gulmeshki was born to Mother Earth. He led a new way, the warrior's way, and ignited the hearts of the Flatlanders. There were many years of battle but always the Stormwinds conceded defeat, defeated not by skill but by sheer mass of men. For the Flatlanders bore many sons and daughters, and watched them reach the Age of Decision, whilst the Stormwind life was harsh and killed many children young.
And after the death of mighty Timron, Glia-Gulmeshki closed the mountain passes, and bade his warriors build forts there, and the Stormwinds could not leave the mountains.
But war broke out among the Flatlanders when Glia-Gulmeshki's seven sons fought for the right to become heir. Angered, Glia-Gulmeshki cast them out for seven decades, and forbade them the company of his people. And they came to us, and we fostered them. And when their time of exile had passed, they returned to Glia-Gulmeshki's house, where he made them Wardens of the Seven Kingdoms.
The third community, the Hall of Ungfallen, flourishes, though its members are few. We do not seek out contact with the world above, and give them no legends to tell. We have created a community of people who remember, people who keep the Records and record the knowledge of the dead and dying. Our only legends are the finding of the Hall of Ungfallen, where Lifall's spirit still smiles down on us sometimes, and the story of Siar, who sought us out when she could bear her gift no more. The pain of knowing when each person she met would die was lessened as she met the spirits of those who had died. She was the first to keep the Memories of the Dead, although after she herself died Ungfallen took over that task.
Copyright 2001, 2002 © Eowyn W. Cenek
Used with permission