The Elysium Age (~1050 to ~1930)
- The last words of Thelonius the Scribe - Part II
"The flood had passed and the waters receded. Demira’s sacrifice still echoed in the Ley Lines, and the survivors, cradled in her spirit, stepped once more into the world.
But no Divine guidance was forthcoming.
For nearly a thousand years, we stood alone, without angels, without voice from the heavens. The Divine watched in silence. The Fay faded into their hidden groves. And so entered the Age of Man.
With time, the survivors spread and multiplied. They crossed rivers and climbed ridges, built with stone, tilled the land, and remembered. From them rose four great civilizations, each touched by the gifts of the Redeemers, but shaped by mortal will.
In the West, Atlantis rose like a dream recalled. Built upon old memories and older magic, its cities gleamed with water-threaded towers, mirror-like streets, and archives of living crystal. There, sages claimed to read fate from reflections and weather from sound. They perfected artifice and alchemy. It is said they once forged a replica of the sun beneath the sea.
In the North, the highlands of Thule bred hard people. Tribes that narrated the howling of wolves and remembered the war-chants of the Wild Firsts. They bound themselves to ancestral oaths, carved stones with blood and bone, and wove sorcery into song. Their chiefs ruled not by crown, but by trial, and their shamans spoke to spirits still lingering from Meirothea’s time. In their defiance, there was strength. In their unity, wisdom.
To the East rose Helios, a kingdom of light and law. Seven golden cities, each ruled by a council of philosopher-kings, gleamed beneath towering pyramids of sunstone. Their knowledge rivaled Atlantis, but their pride was deeper. The priests of Helios believed themselves custodians of divine memory. They bent light to their will and claimed their shadows were clean.
But it was Carpathia that gleamed most falsely.
Set in the heartlands of the old world, Carpathia was a kingdom of gardens and mirrors, marble and incense. Its rulers spoke of peace and beauty, but behind the veils stood a Prince of Hell, cloaked in glory, robed in charm. He whispered of unity, of purity, of ascent. He built a throne that touched the stars, and men followed willingly.
Each of the Four bore greatness. And each, a flaw.
Atlantis, in its thirst to preserve knowledge, forgot humility. Thule, in its reverence for strength, sowed seeds of endless retaliation. Helios, in its worship of order, cast out compassion. Carpathia, in its desire for perfection, gave pride a crown.
The sins returned, not as monsters, but as policies. As architecture. As ritual.
And the deeper these civilizations dug their roots, the more they opened cracks in the gates beneath the world. Forgotten ruins stirred. Old bones awoke. And Hell, no longer content to whisper, began to breathe again.
The world braced for calamity.
And it came."
—Thelonius the Scribe
Credits, paintings: The Elysium Age - Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire, Destruction, 1836