User:Paleomancer/Emerald Sun (3.5e Campaign Setting)/History

=History= Tellur is dominated by a cycle of civilizations that rise and fall in succession, as recorded in the Prophesies of Succession, an incomplete history of the the various races of Tellur to the present day.
 * Mysteries: Mysteries, puzzles, and artifacts central to many campaigns.
 * Forbidden Lore: Information that is generally not available to most Tellurians (i.e. players), but may prove important to a particular campaign.

One billion years ago
Single-celled life formed on the world of Tellur. Little is known by Tellurians themselves regarding this event, save that for over 500 million years, the fossil record shows very little change in the forms of life, although impossibly ancient ruins have long hinted at the truth. It is believed that around the same time, the first ancestors of the trolls appeared, although their extact paleohistory is unknown.
 * Mysteries: The heretical Progenitor Cult believes that life was created by the entity Skarov and its people, but that the Great Old Ones destroyed the physical forms of these beings. They seek to aid Skarov in recovering its original power and form, so that he can bring back the rest of his people and lead Tellur to glory.  Ancient troll ancestors, technically immortal, lie asleep in vast caverns in Amasia's northern pole.  They lack the intelligence of their descendants, and tend to react violently to warm life.
 * Forbidden Lore: While Tellur possessed the necessary ingredients for organic life, it took the explosion of a damaged Voidship to catalyze the necessary reactions. The only survivor, an entity known as Skarov, seeks to return to the event and save the vessel and his fellow crew, a goal that would erase all organic life on Tellur.

600 million years ago
Archaeological evidence points to the first presence of the mysterious Elder Race, who established a powerful, though poorly understood, aquatic civilization, and to the rise of an early troll civilization. At this point, the land was united in a single continent, Pangaia, the atmosphere was hostile to organic life, and the oceans were rich in iron.
 * Mysteries: Many ancient tomes and artifacts mention the Prophesies of Succession, which supposedly relates the cycles of civilizations on Tellur, in particular when they appear and when they are surpassed. It ends with the fall of humans and the rise of the Coleopterans. The sinister Shoggoth also seem to be affiliated with the Elder Race, and often haunt their ruins. The Seas of Blood mentioned in many texts refer to the iron rich oceans of this time.
 * Forbidden Lore: The Elder Race fled the destruction of their civilization by the Mir-Ga, an aggressive and territorial First People. The Elder Race settled on Tellur, and in the process of rebuilding their civilization, engineered Tellur's early life as servitors and experiments; their most notable creation are the Shoggoth, who were engineered to function as living tools and buildings, and the trolls, who were an early, failed attempt to create a servitor race from the prototerran lifeforms. The Elder Race also engaged in temporal scrying, which they believed allowed them to see into the future.  What they actually achieved was the collapsing of potential futures, effectively fixing certain events, particularly the rise and fall of future civilizations.  Their recorded observations became known as the Prophesies of Succession.

550 Million Years Ago
Apparent collapse of the Elder Race civilization due to civil war. Apparent disappearance of troll civilization and extinction of known silicon-based life. Artifacts bearing known images of the Dreamlands and the Great Old Ones first observed.
 * Mysteries: Mysterious crystal shards found scattered throughout Crescent Sea, dated to this time, which amplify mental powers, at the cost of making the user highly vulnerable to influence by the Great Old Ones and the Fremd. Primeval ruins of R'leah appear to date from this time period. Elder Race survivors speak of mind parasites, and viciously attack servants of R'leah.
 * Forbidden Lore: The visions of the future terrified the Elder Race, and the entire civilization began an epic project to prevent the collapse of their civilization. They engaged in every field of study and sought to cleanse their bodies of genetic and physical imperfections, and their ultimate end was to unify their entire species into one collective whole, using a crystal spire as the focus.  Unfortunately, the spire amplified every part of their mind, including their unconsciousness, which allowed the Fremd, parasites of sanity and emotion, to possess the bodies of over half the Elder Race.  The resulting war between the free-willed and possessed Elder Race lasted for over 20 million years, devastating the planet and wiping out most extant life, including the majority of silicon-based lifeforms, while the trollish survivors hide on the surface.  In the end, the free-willed Elder Race proved triumphant, and the survivors of the possessed hid in a secret city in the ocean, the remnants of a once-great Elder Race city.

500 million years ago
Approximately 500 million years ago, life on Tellur exploded in diversity, with most of the existing varieties of Tellurian life recognizable. First appearance of oxygen in the oceans and the seas linked to evolution of cyanobacteria, instigating a massive mass extinction. Resurgence of troll civlization.
 * Mysteries: Deepsea shoggoth often appear vulnerable to air, and many hoard artifacts related to knowledge. Legends speak of how the ocean was drained of blood. On other worlds, first recorded incidents of Tellurian Fremd incursions.
 * Forbidden Lore: The Elder Race had succeeded in driving off the nascent Fremd invasion, but their civilization, crippled by the war, was ripe for conquest from a whole new direction. The shoggoth, once merely used for labor, had been partially awakened in mind and spirit by the disastrous ritual, and their role as living weapons in the war equipped them well in their uprising.  An Elder Race lab engineered a devastating new bacterial weapon, designed to release oxygen, a gas that was poisonous to both early shoggoth and Elder Race biology.  The bacteria survived a little to well, and most of the shoggoth and surviving Elder Race, along with millions of other species, were exterminated within a few years, and the seas changed from iron rich to iron poor. The survivors of the shoggoth and the Elder Race, now on a planet hostile to their existence, fled into the polar regions, caverns, and ocean abysses. The Fremd, hidden in R'leah, awoke from their slumber, called forth their lesser brethren, and used Tellur as a stronghold from which to strike at other worlds. Meanwhile, the trolls lay claim to the still barren land and reestablish their Second Empire.

450 million years ago
Mass extinction recorded at this time. Massive environmental changes raise the temperature of Tellur significantly and second troll empire collapses.
 * Mysteries: Fossils and mummies of insectoid-fungal creatures discovered in polar ice caps; Great Old Ones order destruction of said remains. Craters found all over the world dated at this time.  The phrases, "The Stars Change" and "Great Old Ones" found in Tellurian heiroglyphs of this time, and other worlds still refer to Tellur's sun as the Eye of Nightmare. Fossils of Talpan ancestors found.
 * Forbidden Lore: The Fremd by this time established a massive galaxy spanning realm of terror, establishing themselves as gods and demons on a million worlds, and the eldest, those who possessed Elder Beings and survived the war, call themselves the "Great Old Ones"; in the process, they brought slave races to serve them, such as the ancestors of the Talpa. However, even the Fremd were not immune to the influence of the Prophecies of Succession, and they met their downfall when they antagonized the mysterious Mir-Ga. The Mir-Ga, a species of insectoid fungi, ruled a massive empire covering several galaxies, which has persisted to the modern day because the Mir-Ga rarely bothered to actually conquer any indigenous peoples, and simply exterminated anyone who was a threat.  The alien mindset of the Mir-Ga gave them resistance to the mental influence of the Fremd, and they responded by attacking every Fremd world they identified, in some cases destroying entire solar systems by detonating the suns (hence the phrase, "the stars changed"). The Great Old Ones managed to repel the attack on Tellur, but the Mir-Ga responded by dropping asteroids on the planet.  Some of the Great Old Ones fled to other worlds, while others feigned their demise and slept once again.  The Mir-Ga ceased their attack and ignore Tellur for the most part, though some mining operations are established near modern times.

300 million years ago
Tellurian life evolved and diversified, with the first land plants and amphibians appearing. The planet was covered with vast shallow seas. First known civilization of the Bathyians. First evidence of divine magic. Trolls withdraw to underground.
 * Mysteries: Bathyian heiroglphs mention carnivorous oozes and sigils of the Great Old Ones. Evidence of a massive Bathyian civil war. Troll heiroglyphs speak of the "terrible warmth."
 * Forbidden Lore: The Bathyians establish a civilization underwater, based on elementalism and ancestor worship. Their explorations reveal the ruins of the Elder Race and awaken the Great Old Ones, who posed as ancestor spirits and learn how to replicate the spirit pacts to gain followers. Worse, the shoggoth had adapted to oxygen and now crawled out of the abyss to feed on the ocean's bounty, leaving the Bathyians desperate for any aid to repel them. By the time the Bathyians realized what had happened, it was too late to evict the parasitic Fremd and their civilization was engaged in civil war. Once again, the Great Old Ones were repelled, but the shoggoth assault and the war with the Fremd devastated the environment, raising temperatures and forcing the Bathyians to retreat into cooler, deeper waters.

75 million years ago
Age of dinosaurs and first appearance of the Ophidians. Massive extinction due to asteroid impact, and formation of Crescent Sea. Beginning of global cooling.
 * Mysteries: Ophidian legends about the god Sukhet bringing down a star onto nightmare creatures and about a time of cold; troll legends about the Lady of Ice and the trolls who serve her. Caves containing prehistoric creatures and ophidian artifacts. Selenites resemble earth insects of this time.
 * Forbidden Lore: Ophidians establish a massive civilization on the surface, and eventually contact trolls and Bathyians, who warn them of the Fremd. R'leah once again awakens when explorers discover its ruins, and the Ophidians are presented with apparent gods who demand worship.  The Ophidian wizard-king declares war on the Great Old Ones and their cults, but many Ophidians still fall under R'leahan influence.  Meanwhile, the Jotun, trolls under the renegade Great Old One known as the Lady of Ice, begin a crusade to cover all of Tellur with ice and exterminate the soft peoples.  Both R'leah and the loyalist Old Ones are caught by surprise as ice sheets begin to extend from the poles, and form a desperate pact to fight this new enemy.  Sukhet tricks the bulk of the Jotun armies into surrounding the lost city of R'leah, and, after reluctantly allowing his Great Old Ones allies to flee, brings an asteroid on top of the army.  The spell kills Sukhet, but succeeds in destroying most of the Jotun and crippling the Lady of Ice; it inadvertently blasted Tellurian life, especially arthropods, onto Tellur's moon, Selene.  The Ophidians are forced into hiding to survive the catastrophe, but their hero worship raises Sukhet into deityhood, while the Great Old Ones withdraw into hibernation once again.

200,000 years ago
First appearance of humans. Humans establish good relations with trolls, who return to the surface as the planet cools. Conflicts with colonies of Bathyians and Ophidians. First appearance of ghouls. Known selenite civilization. Brief resurgence and decline of proto-human Great Old One cults.
 * Mysteries: Ghouls speak of their rejection by the gods, Bathyians and Ophidians deny involvement in wars with humans, legends of frost giants, first mention of insects who mine for metal and slay interlopers.
 * Forbidden Lore: Humans meet not the loyalists of the Ophidians and the Bathyians, but the cultists of the Great Old Ones. The loyalists remain hidden in the ocean's depths or in hibernation deep underground. Humans establish warring nations, and many meet mysterious entities that promise power for loyalty.  Human wziards and priests are subject to a terrible Great Old One curse that mutates their bodies and minds, creating the ghouls.  The arrival of Mir-Ga mining expeditions forces the nascent cults to conceal themselves; eventually the power of the human cults waned without the necessary methods to call upon the sleeping power of the Great Old Ones, and they dwindled or disappeared. Unknowingly, the Mir-Ga had saved the mortal races of Tellur from the Fremd.

1000 years ago
Great Old One cults experience a resurgence. Humans discover herioglyphs speaking of the Prophesies of Succession, and reslut is split between those who sought to destroy the beetlefolk and those who wished peaceful coexistence. R'leah rises and uses its armies to attack human civilizations, as well as the weakened ophidians and bathyians, and the trolls. Jotun make another attempt to conquer the world, but Mir-Ga initiate attack and only succeed in devastating mortal forces and Jotun. The Great Old Ones use a ritual to cover all of Tellur in a transplanar barrier, turning Tellur's sun green and establish dominion over most of the world.
 * Mysteries: Mysterious beetle-like insects seen, appear to abduct humans and other races. Mothman legends associated with natural disasters, sometimes as harbingers, sometimes as participants.  Both fight one another.  Ophidian rumors of a desperate pact.
 * Forbidden Lore: The Colepterans and Lepidopterans make their first documented appearances, seemingly fighting with another. The Mir-Ga learned of the Great Old Ones presence from those entities themselves, as part of a ploy to establish control over Tellur. Sukhet makes a desperate alliance with the Great Old Ones to preserve his people, granting those entities access to barrier rituals originally designed to trap the Great Old Ones themselves, which are adapted into the Fremd Barrier.

Modern Age
R'leah is now the center of a massive world spanning empire, centered on the Crescent Sea. Other powers exist, but all exist in relation to the holy city of the Great Old Ones. Recently, a number of heretical spirit cults have arisen, and some have banded together to oppose the Great Old Ones. The Lady of Ice remains a significant threat from the north, while Selene was recently attacked and partially conquered by R'leah. Saswan, capitol of the Ophidians, remains an uneasy ally with R'leah.
 * Mysteries: Blasphemous texts suggest that the spirit cults and the Great Old Ones share a similar nature. A mysterious underground movement called Rache seeks to undermine the Great Old Ones. The Talpa, an unrecognized species, is now common as a slave race. Rumors of magician cults devoted to Sukhet.
 * Forbidden Lore: The Mir-Ga still seek to breach the barrier, and their remaining operatives have orchestrated the rise of Rache, although the Mir-Ga care little for the fate of their mortal servitors. The Great Old Ones have begun to contact their allies on other worlds, establishing  covert trade routes with worlds inhabited by their cults, hence the appearance of the Talpa.  While Sukhet is nominally an ally of R'leah, he seeks to circumvent the authority of the Great Old Ones, and recently has sought to promote arcane magic on Tellur.