Long before our ancestors walked this land, there lived a race who banished magic from this Earth; a race who ruled the world.

Their empires, vast and gleaming with wonders, raised cities taller than the sky that shone with the light of a thousand moons, conquering the nights and the winters, their reach stretching beyond the furthest of horizons.

They crafted machines that could think, built vessels that could sail the very heavens, and turned silver into gold.

They unlocked the secrets to the creation of life itself, shaping the beasts of the wild in their own image, breathing into them the same spark of creation that fueled their hearts.

Powered by an alchemy so refined it bordered the work of gods, they turned the world into their canvas, and life itself, a work of their design.

No question was to be left beyond their understanding. No boundary was too great for their ambition.

Their thirst for expansion slowly grew with no end, and in their quest to conquest everything, they began to lose sight of the very essence of what they had once sought to build.

Power soon became the driving force behind their every decision, and in their blind pursuit of greatness, they set in motion the very destruction of the land, banishing their once sacred forests, nature, and the last remnants of magic from the world around them.

In a world too small for their ambition, with no new frontiers to conquer, they turned against each other.

Each nation sought after the last scraps of power, driven by the same greed that had once pushed them to greatness; the same greed that built their civilization.

The only path left was war.

What had begun as a pursuit of knowledge and mastery over the wonders of this world had now become a brutal contest for supremacy, leaving misery and indifference in its wake.

They slaughtered each other, crushed the will of their enemies, their bodies, their hearts, until no challengers remained: Then, with a hunger unquenched, that very nature turned them upon their own allies, again and again, in a relentless tide of carnage.

They had lost their humanity.

Once their weapons fell short, they crafted new ones, more terrible than before, until one day they unleashed their ultimate creation—an alchemy so destructive, a fire so bright, not even their divine hands could wield it.

Even so, in their desperation, they did not hesitate. They feared surrender more than the annihilation they were unleashing upon themselves, and in their hearts, victory was worth any sacrifice.

It was their undoing.

The skies roared in fury as the heavens themselves were set ablaze with the light of a thousand suns. The earth trembled as if the world were being torn apart. The forests burned with an unrelenting rage, their trees reduced to ash in mere seconds. The oceans, drenched in poison, split open, swallowing entire shores. The land was ravaged, and all that remained was a world drowning in its own destruction.

In the chaos, there was no refuge, no place untouched by the fury of their creation.

On the brink of death, Earth cried out in desperate surrender. In her agony, She bled the life-giving essence from her veins once again, spilling like blood upon a wound.

Magic—ancient and pristine—had reawakened.

With it, She mended the broken, weaving the torn land, the shattered oceans, and the fractured skies into something whole again. A ravaging miracle unfurled, as the world began to heal, cradled by the powerful, bright touch of magic's return.

Our ancestors, born from the ashes of a broken world, barely clung to life through the fires of hell itself.

Their survival was a testament to resilience, a testament to the survival of the fittest, for the world they inherited was nothing like the one that had come before—the land, still healing from its wounds, no longer bore the familiar beauty it once had. It was a fierce, untamed, and relentless.

Yet, against all odds, they pushed forward.

Unlike their masters, driven by boundless greed and blind ambition, our ancestors' will was fueled by their love for us; the love for their children.

Their hearts sought after the preservation of what truly mattered—family, peace, stability, and the sacred, unbroken bond with the earth, where they had been shaped from.

They clung to the remnants of the past, protecting with their very lives not the ancients' alchemy, but instead what mattered most to them: the cultures, their old languages, their art, and their history.

Because what good will it be for a man to conquer the whole world, yet forfeit their own soul?

Throughout the millennia, they slowly raised towns from the dust, breathing life into a world once consumed by chaos.

They fought fiercely, they loved fiercely, they understood the magic and nature around them, and they built nations, brick by brick, their hearts steadfast in their pursuit of peace and stability.

The histories of their ancient masters faded into the shadows of time, their names lost to the ages. They, too, waged wars—conflicts born out of necessity, fear, and survival—but unlike their creators, the world did not unravel in their wake.

With each battle, each victory, each loss, they learned to rebuild, to adapt, to forgive. They learned to perfect the peace between the nations, as it should always be.

Their civilizations, though scarred and built on the blood and tears of countless men, never crumbled under the weight of their own endless ambition.

The foundations of the world held firm, and through the wisdom of the past and the lessons of their own struggles, the madness of their predecessors was ensured not to repeat itself.

Stability was not the hard-earned reality that the ancients struggled to preserve, but for our ancestors, it was the natural state of things.

In their hands, it remained unbroken throughout history.

. . .

Summer; 58th of the year 3006—A5

Thousands of years have passed since the rebirth of this unchanging, mysterious world, yet here I stand, book in hand, watching with a heavy heart as I realize the seedlings of greed have silently begun to take roots in the hearts of men once again...

Like weeds slowly forcing their way through the cracks in stone, for the past five centuries, this insidious force has quietly threatened to unravel the peace we’ve grown accustomed to throughout history; a peace that binds the races of this world together.

Yet again, the winds of discord stir, whispering of conflict, of division; of death, and I can't help but find myself wondering—who's going to stand up for change, to protect the sacred values that wove the bonds that our societies were built upon?

Who's going to raise their voice and put a stop to this complete madness before it’s too late?

—Dain Silvermane.