[Age of Dusk] Meditations on the importance of a Timeline for a Last Age Pt. III

A continuation of the previous posts.

A New and Terrifying Age – In the wake of dying Tzyan and the Tempest’s birth the world shuddered and groaned. For decades there was silence, and the Iron roads of Sybarra went untrod by soldier’s feet as new kingdoms reeled and regrouped in the wake of the Calamity and the breaking of Sybarra.

In the capital of old Sybarra rose Karaash. Led by its hereditary priesthood, who carefully harnessed and interbred all those scions of god and mortal that still survived after horrid Tzyan, they managed to retain some splinter of Sybarra’s ancient might. Though the gods were slain and the proof of their demise roiled and writhed balefully on the distant horizon, they continued on as they had before, impaling all dissenters. Karaash would inherit the wisdom of Sybarra and continue the tradition, led by scions of divine blood, unchanged, unrelenting, heedless of the horrors of a changing world. And though every generation more knowledge was lost, their inbred ruler-caste grew more unstable and deformed and more cities fell to famine, plague and anarchy, the legacy of Sybarra was long and mighty indeed.

In the distant North, Great Muir stretched languidly as its now leaderless bureaucracy gleefully enriched itself, in patient anticipation of its next overlord. After an initial panic at the appearance of a tempest of hideous witch-fire in the distant south and the death of all the worlds gods, it quickly became lost in the intricacies of its labyrinthine laws, culture, religions and history and soon forgot the outside world all together.

The Sial-Atun, men and women that had once formed the secret police of an empire that spanned the globe, now a people driven in exile, carved out a kingdom in the twilight of the Tempest. Bereft of food to even feed their children, they sold their blades for gold and food to any who would offer.

Of Hadar, Ursk and the Golden Kingdoms in the East, few things are now remembered, but in that bright evening of the world their majesty outshone that of the sun itself.

In the unbearable light of the Tempest, flesh and stone ran molten like wax, and strange, nightmarish things were birthed that could not bear the light of day. Nightmarish creations of the extinct Tzyanese wandered the wastes, baying for blood and souls. Others horrors, older then man and long held back by the mandate of heaven or the might of empire, surged forth from the crags and fissures of the earth or the boundless ultramontane abysses and Beyond to wreak terrible havoc on the world of men.

Sorcery as man had known it had changed. Once calm and fathomless like a vast lake, now it surged and roiled like an ocean in storm, terrible and fickle, but a thousand times more potent also. Where once the might of a council of archmages was needed to wreak  the greatest of spells, now even a half-illiterate conjurer of middling ability could unleash their potency.

Slowly, village by village, city by city, the world of the Age of Summer fell into darkness, savagery and ignorance. Sages, lords and kings swore oaths and banded together to push back the tide of darkness, and rebuild what had been lost so long ago. For some time the tide of encroaching horror was kept at bay, ancient ruins were plundered of their secrets by brave men and great libraries were stocked with what knowledge remained. For a while men dared to hope for better times.

Then came the Harrow Kings.

The Reign of the Harrow Kings – It is not known what they were or from whence they came, or how great their numbers were. Some say they emerged from the Heart of the Tempest. Others say they fell from the heavens on chariots made of jet-black metal. What is known is that they unleashed a reign of atrocity and horror upon the kingdoms of the Land of Autumn the likes of which cannot be conveyed in words or even imagined.

Their edict was terror and Final Night. They preached no creed nor worshiped any god, and all the world was ashes to them. With contempt they broke the heroes and sorcerers arrayed against them, crucifying them upon the ruins of their cities. They burned their own soldiers on pyres of ancient knowledge, offering their lives to nothing. Even roads and bridges they wrenched from the soil and sundered. Plagues and curses and mutilation were their only legacy. It is said that three out of five of every man, women and child in the Lands of Autumn succumbed to their horrifying reign. When begged or asked why they did as they did, those that deigned to answer in their grating tongue, which has no roots in the Lands of Autumn, said only “It is what is necessary.”

Some were spared. The Free City of Muir opened the gates for the legions of the Harrow King Skraegh Eohoeth, and by his edict was every statue in the city maimed and made ugly and deformed. His draconic reign ended up reinvigorating the cob-webbed ministries and guilds of Muir, and his reformations purged many who were corrupt and self-serving. Untypical among Harrow Kings, he is looked upon charitably in the Age of Dusk (but only in Muir).

The Sial-Atun stayed true to their vow to serve all with coin to afford them and marched willingly under the banners of the Harrow Kings. The brutalities they committed in those brief decades formed the foundation of their legendary prowess in the Age of Dusk today. Cities and people fell to their swords, and they themselves were reforged on an anvil of unimaginable horror. Everything soft was cast aside, and only tempered steel remained.

Of the Weapon, it is not known how they regarded it and why, for the motives of the Harrow Kings remained oblique. Some attempted to assail it, leaving their hosts upon the wastes of glass. Others travelled into its interior, pursuing objectives that bear no resemblance to those of sane men. It is known only that when the Reign of Kings had passed, the Weapon remained as it was before.

Only Karaash, ancient, obstinate Karaash, with its endless legions and its ancient cities, resisted the onrushing tide of night and horror. Cities burned and peoples were wiped off the face of the earth, but Karaash would not succumb.
Karaashi boast that for the legions alone the hordes of the Harrow Kings gave way. Others claim less charitably that the Harrow King Skraegh Hannoeth was moved by their defiance, yet others that he grew weary of monotonous butchery. But all agree he turned aside then.

The reign of the Harrow Kings lasted mere decades, for though they seemed impervious to age and sickness they spent their strength frivolously and destroyed most that they took, and always did they hunger for further conquest. When all of the Lands of Autumn were trampled under their iron-shod feet, they could not contain their hunger for further degradation.
Some fell in battle against older and greater powers that lingered in the forgotten places of the world, greater even then them. Some took their hosts into perilous realms beyond that of man, to match blades against the legions of the infinite. These merely vanished, never to be seen again. Others still, the greatest and most ferocious, turned their hunger upon their kin, and Harrow King fought Harrow king in the charnel fields of the Age of Dusk.

The last of the Harrow Kings is said to have died by treachery, stabbed with blades coated with strange toxins, rent asunder by his own retainers, his empty armor entombed in molten lead, to be cast into the Hungry Sea. As toxins distilled from a the heart of a falling star consumed the non-flesh of his being, his last words were said to have been ‘There is nothing.‘

In the wake of the Harrow Kings, the world as it had been had died, and only distorted fragments of prior ages remain to haunt the world of men. The Reign of Harrow Kings is dimly remembered, for few kingdoms could bear to consider for long the horror and degredation they inflicted on their forefathers. Only in Karaash, obstinate, enduring Karaash, do they keep records of that misbegotten epoch, and most of those self-serving lies.

In their wake rose petty kings and fiefdoms, and men took stones from the ruined cities to rebuild houses lost in war, but of rebuilding the empires of greater ages, there could be no question. Too much has been forgotten, and too little time remains. The world quakes and shivers, horrors walk the earth and men feel dimly the approach of Final Night.

So it is in the Age of Dusk.

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