EDRulebook: 3 How It Came To Pass

Though we must be thankful for the here and the now, we must always remember what was. Some things must never be allowed to happen again.
-- King Varulus of Throal, 1438 TR

The following is abridged from a speaking by the ork troubadour Storymaster Jallo Redbeard to a group of dwarven scholar students in the great library of Throal, 1505 TH.

Regardless of what one believes of the Therans, the story of the lands we now call Barsaive would not be complete unless we started with them. Without the Therans Barsaive might have ended up as nothing more than the scores of warring tribes and city-states that dotted the land a thousand years ago. Though the Therans brought us oppression, deceit, slavery, and inhumanity, they also gave us culture, politics, commerce, and a glimpse of the power that unity can bring.

What we know of the origins of the Therans comes from their mouths and their writings. It is their tale, their legend, that we recount here. How much is truth, how much is lie, and how much falls between may never be known while the halls of Thera still stand. Despite that, it is a tale worth telling, the story of the creation of an empire.

THE MARTYR SCHOLAR

The saga of Thera begins nearly one century before the founding of the dwarven kingdom of Throal.

[These are the Books of Harrow] The elf Elianar Messias, who will one day be revered or cursed as the Father of Thera and the Martyr Scholar, is an honored follower of the elven Spiritual Path. In addition, Messias is an important advisor to High Queen Failla of the Elven Court at Wyrm Wood, the center of elven culture. Messias has a falling-out with Failla over the desire of the elven nation of Shosara to loosen the cultural shackles that bind it to the Court. Messias believes the elves of Shosara should be allowed to develop their national culture as they see fit. Failla disagrees: the Court is the center of elven culture and all elven nations must emulate her. Failla will allow no exception.

Failla declares Shosara "separated" from the elven Court, an act of such gravity it threatens to fracture that nation. Messias adamantly opposes Failla and her Declaration of Separation and is banished for his challenge. Queen Failla casts him from the Court for one hundred years, and orders that he may return after that period only if he "has learned the value of heritage and a quiet tongue." Messias never returns.

As part of his banishment, he is dispatched to a small monastery set in the foothills of what are known today as the Delaris Mountains in southeastern Barsaive. There, along with a cadre of scholars dedicated to Mynbruje, the Passion of Knowledge, Messias works to recover, translate, and transcribe volumes of books and scrolls recently recovered from a nearby mountain cavern. The scholars believe this cache of knowledge to be thousands upon thousands of years old, dating from early in the time when the magical aura of our world still lay dormant, before it rose to become the vibrant energy of our own time. What little learned men had deciphered of the works prior to Messias' arrival indicated that the documents spoke of an even older time, when the world's aura was as strong as it is now.

Messias focuses on a group of six books barely kept intact by the magic and climate of the cavern where they are stored. The six are a set, matched in size and style, even down to the odd, blood-inscribed rune on each of their covers. Messias can tell just by looking at them that they contain powerful, probably dangerous, information. He also believes them to be a warning, though against what he does not know. He devotes his life to untangling their secrets. In the end those secrets eagerly take the life he has offered.

Late one evening some years later, his fellows discover his body twisted and wracked with his dying agonies. Messias has torn his eyes from his head and then thrust his clenched fists and their bloody contents into the fire raging in the hearth of his quarters. He has also left a brief note nearby. It says:

These are the Books of Harrow.
They are our doom and our salvation.
Learn from them, or we will all perish.

That night, something horrid stalks the corridors of the monastery and six of Messias' brethren die terribly. The next morning, an elder elven scholar named Kearos Navarim takes the six Books of Harrow, three of his fellow scholars, and ample provisions, and sets out on a long journey to the land of his birth far to the south and west of Barsaive. In that place, in the protection that he knows he can find there, he intends to continue Messias' work and unlock the secrets of the Books of Harrow. He and the others settle on an island in the midst of the great Selestrean Sea and found a place of learning called Nehr'esham, or "center of the mind."

This place marks the beginning of Thera, the beginning of the learning that would reveal the Horrors to us, and the beginning of the great war of the mind to save us all.

THE ETERNAL LIBRARY

Word of Nehr'esham and of its Great Project to translate the Books of Harrow spreads quickly throughout the lands of the world. The island soon becomes a gathering point for magicians, adepts, and scholars of all types and races. Nehr'esham grows rapidly from its humble beginnings into a small city. Though Navarim nominally leads the burgeoning city, he keeps around him a tight circle of scholarly and magical advisors who administer the city's needs. Navarim himself concentrates on unlocking the secrets of the Books of Harrow.

Realizing that more books like the Books of Harrow must have survived elsewhere, Navarim sends scholars and adepts out from the island to find these books and bring them back to Nehr'esham. To hold these tomes and scrolls the city's overseers arrange for the construction of what will become known as the Eternal Library. Magically protected and controlled, it will be a place where these and other ancient works can be kept and studied in safety for both the works and the reader.

Ironically, as the first stones for the Eternal Library are laid, thousands of miles to the northeast dwarven miners are taking up permanent residence in the giant mines and caverns that will someday compose Thera's greatest rival: the dwarven kingdom of Throal. The Throal Calendar, by which Barsaive will one day mark its time, counts forward from that day.

THE FIRST HORRORS

As the Eternal Library nears completion, one hundred and fifty years after the founding of Nehr'esham, the first signs of the Horrors begin to appear in the world. In the city of Majallan, in the human-dominated lands of Landis, dark wraithlike spirits stalk the streets, driving men to violence against each other. For a year in the city of Draoglin, in the ancient dwarven kingdom of Scytha, every dwarven child shrivels and dies before reaching its first month of life, its essence devoured by something unseen. And across the entire land that will one day be Barsaive, hordes of twisted, insect-like creatures are found nesting in isolated urban and rural areas. In southern Barsaive their infestation is so great that sworn enemies find themselves working side by side to destroy the creatures. This time, known as The Burning, is the closest Barsaive comes to unification prior to the arrival of the Therans. Hopes of unity collapse, however, in the face of the tragic famine that grips Barsaive in the following years.

To the aged Navarim and his followers, the dreadful tidings from Majallan, Scytha, and the city-states of southern Barsaive portend the beginning of something terrible. What these awful signs warn of becomes frighteningly clear shortly thereafter. Navarim's brilliant student and assistant, the dwarf Jaron, breaks through to understanding and completes the translation of the first of the six Books of Harrow. This book, named simply The First Book of Harrow, speaks of terrible days ahead, of the coming of the Horrors, their nearly unstoppable power, and the possible ruination of the world.

The Horrors, the book says, are terrible spirits dwelling in the darkest corners of the netherworlds. When the magical aura of this world reaches a certain strength, the Horrors will be able to build mystical bridges between this world and the twisted realm where they dwell. And then the Horrors will come. Terrible and powerful, they are beyond reason. They seek only to consume. Some desire anything physical: rocks, trees, it matters not. Others want flesh, blood, and living creatures. The more powerful live on pain, terror, and the dark emotions those experiences arouse in their victims.

The Horrors will come, the book says, and little can be done to stop them.