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In the beginning

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In the beginning
Lexicon
Earth Mother
An-ki
Kerun
The Otherlands
The Veil
The Stone Gods

The Iron Gods

The People of
Bronze

The Creator
Paradise, the irst world, Heaven-Earth
The Mortal world
The Spirit world
The barrier between Kerun and the Otherlands
Earth Mother gave birth to these strange beings. She
couldnt understand their nature, so she left them to fend
for themselves
Earth Mother gave birth to these beings, who were made
in her own image. She considered them her irst true
children
The lesser peoples. Some were created by the Iron Gods;
Humans, Formorians and the Cyclops. The Lupus were
created by Earth Mother, the Arcadians from the death of
the World Tree, and the Naderites much more recently by
an empire of evil Human sorcerers

The Great Devourer

Earth Mother was lonely, so she made a husband. He was attentive but frightfully
dull. They mated and Earth Mother gave birth to An-kia world of powerful
magic and primaeval beauty, where anything could be changed by the power of
thought alone.
Having served his purpose, Earth Mother ate her husband.
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An-ki

Crestfallen

An-ki pulsed with energy and life, everything had a spirit with its own thoughts
and agenda. From the largest mountain to the tiniest blade of grass. Many secrets
could be discovered by conversing with these primaeval spirits.
Animals were as wise as gods, noble and powerful. They travelled An-ki in harmony
with each other. All of these beings obeyed the rules of naturethat they might
feed on anothers spirit and gain its nourishment and knowledge in the process, and
that they in turn might be eaten and so pass on their knowledge and powers.
An-ki was a dazzling place that overwhelmed the senses and the heart. Earth
Mother wept with happiness.

The Stone Gods

Earth Mother mated for a second time, this time with An-ki. She gave birth to
dozens of powerful beings that spilled out into An-ki; Sky Father, the World Tree,
Ututhe blazing disc, Trickster, the Outer Darkness, the Inner Light and many
others.
The Stone Gods were not like Earth Mother, they were caring and selless. They
loved An-ki most of all, and became its protectors. Earth Mother was suspicious
of their intensions, she could not understand why anyone would put others above
themselvessomething she would never dream of! She grew distant from the Stone
Gods and began dreaming of more worthy children.

The Iron Gods

Earth Mother mated with An-ki again, she birthed dozens more powerful beings.
They were created in her own image, and she carefully nurtured them and lavished
them with attention. They were much like her, having the same ickle nature and
short attention span, and they were just as selish.
She called them the Iron Gods, because their blood and bones contained the rarest
of all materials in the universeiron.
Earth Mother was immensely proud of the Iron Gods, she spoilt them with knowledge and gifts. They did not reciprocate her love, instead treating her with disdain.
Earth Mother became bitter and angry.
The Iron Gods were jealous of their mother, they wanted to give birth to new
things just like she had, but they were barren by design. They pleaded and whimpered at her until she was roused to anger. They raged against her, and she raged
back.

The destruction of An-ki

Earth Mother ripped An-ki into two pieces in disgust. One half had time, permanence and physicality, it became known as Kerunthe mortal world. The other half
had immortality, malleability and insubstantiality, which was named the Otherlandsthe spirit world.
She angrily shoved the Iron Gods into Kerun, and they became mortal (with a
life span measured in millennia). They also gained fertility during this process. The
Stone Gods hid in the other half, the Otherlands. They were frightened of Earth
Mothers wrath and avoided her gaze. Secretly they were furious at Earth Mother
for destroying An-ki, and vowed one day to rebuild it.
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In the beginning
Travel between the two halves of the
universe was (and still is) blocked by a
mysterious barrier called the Veil. The Veil
became much thicker when an Iron God
was near, it reacted to the iron in their
blood and bones.

Lupus

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The uncaring goddess
Earth Mother exists to serve herself, she has no
one else to answer to. She is selish, uncaring,
ickle, has a leeting attention span and packs a
mean temper.
Everyone is afraid of her, and rightly so. It is
obvious that your fate is out of your hands
she is beyond any mortal inluence. For this
reason, most People of Bronze have a sense of
wyrd, that their destiny is already preordained.
Sure, many visit oracles to be told their future,
but they know in their hearts that nothing they
can do will change this outcome.

Earth Mother had no interest in the

housekeeping of An-ki, keeping it in order
and under control. To some extent the
Stone Gods did this for her, but she did
not trust them and wanted her own agents
whom she could rely on. She regarded this
role as far too dull for either her or the
Iron Gods, so she made a race of servants. Lupus are wild and primitive, with a strong emotional bond to An-ki and its
wellbeing. When Earth Mother ripped up An-ki she made sure the Lupus could
continue their role as the universes spiritual policemen. She gave them the power to
freely travel between the two halves through the mysterious barrier known as the
Veil.
The Lupus are the most spiritual of all the People of Bronze, and the most magically adept.

The Mortal world - Kerun

When An-ki was ripped up, one half became Kerun, a place of permanence where
time exists, where things die of old age or disease or violence or sadness. It became
the Mortal world. She did this to teach the Iron Gods a lesson, that they were not
the same as her, and neither were their potential children. They were less than her
and would be eternally reminded of this fact. She forbade the Iron Gods to live anywhere else except the Mortal world. They named this place KerunCrestfallen
in their language, for they were saddened by the treatment they received from their
parent.

The Otherlands

The spirit world is a place of mists and insubstantial shapes, a dream world where
ripples of thought can change everything in their path. To you or I, the Otherlands
resemble a caricature of our own physical world. A washed out landscape of meadows, plains, forests and fog. Everything is larger and more impressive, mountains are
taller, rivers wider, deeper and faster. It is impossible to focus on a particular feature,
individual trees swim out of vision to be replaced by the entire forest.
Every feature has life and consciousness, and all are shape-changers. A forest may
erupt into the sky as a lock of birds, a mountain may move position when your
back is turned. Great ripples of change slowly drift though the Otherlands mutating
everything in their path, seas become land, land becomes sky.

Crestfallen is Dan Hiscutt 2015, all rights reserved

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The Veil

Crestfallen

There is an invisible mystical barrier between the Otherlands and Kerun, preventing passage without the correct knowledge. It transpires that civilisation, logical
thought and exposure to Iron (from the bodies of the Iron Gods) make this barrier
thicker, and even harder to cross.
It is dicult to imagine for us, but despite being separate, the Otherlands low
through Kerun, and Kerun through the Otherlands. Think of them as two dierently coloured threads in a tapestry, interwoven in a complex pattern and very close
together, but still separate and distinct from one another. The Veil is the empty space
between the threads.

The People of Bronze

The Iron Gods explored Kerun, drinking in its wonders. They learnt to raise
mountains, rend the earth, ill lakes, alter the plants and animals (and make their
own). In time they created Humans, a race
of tool users that were prone to violence
More on the Veil
and greed, but also acts great of kindness.
Another way to look at the universe is like a
river. Imagine two regions, separated by a lowing river. The river is the Veil, the regions are
Kerun and the Otherlands.
In some places the Veil is like a tiny stream,
trivial to cross by anyone from either direction.
In other areas it is a mighty torrentonly those
able to swim can cross it. In still other areas, it
is an ocean, impossible to cross except by those
brave few who can build ships and know how
to navigate and sail.
RitualistsShaman, Priests, Druids and Sorcerers are the shipbuilders.
The passage of time
When they came into being, Kerun and the
Otherlands were mirror images of each other.
They shared identical terrain and landmarks,
their inhabitants and even the weather were the
same.
Now Kerun has aged, its mountains and coasts
have eroded, sea levels lowered (due to the
massive glacier called The Ice) and inhabitants
evolved.
The Otherlands are ageless, but they have
become WILD. Plants and beasts have mutated
and grown larger, and more violent. The weather itself is a horde of angry spirits causing chaos
and miserybreaking through into Kerun
whenever and wherever they can to cause even
more chaos.
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Humanity
The Humans learnt quickly from their
makers; the secrets of ire, language, and
using tools. Humans were as selish and
prideful as the Iron Gods. In time they became more and more demanding, shouting for fabulous cities to be built, treasure
to be heaped upon them and the secrets of
the universe to be unveiled.
The Iron Gods grew weary of Humans,
and left them to their own devices. They
travelled through the Veil from Kerun to
the Otherlands, breaking the rules that
Earth Mother had set down. Here they
created the Formorians, ive races of spirit
people.

Formorians
The Iron Gods created the Walrus people,
the Wooden Bird people, the Goat people,
the Jackal people and the Sirens. The
Walrus people are sailors, ishermen and
smugglers. The Wooden Bird People are a
hive mind that speak in riddles and pure
maths. The Goat people are herders and
tinkers that travel the Otherlands in great
merchant caravans for their entire lives.
The Jackal people are violent scavengers
and opportunists. The Sirens are politicians and social manipulators, ensnaring