Ardan-Gaea: Aetan's Journal

AETAN’S JOURNAL

Greetings, traveler. If you are reading this journal, it either means that circumstances outside of my control have forced me to abandon my writings and thus this journal… or I am dead. In any case, I hope that my work provides you with sufficient information on the world we live in and the dangers that may lurk within it. Hopefully it will prevent you from making the same mistakes I made.

Hopefully.

ENTRY #1: THE ANCIENTS

Let us start from the beginning.

According to what most believe, the world of Ardan-Gaea was created by a race of omnipresent cosmic beings known as the Ancients. These gods were divided into two separate pantheons: The First Pantheon, also known as the Great Ones, and the Second Pantheon otherwise known as the Dark Ones. The First Pantheon had more of a hand in the genesis of our world, as creation was more in their nature than their lesser, darker compatriots. When the first races were born, they instantly took to worshiping the Great Ones and named their world after the King and Queen of the Pantheon, respectively. These races were said to share many aspects and characteristics with the gods that had created them, such as Gaea’s beauty, Ardan’s strength, Kronon’s knowledge, Virlux’s wisdom, and so on.

The Dark Ones did not take too kindly to the level of worship and praise their counterparts received. Desperate to achieve the same gratification, the Dark Ones attempted to bring life of their own into existence. However, because of their inherent destructive nature, these creations ended up twisted and imperfect, lacking the positive qualities the Great Ones’ creations possessed. These horrifying creatures barely registered as sentient and were laughed upon by the gods of the First Pantheon. 

Enraged by this insulting treatment, the Dark Ones turned against the Great Ones and their creations. Paving a wave of destruction across Ardan-Gaea, the Dark Ones defiled Ardan’s beautiful forests and poisoned Gaea’s serene oceans; they dismantled Tonza’s statues and burned down Virlux’s temple of worship. The Great Ones did everything in their power to repair the damage the Dark Ones wrought but their efforts were frequently rendered futile as the Dark One’s simply destroyed what they fixed again.

Things would eventually take a turn for the worse when something unexpected happened: two members of one of the first races, a male and a female, had found a way to procreate and ended up giving birth to a child. While this was a pleasant surprise to the Great Ones, it was taken as an insult by the leader of the Dark Ones; how could these fragile, mortal creatures be able to create life when he – a god – could not? The birth of the Firstborn pushed the Dark One over the edge and he ended up killing the infant out of revenge. 

This unspeakable act was the breaking point for Ardan of the Great Ones; enraged beyond all belief, he unleashed his fury on the Dark Ones, who had not expected such anger from who they saw as a peaceful deity. Ardan focused most of his anger towards the one who had committed the act itself, delivering him a fate that was so horrific that the other Dark Ones were sufficiently cowed and forced to retreat to parts unknown.

When all was said and done, Ardan was left a weak and broken shell of his former self. While what he had done to the Dark One had drained him of all his power, the loss of life that had spurred him to this point left him hollow and inconsolable. Despite the others’ best efforts, Ardan shut himself off from the rest of the world, refusing to ever speak to anyone – god or mortal – ever again for fear of growing too attached to them only to lose them as he did the Firstborn. The other Great Ones were also affected, as the once-perfect world they had created was forever tarnished. While they did what they could to repair the damage that had been done, they would eventually depart for their realm as well, ceasing all contact with the races they had brought into existence.

Not fully understanding what had happened, the first races continued to praise and worship the Great Ones for all they had brought them, in the hopes that one day their prayers would be answered and that the gods would return to bestow upon their gifts of creation once more.

They would be waiting for a very long time.

ENTRY #2: THE FIVE KINGDOMS

In the initial years that followed the Ancients’ departure, the first races were joined as one society, helping one another survive in the primitive world. As time went on however and these races started to further develop, differences between the races quickly arose. The tall, beautiful children of the Sky Goddess Exalta desired to live high above the land; they saw themselves as more akin to the gods than any of the other races and therefore deserved to live as close to the Great Ones’ realm as possible. The short and hard-working children of Ardan, on the other hand, advocated that they be closer to the world the Ancients had given them and to become one with nature. Still others had different ideas, such as the quiet people of Gaea who thought they should live in their Mother’s oceans as they were sure to be stronger than Ardan’s land after the Great Father had used up all of his energy.

It soon became apparent that none of the races could agree on anything. Small disagreements turned into squabbles which then escalated into fights. Before long, lines had been drawn and the first races had become divided. Many ended up simply retreating to their preferred location and left the others behind: 

the Children of Exalta broke off a piece of land and used their magic to propel it into the sky. This floating island was named Caelus and the people who lived on it became known as “elves” (derived from the term “the elevated ones”);

the Children of Ardan began creating tunnels that led beneath the earth, where they built underground cities from stone and other valuable materials they discovered, building an entire economy around these precious minerals. These people would come to be known as “dwellers” or “dwarves”;

the Children of Gaea dove into the oceans, which was a realm much more accommodating to their prehensile, snake-like lower bodies. Overtime, they would evolve to have bodies not unlike the fish and other marine life that shared their domain. They would become known as “gaeans” after the Goddess they worshiped, though some races would coin the term “mere-folk” (translated to “people of the sea”).

When all was said and done, the only race left dwelling on the surface were the last race to have been created by the Ancients. Brought into existence by the talentless Marn, they lacked the beauty of the elves, the grace of the gaeans, and the strength of the dwellers. According to a legend circulated among the elves, when Marn had presented his creations to his brothers and sisters, they had looked upon the lackluster race and deemed them inferior to the other races. Undeterred, Marn placed his creations into the world of Ardan-Gaea and gave them the name “humans” — a word which is rumored to roughly translate to “simple being” in the tongue of the Ancients.

With the other races having departed, the humans decided to make the surface their home and began developing their own cities. However, they were not alone on the surface; the creations of the Dark Ones also still roamed in the wilderness, living off of wild creatures and such. Overtime, they would begin to evolve into an intelligent race although the other races, including the humans, looked down upon them. These dark creatures would be given a variety of names: orcs, ogres, goblins, and other names that are best not repeated here. What they called themselves is a mystery, though the civilization they came to establish would become known as the Xal Society.

Before long, close to a thousand years after the Ancients had departed from their world, the Five Kingdoms of Ardan-Gaea had been established; the Sky Kingdom ruled from high above, the Iron Kingdom dwelled in the underground caverns, the Sea Kingdom swam in the gorgeous seas, the Mountain Kingdom of the Xal ruled from terrain mortals dared not travel, and the human-ruled Kingdom of Ardan ruled what had not yet been occupied.

Thus, began the Age of the Five Kingdoms. 

ENTRY #3: THE WIZARDS

The word “magic” has a varied range of connotations depending on who you say it to. Some will laugh at you, others will give you a blank look, and even a few will threaten to rip out your lungs if you dare speak that word to them again.

But just what is magic? Magic is the universal word for the unexplained; to describe the powers of the Ancients that run through Ardan-Gaea and give the world life. But the Great Ones were not the only ones to have wielded this power; once, during the height of the Five Kingdoms’ age, there was an entire order of beings who could wield this magic and were dedicated to preserving the revered knowledge of the Ancients.

No one’s quite sure how these “wizards”, as they were called, could wield such power. Many believe that they were specially chosen by the Great Ones to carry their energy and use it to protect Ardan-Gaea in their stead. However, there are quite a few skeptics who think that the wizards were merely entertainers who used elaborate tricks to fool the world into thinking they could do the impossible. The fact that most wizards kept to themselves and rarely interacted with others didn’t do much to quash such rumors.

While it is said that a being of any race could wield magic (save for the twisted creations of the Dark Ones), most recorded wizards have been human. The reason for this is unknown, though some speculate it may have to do with their origins; perhaps Marn had sacrificed anything that could have made them standout in order to give them such abilities. However, such speculation is simply that and nothing more. After all, there are tales of a small order of elven wizards who maintain the power source keeping their island afloat, safeguarding it from troublemakers.

Naturally, the creatures of the Xal resent these wizards for wielding the power of the Great Ones and will go to great lengths to kill one if they ever cross paths with one. However, not all wizards necessarily use their powers for good; some, in fact, have tried to tap into the powers of the Dark Ones and learn their forbidden knowledge. To date, only one wizard has ever come close to succeeding, and it is because of them that the Five Kingdoms came together for the first time since the departure of the Ancients…. 

ENTRY #4: THE WICKED SORCERER

For the first five centuries of their existence, the Five Kingdoms had little to no contact with one another. Every once in a great while, a human child would claim to have spotted a gaean relaxing near a waterfall, or a dweller would catch a glimpse of an ogre from within a cave in the mountains; but for the most part, each of the kingdoms lived in their own individual bubble.

That is, until, they were brought together by a single individual: The Wicked Sorcerer.

As mentioned before, most wizards tended to use their powers for good. But Waldis the Wicked was an exception to this rule; he desired to use his magic to reach limits that had been never before dreamed. He wanted to tap into the essence of the Dark Ones and discover their secrets. Shunned and exiled by his fellow wizards, Waldis ventured out into the wilderness and came upon a settlement of wild creatures. The animals and insects which populated Ardan-Gaea had been created by the Ancients to maintain the world and provide food for the five races and were never intended to be much more beyond that. They lacked the intelligence necessary to form a society.

Waldis sought to change that.

The Wicked One used his powers to invade the creatures’ minds and bend them to his will. Dragons, serpents, and other such kin fell under his control and came to obey his every command. With this new army, Waldis launched an attack on the Ardan Kingdom, seeking to dethrone the ruling King and take the crown for himself.

The Kingdom itself never saw the attack coming. While there had been whispers of a rogue sorcerer plotting his revenge, such rumors had been dismissed by King Immor. In his eyes, the wizards were a band of fools who posed no threat to his kingdom. He and others who thought like him soon learned the hard way how wrong they were when a dragon dropped upon Castle Ardan and tore through the stone walls. Disturbed from his slumber, King Immor rushed out of his bed chambers to see the dragon seconds before it consumed him in a column of flame.

In time, the Kingdom had fallen to Waldis’ control and the castle was surrounded by dragons, threatening to devour anyone who tried to enter or leave the grounds. To the people of Ardan, all seemed lost. But a glimmer of hope remained as the King’s son, Prince Galen, had been away on a journey at the time of his father’s demise. Upon hearing word of what had been befallen his Kingdom, Galen did the unthinkable and sought out help from the outside world.

The first people he approached were the gaeans. He was familiar with the mer-people as a group of them had saved his life as a child when he nearly drowned while fishing with his uncle. Meeting up with his former savior, Galen gave her a message to deliver to the Sea Kingdom, imploring the Sea-Lord to provide aid to the Ardan Kingdom. He next set out for the Mines of Narud, the only location where dwellers were willing to meet with humans to trade valuable materials. Galen payed one of the dwarves nearly half of his gold to deliver a message to the Iron Empress, before setting out once more to gather any straggling rangers and knights he could find.

It is likely that, had things gone differently, the Sky and Mountain Kingdoms would have never become involved in the conflict. But Waldis, as it happened, had become overly confident with himself thanks to his successful ousting of Immor that he decided to strike at the Sky Kingdom by sending one of his dragons to the floating island of Caelus. This would prove to be a mistake as the dragon was instantly spotted by the elves and just as quickly shot out of the sky (By what, few can say, though some believe it was caused by the elven wizards supposed to exist on the island). When the fallen dragon touched ground, it created a quake that could be felt throughout Ardan-Gaea.

This encounter brought the elves out of their isolation and the Elven King sent his Sky-Riders down to the Ardan Kingdom to strike back. While birds and dragons clashed talons, the Sea and Iron Kingdoms agreed to the Prince’s demands, especially once the quake caused by the fallen dragon gave them proof enough as to what was happening. This quake also stirred the Xal from their hiding and their forces marched onto Ardan’s grounds at the same time as Prince Galen’s resistance.

Surrounded and outnumbered by people from all five of the kingdoms, Waldis the Wicked could only watch helplessly as his army of dragons and beasts was swiftly subdued. Not wishing to face the repercussions that were sure to befall him, Waldis took his chosen dragon steed and fled from the Kingdom, disappearing into the wilderness.

In the aftermath of the battle, which would go down in history as the Unity War, Galen was crowned as King Ardan V, a dynasty name that was reserved only for monarchs who proved exceptional skill in service to the Kingdom. Seeing the worth in an alliance, the five rulers pledged their loyalty to one another and agreed to come to each other’s aid when it was required.

Thus, for the first time in five hundred years, the Five Kingdoms had come together.

ENTRY #5: MALUMARBOR

This would not be the last time “dark magic” would pose a threat to the Five Kingdoms. Despite his defeat and subsequent exile, Waldis’ actions merely opened the gateway for possibilities previously unheard of. It wasn’t long before other aspiring witches and wizards were inspired to test the limits of what magic was capable of and use it to create things never before thought of.

One of these opportunistic individuals was a young witch named Natia. Raised by her mother, who wielded magic as well, Natia had an affinity for nature and was mesmerized by the beauty it created. When she first learned as a little girl that things such as trees and plants were alive, she asked her mother why they were incapable of moving or communicating the same way people and animals were. Her mother’s answer was simply, “That is simply the way things are.”

Unsatisfied with this answer, Natia sought to find a way that would make things such as trees able to act and live the same way people did. Once she came of age and had fully developed her magical talent, she headed off in search of knowledge that would provide her with the means of accomplishing this goal. Her quest inevitably led her to the forbidden teachings of Waldis the Wicked, and her attention was instantly drawn to the spells Waldis had used to control the minds of the dragons. After purchasing a tree sapling from a merchant, Natia ventured into Ardan-Gaea’s wilderness and planted the sapling. Then, she got to work.

Over the course of several months, she used her magic to not only accelerate the tree’s growth — reducing its span from several decades to less than a year — but to also tap into its essence and, essentially, give the nascent tree a mind of its own. The exact mechanics of what Natia did to the sapling and how she accomplished those feats remain a mystery to this day. After countless hours of work, Natia soon achieved what she had set out to do. By the time the sapling had fully grown from its adolescent state into an adult tree, it had gained a mind of its own.

This quickly proved to be the worst and last mistake Natia had ever made in her life.

Many speculate on what exactly went awry in Natia’s experiments. Some like to think that Natia’s spells had, rather than create a consciousness for the tree, summoned Waldis the Wicked’s spirit from the World-That-Lays-Beyond and imbued it in the tree itself. Others wonder if perhaps she had somehow transferred her own soul into the tree. Whatever the case may be, the end result was that Natia was dead — whether out of exhaustion or a result of murder — and Malumarbor was born.

After having not heard from her daughter in quite some time, Natia’s mother hired a bounty hunter to go looking for her and to bring her back home. Venturing into the wilderness, the hunter searched high and low for Natia, calling out her name and telling her that he meant no harm. He eventually reached a wide clearing, which was surrounded by foliage and dominated by a large dark tree planted in the center. Laying at its roots, resting peacefully with her eyelids closed and her hands folded over her stomach, was the recently-departed Natia.

Upon coming across her body, the hunter swore aloud and declared, “By the Ancients! What in the heavens could have happened to this poor girl?”

The tree answered him: “I did.”

The hunter was taken aback, not just from receiving a response but also the fact that it had come from the tree. After making sure he was not dreaming, the hunter said to the tree: “Did you kill her?”

The tree answered: “I am responsible.”

The hunter asked, “How is it you are a tree who is capable of speaking?”

The tree responded: “Because I exist.”

“How did you come to exist,” asked the hunter, “and deprive this poor girl of her life?”

The tree was silent for a moment. At the hunter’s feet, the ground began to tremble and he started to see roots sprouting out from beneath the soil, snaking towards his boots and coiling around his ankles. He opened his mouth as if to speak, or to scream, but another root suddenly sprang out and wrapped itself around his neck.

“Because,” the tree said after some consideration, the first of its kind to be capable of such thought, “I am Malumarbor.”

The hunter could only gaze at the tree in terror in the few seconds he had before the roots pulled him back down into the ground, burying him beneath the tree’s soil for all eternity.

When Natia’s mother did not hear from the hunter, she sent another one to find both him and her daughter. After they met the same fate, she sent another one; then another one; then another one. With each man or woman Malumarbor devoured, the larger it began to grow, its roots spreading all across the forest and sprouting out to form new trees. In time, the clearing in which Natia had planted her small sapling had grown into a full forest all of its own, which quickly overlapped with the rest of the wilderness and merged the other trees with Malumarbor’s consciousness.

Legend has it that Natia’s mother never stopped sending hunters until the day she died, wanting her daughter back more than anything else in the world. Legend also says that Natia’s body continues to lay peacefully in the center of the forest, cradled by Malumarbor’s roots and looking as young and serene as she ever had.

In fact, some say while venturing just on the outskirts of Malumarbor’s forest, if one were to listen closely, you would be able to hear what sounded much like weeping.