Return to Earth Eternal Official Lore
20 | ATAN AND THE MORNING LANDS
In a small village somewhere in Europe, a Beast was born. His parents named him Atan, but none now can claim to know for certain of which Beast race Atan was. Most are more than pleased to inform you that Atan was a member of his or her race, for every race has claimed him as their own.
When he was 17, Atan became frustrated with the constant attacks by the Bloodkin on his village, and of living as cattle. He organized some of the villagers and attacked the local nest of Bloodkin, driving them out. He and his people quickly built a defensive perimeter around their village and patrolled the local area, hoping to keep it free of the Vampires. Their hopes were dashed and fears realized, however, when Bloodkin Mages were brought in with Vampire backups to put down the uprising in the bud. His people had a pair of Druids living among them but this far into the Bleakness so much knowledge had been lost that they could do little other than call upon the Earthmother for minor healing.
The Vampires leveled the village and took all they could catch with them to feed upon. Atan and a handful of others survived, but his parents and siblings perished at the hand of Lord Palatine Vinga’s swift retribution. With no family left and the small world he had known shattered, Atan decided that life could not be any worse elsewhere, and set out east, for surely the land of morning could not be stained with the darkness of the Blood Kingdom.
To the Morning Lands
For two years Atan journeyed east, and the adventures he had make for a grand tale in themselves, but they must be told another time. He passed first into Taurania, slipping through the Vampire lines, and then eastwards into the Morning Lands. Through desert, swamp, and mountain he traveled. For much of his journey, after he was well out of memory of Taurania, he hid from more Dragons than even his mother had told him of in his bedtime stories. Finally, he found himself in a jungle land full of “snakes that are upright” but yet not Beasts.
Capture
Atan was discovered, half‐dead and delirious from a poisonous bite he took in combat from these upright snakes, by a caravan of traders. They had never seen anything like Atan before, so they took him into one of their wagons and gave him the antidote to the venom. When Atan recovered enough to observe his surroundings, he realized he had been captured by slavers of an unfamiliar race of Beast. He couldn’t speak their language, and they showed little interest in him except as a potentially valuable captive.
During their long journey, he was kept inside a cage on one of the wagons and could see naught outside, for the cage was covered with a tarp. He knew only that it was hot for weeks, then bitterly cold for weeks, and then finally mercifully temperate. Eventually the caravan stopped, and Atan heard a multitude of voices outside it. The tarp over his cage was lifted off briefly while another of these unfamiliar Beasts examined him. It was enough for Atan to see that he was at the gates of a city unlike any he’d seen before. Huge, with ornate carvings over the main gate, it teemed with a variety of Beasts different from any he’d seen. There were some with faces that echo that of Felines and some that seemed as if they may be related to the Ursines, while others were altogether unfamiliar.
The next he saw of the city he was on the selling block, and was purchased by some sort of Beast race that looked something like a Feline. He indicated that his name was Jishi and led Atan away to his domicile. It did not take Atan long to realize he had no hope of escape. Jishi did not even need to chain him or lock him in; Atan could not possibly blend in and even if he could escape the city he was in without being quickly re‐captured, where would he go? He was a stranger, recognizable at a glance by even a child, and did not even know where he was.
Atan had never known any life but a terribly hard one, and this Jishi was a kind enough master. Soon after arriving, Atan witnessed something he had never seen before nor dreamt of seeing: Jishi started the fire in his hearth by simply concentrating on it!
Magic
Atan had never witnessed arcane magic before outside the hands of the Vampire Mages that destroyed his village, and he was astounded. Magic other than minor Druidic had long since died out in Europe after the ban on it was declared by King Solomon. Jishi saw the incredulous expression on Atan’s face and demonstrated some other minor magical feats he could perform. Jishi realized that Atan was quite unfamiliar with magic, and decided he must learn about where Atan hailed from, for magic was not an uncommon tool in this land.
Jishi began to teach Atan his language and Atan learned quickly. Soon, they were able to hold basic conversations, and Jishi eagerly sought knowledge of the smallest detail of this land of ‘ Europe’ and the Beasts there. Atan’s most exhausting duty as a slave was talking through the night with the insatiably curious Jishi. In talking with the magician, Atan slowly gleaned information about where he was. He had been captured by the slavers in the jungles of the Serpent Clans in the southeastern Morning Lands. He was now in an ancient kingdom of Beasts called the Middle Kingdom, in a city called Jinkang, which was the regional capital of the Province of the South Wind. The Middle Kingdom had been ruled by the Jade Dynasty for the last twelve Emperors/Empresses, and was currently led by the Empress of the Four Winds, named Wu Zetian, the first woman to reign during the Jade Dynasty.
In time, Jishi came to realize that he must present Atan to the Empress, who had developed a reputation for seeking knowledge from foreigners visiting the Middle Kingdom, willingly or not. Together they traveled to Chang’an, capital of the Middle Kingdom. Though otherwise located in the Province of the North Wind, Chang’an was the personal city of the ruling Dynast, and was considered almost as its own tiny Province. The Imperial Court was at Chang’an, and within was the Lotus Throne, symbol of the great power of the Middle Kingdom. Everywhere they went as they traveled, they caused a minor sensation, for none had seen any Beast like Atan before.
The Empress of the Four Winds
On arriving in Chang’an, they found that word of their coming had preceded them, and they were summoned into the presence of the Empress, who sought knowledge of this strange land beyond the scope of the Middle Kingdom’s purview. She commanded Jishi to leave Atan with him, and they began to talk.
For Atan, much of the discussion was similar to the long talks he had with Jishi, but he learned yet more of the Middle Kingdom from the Empress, for she was freer with her tongue and opinions than Jishi had been. She told Atan of the history of the Middle Kingdom and of the delicate balance the Emperor or Empress must strike in order to maintain the support of the great Houses that make up the Jade Dynasty. She told him of the Blasted Lands to the north, home to the People of the Skull and the absolute rule of their Khan.
The Empress claimed that the western border of the Khan’s empire was at the edge of the Earth, but Atan had heard legends of the People of the Skull to the east as a child, and told the dynast that he came from lands west of the Skull Lands. She quizzed him extensively on a number of subjects, including the Treekin and the Undead, and they learned that the Amanita (“Shroomies”) were known to both their people.
The Empress expressed her pity and disgust for the relative barbarism of the Beasts of the Covenant, and opined that such a thing as the Bleakness could not happen in her realm. Atan also learned that the Middle Kingdom was under constant threat of invasion by Dragons that inhabited the great mountains to the southwest. This sparked his interest greatly, for all knew of the legend of dragonsteel, which had not been forged since the death of the smith Regnin thousands of years before. The Empress told Atan that none in the Middle Kingdom had heard of this dragonsteel, and that venturing into the Dragon Empire was tantamount to suicide. Perhaps the major reason the Middle Kingdom had not fallen before the Dragons thus far was that the Dragons were unable to stop fighting amongst themselves.
At the end of their long conversation, the Empress recalled Jishi and informed him that henceforth Atan would be her personal slave. She ordered Jishi duly compensated, and sent him on his way. Atan did not know it, but it was counted an incredible honor to be slave to an Empress. His abrupt appointment made him more than one enemy that day among those at the Imperial Court at Chang’an.