Return to Earth Eternal Official Lore
6 | THE RISE OF THE MYSTARCHS, PART 1
The Rise of the Mages
As the years passed, the nations of the Beasts grew in power and grandeur. They practiced the arts of war and healing, of great magic and clever political machinations. Armies were raised, border wars fought, boundaries shifted, and the many were the great deeds of courage and skill performed as the Beasts explored the lands of the Earth. Despite this, the times were largely peaceful for the Beast Kingdoms. It was a golden age of learning and discovery.
In those days, druidic magic was old, of the Treekin, but the mystical energies of arcane magic were still new to the Beasts. The earliest recorded mages were Treekin‐trained druids who sensed alternate sources of mystical energy to tap. These early druids successfully harnessed the latent energy they found, and became the first of the Beast mages.
As this new style of magic gained popularity among the growing nations, arcane universities were established to teach young mages the mystic arts. Like druidic magic, arcane energy required no inherent talent to use beyond a keen mind and stalwart spirit. Anyone with the knowledge of its workings was able to become a mage, with enough practice. As such, many young mages went out into the world seeking more knowledge to increase their own power and the power and prestige of their kingdom.
The Mysterium Primordial
Many of the relics from earlier ages had been ignored by the Beasts until this point in history, when it became clear that some of them could provide insight into the use of arcane energy. With this discovery, great effort was put into searching for such items, and those Beasts who had acquired them as oddities grew quite rich by selling them to power‐hungry mages. It was during the wandering and questing of these early mages that the first pages of the Mysterium Primordial were discovered.
Legend tells us that it was a young Badarian Feline who found the first scroll. His name has been lost to us, but we know that he was an unskilled mage who had barely passed his arcane tests to earn the coveted title. While out walking in the hills near his city one afternoon, he stumbled and fell into a deep ravine. His imperfect mastery of magic probably saved his life, but he was not powerful enough to lift himself out. Traveling along the ravine floor, he came across a mysterious cave, which was sealed by a large rock covered in strange symbols.
As he drew near to it, intrigued by the symbols, the rock started glowing and pulsing. He sensed his own life force pulsating in unison with it and grew very frightened, but was entranced and could not pull away. Closer and closer he came, until finally the stone surface was mere inches from his outstretched hand. As he reached out and gently caressed the central symbol on the design, the world exploded around him in bright light and he fell to the ground, unconscious.
When he awoke, the rock was shattered and pieces of it were strewn about the ground. He stepped into the cave, fearful and curious, and saw a few musty scrolls. Opening them revealed nothing, as they seemed to be gibberish. Disappointed, he gathered them up and returned to his simple quarters at the mage guild to ponder what had happened and study them further.
The Mysterium Translated
Several months passed, and tales started to spread to the other kingdoms of a surprisingly powerful young mage whose talent outstripped anything seen before, and whose teachers had badly misjudged him. He was performing feats of magic that were only theoretical at that time, and sharing his secrets with the other Felines of Badaria.
The other universities pressed the Badarians to reveal the secret of their great leaps in magical prowess, and it was revealed that the translated scrolls were pages of the Mysterium Primordial, an immensely powerful book of great magic that was written in a very old dialect of the old tongue by unknown beings from the Lost Ages. The information within those pages was incredibly difficult to translate, and even harder for the Beasts to understand and apply, but the little they could grasp was enough to grant them enormous arcane power. Furthermore, it soon became clear that these were only a few pages of the complete text.
With that discovery, the universities and powerful mages of the lands began to search in earnest for the pages of the Mysterium Primordial. Ignoring whatever reasoning had caused the tome to be divided and sealed away to begin with, they sought similarly warded caves throughout the land. The hunt for the power of the Lost Ages had begun.