Return to Earth Eternal Official Lore
39 | THE AGE OF MAN ENDS
Twenty more years pass, and the Maar were nearing the completion of the task set to them by the Gods. The poison in the air had lessened and was nearly absent from the Earth, thanks to the careful ministrations of the Maar. Jarnsaxa’s suspicions of Epimetheus, however, had only grown. She had seen him and one of the Krostakin cloistered in silent discussion too many times and she believed he was working on a new artifact with the closest of his followers, though he denied it when she casually brought it up. With naught to truly occupy her time, Jarnsaxa made it her mission to discern what Epimetheus was up to.
What she discovered through the subtlest use of stealth magic and good old‐fashioned skullduggery was far beyond the worst she had suspected. What Epimetheus was planning was madness. Although she did not know exactly how the artifact Epimetheus was creating worked, she could tell that it was intended to interface with the Orean Symmetry somehow. There was no possible benevolent reason to interfere with the Symmetry now, and that Epimetheus was determined to keep what he was doing a secret from Jarnsaxa set off every alarm she possessed. Altering the Symmetry with most of the Maar on the surface, outside of its protective radius, could kill every Iron Child up there!
Why would Epimetheus be doing this? Jarnsaxa did not know but she knew she had to do something. She had no hope of forcing Epimetheus to do anything, for though she was one of the most powerful mages ever to walk the surface of the Earth, and could probably overmatch Epimetheus alone, each of the Maar were nearly her equal in magical might. She had no hope against the group that had remained behind, all of whom were loyal to Epimetheus.
Jarnsaxa Discovered
Jarnsaxa determined that she had to find out more and then get word, somehow, to Prometheus to warn him of his brother’s treachery. She wanted to have one final look at the artifact and learn what else she could of it, to confirm what she had discovered and ensure she was not crying wolf. She knew deep down that she was right, but went to see it regardless, in a cavern adjacent to that in which the Orean Symmetry resided. She snuck past the Krostakin and Maar guards and approached the artifact when a deep voice rang out.
“Jarnsaxa,” boomed Epimetheus as he strode into the underground chamber. “So you have seen it. What of it? There is naught you are capable of to stop us now.”
Jarnsaxa knew her game was up and said, “Do not do…whatever you plan to do. I beg you. Those are your people on the surface. Do not imperil their lives!”
Epimetheus began to chuckle darkly in a very un‐Maar‐like way. “My people? My people are here, around me.” He gestured to the Maar in the cavern with him. “Those who left the Symmetry to serve the ‘Gods’ are fools. We walked the UnderRealm long before they were created. Why should we serve them when we are the true Gods? We will take the power that is rightfully ours and we will rule this world as its Gods.”
“And now, little Beastling, it is time to pass into the Dusklands. Farewell,” finished Epimetheus who immediately raised a hand towards Jarnsaxa. Flame blasted out of his palm to incinerate the spot where Jarnsaxa had been until a split second before. She was already leaping towards an exit, surprising a pair of Krostakin guards with a stunning kick on one side and an icy blast of magic on the other. Out the door she ran, but she knew it was hopeless. She was confined by the Orean Symmetry and though she might run, she would quickly reach the limit of its influence and be forced to turn back. They would find her, and she could hear the chittering Krostakin and pounding footsteps of the Maar echoing through the caverns as they searched for her.
Jarnsaxa’s End
She could only think of one thing to do. She broke off the tip of a narrow, low‐hanging stalactite and tore off a piece of the simple shift she wore. She used a sharp ridge of rock to open a small cut in her forearm and dipped the tip of the stalactite in it. Using her own life’s blood she penned a terse message on the cloth, knowing she could be seconds from discovery at any moment: “Epi traitor. Will destroy Symmetry. Danger!”
She took one lingering glance around and then used teleportation magic she had learned from the Mystarch Al‐Idrisi to travel to Prometheus, who stood in the center of a ruined city of Man, cleansing the air. The weight of thousands of years of age delayed came crashing down on Jarnsaxa and the disgraced and now reformed Mystarch died instantly.
Prometheus Warned
Prometheus and the handful of Maar working with him to clean that particular city had time to register that Jarnsaxa appeared before she essentially turned to dust and collapsed. Her clothes fell to the floor and a scrap of cloth fell from where her hand had been. Prometheus instantly knew that for Jarnsaxa to sacrifice herself like this something must be terribly, horribly wrong.
He quickly picked up the scrap of cloth and read the message with horror. The Maar had not mastered teleportation magic since they had been limited by the short range of the Symmetry and thus there was no reason for it. Prometheus possessed no way of returning to the Symmetry quickly but he was able to communicate at great distances with those he had met.
He and the Iron Children with him quickly reached out, hoping to find one of the Gods, whom he had conversed with twice since the Temporal Aegis was deployed to share the news that Dor’kana had been spotted. After a few minutes of probing, they made contact with Curnon, Lord of the Wild Hunt, and sent him an urgent warning and request for help. Lord Curnon immediately commanded the giant, ethereal wolves that pull his chariot to take him to Prometheus, and moving far faster than any mortal wolf, they brought him to the greatest of the Maar in minutes.
Upon Curnon’s arrival, Prometheus quickly explained their need to return to the Symmetry immediately. They managed to fit Prometheus and two of the other Maar into Curnon’s chariot and, borne by a God, they began traveling back to the Symmetry for the first time in fifty years. But it was too little, too late.
As Curnon watched, the Maar with him turned to dust as did, indeed, all the Maar outside of the Orean Symmetry. For what Epimetheus had done was truly insane. He had inserted his artifact “between” the Orean Symmetry and the Temporal Aegis and then smashed the Temporal Aegis. Instantly the “rock” that was the life energy of the Maar tried to plummet to the ground (meaning leaving the Maar to return to the Orean Symmetry, thus killing the affected Iron Children immediately)…but was caught by Epimetheus’s artifact, altered, and refocused directly onto Epimetheus and the other traitorous Maar.
They expected to become Gods, for the Krostakin had whispered in Epimetheus’s ear and stoked the fires of ambition within him. What they became was something very different.
Birth of the Goliaths
Epimetheus reveled in the life energy of the other Maar flowing back to the Symmetry, but intercepted by his artifact and focused onto he and his allies. It filled his body and shone in his mind like a thousand suns. For a brief instant, his perceptions expanded and he felt the world. But then, in the corners of his expanded vision came a deep red, slowly washing over his expanded vision. His expanded perceptions collapsed and his world became red rage. Pain enveloped him as he felt his body changing and bursting and dimly he perceived his fellow Maar wracked with agony. He screamed as fire that was heat beyond possibility consumed his mind. And then there was no Epimetheus, as the fire burned thought out leaving him as a hulking Goliath, filled with a rage that would never diminish.
Around him, the Krostakin chittered to each other in satisfaction as they watched the Maar transform into the various types of Goliath we know today: Hill, Ice, Cave, and the mighty Flame Goliaths, born of Epimetheus himself. Prudently, the Krostakin now fled back to their beloved hot springs, their work for Lord Djall completed for now.
We know these things only because we know that Curnon had continued to the Symmetry after the Maar perished, and there he witnessed this. We know that in this moment the Maar became a dead race, for all left alive had become the Goliaths – unthinking beings full of rage and deadly intent. They are yet another weapon that the Lord of the Dark unleashed upon the Earth in his never‐ending, singular quest to cover it forever in hopeless shadow.
An Age Ends and Begins
The Maar were the oldest known race on or in the Earth, and the last mortal creatures from the Lost Ages to perish. With their passing, which roughly coincided with the clean‐ up of the lingering effects of Man’s destructive reign, the Age of Man had ended. The Earthmother returned the Beasts to the Earth now, an act which we know as the Reclamation, for the Beasts now set about to reclaim the Earth that had been taken from them.
The Age of Man was over, and the Age of Beasts had begun.