History

"Myth and lore tell us much that the scholars and alchemists of today can only guess at, or discuss in the abstract.

We know that the stars of the night sky are suns like our own, and have worlds around them both greater and lesser than Maeleff. We know that the gods came here from one of those worlds, and remade Maeleff as their battlefield and playground.

We know that all of the peoples of Maeleff were raised up by the gods to be their tools, both servants and soldiers against each other. We know that the gods made magic and gave it to their servants in order that they might better make war against each other.

We know that the gods died, killed in hatred by a weapon so powerful that it poisoned the world. We know that at their death, the gods spilled their poisoned blood into the world. We know that the Blood and its poison are the unmaking of everything, and that out of the arrogance of the gods, the world will someday die, either withered and foul, or so altered and rendered Blessed and strange that it will no longer seem our world.

We know that the world contains mysteries we no longer understand, artifacts of the gods and their servants from the elder days of endless war. We know that, and we have hope, that in the annals of those older and grander than ourselves, yet perhaps less wise, we may still find the wisdom to save us."

- Ketch Aven, Alchemist and scholar of antiquities, in the introduction to his history of the Khevan Vestments