The Age of Void

We came from the Void, that was what we knew. From our rock bodies, we attained form, and with our gemstone hearts encoded the memories of countless past lives of sentient creatures, we knew our essence. We stood stout and stocky, in squat forms, and as we gazed at the night sky coloured with the rainbow clouds of the Warpstorm, we knew of a more perfect form, filled with grace, of taller figures that haunt our dreams. We called them our Ancestors, Ancestor Gods. We created myths of them, recollected from the memories that laid in our hearts. We thus knew we came from the Void, and our speech, Khazalid, was formed of a vulgarised and plagiarised version of the myriad tongues our consciousness, that which originated from countless other lifeforms, spoke. Thus we knew, however dimly, that we came from beyond the depths of space, of that great void above us, from which dotted the sky with distant lights. We were not true in our forms, stout and stocky as a result of some warped evolution. When we first came to sentience, we took to hiding in the great caves of the regions of our world Vatn. When the dangers passed, we would come out and gaze under the night sky, at a sea of light, and dreamt of foreign lands where once roamed our Ancestry, our origins.

We spoke of our Ancestor Gods, in our minds' visions' great warriors of old, to explain our origins, from which we say we descended from the Gods of the Void. There, in the history of other worlds, lie our explanations of our origins. The Ancestor Gods, the people within our memories that we carried on in our consciousness, were thought of as perfect in form, graceful and tall in shape, completely unlike us. They were inspired by the real life peoples from which our memories and consciousness took registry from. Thus we called ourselves Demiurg, or "Squat" in our vulgar language.

Gazing at the worlds that dotted the starscape above us, we named them each after elements in our language. Jord, 1st within the star system, meaning "Earth" for being exceptionally dense and extremely rich in rare minerals and metals, a dense black ball in the sky above us. Ginnungagap, 2nd within the star system; the Yawning Gap, a miniaturised blackhole caused by the unnatural phenomenon of the Warpstorm. The reason why venturing near Jord is dangerous, due to their proximtiy. Himinn, 3rd within the star system; in stark contrast to Ginnungagap, the lofty Himinn, Sphere of Lights is an almost divine heaven that is as yet devoid of life. Himinn naturally generates an exceptionally large magnetic field that makes entry beyond that planet difficult, another reason the resource-laden world of Jord has yet to be plundered; the hall of Valhalla is said to reside here, awaiting fallen warriors who have fought valiantly in battle, to carry them to the feast of Saehrimnir on the wings of the Valkyrie, a divine boar that is cooked every night and returns whole the next day, while the Valkyrie's existence was divined from the flashing sparks that would be visible from Vatn's night sky, carried by the solar winds that collide with the magnetic field of Himinn. Vindr, 4th within the star system; the Shell of Shattered Winds, Vindr, is a planet that has been shattered into 7 floating world shells over its core, by the incidence of a gigantic Warplightning from the Warpstorm that tore the planet asunder. Vatn, Homeworld of the Demiurg; 5th within the star system, so named being the only planet with water, apart from Himinn. Agnirheimr, the Home of Melding Fire, 6th planet within the star system; this world is constantly ablazed with heat reaching temperatures far in excess of what any planet would normally generate in any circumstances. It was to be used by the Demiurg as a forge world, due its great heat, which they use as a giant furnace to forge their most rarest and precious of metals into the greatest weapons of all. As the truly powerful Master Runes can only be inscripted within the fiery depths of Agnirheimr, which the Demiurg do so with the aid of Exo-Armours, Agnirheimr is also called the Runeworld, and Agnir Firehammer himself was named after this glowing planet, such was his skill as the first Runesmith. And finally Prymja, the 7th and last of the Homeworlds; world of the Xenarch, the Thunder Arches, the strange beings made of living Warp energy that was formed from the coalescing of Warplightning within the unique environment of Prymja. The entire world is perpetually clouded over by great black clouds that constantly generate charges of lightning, and that is how new Xenarches are born.

At first the world was hostile, and we took to defending ourselves by hiding in the mountain caves to keep away from the many predatory beasts that roam the land. There, inspired by the myth of the Ancestor God Grungni, who was the god of the mountains, we took to mining and smithing, upon chancing upon in some distant recollection of the use of the minerals within the heart of the mountains, and upon meeting with lava; "Fire". With fire, the heat of the lava within the backbones of the mountains, did we smith, and with it we forged great weapons of yore, with which we did battle with the predators of the lands. Soon the hunted became the hunter, and these first, brave Demiurg whose "lineage" came from the myths of Grungni, were the Blacksmiths, forgers of fire and iron.

The Age of Strife

With the weapons forged by the Blacksmiths, we drove off the great threats of the land, and installed ourselves as the ruling species upon the planet. Then, some ambitious Blacksmiths, took to the idea of uniting the disparate clans of our "ancient" race, with war and fire, and most of all, Iron. We called them Warsmiths, and the first of them, the one to be known as the Forge of War, Agnir Firehammer, was soon to be celebrated in an even higher station, Runesmith. Among these Blacksmiths, there arose legendary leaders of war, who with wielding ever increasingly deadly weapons of war, with their smithing skill, from which the legendary Warhammer drew its reputed origins and fame from, were known as Warsmiths, and after taming the beasts of the lands, took to battle amongst themselves, in wars of massive magnitudes that took to marching of whole clans. The Warsmiths' actions were dedicated to the "lineage" of Grimnir, first of the Warrior Gods of the Ancestor Gods.

Then, among the Warsmiths of renown, there was one legendary Warsmith, gifted among the rest for his skill at forging. He had rumoured to have created the Tempered Blade, the very height of achievement of the art of forging itself. All along as they mastered the crafts of forging, they gradually through their trials, developed and mastered their skill, till the best of them were near peerless. Among them arose the idea of an artifact crafted of such sheer skill and artifice, that it should be considered the masterwork of their kind, the Tempered Blade. To craft that weapon of power, it is said that only one who is able to fuse the Runes of Fire into the blade of the weapon can create it, and that man was Agnir Firehammer, the first Warsmith and Runesmith. The Runes themselves were the creation of the first written language of our race, hammered into the cave walls with those very same tools of forging. It is said the written script of the Runes depict the actual forging process of melding iron with fire, to create ultimately the Tempered Blade itself. The Tempered Blade itself was forged into the fabled weapon of the Warhammer, by Agnir Firehammer, from which he used to unite the disparate clans into one united entity, during what came to be called The Age of Fire and Strife.

The written language of the Demiurg was one constituted of deep meaning in the construction of the characters. The very ways in which the language is carved onto the cave walls held meaning, and only the first Runesmith, Agnir Firehammer knew the exact means for fusing the Runes into the Warhammer. Thus he was the first Runesmith. It is said that as the crafting of language was directly related to forging, being constructed as a means of conveying its process through it, the Tempered Blade itself is the very epitome of the forge, being an instrument that directly translates the forging and refining process in the act of creating it itself. Thus it is the embodiment, the Living Example of the Runes taken to Form.

Then came the end of the Age of Strife, with the unity created by Agnir Firehammer as he sought to bring together the various clans into cooperation through the tides of battle, by wielding the Tempered Blade itself. But the ordeals he faced in the process of that act would test his skill and command to the limits, and earn him the moniker, The Forge of War. One of these trials describe an event that led to the creation of the Slayer Guild, "Throrin's Oath", by none other than Throrin Oathbeard himself. Though the skin of the Demiurg was of stoneskin, they had long flowing beards that were a result of age. The older a Demiurg, the longer his beard, and since the Demiurg had such respect for ancestry, given their own Myth of their Ancestry, the beard held a special meaning among the Demiurg. Throrin Oathbeard was the Warsmith that fought under Agnir Firehammer, and was his second-in-command in fact. He earned his name and repute by being the first Warsmith to fight under another Warsmith, and although this might seem small means for reputation, was because he was the first Warsmith to recognise the leadership of the Runesmith Agnir Firehammer, and so came under his fold thus. He took an oath under Agnir Firehammer, swearing that if he ever betrayed his trust, he will cut off his beard and take to the supreme devotion of vowing and taking vengeance upon his name, to "proof himself a Slayer" in his own words, thus earning his name, Oathbeard. This was to come true, though not in the expected way, when an enemy of the Forge of War, captured and cut off the beard of Throrin, knowing and understanding both the shame and humiliation to his taken avowed oath, and against his Ancestry as a Longbeard of Ancient Days. When Throrin was saved by Agnir, he said he will take up his oath and live by it, and having since had his beard removed, even if by force, he will forever leave his station as Warsmith next to Agnir, and become the first Slayer, the Slayer King of the Guild of "Throrin's Oath". It was not a recognised and established Guild, but all similarly dishonoured Demiurg would henceforth take up the same "Throrin's Oath", in the fashion of their founder and originator, and shave off their beard, for whatever slight misdeed and dishonour, and wear it as a badge upon their bare skin, and from then on seek death as a means of avenging the deed, throwing themselves in a hunt for the greatest threat they can ever face, as a means of restoring honour. As of now, such is the skill of the Slayer King Throrin Oathbeard, that he has yet to avenge his dishonour through death, and he even once saved Agnir, after leaving him, when the Runesmith was cut off from all retreat, not as if he would, but for the fact that he was all alone from any aid. Just as doom seemed near, Throrin appeared on the scene, and with his Great Cleaver in hand, carved a path of blood to Agnir, freeing his former master from certain death.

With that one singular act, the war was won for Agnir, as that was the final deciding battle between the last Warsmith that resisted Agnir's attempt at unification through strife. And for his act of uniting the disparate Stronghold Clans into one single organisation, Agnir Firehammer became the first Mountain King, "Mountain" for symbolising his greatness, a stature "as large as a mountain". Among the established Warsmiths and those under them, the Blacksmiths, came in their union, the setting of the "Tempered Blade" Guild of Smiths, with the three recognised nominations of Blacksmith, Warsmith and Runesmith, becoming the ranks to the rungs of difficulty in crafting the ideal weapon, the Tempered Blade itself.

The Age of Establishment

With the end of the Age of Strife with the unification of the clans, came the start of the Age of the Establishment. During the Age of Establishment, great homes were carved out of the mountainsides, as there were no longer any need for warring, and the great clans of the Demiurg needed stable homes to reside in. This gave rise to a new profession, the Masons. The Masons were masters of carving stone and earth, and thus through their efforts, the homes of the clans were created within the mountains. Then, above the Masons, came the Architects, for they saw aesthetic where the Masons only saw earth and stone, and they oversaw the procedures of masonry, that the homes of the clans would be made beautiful and pleasing to the eye. They were as much homes as sheer designs the size of mountains. The important instrumental metal discovered at this age was the Diamond, when once previously it was the Iron. With Diamond sharp tools they could carve into the mountains and create holds of beauty from the designs of the Architects. As Demiurgian masonry became more advanced, more and more was placed the emphasis on aesthetic, as it developed. Thus came the Sculptors, Demiurg who made aesthetic design a priority above all else, using diamond scalpels they shaped whole rock and granite into stone sculptures of exquisite skill and beauty.

Then just like it was during the Age of Strife with the Blacksmiths, there came the idea of a masterwork, attainable only to the most determined and skilled of the Sculptors. It was called the Diamond Sculpture, made by shaping pure diamond into a figure or statue that only the most tremendously skilled could hope to achieve, in both difficulty and beauty, by using a Diamond Scalpel. Using a Diamond Scalpel itself as a means of shaping this lump of pure diamond required tremendous devotion and skill, due to its sheer difficulty and tiresomeness, and the man who was to achieve this lofty goal is none other than the very first Sculptor himself, Ungrim Arthentul. He crafted this statue according to his own likeness, in homage to his stature as one of the Mountain Kings, and as representative of his own personal achievement as a pivotal means towards his goal of fulfilling the masterwork. The Diamond Sculpture, masterwork of the Sculptors, was placed within the great hall of Karak-a-Karaz, "The Stronghold of the Ancestors", the Stronghold of the Ancestor Clan of Agnir Firehammer, in homage to his role in uniting the clans.

Just as Agnir Firehammer was renown for uniting the disparate clans through warfare, Ungrim Arthentul was known for his Establishment, which listed the laws that would establish and settle the clans into order, and for his grand act of administering as his first act, the establishment of the creation of the Mountain Holds that would serve as homes for the clans during this great Age. Agnir was thus known as the Forge of War, while Ungrim was known as the Stoneform Lawgiver, and his age in his station as the second Mountain King, the Age of Establishment. The Establishment Laws are written in Runic script within a book of diamond, held within the hands of the Diamond Sculpture. Among the Written Laws of the Establishment, is the importance of the "Diamond Sculpture" Guild of Masons, Architects and Sculptors, as being one of the core foundations of Demiurg civilisation, together with the Clansmen Warriors of the Oathhold Clans, divided between the greater Ancestor Clans and the lesser Stronghold Clans. The upholders of the Establishment was left to a small offshoot Guild comprised from the Clansmen Warriors of the Ancestor Clans, established by Ungrim, the "Thunder Fist" Guild of Judges, said to trace its ancestral "lineage" from Valaya, Ancestor Goddess of hearth and home, and above all, protection. New initiates into this Guild had to be judged incorruptible by the Stoneform Lawgiver himself, and they judged order on the rest of the Demiurg with absolute justice.

The Age of Technology

In the successor Age, the people of the Demiurg were comfortably resided in their homeworld, and they thus went about tinkering into higher pleasures and faculties. Tinkers they were called, for it all started with experimentations of small and exquisite gears and the making of clockwork toys for the young children of the Demiurg. The Tinkers went about their business with a strange devotion given the main view of perception of that of a frivolous art by the majority of the Demiurg populace. It turned out they were busy with an idea sparked by the greatest of them, the first Tinker himself, Kazador Weldenmar. And that was, in many ways the masterwork of the Tinkers, the Living Mechanism, a Clockwork toy that ran on its own gears through the sheer delicacy of its interlocking gears, a mechanism that ran on a power all of its own, thus mimicking the motive power of real life. Through his discovery of electricity, the first Living Mechanical Clockwork toy came to be powered, one that didn't run on a limited lifespan as it is with clockwork wind-up toys. This would later apply to many of the technological inventions of that age, like the Gyrocopter and the Land Train. Thus Kazador is also known as the Soulspark Inventor.

With the advent of electricity and the fulfillment of the masterwork of the Living Mechanism, Kazador Weldenmar founded the "Living Mechanism" Guild of Engineers. The Engineers were the offspring of the Tinkers, they were the ones to apply the currents of electricity into designed machines of technology, and were responsible for their production. Above that rank, the Mechanicians were senior to the Engineers, and they were more involved in the gears and mechanisms of the inner workings of the electric motors of these machines, thus possessing a level of expertise above the mere construction of the machines. The Tinkers, became the name for the ultimate rank for the Guild itself, in homage to their roots and legacy as being founded by the tinkering of "mere" Tinkers. The metal of note during this age was the Alloy, refined and tempered by the Chemists of the "Golden Elixir" Guild.

The Age of Darkness

Then comes The Age of Darkness, the entire firmly established peace of the clans was upset by an ambitious and gifted upstart, Hariman Windcarver, the Voidheart. Jewellery of precious metals called gemstones were an item of luxury during the times of the Age of Technology onwards, and the innovators and pioneers of the art of jewellery were the Jewellers of the Air Vaults. Within their great underground vaults, they proceeded to the art of crafting and carving jewels from raw and rare gemstones. One of them made an important discovery: that these gemstones interacted with their magnetic hearts, and were thus controllable by them from a distance. He was known as Hariman Windcarver...and it turned out, a secret sect within the Underground Air Vaults had already discovered this, and were keen to initiate young Hariman into their coven. Hariman swiftly rose up the ranks of the Animators, as they called themselves, for their telekinetic ability of motivating gemstones into animation. At the very height of the ranks of the Animators was the Crystalgazer, for he was the first to discover this unique affinity they had with the gemstones. Just by gazing alone, he could move gemstones into bonding, and he was the first to pioneer and teach the art of bonding separate gemstone pieces into a whole, from which he could then animate the core gemstone into the Bejewelled Heart of a golem. Thus essential to this was the breath of life, and which somehow the Crystalgazer was in the know of and could animate golems at will.

Through sheer genius alone, Hariman discovered the secret of golem animation on his own. He aligned the magnatic frequency of the gemstone heart of his own Sunstone gem that he found in the deepest depths of the Air Vault network, and through bonding the parts of his Sunstone Golem through his animating abilities, he proceeded to program thoughtwave patterns into the gemstone heart's unique memory signature. Through sheer determination, he mastered the masterwork of the Animators, the Bejewelled Heart, and with this Sunstone Heart empowering his Sunstone Golem, he sychronised his magnetic frequencies with the Sunstone and wore the Golem like an armour, having so crafted it thus this way. He went on to challenge the Crystalgazer to a duel, hanging on the line both their lives and the title of Crystalgazer. The Moonstone Golem of the previous Crystalgazer was thus in this way superseded by Hariman's Sunstone Golem, but Hariman spared the life of his previous master, knowing him for his talents and being the pioneer of their secret art.

Teaching his new followers the art of Crystalgazing, in order to synchronise the magnetism of their own gemstone hearts with the gemstone heart of the golems, he thus taught them the secret that was kept hidden from them by the previous Crystalgazer. Also, important to note, is that this art of crystalgazing is very much like all the previous crafts before it, an art of self-purification and refinement. It was discovered through understanding the inner, higher self of the Demiurg, by that very first Crystalgazer, who was also the very first pioneer of the art of jewellery, by the name of Zhartan Rykarth. By understanding that their hearts were made of gemstones like those very precious and beautiful gemstones they took as items of luxury, he understood the deeper implication that they could control them, and thus affect changes beyond their bodily domain. By seeding and programming these gemstones with their own will, in a sense imparting their willpower into them, they could thus animate beings of stone into replicas of their own animated life force, thus gifting them the breath of life. All of this reflected the Demiurg's own devotion towards the Masterwork, achieving the power of creation itself, in gifting inanimate objects the breath of creation.

Gathering his followers, the Animators and even the junior members, the Jewellers, he told them the true secret behind the Crystalgazer, how he was able to steer the course of the livelihood of their trade to success. It was the true power of crystalgazing, by prying into the future through the mystical power contained within the gemstones. These crystal balls held deep meaning within them, but it was unsure to these new followers how they worked, how they could scry the future through the simple act of gazing into them. It puzzled them, and Hariman taught them how it worked. By gazing alone into the crystals, the memory signature of the gemstone crystal ball could be synchronised with the will of the Demiurg's own gemstone heart, thus appearing before them is the idea dream held within the heart of its possessor. And Hariman saw war within the crystal ball. He saw a new fire of union forged amidst the stars, through the bloodshed of their kin. In the preceding age of luxury, the Age of Technology, although there had been progress, much had been given to laxity and decline, with their race gluttoned on technological advances. In his heart's desire, and in his mind's reckoning, he saw a new age was to be at hand, and only through the crucible of war once again could their race be purified and advanced, brought about from the lethargy and laziness against progress they had sunk deep into. And rallying his Gemstome Golems together with their Animators and Jewellers, they proceeded to wage war against the rest of their kind.

And terrible and fierce was that war, with the hard as diamond Golems at the forefront of the battles, they fought against the mechanical wonders of the Engineers, Mechanicians and Tinkers of the "Living Mechanism" Guild, against Gyrocopters and Colossi and Exo-Armour suited Miners. At the height of the war, Hariman Windcarver faced off against the leader of the Age of Strife, the one who united them all in the first place, Agnir Firehammer, atop Karak-a-Karaz. A titanic battle was waged, against the Sunstone Golem Armour, and the Tempered Blade Warhammer, and at the climax of it, the glass mosaic of the tower of Kazador, depicting the unification of the clans through the Warhammer was shattered, and Hariman was in full view of the carnage his war had waged over the lands. Countless dead laid among the ruins of their once proud civilisation, and in deep regret for going too far with his war, Hariman placed down his weapons and weeped. He had realised sooner yet, that his war had gone overboard and done more harm than the good it was meant to rekindle. In a great clarion voice resounding over the battlements, he shouted his declaration of the end of the war, having no longer any reason to perpetuate it. Not all were to listen to Hariman though. some of the Animators, under the leadership of the previous Crystalgazer, Zhartan Rykarth, continued to fight against the Demiurg Oathhold Clans. Now, with the cooperation of the four Mountain Kings, this rebeliion was successfully quelled with haste. These rebellious Demiurg were caged and imprisoned in the dungeons of Karak-a-Karaz.

The Age of Enlightenment

Having gone with the Age of Darkness, comes the Age of Enlightenment. One would carry on the work put into motion through honourable, albeit belligerent means, by Hariman Windcarver, the Voidheart Redemptor, Odin Eriksson. Odin Eriksson was the starter of the art of the process of refining raw ores of metals, for the sake of their use in the machines of the "Living Mechanism" Guild of Engineers and Mechanicians. Consumed with his goal of a masterwork of the Refiners, or Chemists, he went about in the Water Refineries as they were called, distilling and filtering and sifting and brewing, until he achieved the ultimate transmutation of lead into gold. This art as it was known was called alchemy, a mystical variant of the science of chemistry, practised by the higher ranked Chemists, called Alchemists. It was believed by them that the ultimate metal was none other than the very rarest, gold, also the most beautiful. It was said that realising the Golden Elixir, masterwork of the Philosophers, was akin to achieving eternal life. This was the main preoccupation of the Demiurg race at this point, for due to their unique origins of being made from the fusing of the elements, had slowly ran out of the electric energy that spark their magnetic hearts, and having slowly given in to the decline of entropy, and being made of stone and earth in the first place, had not the means to replenish the population. A great fear of the void of death overcame them, and they sought to a saviour who would deliver them from the judgement of death. All of a sudden, in their moment of desperation, a man imbued with golden lustre like an aura about his being came forth from the Water Refineries, a man known to them as Odin Eriksson.

He came speaking in vehement oratories that inspired the spark of creation within them, of a so-called hidden and last masterwork of alchemy, the Golden Elixir. "I have imbibed of it, and drank drunk from its distillation of inspiration. It is the wine of the Gods themselves, a great potion that gifts immortality and eternal life, through inspiring them with the divine breath of Creation. This golden liquid flowing down to the very crystal hearts we bear, rejuvenates and cleanses us anew, shining as gold, the blue gold of cleansing rain."

This was said in respect to the fact that the Demiurg were made into wholeness through a divine rain that occurred in the atmosphere of their world when the elemental process of their creation was occurring. The Demiurg were created by the fusing of the elements within a single being of gemstone heart and earth flesh, they had come to learn from the findings of the Crystalgazers. They had magnetic properties thus generated by their heart, and could attract stones and earth to regenerate their bodies from injury, and lost body parts, but they had no real means of reproduction. "Gifted with the tongue of gold, from this very liquor of fluid eloquence itself, I thus come forth with the Midas' Touch, transmuting the laden lead of your heavy burdens into the most luxuriant gold of luminous self. Thus inspired, you can no longer look back upon your past regressions, having attained the fruit of Enlightenment through this Golden Elixir that I present to you forth in the manifestation of moving speeches, that soars your spirit into heights of rapture and ecstasy."

"That is the true secret of immortality, its true gold and goal. Inner purity and refinement of self and nature, allowing you to transcend the bodily cage of existence that now declines in. Like that primordial divine rain that first descended upon the earthen mould of our then lifeless bodies, gifting us the breath of life, we too can renew our aging vessels with the Golden Elixir, for in truth, it is but all along within you. Only the truest seekers are able to distill the riddle of my words, encrypted in the Runic tongue, for it is indeed written in the code of the Runic language, Khazalid."

In this way the cycle of Fire and Water, was complete. The secret of the Golden Elixir is this: that it does not exist except metaphorically, within the hearts of the Demiurg themselves. The process of distilling the Golden Elixir is equivalent to the process of refining the soul, purifying it of the lesser and baser impurities gathered through the action of Causality, or Cause and Effect. Having attained this truth, the soul is liberated and gains eternal life, having found a means of rejuvenating itself through the shedding of the old earth of body, and attracting new metals and rocks to its foundation, and through a constant mental state of livelihood and fervent engagement with life and reality, does one continually spark the soul's light of creation and life. Through this means in fact, the Great Philosopher Odin Eriksson actually attained the highest masterwork of all, the creation of the fabled Golden Elixir. By rearranging animated parts of Gemstones and bonding them to a gemstone heart, through the art of the Animators, and then crystallising the essence into whole, the Demiurg were able to replicate the effects of reproduction, by imbibing the new Demiurg with the Golden Elixir, which was discovered to be of the same constitution as the divine rain that started their race, except this time it is through an internal transmutation, through transfusing the Golden Elixir into the body of the new Demiurg.

These new Demiurg created this way were far more powerful than the crude earth and stone bodies of the previous Demiurg, and were called Daewar, or Men of War.