The Primordial Age #

Very little is known of the Primordial Age by the inhabitants of Elyra. Various organizations with an interest in establishing an accurate historical record are working to further the knowledge, but they have not yet made discoveries that reveal the nature of this early stage in Elyran history.

The Precursor Colossi #

The Primordial Age begins with the formation of Elyra and the Precursor Colossi. It is the first age in Elyran history, and occurs after Daybreak. Early Elyra was dominated by beings known as the Precursor Colossi. The Precursor Colossi were gargantuan creatures - the largest among them were the size of mountains. They were born of raw elemental energy, and each was associated with their prime element in it’s purest form - in later ages these forces would be referred to as the essences of natural Elyra, and they included Fire, Water, Nature, Magic, Life, Death, Good, Evil, Day, Night, Chaos, and Order, as well as many other elements.

The Precursor Colossi were wild, unintelligent, and animalistic, but were guided by their basic instincts for survival and a desire to become first among the natural order of the world. With their physical size and savage might, as well as legions of smaller elemental creatures that gravitated towards their precursor pack-leaders, their colossal battles for dominance transformed the world itself in the image of their respective essences. Where the Water Colossus prevailed, the surrounding lands were submerged beneath deep oceans. Where the Fire Colossus prevailed, the earth split and volcanic eruptions spewed lava and fire for hundreds of miles. Each Colossus laid waste to the area, reforming it to their liking as they battled. Elyra was reshaped again and again and again.

The Shaping Of The World #

Over time this turmoil would split the world into two parallel planes. The Precursor Colossi migrated between them and began to shape each one differently.

The first of these would come to be known in modern times as the Ever Reach, and it was inhabited by Precursors with essences such as Water, Nature, Life, Good, Day, and Order. While there were elementals of nearly all other essences in the Ever Reach, the colossi would come to have a significant influence on the shape of the land and the life that used these essences to form. The prominence of these beings meant that the Ever Reach became a land of trees and forests, vast oceans, long days, and well-ordered ecosystems.

The second of these planes would one day come to be called the Wastes, and it was inhabited by the colossi associated with elements such as Fire, Magic, Death, Evil, Night, and Chaos. Like the Ever Reach, there were small concentrations of nearly all elements here - except for Life -, but the shape of the land and its elemental inhabitants was guided by the more prominent essences of the precursors that resided there. The Wastes became a plane of fiery, scorching deserts, and disordered, chaotic landscapes bathed in the darkness of night.

Birth of The Dragons #

Each time the Precursor Colossi battled, they left destruction and upheaval behind, but they also left bits of themselves - essence and elemental residue that mixed with the raw matter of Elyra and the seeds of life cast throughout the universe by Aone, the Day. In time, the evolutionary process that had birthed the colossi began anew. This time however, rather than Precursor Colossi or elementals, a new breed of life emerged. The creatures that sprang forth were strange and unbalanced. They walked unevenly on legs far too long and flew haphazardly on wings far too small for them. They were wholly unfit for survival, except for one fact: each of these creatures held within them the spirit of life, and each was empowered with the spark of a prime essence that would sustain them. For thousands of years these creatures grew, eventually evolving into the first wyrmlings and drakes, and then adult dragons.

The natural savagery of the world promoted the strongest of their kind, while the weak were caught in the titanic battles of the precursors and killed. They grew to formidable strength and size, but over time another trait began to develop in the dragons - intelligence. They began to think, feel, observe, and plan. They began to associate cause with effect and to teach each other and grow into a sentient, intelligent race able to communicate and coordinate. The strongest and most intelligent of these grew further, into the first ancient dragons. It was these dragons that developed into the natural leaders of the draconic race. They recognized the cataclysmic and naturally predatory nature of the Precursor Colossi, and they began to fear for the future and survival of their kind.

The Fall Of The Titans #

At the same time, the precursors continued to battle. Each clash exacted a terrible cost on the land around them, but also on the inhabitants - namely the dragons. Many of them died from the explosion of various energies each time the world was remade again, but many more died as ecosystems and food chains were disrupted and their dens and lairs were destroyed. Eventually, the ancient draconic elders arrived at the conclusion that if the Precursor Colossi were allowed to continue their clashes unchecked, the dragons could never survive. They resolved to destroy the creatures, and agreed to work together to put an end to the beasts.

It was in the northern coastline of the region now known as Caoria that the first battle occurred. The gargantuan colossus of Earth slumbered among the plains there, having recently claimed the territory from the colossus of Water and shaped it for itself. With a great beating of wings, the sky suddenly split open and dragons of various essences poured forth, led by an Ancient Dragon known as Khaldor. For thirteen days and thirteen nights they battered the great colossus with their wings and claws, and the raw might of their combined numbers. In turn, the beast raged at them; boulders shot through the sky, crashing into several of the dragons and sending them plummeting towards a ground that instantly opened up to swallow them as they fell. Earthquakes shattered the land, and jets of steam shot into the sky and seared any who flew too low. Despite its power, the colossus grew weaker and more desperate as the fight raged. Still they continued their unrelenting assault, day and night. Pieces of its earthen hide crumbled away and left gigantic boulders and hills all around, exposing a soft, malleable underside vulnerable to their attacks. In a final, frantic burst of rage the precursor unleashed every bit of its power, lashing out and trying to drive back the attackers. The land split apart and great mountains erupted across the entire northern coastline. All around the dragons a great cloud of earth, dust, and energy swirled but when at last it settled, the beast was dead.

It was the first in what would become a series of crushing defeats for the precursors as the dragons began to hunt them. They moved back and forth between the planes, battling the creatures one by one. With each victory the dragons grew more adept at battling both the beasts, and the smaller but more numerous elementals that had flocked to them.

Several years after the defeat of the Earth colossus, one of the last to fall was the colossus of Life in a battle that would shape the course of the world forever. The great beast and its elemental pack exacted a terrible toll on its attackers, using its power to sap their life force and strength, and granting it to itself instead. As the dragons felt their hopes begin to grow dark, it was the great dragon Khaldor himself who turned the tide. Calling upon his elemental magics - the first time any dragon had ever done so - he unleashed a massive pulse of uncontrolled death and chaos magic to taint the energies that the colossus stole and poison it. The strike was potent and horrific, as the beast began to wither and rot from the inside out. With a primal roar it unleashed an explosion of magical energy, trying to eject the rot and death from its body of pure life essence. Far too late the dragons realized that colossus had lost control, and in a moment that seemed to split space and time, the precursor erupted, devastating the region and sending tendrils of magic and life essence shooting across the world. So powerful was this flare that a strand of this essence coalesced into a physical tendril and broke through the planar boundary, anchoring itself in the Wastes. As the tether solidified in the planes, the essence of life began to flow through the cracked boundary; with this infusion, much of the same evolutionary process that had occurred on the Ever Reach was suddenly possible in the Wastes.

Life Begins #

Over several years Elyra was strewn with the scattered corpses of the various Precursor Colossi. These defeated titans began to exude elemental magic, becoming fonts of raw power. As had happened before, these energies mixed with the spirit and matter of Elyra, catalyzing the process of evolution and allowing new life forms to spring forth. Where prior life had formed from the essence of living colossi however, this time life drew upon essence that had lost the spirit that had once embodied it. Instead of pure elemental forms, the spirits became ethereal and gaseous, before morphing into gelatinous blobs with various concentrations of each essence. Over time they developed mutations - each deviated in height, size, or features and they began to form into the various races that inhabit the world. The first of these new life forms to emerge were engulfed with concentrated power from the seeping blood of the precursors as they formed, and they were gifted an unnatural affinity for the magic and energies that they wielded; in time, they would come to be known as the Mortal Gods. As new life began to form, the Mortal Gods began to walk the planes, and the dragons settled into peaceful dominion over Elyra. At long last, the Primordial Age ended and the world entered the age known as the Rise of Life.