Elder Races¶
The peoples who walked Terrun before the Elves, Dwarves and Humans. The sources call them the Elder races: the peoples "born" in the Age of Titans, when the Einar and the Titans were shaping the world and the Throne of Law still stood. Most are extinct or reduced to remnants; several are stirring again in the Fifth Age. This page orients; each people has its own entry below.
Overview¶
The fullest list is given in an account of magic through the ages: in the Age of Titans "the Elder races were born (Eldritch, Giants, Faeries, Dinosaurs, Ventari, Dwarrow and Cthul being the most prominent)," an age said to have lasted almost fifty thousand years. The same account says the age was dominated by Ethereal magic, "and its most prolific practitioners were the Eldritch, who were the chosen of the High God Tamariel," while Fae magic "was also widely practiced by Faeries and Titans." In the Age of Demons that followed, the younger gods under Kalar made the new races, "including Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Trolls, Orcs, Draconians and others," and "Eldritch and many other Ethereal Magic users lost favor with the Gods and were driven extinct."
The newest cosmology draws a sharper line. The Eldritch and the Elementals are "the only true natives of Terrun"; the Cthul, Tyrax and Abols are Outsiders, beings that "have mastered the traversal of the Void" and "visit Terrun, set up outposts and harvest Terrun's resources for their own interests." The Cthul themselves are still counted "one of the Elder races present on Terrun since the beginning," their origin uncertain even to scholars.
The peoples¶
| People | One line |
|---|---|
| Ventari | The first humanoids, made in the image of the Einar; immortal spellcasters, extinct since the Dragon Wars. Their fertile offshoot, the Innus, are the ancestors of Humans. |
| Eldritch | The chosen of Tamariel and the foremost masters of Ethereal magic, struck down by the gods and replaced by the Elves; imprisoned in soulcruxes, and waking again. |
| Dwarrow | Technological earth-elementals of the deep, progenitors of the Dwarves, who fought the Eldritch for thousands of years. |
| Uk'Zarai | Horned, hooved and winged Fel beings from a dead world, brought to Terrun by the Dwarrow; in the Fifth Age the Angels of the Divine and the fallen of Proturas. |
| Giants | The elemental Mountain, Storm, Frost and Fire giants and their lesser kin, progeny of the Titans, all but eradicated in the Third War of the Dragons. |
Titans, Faeries, Dinosaurs, Cthul, Tyrax and Abols are described as creatures and cosmological beings rather than peoples: see Titans, Fae, Cthul and The Dread.
The Tlan¶
A single Fifth Age fragment lists, among the five Elder Gods stirring in the north, an unnamed "Elder god of Death" whose servants are the Tlan, bonecasters. "In the old world the Tlan would round up the dead, recycle life force and usher souls into the afterlife. The Tlan have more free will than Seth'Arax's minions, but tend to be very emotion-less and rational."
Gap
Nothing else is said of the Tlan: not their appearance, their numbers, where in the north they are found, or the name of the god they serve. They are kept here until more appears.
Earlier accounts¶
The 2014 archive gives the list differently. Its history of the Age of Titans speaks of "Titan Races (Dragons, Giants, Dinosaurs, Faeries), as well as creation of Ventari, Servants of the Einar," and its notes on the Elder Gods say those gods "gave birth to the elder races including the Fae, Titans, Elementals, Giants, Dragons." The 2020 history keeps a shorter list, "the Titan Races (Giants, Dinosaurs, Faeries, Ventari) and many other races which are now extinct," and notes that many of the earliest races "went extinct during this period, either through war or neglect," used as pawns in the quarrels of the Einar. The Eldritch, Dwarrow, Uk'Zarai and Cthul enter the lists only in the later documents.