The Children of Humanity

The Desolation Wars left Aereth wounded. Arcane upheaval, volcanism, and the rifting of continents darkened the world and ushered in the Long Winter. Ice claimed vast regions, and survival became the first concern of every people, creature, plant and tree.

A southern fragment torn from Gaia drifted toward the polar reaches. In later ages it would be called Lemuria. There, far from the great centers of the Elder Races, another lineage was quietly changing.

The Murians

From small primates native to Lemuria arose the ancestors of Aereth's indigenous humans: the Murians. As their homeland grew colder, they migrated north and east, eventually spreading through the lands that would become E'Terra.

Their numbers increased far more quickly than those of the Elder Races, who aged more slowly and reproduced at far slower rates. Their oldest traditions also preserved fear: memories of fire in the sky, monstrous battles, and powers they could neither name nor control. Whether those memories record Ddraig, Drakhmar, wyverns, or merely the chaos of ancient wars is now impossible to know.

In rare instances, Drakeri or Sídhe formed unions with Murians, passing a measure of their magical heritage to their descendants.

The Travelers

The broken gates left by the Tuatha Dé Danann created another human lineage upon Aereth. At unpredictable intervals, damaged portals opened into another universe and drew people from a distant world called Earth.

These Travelers did not come willingly, nor could they reliably return. Many perished. Others were absorbed into Murian communities, and over long ages the bloodlines mingled.

The same gates sometimes opened in the opposite direction. Thus, creatures and legends passed between Aereth and Earth, leaving each world with stories whose origins neither fully understood.