The World of Tellus
History of Tellus
Tellus is a disc world constructed by a cosmic being (at least that is what is believed). Cyrus, the sun, spins around the disc on a fixed orbit, while the disc slowly revolves. Because the sun is fixed and the land spins, it rises and sets in different parts of the sky as the seasons change. The edge of the disc is called The Realstream, an impassible, churning river that flows in the opposite direction of the revolution. Any ship that has successfully sailed to the other side of the disc has not returned.
The history of Tellus is divided into "ages” and relies upon understanding one key concept about magic and "unraveling". Magic is the power of creation but expending too much magic leads to destruction. The world of Tellus was created by a proto-god, known as The Progenitor, but little more is known about this being. Whatever The Progenitor was, it created the world of Tellus some 20,000 years ago. Upon creation, it used so much of itself in the process that the being unraveled - it just broke apart into raw power that flooded the world. This was the First Maelstrom.
Out of the maelstrom, which lasted for hundreds of years, formed the first true "gods", beings of power less primordial than The Progenitor, and with motivations of their own. They were also not equal, as the power coalesced into pools of varying degrees. The most powerful of these gods was Axeos. One thing all the gods inherited, and what seems true for all beings of magic, is the desire to create. Axeos created the first Dragons, primal, powerful reptilian creatures of old. Axeos also created a race of beings called the Ker, or Keres plurally. Most of the keres ended up banished to "the world engine" during the war to come; the world engine is the place that holds the inner workings of Tellus. The other four gods were Uris, who created the Urlosh, Nalene, who created the first fey, Ogmus, who created the first giants, and Sylvarel - the weakest of all of them. Sylvarel later became the god tree and created the elves. Each of the gods and races had roles to play in stabilizing and populating the world. The Urlosh wrote Laws of Magic to harness the unstable forces. The giants started building. Sylvarel began populating the world’s vegetation. But Axeos was greedy and jealous and didn't want to share the world with the other gods. This led to the first, and only, God War. Uris and Nalene joined forces against Axeos, along with the Urlosh and Fey versus the Ker and the Dragons. It was a series of epic battles, but the two gods and their armies could not defeat Axeos and his. While they fought, Ogmus secretly built a prison to hold a god, inside the moon Karos.
Near the end of the war, Axeos took control of Empyrea, the city of the gods built atop a mountainous structure called the Omphalos located at the center of the disc. Axeos attempted to draw even more power directly from Tellus, planning to create a cosmic blast that would obliterate the other gods and leave the world for himself. Tellus, or perhaps some remaining consciousness of the Progenitor residing in Tellus, disrupted that plan – but it did cause a blast. This was The Breaking. A cataclysmic amount of energy was released from the Omphalos, shattering the continental disc, and driving the broken shards of the surface of the world apart. This left Axeos weakened, and the other gods struck.
Nalene and Uris, using all their power, bound Axeos in the prison that Ogmus had built for all time, but that act cost them their own existences, and they unraveled into raw energy. This created the Second Maelstrom, not as powerful as the first, but still enough to wreak havoc on what remained. Ogmus was already weakened and didn't want to see all of their works destroyed so he created the Worldspires - 8 equidistant crystal spires, over 3000' tall (equidistant from the center of the disc and the edge, and equidistant from each other). These spires acted as powerful energy-rods, absorbing cosmic energy and creating a circular flow, the first true ley line. Ogmus unraveled and joined the flow. Sylvarel was powerless to stop the ensuing chaos, and with the world already broken, she used a portion of her own essence and rooted herself in the land later to become known as Galtia, and she became the god tree that she is, permanently bound to the earth.
The Urlosh, as did most of the races, survived. Out of this Second Maelstrom, the Urlosh rose to power and harnessed this raw magic. They created wonders of magic and architecture. They created races to serve them, including Centaur, Goblins, Humans, Ogres, and Orcs, and for thousands of years they spread and built and conquered as masters of magic and the world itself. Over time, it was a combination of their own hubris and the waning of magic that brought them down. They continued to build and use more and more magic to work wonders, but they didn’t realize until it was too late that Tellus was re-absorbing this spent energy. This was The Waning. Magic became a rapidly depleting commodity, and the Urlosh Empire fragmented as the Sorcerer-Kings began fighting over the diminishing magic. In their weakened state their workers and slaves turned on them. This was the last gasp of the Urlosh, and they were brought down – most of their floating cities and sky ships eventually crashed to the ground, and only a few Urlosh managed to flee the world. Some people believe that Urlosh survivors still live to this day in a lost city on the moon Lunas, others believe that this is a myth.
Out of the ruins of this fallen empire the free people of the world slowly rebuilt their own kingdoms and nation-states; these have risen and fallen over the millennia, and time marches on. Magic eventually seeped back into the world, but it never became what it was during the time of the Urlosh Empire, though some of their great works remain – vast and strange ruins called Legacies, and items of unrivaled power called Artifacts are sought after and fought over. Celestials, or “lesser gods”, formed in time from the cosmic residue from the second maelstrom, but they have but fractions of power compared to the first gods. Still, they watch over the world from Empyrea, influencing mortal events and plotting against each other. Above it all, Cyrus, the sun, continues to orbit the disc, Tellus revolves ever faithfully, and the moons move across the sky in their designated patterns, one perhaps a bastion for ancient powers, the other an ember glow, like a watchful eye of a dark god biding his time to freedom.
Races and Cultures
- Calendars
- Commerce
- Creation
- Education
- Gods and Powers
- Languages
- Laws
- Legacies of the Urlosh
- Races of Tellus
- Technology
- Units of Measurement
The Lands of Tellus
Other Features of Tellus
