Prologue – Beginnings

"Only those from the desert know of Isbel's history. Their civilizations are the most ancient, each with their own customs and mythology, but legends from all of them can be traced back to a single theory of how the world was formed. Cultural disagreements have erupted over the ages over small differences in this tale, and even escalated to armed conflict. The fact remains, however, that the five nations were originally unified as one, and that their beliefs are based on the legend that follows.

The earth, born of the sun and moon, was crafted by the sky's hands and protected by his daughter, the immortal wind. The moon blessed the land with water, washing ashore a seed bestowed as a gift by the stars. The sun gave life to the seed, which gave life to a tree. The tree's leaves fell and became children, who aged and planted roots, sewing offspring of their own. Ghosts of these frail beings formed inside them, dying as quickly as their hosts. Only the parents, granted longevity and strength by the tree that had brought them into existence, lived to see their manifestations become independent and survive by themselves.

These were the first humans. Sprightly and ethereal, their sex could scarcely be distinguished, for there was no need to reproduce; they lived as their natural embodiments did, growing flowers and herbs and other beautiful things in place of carrying creatures identical in nature to them in wombs. These humans aged as slowly as the planet itself, developing over the ages into several societies capable of manipulating that which they were made of into clothing, tools, and eventually weapons.

Disturbances took time longer than most mountains live to form. Swords and the like were used for naught but sport, and the species was generally patient and easy-going. It wasn't until the Great Tree's last leaf fell that things went awry. With news that not a single life was to be created from that day on, the oldest took it upon themselves to preserve their vast families, beginning to seal the youngest back into the bodies they had been born from. Disagreement arose, eventually becoming anger and planting the foundations for violence. As Isbel shed its first drop of blood, a flame was born.

Millennia passed, and a once proud, tall civilization had been reduced to naught but a few straggling survivors. Stripped of their divinity as punishment for wreaking destruction upon their own race, these remaining individuals had nothing to call home but a sea of dry, burned ground that flowed like water and barely supported life. What had once been rich, bountiful earth was totally demolished after several millions of years of warfare.

And yet, survival was imminent. No longer quasi-spiritual beings, the leftovers of the world's longest and most ancient conflict possessed the one ability that ensured their livelihood – the ability to conceive children on their own. Now in ownership of the means to determine their race's fate, the thousand or so people left to die in the desert learned to adapt over some hundred years (now equivalent to several lifetimes), building their civilizations anew and recording the fantastic events that had lead to the founding of the world's first true country, Panshe.

As time passed, Panshe's population grew and conflicting beliefs abounded. Some parts of the country started to believe that two seeds had washed ashore, sprouting into a man and woman. Others thought that the first humans had fallen from the sky with the rain, and some found the more reasonable theory to be that a battle had taken place between deities, and that the earth had become molten for several millennia before mankind crawled from the cooling mud. More variations of the story speak of a woman wandering the young world, life of all kinds flourishing in her footsteps before she retreated to the centre of the earth. Only a small portion of the population retained the original beliefs passed down over the ages.

Many thousands of people left the country before the separation began, beginning nations of their own far away from the treacherous desert sands. Even beyond mountains and vast woods, whispers of terrible wars reached even the ears of those who had deserted the land of their birth. As new countries grew and developed governments of their own, those left in the wake of a twenty-year war floundered without a way to rule the independent societies they had sacrificed so much to obtain.

The Great Tree, fearful for the lives of the children who had strayed so far from the path she had laid out for them, begged for help from the powers that had created her. The moon sent her younger sister to wed the sea and guide those who believed in him, while the sun brought forth the spark born from the planet's blood and gave her the task of protecting those who worshipped her power. The sky surrendered his daughter, who descended to Isbel in a gentle shower of rain. The Tree awoke one of the sleeping youth, sending her on a long journey that left a trail of blooming plant life for hundreds of miles, and her worry yet unsatisfied, quitted her earthly form and departed for the desert herself.

These five entities became known as goddesses, granting their respective peoples usage of the spirits' power. Eyes of bright hues marked those gifted with such magical abilities, and differed greatly between the countries. The goddesses helped their civilizations learn these abilities to their fullest and established firm rules, slowly fading from history.

All except for the wind. Fearful that her cherished subjects would fall victim to mortal desires and destroy themselves, as most humans are wont to do, she struck the sands with a blinding flash of lightning and created a perfect, white stone from which she carved a city. She hid her people safely away in it, then entrusted the sky's prowess to those within the city's pale walls. Forfeiting her body, she became the pure breeze once more, lifting her creation into the sky and vowing that as long as she was the wind, she would protect it."

- The Origins of Magic, Foreword