The Song of Ages, as Remembered in the Dark Years

"In the beginning, before the long sorrow of men, there was Malak, Lord of Life, who kindled the first flame of being upon Terra. From his hand sprang the Old Ones, immortal and mighty, who shaped the heavens with their wisdom and adorned the earth with wonders beyond reckoning. Their craft was a marvel, their works of "technology" so great that the very stars bore witness to their mastery.

Yet Malak, perceiving within himself a flaw, grew troubled. In his heart stirred a discord he could not name, and in his wisdom—or folly—he sundered himself. Thus were born two: Malak, the Keeper of Life, and his shadowed twin, the Lord of Death. Upon the silver moon they clashed in wrath, their battle wreathed in fire the hue of sapphire, until at last the moon was shattered and death triumphed. From that ruin arose the Reanimators, legions of unlife, and Terra fell beneath their terrible march."

Then came the Age of Forgetting. Mortal men, who once knew neither death nor fear, lost the knowledge of their own immortality. Their children were born to wither, and in time, they became as beasts, scattered and warring, their minds darkened with fearsome superstition. The Old Ones, the few who endured, withdrew into shadow, wandering like ghosts through a world no longer their own. The Reanimators, insatiable in their hunger, laid siege to all that yet lived, and the tribes of men fought with fire and iron against the unrelenting dark.

But there arose one among the Old Ones who would not abide the ruin of his people. His name was Zephon, the last of the great warlords of the elder age, who had long slumbered in his Ark, a mighty vessel of the ancients. With him were his chosen warriors, steel-clad and unyielding, who had made ready for war in the age before the fall. In wrath did Zephon descend upon the earth, gathering the scattered hosts of mankind, teaching them once more the ways of battle. He armed them with the weapons of the elder days, and the tribes who had cowered in the dark now stood as a vast host beneath his banner.

To these men, Zephon was not a king, nor merely a warrior, but a god. The Old Ones, in their wisdom, sought to teach them the truth, but the hearts of men are slow to learn and quick to worship. Thus, Zephon, whether he willed it or not, was crowned Emperor of Terra, and in his name was waged the great war that would last a thousand years.

Then did Malak make his great deception known. He called forth a mighty legion of the Empire’s finest warriors, promising them the power of his new "ghost technology," a craft of the unseen and the eternal. But when the legion set foot upon the moon, Malak’s trap was sprung. In an instant, they were unmade, their bodies cast aside, their souls twisted into wraiths like those who had served him before. This treachery, known thereafter as the Ghosting, was the last and greatest sorrow of Zephon’s reign.

The Emperor beheld at last that Malak was lost to them, that he had forsaken his own creation and embraced an accursed path. Now beset on two fronts, with the Reanimators at their heels and the wraiths lurking among the stars, the Empire of Terra faced ruin. And so, with heavy hearts, they turned away from the world of their birth. The great exodus began, and the ships of men sailed into the uncharted void, seeking a new home beyond the reach of death.

Thus ended the Age of Terra, and thus began the long wandering of mankind among the stars.