Category:2nd Age

The Age of the Great Mother, the Moon, and Dwarves: 8600 – 6450 BCE
The Second Age is the age of the Moon's creation.

Greater Powers of the Age
Moradin Soulforger (Seven Heavens): God of Dwarves

Shar (Grey Wastes of Hades): Goddess of Darkness

Tyr (Seven Heavens): God of Justice and Law

The First Dwarves of UrtheAge_of_Dwarves.jpg
Called the New Stone Age by the Dwarves, and the Cancerian Age by the Elves, the Great Mother Age saw the birth of many things. Following the example of the Power of Elves, the Power of Dwarves planted seeds of ore for a people in his own image, deep in the stone and iron within the mountains, where they quickly awoke. The first of the Dwarven people were brought to life.

The Cataclysm

The Power of Destruction raged again, furious that another rival race to the Orcs had been planted in the dark caverns of the Urthe. Instead of challenging the Power of Dwarves directly, the Stormlord aimed to crack this new world itself beyond repair. The Power of Destruction, and his servant Powers, conspired to send an iron comet hurtling to the young Urthe, but the Power of Justice redirected the cataclysmic bullet to destroy the Orc’s land of Knod instead. The impact destroyed the land, and The Power of Justice's right hand, utterly, and nearly wiped out the entire race of Orcs. From the black hole in the Urthe where the Orc nation once lay, the Power of Darkness sprang forth, and the first night fell over half of the Urthe. Many scattered orcs had escaped the fate of their fellows, as they were not in Knod, but in the tunnels underneath the lands of Elves when the cataclysm struck. Some of these subterannean Orcs had even evolved into a new species of creature: the first of the Bugbears.

The massive impact of the comet raised the oceans and caused an epic event known to history as “The Great Quake”. Forests died, lakes and rivers dried, and lands turned to desert. The landscape, until then one large continent, rent itself from the force of the impact, and shook apart forming seperate landmasses. The surface of Urthe was torn asunder. Some surviving Orcs began to breed with Goblins, producing the first of the new Hobgoblin species in some matings, and in others, the first of the Kobolds [female goblins and male orcs made kobolds, while female orcs and male goblins made hobgoblins]. Some Ogre tribes, threatened and isolated by flooding, evolved into an aquatic breed known as Merrow. One small Ogre group of elite Ogre kings became isolated on a small island, but rather than turn to the sea as the Merrow had, their descendents remained on land and evolved into the rare breed known as Ogre Magi.

The Birth of the Moon
The young Urthe was hit some by a primordial celestial body half the size of Mars. The projectile blew the ruinous lump of rock and stone that used to be Knod out into the void. The impacting iron behemoth burrowed deep into the Earth, only to bounce back again.

Yet escape was out of the question. The core of the celestial body, rich in iron, was swallowed by the much heavier Urthe, and sank to its centre. The remainder was flung out to space, together with vast quantities of debris from the land of Knod.

The Power of the Moon appeared, and set the displaced, lifeless ruins of the former Orc lands in safe orbit as the moon above, relieving the utter blackness that had descended over the land. The Power of Darkness continued to battle both Sun and Moon for control of the world. They still do battle over Urthe, high in the heavens above, where the moon lies lifeless still, barren outside of the Power of Nature’s influence.

The newly-born moon cast a strange spell over some rare individual animals at this time, mutating these wild creatures into the first of the natural Lycanthropes.

Life on Urthe
During this 2nd Age, The seas were still rising from The Great Melt of the 1st Age. The Dwarves felt the quaking of the Urthe, and did not venture out of their caverns, but explored the depths of their mountain homes, as the Elves had explored the surface world before them. The Dwarves eventually found the messages of friendship the Elves had left in the deep caves, and decided to carve their own messages of friendship in the stone, back to the unknown Elves. Meanwhile, the Elves had begun to form permanent cities as they retreated from tumultuous coastal areas, towards high ground. Many Powers were active upon the Urthe, giving rise to new races, and new inspirations. The Elves mastered agricultural principles (though they still rarely ‘farmed’, preferring to let nature run its own course, with their loving assistance), and had domesticated some animals (mainly pigs, goats, and bees) for their products, and some animals for companionship (breeding cooshee, training birds, and teaching a few Hsing-sing apes to walk upright, etc.). Knowledge was still passed down through oral traditions, but the Elves began to write in earnest late in this age, creatings some legendary works of lore that stand as classic tomes to this day.

In this age the Elven line began to diverge into the main distinct ethnicities we know today: the High Elves, Grey Elves, and Wild Elves. While the Grey Elves built walled cities of stone, the Wild Elves focused on the natural land and its creatures, and the High Elves developed crafts and handiworks, advanced pottery, trade, and seafaring during this time. Some of the great ships of this Age are still in use by the Elves today.

Aom looked on…