Ryan Bailey (order #2639004) 173.14.196.1 - fap.if.usp.br

Ryan Bailey (order #2639004) 1CHAPTER ONE: LIFE IN THE HIGH FIRST AGEUnfortunately, given the troubles Autochthon’s Great Geasinflicted on their society, the Jadeborn could not reactivate thevehicles they’d given the Solars during the war. The Lunarsdeparted in animal forms, armed with Infallible Messengercrystals and instructions to make monthly reports.The Deliberative expanded continuously over the next500 years, forging alliances or making war against the othernations of the early First Age, establishing magical theoryin Autochthon’s absence and learning the particulars ofself-government. Eventually Deliberative cartographers hadcharted the whole world. Border kingdoms were allowed tostay independent, as long as they made no raids on Deliberativelands. This era had its violence, but very little betweenSolar Deliberators. While the Solars in independent nationsfought amongst each other, attacks on the Deliberative wererare and dealt with harshly. Most violence was against thePrimordial remnant races, and that was sport.More important than wars were the aesthetic and artisticadvances of the time. Within the Realm, the First DeliberativeEra was a time of peace and refinement. The Exaltedof Creation could finally lay down their arms, governed byno absolute ruler, with no pressing external threat and witha venue for peaceful deliberation of disagreements betweenthem. The city of Meru expanded, and conflicts most oftentook the form of arguments and social maneuvering. Sonah,the student of Brigid’s most promising student, Thesis, foundedwhat history would recall as the first School of Sorcery duringthe First Deliberative Era. During that time, though, Solarsociety regarded it as no more important than any of thehundred societies that sprang up in peace’s wake.Sadly, the First Deliberative Era was also marked by thedeparture of Autochthon from the world. Distraught overwhat he’d been made to do to his Jadeborn, the Great Makergathered his human followers in secret. At his command,the eight foremost mortal heroes of Autochthon traveledCreation beneath the notice of the Exalted, from Year 111to Year 121, gathering the components of the Ewer of Soulsand filling it from the Well of Souls. In Year 121, Autochthonvanished. Such was the secrecy in which the Eight Heroesof Autochthon had acted that it took Solar investigators aseason to determine the means of the Great Maker’s disappearance.The Primordial’s protégés blamed the Deliberativefor a time, but the resulting conflicts between the Deliberativeand Sperimin’s Twilights eventually dimmed.THE DISSOLUTION INVASIONSavants mark the end of the First Deliberative Era withthe Dissolution Invasion of Years 639–652. The Realm hadnot watched Creation’s borders as closely as it might have.In truth, its Solar governors saw those borders as the limit atwhich they could stop expanding and move to consolidate,travel home and see their families again. In those days, theBordermarches, Middlemarches and Deep Wyld existedthinly, and the edge of the world was total chaos. The FairFolk had walked Creation since prehistory, but their militaryassaults had always been artistry, not conquest.In Year 639, however, the Fair Folk, led by PrinceGinnungagap, sought to end shape, extending tendrils ofinfluence into mortal communities while the Exalted lookedelsewhere. The unguarded border of the world offered littleresistance, and for a decade, the raksha infiltrated a mortalpopulation nursed by five centuries of peace, culminating ina full military assault in Year 650. The Exalted set aside theirpersonal projects to combat and throw back the armies of theWyld. Then, with their eyes drawn to the invasion’s source,they turned their attention to the untapped potential of thelands beyond Creation.THE UNFURLING HORIZON ERA(YEARS 653–1215)The Unfurling Horizon Era marked the first concertedeffort to push back the borders of the Wyld and forge new landfrom chaos. Border-kingdom Solars had long experimentedwith such things, but in the Dissolution Invasion’s wake, manyof the border kingdoms became aligned with the Deliberative,and the Solars’ attention turned fully to the world’s edges.Once again, the Celestial Exalted handed administrative dutyto Dragon-Blooded daimyos and turned their full attentionto conquering new lands. The world’s sorcerers created jadeobelisks and ringed them around Creation, creating a stablefootprint from which to push outward.Brigid vanished during this time, and soon after, herstudent’s student Sonah vanished in search of her.THE AFTERSHOCK WARIn all the long years since the end of the Primordial War,the Exalted found no trace of the two free rogue Primordials.Gaia saw them not. They left no visible passage through theLoom of Fate. Autochthon had created no device that couldfind them. In Year 1107, one of the pair made itself known,taking advantage of the Deliberative’s outward focus to attackCreation’s heart. The Deliberative could not immediatelywithdraw from its endeavors in the Wyld and eventuallysettled for forcing the Fair Folk to swear oaths grantingEclipse Caste Solars diplomatic immunity so the Exaltedcould return home and defend the core of their world. Evenwith its efforts combined and with the aid of the independentExalted, the Deliberative took 108 years to defeat thelone Primordial, for it had learned much in contemplatingthe mistakes of its siblings and had re-made itself, sheddingall elements unsuited for conflict. The Primordial did notattack head on but engaged in guerilla strategies, striking atthe world’s cities and fading away. As the war ended in itsdeath and descent into the Underworld, its name is now lostto the Void. No record of its nature remains.Many Celestial Exalts died in the conflict, among themno few veterans of the Primordial War. The battle that killedthe most of them also killed the Primordial itself. On thegreat plains of the Blessed Isle, 600 miles east of the slopesof Meru, the last armies of the Primordials fought the forces14