User:Rudhraighe/Reflections

The Reflections of the Rudhraighe s' through the ages.

The following are musings harvested from all the different Rudhraighe s' who have lived on this the planet of Tyria. Be they from memory scans, ships logs, journals, court records, letters to family,& friends,(or even foes), deathbed ramblings, drunken tavern tales, battlefield diaries, scary fireside stories, or even the demented whispers floating on an ill Tyrian breeze. None of these are intended as anything more than what they are "Reflections".

The ecology of magic in Tyria.

Magic a poor simplistic word. For ages we have asked the questions both as children, and as dying sages; and still no definitive answer can be put down unto a tome that we can point to and say "that is all there is to know about Magic!". Multitudinal voices reach out through the ages, crying, pleading, cajoling, cursing; What is it?, where does it come from?, when did it begin?, how is it created?, can it be destroyed?, why do i have it? what is it's nature?, is it a who?, does it think or feel?, can it be captured?, how is it used?, where does it live?, what color is it?, why does it work?, what is the source of magic?. Unbeknownst to them, the questions were the most important step, because there was no denying magic exists here on Tyria.

A place to begin

It all started with a mote of dust. The exploded star that had given birth to the dust cloud had only one last thought "Oh! no! not again!". To call it a star was a colossal understatement, for no star had ever gathered unto it's self more of what there was in all of creation than this one, and no star would ever again. But that is not the tale i wish to tell, this tale is about what happened after. It all started with a mote of dust, not a very big mote, and hardly enough matter to be called dust, more like a small clump of molecules, well 42 molecules to be exact, but for now we will call it a mote of dust. This dust mote was not particularily large among it's peers, nor did it contain any unusual traits that mattered, other than a single unusual desire, an attraction shall we say, to be close to others. That is how it all began. Dancing, turning, twirling, bumping, grinding, waltzing, grasping, pulling, holding, hugging, first with one partner, then two, now more, a group hug gone right; a hovel, a pair of shacks, a tiny cluster of houses, an outpost, a hamlet, a town, cities, urban centers, metropolises; pressure and, "Lomilwa" and there was light! From the cloud and the single mote, a new system was born, but more importantly the dance of creation was not as orderly or simple as any other dance found in the rest of the polyverse this dance had created a multisystem a cacophony of macro and micro, stars and planets a plethora of ordered chaos, the closest way to describe it would be a five-time Volta that peasants call "Hole-in-the-Wall" but done as a branle multi ring dance with each ring going off into three dimensions at once. The last known attempt to dance the dance of the spheres resulted in one fatality, 87 broken limbs, and hundreds of bruises and contusions, thousands of injured prides, and a ban on any further attempts that lasts even unto this very day.

We shall for the nonce only be focusing only on a singular and peculiar planet among all of those in this multisystem the one that contains our mote of dust. It didn't remember the cloud of dust that once surrounded it, it didn't even remember the accumulation of it's formation, the heat of compression, or the Day of that initial day, when light caressed it the very first time in the first era. The cooling of the first flush of birth, or the formation of it's skin in the second era. It vaguely remembered the impacts and concussions from without of others rushing to gather with it in the third era of being. Those who danced the dance of creation in gatherings too small to be spaced into the great dance of the spheres, stumbled into and fell to greet with the greater dancers, that by their own smaller contributions and self sacrifice they bolstered those more adept at the now ordering steps. The fall of the lesser dancers brought with them gasses, liquids, minerals, and strange complex molecules, that gathered on it's surface. Some gathering into pools, others floating just above the surface no less a part of the whole for their distance, all blending and mixing as a lesser remembrance of the first great dance. Heat, warmth, radiance from within and without this was the first feelings, stirrings, the steps of the dance never forgotten, movement. Still turning, and twirling, first one face then another to the greater light, pools evaporated, gathered and condensed, and for the first time it cried tears of joy and life in the great dance, a lesser closer faster partner, pulling, tugging, it waved in response to it's youth and enthusiasm, and knew the tides of time had begun. it's outer layer straining under the pull of it's partners both lesser close, further friends, and greater light reflected by movement in the skin in response to the closeness of it's partners. Land rose and fell continents moved, collided and broke apart again, ever the dance remembered, thus it entered the fourth era.

It itched, what more can be said, what else felt, when mold, moss, fungus, and microbic creatures begin to crawl in, under, and above your skin. It itched, but it was not the bad kind of itch that demands scratching, more like the kind of itch that comes from something new and wonderful, life. It blossomed the first flower, tiny well microscopic actually. But it was a dark rich turquoise color, it did not have a scent yet, it hadn't learned how, but it was beautiful and with it came the pollen of the first sexual reproduction. Life spread and with it a new connection, a special aura, a field of energy, that never existed before, magic. And with the magic came a new understanding, a new consciousness, it was no longer an it, it was a She because she's give birth to life, and her name was Tyria.

Researchers still argue, as all researchers are wont to do, but most do agree that magic is a force, a field, and aura, similar in nature to the force of a lodestone, or of the static charge produced from rubbing amber with silk, the lightning that arcs through the stormy sky and splits mountains in twain, or the thing that causes pomegranates to explode when over ripe, the colored bands of lights in the night sky over the Northern Shiverpeaks, or even that thing that causes babies to fall down and go boom when learning to walk, except that magic is much much stronger than all of these forces combined. Because magic is a result of Tyrian life. That is to say Tyrian life produces magic, and an overabundance of live creates great magic.

During the fifth era Tyria literally exploded with life, all kinds of life, strange, wonderful, crazy, and wierd. Life of all kinds, a multi biosphere of expanding diversity. after the mold, fungus, slimes, and microbes, were the plants. Oh and what a wild and crazy time Tyria had with the plants, leafs and stems that moved and some that even made music in the breezes. Tyria loved the plants and whispered and sang with them constantly. Blooms,flowers, blossoms, of every shade and shape, colors beyond all imagining, day blooms and night with phosphorescence and and all aglow, the land, the seas, the air filled with spectacles of sight and sound. Magic had the effect on the botany of Tyria like no other fertilizer in the polyverse ever could, it made even the most improbable possible, and the impossible merely rare. Plants that walked and moved from place to place, plants that swam against the flowing currents, plants that surfed the ocean waves, and plants that flew in the air.

It wasn't until the beginning of the sixth era with all the plants provided cover and shade, protection, and food, for the now expanding insect population, which taught the flowers how to create smell for the first time. As with the plants the entomology of Tyria knew no bounds, and thus it was that the first thinking creatures appeared upon the face of the world. To say that insects think, is not to say that they were great philosophers, there are many levels of thought, from merely reacting to the environment, or instinctual communal survival processes, to having a concept of yesterday or even 10 minutes ago. But it was a step up from what the plants were doing at the time. The reptiles soon followed the insects in gaining ground upon Tyria, as did the rest of the animals shortly thereafter. with the animals came cunning, deception, defense, stalking, trapping, even rough agriculture, But one thing was still missing from the world of Tyria and that was "Will" thus ended the sixth era.

A part of Tyria dreamt, that in itself was not unusual by this age, what was unusual was that she was aware that she had dreamt and even more so, that this dream was a nightmare, and for the first time she experienced apprehension for her children somethings were coming. Focusing fully on the images of the dream, She sensed that she needed help, what kind of help and how to get it she did not know, but instinct drove her to the only course of action she could make, she reached and pulled struggling for anything, anyone, anywhen, something with the Will to fight... It was an early automated routine colonial delivery ship carrying specimens and a crew of twenty in deep sleep from old earth that went missing first, it was that disappearance that prompted the the investigation into the anomaly, but that would not begin to occur for more than eighty Terran years.