Lore and History of Sojournus

"“The trick man has played on himself is this: He thinks he stands upright but he is upside down and fixated to the ceiling in a cathedral of mirrors. In his mind he gazes upwards but in truth he gazes downward into a well. In the well is a river, but the river is not real.”"
 *  – excerpt from the exhaustive analects of Djinne Morphiel the Contemplative 

 

Humans are not native to this world and they were not human before they arrived. The epics say that they came by caravan from deep in the sky after a harrowing journey of many generations fleeing from an un-remembered danger. After reaching a desperate corner of black abyss the ancient pilgrims were pitied by beings of great power. The few who remember call them the Teletarchs. The Teletarchs brought the travelers to a place where they could rest and taught them a language of great power with which they could alter the manifest world according to their need. A covenant was made between them in exchange for this great power, and as a recompense for humanity’s new potential to shape the world according to their design, humanity would one day be called upon to fulfill an unrevealed design of the Teletarchs’. Humans now have only a vague memory of the ancient reciprocity of this covenant. He calls the earth he stands upon “Sojournus.” The Teletarch’s gift of magical speech is known as “Telnian”  and in ancient times it was said when it was spoken that the language of the ancient covenant was evoked and the unseen Teletarchs shifted the stars to make it so. The poets that wrote these words are long dead, however, and little of their tradition is remembered upon Sojournus. Those individuals skilled in speaking this ancient tongue are known as “Linguists” or “Orators.”

The Earth Alchemists say that when humans set foot on soil after generations afloat, the Lilluma tree mistook them for orphaned saplings and offered them her sap (a ridiculous tale as saplings do not drink the sap of their predecessors). They also say that it was by Lilluma tree that humans unlocked the earth and retrieved crafts, medicines, and mystical metallurgy. These were the Athenalchemists and they were kings over the elements by their own means. Despite the contrast in their approaches, the two schools of mastery quickly found a potent alliance with each other.

Humans established a great society; a kingdom they remember romantically still as “Old Kaidan.” Its ancient heart is now nothing more than a vast, shifting, relentless ocean of sand, but there is no human in the modern age that does not draw somehow from its legacy. It is believed that Kaidanian knowledge and science surpassed that of any people that has existed since them. A mighty class among the citizens of Old Kaidan were the Arcanus: those gifted in Telnian oration and Earth Alchemy. The Arcanus were revered as a class of Intellectuals, Priests, and Scientist Elites in the class structure of Old Kaidan. The Kaidanian caste system is no longer formally recognized and bears none of the inherent authority that it once did, but the Arcanus title is still conferred upon graduation by many of the Telnian and Athenalchemical schools and so manages to command a sizable measure of respect in most places in the world. The fall of the Kaidanian Empire was likely very rapid and corresponded to an equally rapid shift in the ecology of the land. The details of this are unknown, but the land that the Histories tell us was once a lush, sprawling, wealth of fertility and bounty is now a vast and unforgiving desert that changes so quickly as you approach the center that its dunes’ peaks and valleys shift by fathoms above and below the level of the sea in moments.

The resulting human diaspora was rapid and fragmented. Those early and critical events were too poorly recorded to be remarked upon with much confidence here. Humankind has become like children again and has forgotten the nature of the great powers they wield.