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The past is a foreign country we are rarely allowed to visit.
- From the Book of Lore, Fourth Edition.
The past is harder to understand than the present and far more elusive than the future.
- Inscribed in the margin of the Book of Lore, author unknown.
“History, boy? You want .. oh, the past. Well, yes. I see. It’s past. Oh, you want to know what happened. How should I know? Do I look old enough to have been there! Oh, laugh, but it’s true. We don’t know what happened. We don’t know why the world is the way it is, my boy. There was a war, but there’s always wars. Probably a noble cause or two, as well. But why it happened? Beats me.”
- Conversation between a father and son.
“The history of the world is a thing of mystery. To delve into it requires persistence and the ability to separate fact from fiction, to discern the Truth hiding behind truths and lies as old as man. This is no easy task, and perhaps not wanted by most. There are many things people would rather forget than learn again, but we must all go through darkness to reach a new dawn. The past is our guidepost, our errors, our wisdom: we can only go forward by knowing what was.”
- Historian to an apprentice who has just left home.
“The past ... is past. We dig at old bones hoping for wisdom, disturb the dead to find out how they died. There are some things that should not see the light of day, some dreams not meant to be. What is, was. It cannot be again. But why the world ended? Boy, the world is still here! Look out a window. ‘We don’t know why the world is the way it is, my boy. There was a war, but there’s always wars. Probably a noble cause or two. But why it happened? Beats me.’ Oh, something my father told me once, before he died. I’ve been a historian for longer than you’ve been alive, thrice that long even. But it’s still true. Only now I begin to think its a good thing we don’t know.”
- Elderly historian speaking to a new apprentice.
There are always dark times, always periods of evil and shadow where we look into darkness and only see ourselves reflected back. The world has seen darkness in plagues and wars and famines. It has seen the shattering of old civilisations and the rise of new ones. Each generation predicted the end times and each was wrong - and right. In every generation, in every age, the end of the world is averted by cowards, fools, heroes and those who are just plain lucky. Some even manage to be all four.
Nothing lasts forever.
It was likely almost ironic. The end had been averted time and time again, science rising up to meet and conquer threats to us, even as it became a threat itself. People grew complacent. They travelled the world - we can see that from old ruins - and through through the air, even to the stars if some are to be believed. Then the end came. We don’t know how, or why, but they had killed magic, driven it into holes and nooks and and spaces between reality as their technology rose. Then it came back. And there was a war, between magic and science, power and power. We are what is left after the end of the world. The war is over, and there is no winner. Just degrees of losers.
The world ended, in fire and cold and death. We are what remain.
In all the dreams, in all the terrors, no one ever said what would happen to those who survived the end. Perhaps no one wanted to. Maybe they believed we’d all die. We don’t know: the cities are dead and broken monuments to power beyond our ken and magic flickers over them with ancient powers and unknown goals. It is left to us to rebuild, if we can - and if we dare.
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