"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs,
even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those
poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much,
because they live in the gray twilight
that knows neither victory or defeat."

- Theodore Roosevelt

INTRODUCTION

"I would give you welcome if I could, traveller -- but there is scare little that is welcoming about the world in this day and age. Look around you, young one, and see the blight and wastes that now encompass these lands. Watch the people you pass, wondering how many of them are as normal as they appear or how many of them will kill themselves before this week is over. But there is still wonder, even in this time -- even if the only wonder you can see is that which is the world's doom.

"Look up at the sky, friend, and watch the endless twilight flow from horizon to horizon. We live in the age of twilight, though there are many who still refuse to admit it. The War ended long ago, light and dark destroying each other, both in a real and magical sense. The world now had no sun nor dark sky in the heavens, those pieces of light and dark faded and lost like those fools who began the wars. Now we lie between, in the age many feared would come. We live in between, trapped in a world without light or dark, and thus prey to the deeper forces, those of which light and dark are but echoes.

"We fear the darkness, even in this age, but have forgotten the shadow. Oh, I don't give it the emphasis some do -- only an idiot reveres unbeing -- but it is there. As the source to which light is a pale reflection made all, so does the shadows to which darkness in a brilliant fire strive to end it. Here, in this age and time, being meets unbeing, and the light and dark are too weak to hold back shadow. The source is gone, passed on when the making was done, and now only we live to challenge the ending that slowly begins to devour our world.

"Pessimistic? Probably, but even in my darkest moments I never see shadow winning without a long and bitter struggle. We know there is a chance: the Books Of Teren are said to record this age and our chances for survival. I do not know the truth of that, but I do know that the world is weak, dying in the pale, unchanging stasis of twilight. We can return to the world of light and darkness or languish in the twilight, while the world goes grey and not even despair remains. The world could even enter shadow, and never be known again.

"You are shocked? I said I never saw it happening, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. I am no seer, for all that others have said. You see, there is a way to defeat shadow -- it wants the world, for reasons we may never fathom. But our ancestors, cursed be their names!, destroyed much of it with old magics and the wars. We can complete that process.

"Wait! Do not leave. You asked me why the world is the way it is, and I am giving you an answer. If we destroy the world, which one must admit we seem capable of doing given what our forebears did, then we can do that so greatly that shadow will never come. Better true unbeing than shadow, better to die fighting than to be enslaved! And that, young one, is all I have to say on the world. Others will tell you more, but that is the core of our world, and the sad truth of this age we find ourselves in. Wonder may not yet be lost, but many must wonder if we will ever find a way to bring the world out of the grey and into something else, be it the light and dark, shadow, or true oblivion. I hope for the first, I deny the second, and is the worst comes, I fear we may have to cause the third.

And we have the magic to make them occur. Never forget that. Magic was the worlds doom once and can be its salvation or doom again. You could be the one making the choice. And you must choose: the world or shadow, light and dark or twilight, every moment of every day -- you can't win a battle you don't know you're fighting."
- Mage of the Glass Hall traditional greeting to a potential apprentice

HISTORY

The history of the Wasted World is divided into three ages. The first age was the age of innocence, a four thousand year period between the rise of the nation-state and the beginning of The War. The War was the second age, a battle between the metaphysical ideals of god and evil that reverberated into reality and nearly destroyed the world. Accounts of the length of this age vary from 1,000 to 3,000 years, though most scholars claim it to be between 2,300 and 2,500 years. The age of twilight has been "infecting" the world for over 1,000 years but not as long as 1,500, according to the sages of Glass Hall.

The history listed hereafter is based on the records kept as Femal's Library and are generally not available for public use. Due to poorly kept records during the beginning of the Twilight Age, as well as many book-purgings (magic -- and hence knowledge -- believed responsible for the evil of this age in the beginning years) have led to little understanding of this age. The scholars find themselves forced to, with a shade of reluctance, resort to notations from the scrolls of Teren Starlight, often known as The Book of Nar Luna, or Book of the Dark Moon, for information about the past.

The Book of Teren

This book does not exist, at least not in any conventional sense. People have found it as scrolls, as a book, as a series of books or scrolls or parchment or even carved into stone. While there is only one of these books, the forms it takes often vary dramatically. Some say each version is one of the main possible futures that the seer saw for the world. Teren Starsight, easily the most powerful seer who ever has or will live, referred to this book as Nar Luna, the coming of the black moon, though even most scholars call it the Book of Teren. It was the result of her effort to see if shadow would engulf the world or not. Even though what she, Teren was often capable of making real, and even though she had true seeings (of things that were necessary, and would be) she did not know the ending of the age, nor who would help to end it.

Legends say that Teren left her home in a small village near the famous city-with-no-name one day and went off into the woods, to try and true see the beginning and ending of this dark age she saw coming. Some say she succeeded, others that she simply went to kill herself and still others that she died in the attempted seeing. Rumours of the First/Last book of Teren have persisted since that time and legends claim the book will tell those who read it how long they have until the world falls into twilight forever.

The First Age

According to the Book, the first recorded age of the world was one of common peace. People lived, fought, died, prospered and the cycle of the world went on. It was a normal world, with war and peace in equal measures and hope for golden ages to come. They did not know that they were the golden age, until The War began. Magic, always common enough in this age, became much stronger and people became harder in their beliefs, more passionate and unyielding, less forgving and more liable to see things in black and white.

For unknown reasons, the Book of Teren doesn't delve deeply into the causes of the war save to mention the foolish princess princess, an arrogant prince, a holy knight and mind warrior who loved her and the warrior who struck the first blow. Who they were and what they did to cause of The War is lost in myth and legend.

The War

"There is a city and an empire. A fool and other fools." So the Book of Teren recounts the cause of The War, where foes faced each other, Good and Evil drawn in lines of blood and magics. Somehow, in ways we can't understand and, perhaps, they never did, those who fought The War turned the rhetoric of Good and Evil into reality, polarizing the world and themselves and neither side willing to surrender. At the height of The War, when spells were being planned that could have obliterated all life in the world and others close by, the world acted.

Driven by a need to preserve itself, the world changed, moved, shifted. As The War had changed the reality of people, so the world itself changed the reality around it, entering another realm. The lights of the heavens were gone, cities vanished and ruins older that the world in their places. Things roamed the land and where once had been a glorious sky there was eternal twilight.

The Age of Twilight

"We all fear the unknown, Brak. And a tiger knows when to be worried."
- A tiger Walker in a small northern vilage

It is now with relief that the scholars turn away from Teren to the modern, brutal world we live in. Over 500 years have past since the world entered Twilight and the ruins of other worlds who have enteed twlight and been destroyed can be found. Echoes of old magic and peoples, ruins that remain impervious to magic and power and travellers of other lands and times an be found, haunting reminders of what we face unless we can free the world from this age and the shadowy oblivion it leads us to.

Recently, there strange stories have reached us scribes here in Glass Hall, stories at once disturbing and profound. Children are claming they died in a war that never happened, and people all over the world are remembering things that never were, but still happened. People speak of a war against a Warlord, but there was never such a war. What happened during this time is unknown but according to mages the "memory confusions" span roughly 40 years.

Stories also claim the gods of wind and shadows have information about this time but the former reportedly died in combat against Arth'Ba'Tosh, God of Madness in the western lands and the latter is never found by those who seek him. If others know of this time, they are almost impossible to find and very seculsionist.

THE REALITIES OF LIVING IN THE AGE OF TWILIGHT

The most important aspects of this world are obvious. For one, night and day do not exist, and even animals have almost no time sense. Special grey petal flowers that open once every hour are commonly used to tell time, but they do not distinguish between one hour and another. This disassociation from the normal sleeping patterns of people is obviously very profound and unsettling -- for one thing, many people miss more meetings than they did before. For another, chickens are held in high regard (approaching reverence in some places) since they are almost always able to call out what would be dawn every day and only be a few minutes off.

Other realities are that magic is justly feared and there are few cities not surrounded by ruins, and few new settlements found anywhere, though this is slowly changing. People are living off the bones (and the scraps) of their ancestors leaving, with then grey despondency of twilight sinking into them, bringing a passive uncaring state that is as close to neutrality as a drop of water is to an iceberg. As a consequence of this grey state, the suicide rate in most places is almost phenomenally high, especially considering that the cities can ill-afford to lose any people. Flu's and plagues are rampant in most areas and many dark things from The War still roam the lands, seeking food. In short, their is very little about this land, with crumbling buildings, dying peoples and deserts that had once been fields, to recommend to anyone, least of all those who live here. Only the slim hope of a return to the times of sun and darkness keep most going, and those are fading under the weight of shadow and the unceasing twilight that engulfs the world and lays bear the shame of the mages.

However, since the memory loss and people alive claiming they died at the hands of a warlord who doesn't exist, the sky has been lighter, sometimes just very, very cloudy. Whatever the Memory War -- as mages are calling it -- caused is unknown, but the world seems to be a safer place because of it. Whoever they were and whatever they did, they held back the shadow of unbeing.