Concept art, Renders

Esta semana estaré subiendo algunas cosas de arte conceptual de la novela hechas por mí y renderizadas en Blender para que se tenga una mejor imagen de las cosas que quise dibujar. Desde luego, no soy artista profesional, pero espero poder transmitir mis ideas :)

This week I will upload some concept art of places and creatures described on the novel. I am not a professional artist, but I hope that those Blender-made renders will help the readers to imagine the world I have created for Necromancy! :)

Chapter 2: Necromancia: The First Era

Click here for the spanish version!
Da click en el enlace previo para leer la versión en español!

Here is the link to the Kindle version of the novel, avaliable just in spanish by now. 

This chapter deals with the basic lore and mythology that fuels the world of Úrim and everything that happens in Necromancia: The first Era. I hope that you enjoy it!

Translation is set to end around july 31 of this same year :)

2. Ginnungagap, Creation, Protohistory and Regenesis

What I have gathered after covering most of the mythology of Úrim is that all races agree in something: beyond the stars we see at night and the planets that have been discovered past the moon, Nibiru and Antichthón, our mirror planet at the back of the Sun, there is an infinite nothingness.

All that exists now in the surface and the deeps of Úrim, according to the myths of old, was born into the Great Void Ginnungagap and at some point in time, everything will return in the end. In the tongue of the Sons of Ivaldir, Ginnungagap means the Yawning Abyss. Some other names have been given to it: Primeval Abyss, the Great Yawn and, finally, some people call it The Great Devourer. A lot of legends claim that the Black Hole has devoured a hundred galaxies and planets on its path. Ginnungagap, it is believed, is the beginning and the end of each and all universes.

Be that as it may, the myths do agree in this: At some point, a word manifested itself inside the Ginnungagap, and from it the almighty will of Kósmon was born. Kósmon, the God, the Only One, the Great Father had given birth to himself inside the Void, and his existence, born from the debris of countless planets and stars, made the Abyss come to an almost complete halt. Kósmon noticed he had the power of creation, and that every word he uttered was different from the past one. Kósmon, the Divine Spark, the great Maker, was the first entity in the universe with a will, and he filled the Void with planets, moons and stars and set in motion the universal machinery. It gave its laws to physics and to magic its power, linking it to the Ginnungagap. From it, magic would drain its power, and the void would return a part of what it had consumed in its life.

With a second, greater effort he created a world and he named it Úrim, and set apart sky from the earth and the sea; he divided light from the darkness and established the four elements. According to the myths, in this gigantic continent untouched by water, their creatures thrived. Finally, Kósmon, in a great love act, created all the races in the world, to the image of some of the materials found in the world: some, like orcs and dwarves, were created from creatures that lived in the mud; giants were raised and embodied from deep beneath the sea. Men were made out of fire and elves from the wind. Those primitive creations were granted a soul, an agent that animates matter and that could or could not return to the Ginnungagap, from where they were extracted in the first place. Kósmon noticed that with each passing second, he had to make a greater effort to make things happen. The more tongues he created, the more difficult it was for him to remember each one. His energy started to fade and, though he could have stopped everything, it would have meant to freeze his creations forever. The Maker knew that the day would come when he would sleep forever. But he was happy with the races and the order he brought to the universe– to the Cosmos.

Giants, divided in both males and females, represented the creation’s highest thoughts. Dwarves, which were closer to earth, represented the life cycle of plants: The seeds germinated on the earth’s womb. They also represented patience, since only through it could the legendary, golden, diamond-like shine halls of Bael-Ungor be born. It is said that the machines and forges there shadowed even those crafted on our own era. Orcs and Humans represented the vital spark of things, the principle of movement; a constant that has led them to war, destruction and greed. Elves were the middle ground of creation. They understood all of this, but they were not inclined to any of it. Kósmon saw the essence of each race, satisfied, and created mirror images of them and called them Guardians: Odin for Dwarves; Nut for the Elves; Quetzalcóatl for Men, Yog-Sothoth for Orcs and Ishtar for the Giants. Guardians, adored by their people, guided their people to an era of glory but, as Kósmon himself, they became tired. This mythical era in which gold rained, the moon moved freely and Kósmon, the Guardians and Úrim’s races spoke with each other as children do with their parents is called the Protohistory.

But this primeval bliss would not last.

Men and Elves; Orcs, Dwarves and Giants met at the Garden of Kósmon and there was war between them. They all thought that their Guardian was the one true god, and the Guardians, confused, surrounded by screams and blood, filled with pride. Brothers fought brothers and became each other’s curse. Guardians thought of themselves as the One True Maker and disregarded Kósmon, for their power was too great. Mothers ate their children and fathers interbreed with their daughters. No distinction was made between the dead and the living, which were deprived of flesh and effects. And there came a three-cycle winter called Fimbul which covered the hearts of all immortal races of Úrim. Many creatures died and the world was purged of any and all vestiges of compassion and love. Kósmon, who was already too tired, saw all this and wept. Then came the Protowar.

The dwarven skald Radsvinn Ivaldsson, a Protohistory enthusiast himself, wrote in a stone tablet —known as the Tablet of the Past— who he then gifted to his son, Einar Radsvinnsson, the following text:

The land of Eisgrind, previously named Grinland, was home to as many trees and animals as the Glitnir forest, and its mountains greened with each cycle. From Bael-Ungor to [...] an endless sea of oaks and poplars covered what today is the permafrost of Eisgrind, and the birds sang […] along the beasts of the land. Our fathers met creatures […]. At night, a long row of torches was lit and guided travelers from the entrance of Bael-Ungor to its core. Men and orc alike came to our taverns. The crystals at the caves greeted each day a new wanderer and they did not tire, nor the stones knew how not to rejoice when they met an old, long unseen friend.  At the heart of [Bael-Ungor’s Fortress, deep] within the mountains, a colossal statue […] meter high, in a vault […] the image of our Father Odin. I speak to you, my son, Einar Radsvinsson, of an Era of peace as Úrim will never see again; of the city that we lost, of the creatures of old; of the forests that died buried by our […].

I am not able to tell you, and it is not in my hands to judge who […]. The truth is that the armies of Bael-Ungor did not hesitate in excavating under the forest the pit that would sink it forever; the grave that would extinguish the life of Grinland forever. We did not hesitate in erecting the hills that gave that cursed name, Eisgrind, the Ice Gate, to our land. When Orcs marched from the western coasts, it was as if some wolves had devoured the sun and the moon. Men and Giants lost their way in Fimbul.  Only the Stars, and the Stars alone, could save the Elves and the rest of us from freezing over. We were shielded inside the Mountain’s stony ribs. Ivaldir, my father, forged a mighty war horn which he called Gjallarhorn to […] war. Men […] in Quetzalcóatl’s feathers. We did not know […] Men fired immense fireballs from its entrails. Their power […] to burn for entire days.

Giants diverted an entire sea and the forests of Grinland started to wither away. […] the enormous desert of the South. But it was not them who razed […] Grinland. 15,000 dwarves dug every day and every night. They dug until their hands bled and […]. 2,000 kilometers to the south they dug and three to east and west; they dug until Nut, [infuriated, made stone] impenetrable and they could advance no more. However […]. Everything was a giant tunnel web that held the trees’ roots as ceiling. And a thousand times [7,000 chains] were forged, […] tree was chained together. And we created a gigantic machine —as big as Bael-Ungor’s own entrails— to pull them all with a single move. The Men of the East attacked and they were stopped by the bjørn.[1] Wave after wave crashed in our crags […]. When the first enemy touched the base of the mountain Bael-Ungor, Gjallarhorn was blown. We activated the machine and we let the mountain slide over them. And the device devoured the chains […] the foundation of the forests itself, dragging the bodies of our attackers. Seven million lives ended in an instant. We had defended our home, though we lost, for all eternity, the [comfort of the forest.] For Odin did not allow trees to grow again, so that we understood the true nature of our actions. The [primeval] forest that covered the whole continent of Úrim was divided and in its place were left the southern Sharran desert, Glitnir and Eisgrind, the ice gate. From then until now, a thousand cycles after the [Gjallarhorn was blown], we have endured the perpetual winter of Eisgrind.

The recovered stone tablet quotes sources now gone from the surface of Úrim and all of its continents. Kósmon wept his children and named this conflict, the Primeval War, —renamed by historians as the Protowar—, a time of Wolves and Axes. Then he washed the hands and the feet of his sons but left their memories untouched so they could remember with a painful amount detail, what they had lost and the damage they caused to the world. He also made death —molded after his own weariness, but greater in degree— to descend upon the once immortal races;  elves, his favorites from above all else, which lived in a blessed garden, were given not bodily death, but systematic oblivion. He punished the Guardians and incinerated them for 21 days straight. On the 22nd day, he mixed the dust of his failed creations and bled his penis over them. And he made them whole again, inferior, enslaved to his will, weaker each day until the day came when they disappeared altogether.

Regenerating valleys, mountains and forest, as well as all the flora and fauna that inhabited them; seeding all the races anew along their Guardians exhausted Kósmon, and he fell in the Sleep of Death that he himself created as a punishment for his sons. Kósmon, the Creator, would sleep forever, and the Guardians would be forced to watch over him and all the races of Úrim. The remake and rebirth of the Guardians is known since as the Regenesis. All mortal races were expelled from Kósmon’s earthly plane and forced to roam Úrim so they sought a life for themselves and so they might be forgiven for their actions.

Almost all historians agree that the Protohistory ends just before the birth of Ivaldir Odinsson. There are two powerful reasons to consider so: First, that the races of Úrim would wander, since then, and would cause conflicts and great world alterations —greater even than those of the Protohistory, of course— and, second that up until that point there are no written records whatsoever. The first witness records of “what happened then” are registries scattered through the First Era. The defeat of Nergal would also fuel an interest for the past. Unfortunately, the dwarves were the only race that kept a fragment of that epoch, written at a time that was far too close to the Regenesis. Humans, orcs and giants lost any memories of this Era of bliss, called bitterly, since then, the Protohistory. Almost everyone forgot what happened after that.

Some events and findings have made most of my peers to reconsider exactly how mythic is, in fact, the Protohistory: the rise of the technomages during the Fourth Era and the Prototypes on the Second one; the discovery of the ruins of Lemuria; the remnants of Bael-Ungor, Uruk, Dhabi, Thorsheim and Jotunheim; the lost registries of the Second Session of the Academy that recount some of the events of the First Era; the resurgence of alchemy —and, for that matter, the verification of some of the most unbelievable recipes recorded in The Chemical Wedding—; the diviners and esoteric and rumors of ghosts in abandoned houses are just some of the hundreds of thousands of daily occurrences. All these seem to be the echoes of an epoch frozen in time that struggles to break a seal.

The following work bounds together in a single tome all that is known about the First Era and the things that happened then.

---

[1] Bjørns are the dwarves’ finest warriors. Covered from head to toe with steel armors and bear pelts, bjørns were trained since childhood in melee combat as well as offensive geomancy. However, most of what is remembered today about them are legends, such as the one of the mighty dwarf bjørn Hangatyr Nordstein from the Second Era. After the clans Runnenseele and Nordstein separated –this will be narrated in the next chapter–, the bjørn disappeared from the annals of Gal’Naar. They would be rediscovered during the Second Era.

Capítulo 2 de Necromancia: La Primera Era

Click here for the english version!
Da click en el enlace previo para leer la versión en inglés!

Aquí está el link para adquirir la novela en formato Kindle, disponible en español.

Este capítulo trata de los hechos y mitología básica que nutre el mundo de Úrim y todo lo que pasa en Necromancia: La Primera Era. Espero que lo disfruten!

Espero terminar la traducción antes del 31 de julio de este mismo año :)

2. Ginnungagap, la Creación, la Protohistoria y la Regénesis

Lo que se sabe tras recorrer la mitología de todas las razas es que todas concuerdan en que, más allá de las estrellas que podemos ver en la noche y de los planetas que se han descubierto detrás de la Luna, de Nibiru y Antichthón, el planeta espejo del nuestro que existe detrás del Sol, hay un espacio infinito de nada.

Todo cuanto existe ahora en Úrim, dicen los viejos mitos, procede de Ginnungagap y en algún momento todo regresará a él. En la lengua de los Hijos de Ivaldir, Ginnungagap quiere decir el Gran Vacío o El Abismo que Bosteza. Otros nombres que se le dieron fueron el Abismo Primigenio, el Gran Bostezo y, finalmente, para algunos, Ginnungagap es también el Gran Devorador. Muchas leyendas más afirman que el Agujero Negro ha devorado ya cientos de planetas y galaxias a su paso. A fin de cuentas, se cree, Ginnungagap es el principio y el fin de todos los universos.

Sea como fuere, los mitos concuerdan en que dentro de Ginnungagap se manifestó, primero, una palabra, seguida de una voluntad todopoderosa. Kósmon, el Dios, el Único y Gran Padre se había engendrado a sí mismo dentro de la Nada y su existencia, nacida de los restos de tantos otros planetas y estrellas, puso un freno al Abismo. Kósmon se percató de que sus palabras creaban y que cada una era diferente a la anterior. Kósmon, la chispa divina, el gran Artífice fue el primer ente con voluntad en el universo y la voluntad comenzó a llenar el vacío de planetas, lunas y estrellas y les dio movimiento. Le dio a la física sus leyes y a la magia sus poderes, ligándola a Ginnungagap y extrayendo de éste mucho del poder que había devorado durante toda su existencia.

 Después, con un segundo y mayor esfuerzo, creó la tierra, a la que le dio el nombre de Úrim y separó el cielo, el mar y la tierra; el día, la noche y los cuatro elementos. En ésta, y en las aguas que cubrían todo salvo un continente, aseguraban los mitos, crecieron sus criaturas. Kósmon, por fin, en un desborde de amor, hizo y separó a las razas del mundo, a imagen y semejanza de los materiales que encontró a su paso: a unas, como los orcos y los enanos, los alzó desde criaturas que vivían en el lodo; a los gigantes, los sacó del fondo del mar y les dio un cuerpo. A los hombres los engendró del fuego y a los elfos del viento. A estas creaciones primitivas les infundió entonces un alma, un espíritu, un agente que anima la materia y que podía o no regresar al Ginnungagap, de donde las extrajo originalmente el Dios. Sin embargo, Kósmon se percató de que cada vez necesitaba hacer un mayor esfuerzo para poner en movimiento los hechos y las cosas. Mientras más lenguajes creaba, más difícil le era recordarlos todos. Su energía se iba apagando con el paso del tiempo. Y aunque hubiera podido detenerlo, esto habría implicado congelar para siempre a sus criaturas. El Artífice sabía que llegaría un día en que debería dormir para siempre. Pero estaba contento con sus razas y el resto del orden que había dado al Universo — al Cosmos.

Los gigantes, divididos en masculinos y femeninos, representaban, por su altura, los pensamientos más elevados de la creación. Los Enanos, al estar más cerca de la tierra, semejaban el ciclo de las plantas: las semillas, en el seno de la tierra, germinaban. Eran la espera, la paciencia que se tradujo en los míticos salones de Bael-Ungor, bañados en oro y con reflejos de diamante; cuya fragua y máquinas ensombrecían cualquiera, según la leyenda, lograda aún en nuestra era.  Los Orcos y los Humanos representaban la energía vital de las cosas, el principio de movimiento, si se quiere, y es una de las pocas constantes perpetuas que existen en el mundo: no por nada son ambas las razas más bélicas, ambiciosas y destructivas. Los Elfos eran el punto central de la creación, con un entendimiento de todo lo anterior pero con cierta reserva ante ello. Kósmon miró la esencia de cada pueblo, satisfecho, y creó imágenes a semejanza de cada civilización y los llamó  Guardianes: Odín para los Enanos, Nut para los Elfos, Quetzalcóatl para los Hombres, Yog-Sothoth para los Orcos e Ishtar para los Gigantes. Los Guardianes, adorados por su gente, guiaron a sus pueblos a una era de felicidad y gloria y al igual que Kósmon, se iban sintiendo cada vez más cansados. A esta era mítica, en la que llovía oro y la luna se movía libremente y los Guardianes y Kósmon y las razas platicaban entre ellos como unos niños hablan con sus padres se le conoce como la Protohistoria.

Pero la felicidad primigenia no habría de durar.

Hombres y Elfos; Orcos, Enanos y Gigantes se conocieron dentro del Jardín de Kósmon y hubo guerra entre ellos. Cada uno le gritaba al otro que el suyo era el mejor dios, y los guardianes, confundidos entre la sangre y los gritos, se hincharon de vanidad. Hermanos lucharon contra hermanos y se volvieron la maldición el uno del otro. Los Guardianes creían que cada uno era en verdad el Artífice y desconocieron a Kósmon—tan tremendo era su poder. Las madres devoraron a sus hijos y los padres procrearon con sus hijas. No hubo distinción entre vivos y muertos, que eran despojados de carne y bienes. Y un invierno de tres ciclos sobrevino, y se le llamó Fimbul, y cubrió los corazones de todas las razas inmortales de Úrim. Muchas criaturas primitivas perecieron entonces, y el mundo quedó purgado de todo vestigio de compasión o amor. Kósmon, cansado, miraba todo y lloraba. Luego sobrevino la Protoguerra.

Radsvinn Ivaldsson, poeta enano aficionado a la Protohistoria, escribiría en una tablilla —llamada unánimemente como Tablilla de lo Pasado— que le regalara a su hijo, Einar Radsvinnsson, que:

La tierra de Eisgrind, antes llamada Grinland, tenía tantos árboles y animales como el Bosque de Glitnir y las montañas reverdecían cada fin de ciclo. Desde Bael-Ungor hasta […] la vista al sur, un bosque interminable de robles y álamos cubría las ahora nevadas planicies de Eisgrind y las aves trinaban […] junto con las bestias de la tierra. Nuestros padres conocieron criaturas […]. De noche, una larga fila de antorchas se encendía y guiaba de una entrada [a otra de Bael-Ungor a los] caminantes, y hombres y orcos venían por igual a las tabernas. Los cristales de las cuevas no se cansaban de recibir cada día a un nuevo viajero, ni las rocas encontraban cómo [poner fin] a la alegría de encontrar al amigo que tenían tanto sin ver.  Al centro de la [Fortaleza de Bael-Ungor, sumida en] lo profundo de las montañas, existía una estatua […] metros de alto, en una bóveda […] guardaba la imagen de nuestro Padre Odín. Te hablo, Einar Radsvinsson, mi hijo, de una Era de paz como jamás volverá a existir sobre Úrim; de la ciudad que perdimos, de las primeras criaturas, y de los bosques que murieron sepultados por nuestras […].

No sabría decirte, y menos siento en mis manos el poder de juzgar, quién […]. Lo cierto es que los ejércitos de Bael-Ungor no tardaron en empezar las excavaciones que habrían de sumir el bosque entero, la fosa que extinguió la vida de Grinland. No tardaríamos en levantar los montes que formaron la Puerta de Hielo que le dio el nombre maldito, Eisgrind, a nuestra tierra. Cuando avanzaron los Orcos desde las costas del oeste, fue como si los lobos hubieran devorado el sol y la luna y los Hombres y los Gigantes perdieron su camino en el Fimbul. Sólo las estrellas salvaron a los Elfos y al resto de las razas del mundo de helarse por completo. A nosotros nos protegió la Montaña entre sus costillas de roca. Mi padre, Ivaldir, forjó un poderoso cuerno al que llamó Gjallarhorn para […] la guerra. Los Hombres […] en las plumas de Quetzalcóatl. No supimos qué […] los Hombres lanzaban bolas de fuego desde sus entrañas. El poder […] incendiarse por días enteros.

Los Gigantes desviaron un mar completo y el bosque de Grinland comenzó a secarse. También […] el enorme desierto del Sur. Pero no fueron ellos los que destruyeron […] Grinland. 15,000 enanos cavaron día y noche. Cavaron hasta que les sangraron las manos, y […]. 2,000 kilómetros al sur cavaron y tres al este y al oeste; cavaron hasta que Nut, [enfurecida, volvió impenetrable] la roca, y ya no pudieron pasar. Sin embargo […]. Todo era una gigantesca red de túneles que tenían, por techo, las raíces de los árboles. Y se forjaron mil veces [7,000 cadenas], […] árbol se le ató una. Y creamos una gran máquina —tan grande como las entrañas mismas de Bael-Ungor— para jalarlas a todas de una vez. Los hombres del Este atacaron primero y fueron frenados por los bjørn[1]. Una a una, las olas se estrellaron con nuestros peñascos […]. Con el primer enemigo que pisó la base del monte Bael-Ungor, que ahora alberga a la cuidad del mismo nombre, sonó el Gjallarhorn. Accionamos la máquina y les arrojamos la montaña. Y la máquina devoró las cadenas […] los cimientos del bosque, arrastrando los cuerpos de los atacantes. Siete millones de vidas terminaron ahí. Habíamos defendido nuestro hogar, aunque perdiéramos, para la eternidad, [el calor del bosque.] Porque Odín no permitió que volvieran a crecer los árboles, para que entendiéramos lo terrible de nuestros actos. El [bosque] primigenio que cubría toda Úrim quedó dividido en el desierto del Sharran, Glitnir y Eisgrind, la puerta de hielo. Y desde entonces hasta ahora, 1,000 ciclos después del llamado [de Gjallarhorn], hemos vivido el invierno de Eisgrind.

La tablilla recuperada cita fuentes que ya no existen sobre la faz de Úrim ni en ninguno de sus continentes. Kósmon lloró a sus hijos, y nombró a ésta la Guerra Primordial —llamada después por los historiadores como la Protoguerra—, el tiempo de Hachas y Lobos. Lavó las manos y los pies de sus hijos, pero les dejó intacta la memoria, para que recordaran con doloroso detalle lo que habían perdido y el mal que habían hecho al mundo. También hizo que la muerte —similar al cansancio que él sentía pero de mayor grado— descendiera sobre las razas alguna vez inmortales; a los elfos, favoritos por sobre los demás, y ubicados en un jardín colmado de bendiciones, les dio otro tipo de muerte: el olvido sistemático de sus vidas. Reprimió a los Guardianes y durante veintiún días los incineró. Al decimosegundo revolvió el polvo de las creaciones fallidas y sangró su pene sobre ellos. Y los hizo de nuevo, inferiores a Él, esclavizados a su voluntad y cada vez más débiles, hasta que llegara el tiempo en que desaparecieran.

El generar nuevos valles, montañas y bosques, junto con los animales y las plantas que los habitaban; sembrar la semilla de todas las razas y sus respectivos Guardianes agotó a Kósmon y éste cayó dormido en el Sueño de la Muerte que él mismo creara para castigar a sus hijos. Kósmon, el Creador, habría de dormir para siempre, y los Guardianes estaban obligados a protegerlo a Él y a las razas de Úrim. Este hecho, el renacimiento y re-creación de los Guardianes es conocido por todos y desde todas las Eras como la Regénesis. Las razas fueron expulsadas del plano terrenal de Kósmon y fueron obligadas a bajar a Úrim para que en ella se buscaran una vida y se ganaran el perdón con sus acciones.

Casi todos los historiadores coincidimos en que el fin de la Protohistoria es poco antes del nacimiento de Ivaldir Odinsson. Hay dos razones poderosas para ello: Primera, que las razas de Úrim se desplazarán, a partir de entonces, ocasionando conflictos y alterando el mundo —a un grado mucho mayor que en esta Protohistoria, claro está— y, segunda, que, hasta este momento, no había nada escrito. Los primeros testimonios de lo que “pasó al principio” se deben a registros de diferentes tiempos de la Primera Era, donde, al instaurarse el interés por la historia tras la derrota de Nergal, se buscó también indagar en el pasado. Por desgracia, sólo los enanos conservaron un fragmento de aquellos tiempos, recitado también en un tiempo muy, muy cercano a la Regénesis. Humanos, orcos y gigantes perdieron todo registro de esta Era de felicidad, llamada desde entonces, y con cierta amargura la Protohistoria. Casi todos olvidaron lo que pasó después.

Algunos eventos más han hecho reconsiderar a muchos de mis compañeros qué tan mítica es, en realidad, la Protohistoria: la aparición de los tecnomagos en la Cuarta Era y los Prototipos en la Segunda; el descubrimiento de las ruinas de Lemuria; los vestigios de Bael-Ungor, Uruk, Dhabi, Thorsheim y Jotunheim; los registros perdidos de la Segunda Sesión Academia que relatan algunos de los eventos de la Primera; la re-aparición de la alquimia —y, por ende, la comprobación de algunas de las recetas más inverosímiles encontradas en Las Bodas Químicas—; los adivinos y los esotéricos; los rumores de espectros tan comunes en casas abandonadas parecen ser los ecos de una época congelada en el tiempo que pugna por romper el sello que la ha inmovilizado.

A continuación se relata todo lo que se sabe de la Primera Era de Úrim, unido por fin en un solo tomo.

---

[1] Los bjørn son los mejores guerreros de entre los enanos. Cubiertos de la cabeza a los pies con armaduras de acero y pieles de oso, los bjørn entrenan desde la infancia tanto en combate cuerpo a cuerpo como en la geomancia para la batalla. Sin embargo, mucho de lo que se dice de ellos ha entrado ya en el terreno de las leyendas y abarca eventos tales como el del mítico Hangatyr Nordstein, que aparece en la Segunda Era. Tras la separación entre los Runnenseele y los Nordstein –se tratará a profundidad en el siguiente capítulo–, los bjørn desaparecieron de los registros de Gal’Naar. No sería sino hasta la Segunda Era que se redescubrirían.

Necromancy: The First Era - Prologue: To the reader

Idle reader:

Today, technology has infiltrated every single aspect of our daily lives in Úrim, and I fear most of the things I may divulge here may be taken as quackery. Almost 2,000 cycles have passed since Úrim saw the last mage over its surface. I know that in many places this text will be taken as a joke; as a game, maybe, or as the results of an academic maddened by his experiments and studies. Unfortunately, I also know that there are people out there that will take it deadly serious, and that these people will try to sink this recollection of events once again and pretend that none of this ever happened. And I will say to them: Ignorance is never the savior of any people. Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. It is my duty as a Great Brother of the Academy to provide you with this book, that clearly opposes with the official version of the facts.

There was a time in which the magic that we know now, a mockery from circuses and theaters, dominated the hills in times of the dwarven king Skallargrim Einarsson Runnenseele, fallen in the Great War. This magic traversed the spine of the first three Eras. The last giants, born at the end of the Third Era, and now extinct, witnessed the last days of the Pyromancers of the South. The orcs remember proudly the myths of the Legions, but highly doubt the power of the Electromancy. And they are not to blame. Though the legends of old is filled to the brim with tales of magic and we know great monuments of the past, people today do not believe such tremendous powers to have ever existed.

For over 40 cycles I have scourged the libraries of Iunu-Ra and Shurub’Gul, the most reliable ones and second only to the burnt library of Jotunheim, in which thousands upon thousands of writings were lost. I did so searching for data that might forgive what has been written here. I have gathered here, broadly, the legends and the myths of the people of Úrim. they have been treated with the corresponding seriousness.

Several local rumors have been dismissed for being too fantasious or for the inability to verify them, as is almost always the case of myths, but they are added anyways for I firmly believe that they might hold a dose of truth. In a particular note, there are exaggerations with the fall of Lemuria but only in myth did we preserve any semblance of truth about this event. Any other registry about the giants, their customs and traditions were lost with the fall of Úruk with the arrival of the Destroyers in the Third Era. The rediscovery of a fragment of the Elegy of Water in the ruins of this same city of Lemuria, which was thought as inexistent until 1740, has helped my colleagues to reconstruct the last days of the orcs of Muul-Kuth during the First Era and the worldview of the atlanteans.

I fear I have not been completely factual in the redaction of this general history of events of the planet we know as Úrim. In some chapters I might have added more relevance to certain events that what they might have had in the continents’ past and some others, therefore, are minimized. A number of my peers have helped me to reduce the margin of error along the text, even without any knowledge of what the final intention of this work was. Several others even tried to determ me and spoke of the possible consequences of it; consequences that would not only affect me or the Third Session of the Academy, but all of the races of Úrim. I beg all of them for their pardon, for I know that I have betrayed more than one. I hope that those that know me will understand in time that the vital impulse of truth moved me to this, to spreading the true course of events long before the Censor - an event that, I am sure, most of my brothers are unaware of. In the other hand, it is undeniable, that the discovery of the ruins of Lemuria, the Ætherforge and similar events within our very same Era will speak louder and clearer if set within the proper context.

As said earlier, I have taken part with a lot of standpoints, and several others were discarded along the way. Some people, like the dwarves, hold a special place within my heart and I fear this has had some influence, though I hope minimal, in how I present the facts to the reader. I rescued part of the poem The loss of Bael-Ungor that survived within the bibliotheques of the giants. This old dwarven chant sings the exile of the sons of Ivaldir from deep within the kingdom of stone. The parts I could not rescue I had to mend with the songs heard in the taverns of Úrim. If it is faithful or not to the works of the dwarven skald Radsvinn Ivaldsson, we may never know. The original orthography has been updated, but the rest remains unaltered. Several verses have gone missing with the centuries and only a fragmentary version remains. Only the wind knows what was truly written.

May my hand never tire

of carving the loss that you suffer;

may no one who sings
your story a thousand times remain proud;

but rather, that those who,

upon seeing you do not feel burdened,
be cursed with a thousand deaths and tears.

Alone they stand, and mute your hammers.

Alone, too, your forges.

Naked, without a cuirass,

your quivers with tears loaded;

we left your halls behind

and with them we unearth our ills.

Bael-Ungor, may your father Odin

[…] our, that […] same

[…] in darkness fits;

in your earth, no […] gorge;

[…]

Let them grieve for you as we do.

May the orcs grieve for you

as children do for their mothers;

may their eyes devour your walls;
may their songs be pierced

by the silence imposed upon you,

with [...] that I am a witness of.

That the men, at night,

may not find a fire within your forges

that does not craft your runes of might;

[… ambers] outpour,

like the silent stars[…]the moons,

your [light] upon your back;

their heat upon your onyx garland.

May every single giant cry the name

of Bael-Ungor; may they never forget;

that their weeping rollers

[sing your glory; may]the mighty song

that they erect for you[never be] cut silent;

May they weep and grieve with us.

May the forest elves

put to silence their great oak-trees

when this hymn of yours their branches break;

may your regret, Bael-Ungor, reach

the fluor they use to craft their meals;

may they learn to mourn our clans this way.

May your towers never lose

their silver and their gold, oh city lost!

Never may their shine be erased.

Many dwarves their lives left at your gates;
Now we are lost,

and we are a net, and salt, and sea and oars.

I publish this, knowing that the only thing I can hope for is death, and though I do not fear whatever destiny may befall upon me, for I have lived more than any of my contemporaries, I do worry for the books preserved in many of the bibliotheques of Úrim. They might try to destroy material that survived until the end of the Third Era. Fortunately, by the time this work is published, many of them will not be in the chambers of Toledo, nor within the halls of Shurub’Gul; nor guarded anymore among the mountains that the dwarves sheltered.

I speak here of the past of Úrim that several Courts and Sessions of the Academy had agreed it was best to forget and, as a true member of the Academy, I had to start from the beginning: what is a cycle, the name of the months, the geography and what is known, up to this point, about magic and the giants. Many of the names that had fled from the memory have returned to warn us once again: We must not tinker with forces unknown. The actual state of Antikythera and the rest of the regions of Muspel, Utgard, Vinland and the lands of Thule have me pushed me to this. In any case, time will tell if I was mistaken or not.

I hope that the Guardians may help Úrim to save itself from the path of self-destruction it has traversed from the last decade on. My wish, after all, is that this text warns us all. I am an old, tired man. Throughout my life I have seen how, once again, the stability of the planet has been fractured.I will die without any hopes of seeing peace, but with a burning longing for it. I know that the future prosperity will be founded upon my corpse and the corpses of coming generations. In this work my life, my passion and my transit on earth have been bound together. And with this, I hope that Kósmon might grant you health and peace. And may he never forget me. VALE.

Baltasar al-Sarrás, cycle 105

Third Session of the Academy, Toledo

Redacted on Granada

Cycle 1857, Fourth Era


Meanwhile, Necromancy's twin brother, Necromancia, is already available on Amazon.mx in spanish.