There is a lot of mystic about the first people to do anything. In Tolkien, the first ones were elves. In Babylon 5, the first ones walked the stars a billion years ago and had technology far in advance of anything ever. In Star Trek, the first ones walked the stars and saw nothing but their works, because they were the first. In many fantasy settings the first ones left technology, magical effects, or vast ruins or sometimes all three. Many settings they have been gone for millennia, some for millions or billions of years. Sometimes they are not gone at all. Here in this land, there were Old Ones, the first people, but not the first people ever, but the first big empire. They conquered and subdued the entire world—well a big part of it. Why they left, why they disappeared would be a matter of considerable speculation if anyone remembered that they were ever there. They left ruins, but so did several thousand years worth of civilizations after them. There are places where you can see their footprints, but would an ant know that it was in a footprint even if it were looking for them? The rest of their places are in regions where people can't go easily. And where they live, is in a place where the hardiest folk would find it difficult to live.
They stand seven feet tall and broad, nearly hairless, and all muscle and sinew. They rarely eat and they do not shit; they sleep when they want to sleep. They are skilled in magic and the blade, unparalleled to any mortal. They have no young, they seem never to age. They are mortal and had childhoods or so they say, but they claim at that is behind them while they are here watching the world providing a safeguard to the world, so they say. They stand by a watch the most heinous crimes come to pass, but move into action over some innocuous thing, lashing out and obliterating it in a blur of motion or a spell so powerful at mages weep at its sight knowing that it is far beyond their skill in their best dreams. They are magical, but they claim that it is not innate. They are a walking paradox; their claims are suspect they can't have mundane origins.
The facts are: they are long lived, their skin is blacker than the night sky, they rarely seem to eat and never excrete, all seem magical. The truth is that they were human. They came rose first on the continent of humans and grew to dominate its shores. There are ruins that date from their time there and the languages of that continent all root from them. Then a little myth; but about three hundred centuries ago they decided that that continent could not hold them and they left and came to the other two continents and conquered these too. Then their roving nature they fled to other planes of existence and conquered distant realms. The truth was that they were spread very thinly on the human continent and they fled a major and successful uprising. The sway of the uprising took centuries to burn across the continent and the people had time to look for other places away from the wars. Magic was still new to these people and they used that magic to help them make the journey across the seas to the destination that was found. The journey took over a short year to accomplish. When it was done they found a continent that had different life forms and great serpents that were difficult to defeat and poisonous to eat, but they found no people. The people continued the migration to the new land for many years bringing the bulk of their people and none of the others, lest they bring the problem they were fleeing with them. It all stopped about 200 short years after the first ship left, the hoards of enemies found their last city and the people fleeing fired their last boats, technology, and magic in a great conflagration that took in that last city and the attackers. None survived, the nation destroyed, except for the thousands that had fled across the waves.
In their new home they found themselves to be the invader, the great serpents were sentient and they named themselves Dragon. Many pitched battles were fought against the greatest of their kind and they lost more than they won, but since the defeat of just one of these mighty beasts weakened their attack, the tide of the war began to change. When the war against the dragons finally seemed to abate, they discovered that their skill in magic had grown greatly, as the dragon's greatest technology was magic, they had to adopt it to win. Their cities populated the equatorial zone of the continent mostly and advanced slowly into the more temperate zones. The war with the dragons was not in fact over, but paused, as the dragons began to organize. The progression of magic for the humans reached a peak at this time, supreme casters though extremely rare, were able to push the boundaries of what was possible for human casters a few were able to cast tenth power level spells, a few even greater, and one who could cast spells of the twelfth power level.
When the war resumed, the dragons struck with unprecedented cunning and sucked the human's greatest war casters into a perfect ambush, a battle that was said to number in the millions of soldiers and casters and the magics that were unleashed scoured the area clean of anything but rock, bleaching that white as bone and leaving only the shadows of the combatants behind. After that battle the humans were in retreat and their demise was written into the stars. The last great caster, a pacifist, came up with a plan. Linking with the remaining casters he directed a great spell to be worked. A great portal opened and all the populations of the invading humans went through, except the ones that wanted to die fighting the Dragons. When the portal closed, the invasion of the continent was over and the humans gone, the First Ones. Thirty thousand years ago, that was. Still the six great towers still stand in testament to them, within the worst of the jungle mess that is the Equatorial tip of the continent. Between them lies the source of the great river that travels south to the cold ocean far away.
About a thousand years ago a portal opened again and a single First One stepped through. It was bald and darker than the night sky when all the moons are new. That was old, what was new was that they did not need to eat and they did not excrete. Their skin photosynthesized and what ever they ate was consumed entirely. They had power. The door that passed between worlds was guarded they said and only the best of them could endure the year long battle to reach the portal and only one could use it in a year. Most years no one reached the portal and this individual claimed he was the first one that won his way to the portal in a century. The next day, the portal opened again, and the First One who emerged claimed the same story as the first, that the one that emerged had gone through the portal a century before. Some days the portal opened twice, sometimes it remained closed for a month. But they came in a steady stream with a singular mission to protect the world and the pact of the continents that now stands in ruin from where it was once.
They are effectively trained individuals before taking the path to the Portal of Worlds. The year long battle includes every member to the graduating class of every school. Each graduate is 20th level and they must battle each other as well as the dangers in the field that has taken the best five years to pass through, some even longer. When they pass through the portal many of them have learned enough to equal the teachings of a different school graduate, some many. Those that leave that Portal of Worlds have 40-60 levels of skill and all can master spells of the tenth power level. They are incorruptible in their goal, as those that survive the challenges know what failure means: there is some great threat that looms over the multiverse and the battle ground will be here if it happens and if it happens, they will have failed their mission. If the fail, all the worlds within this one fail too.
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