The Forgotten Age

The Forgotten Age, also known as the "Divinity era" to the Valderi, is a time where the Valderi species as a whole lived under the watchful gazes of the "Yaekfari". During this time, most Valderi societies were mostly unorganized and not unified in any sense but immediate practically or worship. Most were gathered as tribes, caravan and small settlements that had barely developed agricultural practices. None shared a common language or means of exchange. Technological and societal progress was massively hampered by the demands of the Yaekfari and crimson beasts that freely ravaged the lands.

The Yaekfari were demi-gods that were created by whom the Valderi call their god "Solhommet". These demi-gods claimed chunked of lands to be their "divine land", where the local populace were forced to worship or face judgement. Many demi-gods have also been known to reward their worshippers for bringing them sacrifice or achieving great boons in their name. Some of these "divine rewards" can range from healing the sick, temporarily giving great strength and will or blessing fields for greater harvest.

On the other hand, Judgement is known to come in many forms, varying from divine being to divine being. Some would mass exile "non-believers" while others would spread sickness, cause famine or outright use their powers to directly slaughter those that needed to be quelled.

It is also noted that these demi-gods would often fight one another, either for recreation or settling feuds, whatever they may be. The most notable fight between the demi-gods were between Kimmelopian and Severattunnia, both proclaiming to be the greatest divine being of war but both wanting to be the only one to claim that title.

Their battle ensued on an unclaimed patch of land (now known as the Millenfurst plains) with both using such devastating powers that it reformed the land into what will be known as the Erradian strait. Their battle lasted over an entire week with some attacks that were deflected causing minor ecological damage away from the battlefield. Although they did settle their claim over land that did not have any inhabitants, it did notably cause a massive animal migration up towards the continent of Gillhadria. The massive rift along with water flooding in from the East Erradian ocean would give rise to a new strait which would attract the attention of other Valderi societies to settle in before eventually the demi-god Ollistius would lay his claim to.

These demi-gods however were not passive to the workings of their subjects. Many had their own visions for how their people are supposed to be ruled. Some were more benevolent like Illththia, who used their powers to grant her people protection at a cost that they do not form their own societal hierarchies. While more aggressive demi-gods ruled their lands like an authoritarian ethno-state, only taking in very specific types of Valderi into their lands and then subjecting them to harsh conditions and demands such as ritualistic sacrifices of each other or trial by combat. Archivists and historians often cite these practices both by malevolent and benevolent demi-gods as the main symptoms of why the Valderi societies as a whole progress so slowly.

Alongside the constant divine presence on the lands, there were also rampant crimson outbreaks during these times. Many historians conclude this to happen due to the demi-gods using crimson as not only their source of power but also as their attacks. So every attack they perform would always cause crimson to contaminate the wilds. This would not only affect wild life but also natural food and water sources same as plagues. As temporary contaminated water sources would often lead to crimson outbreaks in river-based societies. Additionally, any wild life mutated by crimson would also form packs to hunt down and mutate further wild life but also civilized areas. It is however important to note that these earlier strains of crimson did often not lead to the creation of higher crimson lifeforms such as the overmind, but when these mutated beasts were left alone for too long in isolated areas, they were observed to reduce their population and taking up residence in abandoned ruins and forests to build nests and await for larger prey masses to eventually settle the area again.

It is unclear how long the Valderi Forgotten age truly lasted for, but historians have been able to at least narrow down through recovered carbon dated artifacts to be at oldest around 100.000 years old before the rise of the first great houses.