(This should probably have gone in in character? Whatever)
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Collected Lore of the Astyan People, Vol II
Life and Times
This volume makes an attempt to describe the day-to-day lives of the Astyans, with subsections denoting how their livelihoods, beliefs, and technologies still influence Essharan culture today. While much of it is conjecture, many historians note the high degree of accuracy with historical and contemporary records. Of note is a detailed piece on Essharan Architecture and in the forward, instructions for a meditation ritual that allows skilled Time magi to receive brief glimpses into the distant past.
Forward:
Attempting to describe the Astyans with any reasonable accuracy is an endeavor in itself. Most of the existing information is little more than conjecture or folk tales- mythology more than fact. Some precious few of these facts are the best type; the indisputable ones. It's fact that most, if not all, of Esshara's population descends directly from the Astyans, and that the Astyans themselves are one of, if not the, oldest structure-building cultures on Eternia. Their exact origins are so far distant that even attempting to speculate becomes fruitless, and their remaining relics are either impossibly rare at best, or diluted to unrecognizability.
The Astyans were generous, however, in their distribution of ancient ruins. Early scout forces who explored the peninsula, before the main groups of refugees, were each assigned gifted Earth magi in order to raise towers, fortresses, and small towns out of stone and metal. Many of these ruins can still be seen today in various degrees of collapse, and because of the Astyan love of stonecarving, it is from these ruins that we can glean the most information about their people and history.
Remarkably, the more we learn about them, the more we learn how much their influence resonates in Esshar today, and how they might be less different from ourselves than expected.
The following is a meditation system I, the author and researcher of this tome, devised for tugging back the curtain of time and peering into the fog a bit. It requires significant practice and roughly a week of preparation, but can be very instructive. Unfortunately when looking back so far it's impossible to choose a specific timeframe or event, but at least general things can be glimpsed here and there.
A lengthy description of a Time-focused meditation ritual is described here, using several Astyan runes during the preparation phase. Of note is that several of these runes bear suspiciously close resemblance to known Occultic symbols.
Forward:
Attempting to describe the Astyans with any reasonable accuracy is an endeavor in itself. Most of the existing information is little more than conjecture or folk tales- mythology more than fact. Some precious few of these facts are the best type; the indisputable ones. It's fact that most, if not all, of Esshara's population descends directly from the Astyans, and that the Astyans themselves are one of, if not the, oldest structure-building cultures on Eternia. Their exact origins are so far distant that even attempting to speculate becomes fruitless, and their remaining relics are either impossibly rare at best, or diluted to unrecognizability.
The Astyans were generous, however, in their distribution of ancient ruins. Early scout forces who explored the peninsula, before the main groups of refugees, were each assigned gifted Earth magi in order to raise towers, fortresses, and small towns out of stone and metal. Many of these ruins can still be seen today in various degrees of collapse, and because of the Astyan love of stonecarving, it is from these ruins that we can glean the most information about their people and history.
Remarkably, the more we learn about them, the more we learn how much their influence resonates in Esshar today, and how they might be less different from ourselves than expected.
The following is a meditation system I, the author and researcher of this tome, devised for tugging back the curtain of time and peering into the fog a bit. It requires significant practice and roughly a week of preparation, but can be very instructive. Unfortunately when looking back so far it's impossible to choose a specific timeframe or event, but at least general things can be glimpsed here and there.
A lengthy description of a Time-focused meditation ritual is described here, using several Astyan runes during the preparation phase. Of note is that several of these runes bear suspiciously close resemblance to known Occultic symbols.