Portions of this material appeared almost three years ago on my Patreon and on Grognardia a year ago. The version appearing here has since been edited and expanded.
The Makers
At the dawn of days, in the Epoch of Legends, there walked upon the True World the Makers —ja-Chanaldalu, as the Kolvuans named them. They were masters of sorcery and science, weavers of marvels beyond counting. From their hands sprang the chu markai, shining doors that carried men across sha-Arthan in but a step and, some whisper, across the gulfs between worlds. The Vaults, too, are said to be their work, though not all agree. Nor do the sages know whether the Makers were truly men or some higher kindred who only wore the semblance of man.
But in time, the Makers were gone. None can say whether they departed willingly, destroyed themselves in their pride, or were swept away by doom unguessed. From their absence sprang a thousand tales and faiths, including those of the Chenot, who hold the secret of the Makers’ passing as their sacred mystery. In the void they left behind rose the Heritor Lords, men who seized the relics of the Makers and proclaimed a new age — the shining Epoch of Wonders. Yet not all who claimed the Makers’ legacy sought to follow in their footsteps.
The Unmakers
For then came the Unmakers, the cha-Omejaldalu, born of defiance and fire. To them, the Makers were false gods — corrupt and aloof, the jailers of the True World. They swore to break every chain the Makers had forged, to undo every law and pattern, even the laws of being itself. With their own arts of sorcery and science they tore at the fabric of creation, crying liberty, but what they loosed was the great sundering we name the Epoch of Strife.
Yet where there is ruin, so too may heroes arise. And so it was in those days. Jalisan of Churuga, whose blade never failed; Muntaja Nur, Adept of Manashten, master of the hidden flame; the Ga’andrin dubbed ja-Hejneka, whose name is still spoken with awe. These, and many more now lost to memory, stood against the Unmakers and the brood they birthed, the Unmade. Through fire and war they turned back the tide and the True World endured.
But the Unmakers were not destroyed. No, they fell back into shadow, some say to the World Between, where they might labor at their “great work” beyond the sight of mortal eyes. From time to time they return, as in the Daybreak Wars (1:15–25), when their hand was felt even at the founding of the Empire of the Light of Kolvu. Even now, whispers speak of their hidden cults and secret brotherhoods, with the Empire of Inba Iro oft accused of harboring them. If these rumors be true, then sha-Arthan trembles once more and the age cries out for new heroes to rise.
The Unmade
The Omajya – the Unmade — are the dread spawn and servitors of the Unmakers. Shaped by iniquitous arts, they are living blasphemies, grim testaments to the ruinous path upon which their masters would set all creation. To the peoples of sha-Arthan they remain a terror and a scourge, save only in far Alakun-Tenu, where the priesthood of Ten in ages past purged them utterly from the land.
As with the Unmakers themselves, the Unmade first entered the world during the dark days of the Epoch of Strife. None can say which of the prophets of dissolution first wrought them, though lore names either Arkatzo or Trene. Arkatzo, the dark foil to Jalisan of Churuga, is remembered in many lays, while the ruins of Trene’s Bastion still stands as a silent witness to her downfall at the hands of ja-Hejneka in the latter battles of the Pechra War.
Of their making, little is known, though sages whisper of vast alchemies and metamorphic sorceries, arts now lost since the waning of the Wonders. Some, like Badisa Selmis in his Compendium of Universal Knowledge, claim that it was the Heritor Lords who first discovered the reshaping of flesh, an art the Unmakers then profaned and perfected. Others, such as Ajana Solokat, teach that the strange powers of the False World are the hidden fuel of such transformations. Whatever the truth, the work of the Unmakers was monstrous, and its fruit was manifold.
The Unmade take many shapes, yet three kinds are most often spoken of. The first and most common are the Brutes, whom some name Travesties. These are hulking horrors, patchworks of many beasts forced into crude mockeries of Men. Each is different, but all are savage and relentless, gathering in swarms to fall upon city and kingdom alike.
The second kind are the Martinets or Taskmasters. They wear human semblance, yet in place of their heads gleam phase stones, each burning with power. By these stones they wield sorceries, the measure of which depends upon the stone’s size and hue. Unlike the Brutes, Martinets are cunning and willful, ruling their lesser kin and leading them to war.
Rarest of all — and most feared — are the Discarnates. These walk both sha-Arthan and the World Between, treading two realities at once. They strike where they will, vanishing from one place only to emerge in another, their dual existence granting them sorceries greater still than those of the Martinets. Mercifully, their number is small and they serve only as chosen agents or lieutenants of the prophets of the Unmakers.
Yet many hold that other breeds of the Unmade may lurk beyond ken, waiting in hidden vaults or the World Between, until the day their masters call them forth once more.