Hearth Home

When the gods seeded Karos with their own creations, each focused on the specific environ that would be perfect for their species of choice. They started small, looking for the ideal location. From their exacting care came Origin Sites like Hearth Home.

Every single one of the first races could, at one time, trace its roots to an area the size of a small village. Most of those places are gone now - destroyed in one war or another. Hearth Home remains.

— -Ahnerik, Historian

The Birth of Humanity

Humanity has undoubtedly expanded farther than any other race on the planet. Even during the golden ages of The Claiming, humans' penchant for exploration and the claiming of lands was unparalleled. While Elves, Dwarves, and even Dragons cultivated compact, perfect empires, which built up rather than out in power as well as height, humans catered to the idea of quantity over quality: snatch as much land as possible and build it up later. This habit for wandering new lands has never caused them to forget where they came from. To this day, Hearth Home holds a place of reverence with most humans. It is one of the first places children can find on a map, and several philosophical orders require a pilgrimage to the site at least once during members' lives.

The Perfect Beginning

Hearth Home was no different as a starting point than any other origin site: Tel'vyr, Creator God of humans, considered it a perfect place to seed his ultimate creation. The Home itself is comprised of several massive cave systems , which allowed humanity to spread out as its numbers grew while remaining safely fortified underground. The caverns are home to several species of subterranean fish and crustaceans, as well as underground lichens and fungi. Aboveground, lush forests covered in wild berries proliferate. These bring wild game like deer, rabbits, and game birds to the area. The area also boasts several streams, a few of which filter through into the caverns below. The calcite filters the water, feeding the verdant ecosystem below. The first humans to exist on Karos truly wanted for nothing.

Weathering the Apocolypse

Humans learned the hard way that, sometimes you have to take care of what you have before you grasp for more. By the time The Divinity Wars were fully getting underway, the human empire had already been shattered by its neighbors, who took advantage of humans' overextended state to create a weakened buffer between themselves and one another. Without a strong, centralized form of power, many scattered or became disorganized packs of raiders. Any attempts to protect Hearth Home as magical destruction and abominations raged was ineffective, and the site was ravaged.

Though it came later, most of the other Origin Sites eventually met the same fate. Most were destroyed for good. Hearth Home proved more hearty than the empire it had spawned. The forest healed and regrew, the denizens of the cavern systems inexplicably returned, and the wild creatures filtered back into their ancestral lands. Cleansed by the preservation magics of The Second Generation gods, the land healed so fully that it returned nearly to the fecundity it had originally possessed.

The Modern Age

When I was still a young man, I took ship and returned to Hearth Home. It was the most humbling experience of my life! Also, I may have carved my name in a discreet spot within the great cavern.

— - Ahnerik, Historian

Today, most humans see Hearth Home as a holy site. Even those who have lost their fate in gods and higher powers hold a reverence for the cave system that compels them to travel there. Across Karos, religious and philosophical groups plan sojourns to the Home to see the origin of humanity. Some claim they can hear the voice of Tel'vyr speaking to them in that place, but modern clergies consider such assertions to be blasphemy, so only the most foolish say it aloud.