The Golden Age

“The higher the tower climbs, the farther it falls.”

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  The Golden Age was a brief glimmer in the vast history of Acarus—an era spanning roughly two thousand years following the Age of Myth. In this time, magick receded, monsters vanished, and the supernatural grew quiet. The world became firm beneath Man’s heel, defined not by spirit or spell, but by stone, soil, and brass.   It was an age of mastery. The forces that once warred against the civilized races—creatures, curses, and gods—seemed to withdraw. As if in surrender, Acarus itself relented. The land that once resisted now bore the weight of empires without protest.   With no enemy left to conquer, the mortal races turned inward. Reflection gave way to alliance. Long-lived confederacies and coalitions were forged, and the world flourished beneath the banners of unity. Tekknology leapt forward: airships roamed the skies, steam-powered locomotives traced steel veins across the land, and the science of pressure, fire, and iron drove new wonders into being.   Each race established its own superstate:  

• The Old Empire of Man

• The Lost Republic of the Elves

• The Fallen Confederacy of the Dwarves

  Nations spanned continents. Kingdoms held. Kings came and died, but legacy endured. It seemed—for a time—that suffering was ending. That the world had been tamed.   But nothing in Acarus lasts.   The signs were small at first: diplomatic impasses, angry lords, tightened coin, fraying borders. Grain failed. Justice waned. Discontent stirred in every court and common hall. There was no single cause. Some say peace is an illusion—that empires must always expand, or they die. Others blame hubris. But what followed was inevitable.   The great nations fractured.   Wars broke out. Succession crises and insurrections tore the land apart. Vassals declared independence. Coalitions splintered. Trust turned to treachery. And though it took centuries to fully unravel, the collapse had begun.   This long death birthed the Hundred-Kings War—a massive, multi-generational conflict that consumed Kalladonia. Dukes, princes, barons, and warlords all carved at the corpse of the old world, each seeking to claim the throne of ash.   As the world burned, the Dark Ages arrived.   Libraries fell to flame. Towers crumbled. Teknology was lost, buried, or forgotten. Scrolls of wisdom rotted in their tombs. What had taken millennia to build was undone in a heartbeat of history.   And then—the Comet.   A burning star across the sky. A sign. A reckoning. The prophets called it the beginning of the end. The final chapter. The Age of Darkness.   Thus ended the Golden Age, as all golden ages must.