The Legend of Tantus - Book 1

Heirs of Destiny - Prologue

    They prayed to the ancient legends, little remembered by the present age, that the sea, the earth, the winds and the life were conceived by the will of a supreme power, the omnipotent will of the great God, and in this world he deposited all his essence, dedication, creativity, giving birth to the diversity of a pure and prosperous home, always existing in the heart of all beings who lived in harmony and peace, and leaving their simple teachings.

“Praise be the day that dawns.

Praise be the night that comes.

Praise be the prayer that cares.

Praise be the world that listens.

Praise be the peace that proceeds.

Praise be the sword that protects.”

    But as the days pass, the winters and the centuries, the generations and the evolutions, the belief in him slowly faded from hearts and minds, perhaps as a natural order of people who became independent, and soon obliterated all that was made for their lives, their existence.

    In its constant change, the world began to be severely punished by the devastation and negative force, that took care of all the existing races. People destroyed themselves by sheer greed, a search for meaningless power, ignorance, and the world of Tantus was fatally deteriorating little by little.

    But there were those who remained in their beliefs and positions, these, proclaimed as "faithful", were those who never allowed themselves to be disregarded of the divine creation. Yet they were victims of prejudice, injustice, and contempt in many ways, simply because they showed their gratitude for life, or perhaps for indifference to worldly affairs. Dedicated only to pursuing the simplest of philosophies, the philosophy of living, the philosophy of the creator, in whom the rest of the world no longer even credited that to be breathing. It was at this time that the great God revealed his fury, as a once zealous father, but now correcting what he thought necessary, letting his displeasure fall upon the world. The skies darkened, the seas were shaken with great earthquakes, thunder and fire covered the lands. All that was impure was eradicated from the face of Tantus, only the faithful were clearly spared, and the world plunged into darkness, covered by an age of shadows, but the faithful proclaimed never lost hope, and the wind of change finally blew in their direction.

    In the darkest times of the world, times of need and distress, the "Council of the Lords" was born, to maintain the balance of the elements, the life force of existence, and thus of the powers that act between good and evil. History once mentioned that the great God had departed on some long journey, leaving to his most trustworthy children the maintenance and preservation of his beloved home. Each lord, under the burden of representing one of the fifteen elements, though not all directly connected to each other, in the aggregate of every work, each exercised their proper part in the balance, absolutely necessary for the continuity of life, of everything.

Holy

Ice

Water

Thunder

Fire

Gravity

Air

Life

Nature

Status

Earth

Planar Life

Fantasy

Light

Darkness

    Their divine presences brought the lost security of ancient times, being recognized by new gods and goddesses, they alone knew the truth about the great God, absent from any page and records of history, and never revealed under any circumstances. The lords were the inheritance of a great will, or the will of a great inheritance... But the fact was that prosperity returned from a lost past, again fulfilling the expectations of peace from all lands, perfect once again, and facing the future splendorous, but like all expectations about something so correct and confident, a world so perfect, it was not meant to last.

    The lords were a necessary gift to the world, but not eternal. Starting from the first generation that began the new era, every five hundred winters a mortal should be carefully selected to assume the reign of his predecessor. Becoming a lord, though an undoubtedly honor, was not the apparent will among mortals, the vast majority of whom did not possess the potential for such. A lord has the obligation to adhere to the solitude, to renounce the past and to look only for the future, theoretically it was the collective love surpassing the individual, not for one, but for many, since life now no longer belonged to him simply.

    The lords live on Plane, a sacred land, described as the border between life and death by the very few who returned from the other side, where no mortal can reach except for the embrace of death, which will only make possible the arrival at the last home or fall into the depths of purgatory.

    But after so much time in unwavering commitment, there was a serious misjudgment in choosing one of the successors. Zeijadel, Lord of Darkness, who had recently assumed the post of his predecessor, was not worthy of honor. The earliest records obtained on this history pointed out only that Zeijadel failed to contain the main weakness of his race... The other lords, understanding the impurity in the heart of darkness, came to control him, in a way limiting him, preventing his knowledge about many of the important events of the world, hiding secrets that could become dangerous in his wills, according to some, this would be of immense importance, for there was still some hope, even minimal, for the lord to return to the right path, a hope that would always be the last to die. But in this way, he ended up feeling despised among the other fourteen fellows, definitively killing such a hope, Zeijadel came to believe, stupidly, that it was nothing more than conspiracies to destroy him, thus beginning to prepare and plot to take the power, to break a cycle and start his own era. He secretly went on to assemble an exorbitant army, claiming to have taken the example of the other races for defensive purposes, but with unconquerable power. Zeijadel hid them in the Mountains of the Sun on the continent of Scyra, but the evil power of the lord extinguished all life in the region, transforming the place into a Dead Land, however, perhaps because of fate, all was seen by a simple child who ventured on the outskirts of the mountains. It was only then that the other lords confirmed their suspicions, the inevitable, the attacking power of Zeijadel.

    The lord of darkness, being the last of the lords to emerge, coincidentally was the perfect opposite of the holy, while the Holy Lord was exactly the first. Harkonen, the then-present holy lord, came out at last, understanding quickly what was being hatched.

    Harkonen immediately assembled the other lords, and knowing that this would lead to an unprecedented war and corrupt the balance of the elements, decided to banish the darkness to avoid the worst, but it was already late. Zeijadel left Plane and began his attack on the six continents, because for him, it was enough to destroy only one of these, which would already consolidate the imbalance and, according to his theory, would inherit his powers, and could no longer be detained to eliminate all, until take all the elements for himself and become the new supreme lord of that world.

    At this time the great lords counted on the help of the armies of the kingdoms, approaching and uniting them, beginning the preparation for a time that would be known as: "The Discord of the Power". All that happened later was pure terror, stained with blood, marking with pain, death and destruction all life in Tantus...

    Among the then six kingdoms, the most marked of them was undoubtedly the Kingdom of Lieben, with the loss of then-king Loki Alberich and his main warriors, among them the great captain and combatant of his time, Kin Lyeben, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

    After seven long and b****y winters of intense and incessant battles, the armies of Zeijadel were finally defeated, weakening him in some way, he himself was subdued in violent combat by Harkonen, and the lords, uniting their maximum powers, created the "Solitary Prison", an empty dimension of eternal darkness where even time could not be counted. The lord of darkness was banished, but when this happened the holy lord was absent, for his hour was coming, and his legacy was being passed on to another warrior who became the new holy lord.

    Several were the enemies of the lords in the service of Zeijadel, among them the most dangerous was Kraven Licaon, respected swordsman of the continent of Meira and adviser of the king Andros Ravelion, although this happens only a few winters after the discord of the power. He began only to study the arts of the lord of darkness in order to fight him, but ended up creating admiration for an impressive determination, and seduced by a s******c will to power.

    Licaon secretly developed the f*******n arts of sorcerers, and through it found a means of communicating with his idol by becoming wholly submissive. He was responsible for the fall of the Kingdom of Arfank, shortly after definitively surrendering his loyalty to the great enemy, after this event gained the great sympathy of Zeijadel, migrated to the continent of Tantus where he took possession of the Pandemonius, and made of that place his fortress.

    Among the other servants of the lord of darkness the most prominent were Runglu, the greater and most s******c general of the goblins, and Melyngo, supreme commander of the cyclops. Both causing great devastation and bloodshed in the kingdoms of Tantus and Saitar respectively, being referred to in the war as the damned "heralds of death", feared to never be forgotten easily.

TANTUS RECORDS - FIRST SESSION

- Of races

Mers – When the lords arose, the first Lady of Water, Faora, in her wisdom conceived the mers, aquatic beings guardians of the oceans. Mers were born in an exotic resemblance to the race of men, but adapted to live in the depths of the seas, their greenish or bluish skin, with scales on their muscles and on the joints of their limbs, make them unique. Always preserving their home and sea creatures, much has been speculated that if Zeijadel had triumphed, the Mers would be the only free people, for it would be a great waste of time for him to try to sweep them away from the immensity of the oceans, for his armies could never accompany him, which would not be a great problem for god in fact, but the point is that the world will always need the sea, a fact that the darkness actually admitted. The delegated commitment to them was only the waters, but their only important achievement was the "Battle of the Tantus River", where they fought and showed their value in order to rescue (or avenge) the waters of a strategic thrust of the lord of darkness. Of all the races that prioritize a male figure as ruler, the mers place their trust in female hands, for to them their queens are the possessors of greater wisdom. Sometimes rise to the surface, but there is no record of a mer on land. The feminine of mer says: Merinië.

Tartars – Created by Salanar, first Lord of Earth, the tartars were the guardians of the forests and naturally skilled in the earth and life elements. Creatures quite similar to men in appearance, though of medium stature, but strikingly seeming to be made of rocks and stones, and even metals, like living statues, of surprising physical ability, capable of overcoming the most robust soldier, and the foreseeable hardness of their skins completed strength and endurance almost perfectly. They aided the lords against Zeijadel, and their sympathy quickly gave way to the fighting spirit of striking warriors, showing great ferocity, loyalty and determination in the aid of their allies and in the defense of their homes, but precisely because they represent great danger to the enemies, were heavily targeted in the war and had their numbers severely reduced, for Salanar made them stubborn and capable of carrying huge burdens, physical or psychological, to the lord of darkness they needed to be extinguished quickly, but soon understood that race would not be easily eliminated. As they multiply slowly, despite the great longevity, there are only 1/4 of what they once were. The word tartar does not have a gender.

Griphons – The griphons arose in the second half of the reign of Liy, first Lord of Air, also called lover of the skies and the winds. Their creations were majestic winged lions, who lived on top of the mountains as guardians of the birds, but did not possess the differentiated intelligence of the other races, mainly their distant relatives, the moghrans. They were considered instinctive animals and fit perfectly in harmony with nature. At the time of the discord of the power they were completely dominated by Zeijadel, exchanged the beautiful eagle wings for bat wings, and spread terror from the skies. With the defeat of the lord, they took refuge again in the highest tops, where they are waiting, instinctively, by the call of their master. "Male" and "female" is the simple distinction between them.

Goblins – Conceived by Zeijadel himself, the goblins were nothing more than deformations of men, creatures filthy and despicable by nature. The size of their disgust was compared only to their cruelty and cowardice, this race made up most of the lord's army, almost three million goblins attacked the kingdoms until they were finally, and at great cost, defeated. Now under Kraven's command, though greatly reduced, they multiply like flies, and wait anxiously for revenge and c*****e. The feminine of goblin is said: Gorgan.

Cyclops – Twice as large as the men, the cyclops are giants with extraordinary strength, and detached by their single large eye at the center of the forehead. They were fundamental pieces in the armies of the enemy, and have been in the world since the beginning of time, these were faithful who were spared the fury of the great God, but despite such a demonstration of generosity, they ended up inexplicably corrupted and joined Zeijadel. They have acted on the front lines in many b****y battles, they have also been greatly reduced, but have multiplied again, they are no more nor shadows of the kind beings of old times, now they are purely evil. The word cyclops does not have a gender.

Moghrans – Respected race in the world of Tantus, wise, powerful and of considerable longevity, the moghrans have extreme ease in mastering the power of the elements. They are similar to the griphons, but have half-wings (which makes them impossible to fly), walk on two legs and speak the common language. With powerful minds, the moghrans did not directly participate in the discord of the power, until then they had never been part of the military force, living only as farmers, builders and merchants, acting only as support in certain battles, but were ready for war. Only one moghran fought effectively, Artan, the skillful, captain of the guard of the Kingdom of Terra in the continent of Tantus, integrated the armies of King Baltier and his son Valdnar against the enemy, and it was through him that the great power of the lions could be verified, because he won and survived being protagonist of almost incomparable feats. Now the moghrans are more united with other races and more active in their friendship, they are also in the world from the beginning. There is no gender in the word moghran.

Lobimes – A great breed of hybrid wolves that have evolved to become splendid in many ways, known for their strength and impressive ability and agility, as well as being warriors born to combat. Despite their talent they were peaceful, and chose not to engage in war because they cared for nothing but themselves, but the enemy's arm reached them, and they fought, resisted, and won, annihilating goblins, griphons and cyclops. Their techniques are extremely efficient and their lifestyle is highly disciplined, since once an adult, a lobime never diminishes his power and physical strength, even at very advanced age, even just one day before he dies, thus being warriors to the end. Of longevity slightly superior to men, carry a unique gift, they are able to literally choose the moment of their death, once elderly, simply closing their eyes and departing from this life. They have always achieved a satisfactory evolution in each generation, and many of their kings, observing the great potential of their children, chose to die before the hour just for the pride of seeing the new generation govern with more splendor than before, but though they do not mix with other races, though they have never been involved in any conflict with any of them, are still held to be peaceful but selfish. No gender for the word lobime.

Dragons - The wisest beings of Tantus, possibly the dominant race of ancient times. At first they were believed to be immortal, for they live long, according to ancient records, although there is no longer anyone alive who has witnessed this, dragons were in fact the first to know the power of the elements, for fire is born within and it is part of themselves, even the newborn dragons are able to spit out dangerous flames, becoming naturally stronger over time, and once adults, they attain what is affectionately called the "fire of hell". Perhaps the most spectacular and frightening sight they can pass is the moment they use it, since from their abdomen, rising to their eyes, the glow of the fire appears revealing their intentions, like a vision of death a few seconds before they burn. Creatures of immense physical size and wings developed for flight, reaching speeds above sound, able to travel enormous distances in a very short time, always quadrupeds, from the beginning it was known that the great lizards were not only powerful, intelligent and lucid, but owners of a curious greedy passion, for gold and riches of all kinds, but this did not necessarily mean bad temper, perhaps only their nature, but also always gave great value to the world itself, able to understand the nature of the planet and the directions of time, or almost, although the oldest records report their great passion as a motive that almost led them to extinction.

    Dragons evolve every five hundred winters until they reach adulthood, and after that, every thousand winters, their wings increase slightly in size and divide into a new pair, this being a simple and direct reference to their power and experience, is estimated that the dragons live about twenty thousand winters. Several of them turned to evil and worked in the service of Zeijadel in the discord of the power, perhaps for their old and inexplicable taste for the treasures, that had been promised to them no doubt. The oldest of these to render such a service was Smerus, the evil one, with six pairs of wings, was killed by Artan, the skillful, in a spectacular way. The oldest dragon and still alive (known) is Krantenion, with ten pairs of wings is the true image of power and wisdom, fought in the great battle at the service of the lords and has won great prestige and friendship of all the allied races, he is called "The wise adviser of the world". The gender in dragons is differentiated simply as: "male" and "female".

Men - The race that became majority in the world of Tantus, owners of the simplest of longevities. They were present in almost all the events of the history, although in the beginning some (or many) disagreements occurred, they learned with the lords the respect for the other races. They are not the strongest physically, but they are endowed with an immense potential, their courage has always been considered the greatest of virtues, and thus they have won, besides many friendships, a great prestige. The feminine of a man says: Woman.

Summons – Summons were designed by Kenobe, the first Lord of Fantasy, to be the secondary representatives of the elements, but there was always something behind it, for Kenobe was wise, prudent, and said he could predict the future. With the ability to contribute to the balance appreciably, at the beginning of creation there were many doubts to fill these posts, as they were born to live while the world needed, they were chosen carefully over many winters. In total there are fifteen summons representing the fifteen elements, each of which possesses the power of a higher element than any being, except the lords, can achieve, are called "the guardians of the elements". Some of them took different forms after they received the honor (it is not known how many), as of animals for example. It has never been clear why this, perhaps by a better elemental representation, or by his own personality, or even both, and this is all that the records know about this subject.

    Kenobe spread them around the world in temples built by him, using ancient language as key to their location, and decided that these elemental guardians should serve the great warriors through the time. However, there was a condition, for by using the maximum of his powers, the lord of fantasy permanently influenced the translation of the planet's own natural satellite, thus creating the so-called eclipses, which only occurred at intervals of many and many winters, and lasted very little. Every child born in this rare time was bathed and marked by the essence of fantasy, the "mystical mark", and so came the "summoners", lords of the summons. But despite this not all were able to obtain them, having to submit to a mysterious and rigorous test of courage and honor, the "Testimony of the Summons", and if they were not able they would have life taken by the summon himself. This was a simple form created by Kenobe to eliminate petty or evil goals. Many summoners lost their lives in the temples around the world, and very few were successful, according to the records. Interestingly, Kenobe did not build any temple on the seventh continent, Talarr, for predicting that land would be wiped out in the future...

Guardians - After the discord of the power, the imprisonment of Zeijadel signified the eternal elemental imbalance, for the lord of darkness trapped would obviously interrupt the succession. The others together conceived the guardians, majestic dragons, still greater than the common dragons, superior flight ability and extreme power and strength. This miracle was granted to mortals hand-picked to take on the task, something similar to the succession of lords, they have the noble mission of keeping order in Tantus, or something else. Unlike traditional dragons, some of them may be bipedal, this according to your personality, your eyes are filled by an intense scary shine without irises or pupils, and their power is so immense and destructive that are seen as extreme elemental, lower only to the lords. There are six guardians in all, representing the six continents, succession is made according to the lifetime of each chosen, and errors in choice are not tolerated in any way.

    However, after three short winters, Zeijadel's cunning jumped beyond the prison, and through Kraven, managed to implant the conflict between the guardians. Kraven, using the teachings of his new master, created problems in Saitar and purposely alerted the guardians of Meira and Zelante, also created problems in Zelante and warned it respective guardian, leading them to deduce that one of them was planning a traitorous attack, managing to get them into quarrel and doubts with each other easily. At first it was hard to believe that such foolish attitudes could do such a great deal of damage, but this was only possible because of the f*******n millennial spell taught by Zeijadel, the "Manipulation", for the guardians have common minds, and then subject to the spells of the lords. The conflict started quickly, and a terrible battle took place.

    The other guardians, without alternative, were forced to enter the combat in the attempt to prevent a great destruction. The struggle made the world tremble, and the continent of Talarr was decimated, becoming, after the devastation, in the Flame Archipelago, due to the format it assumed.

TANTUS RECORDS - FIRST SESSION – END

    After the event the guardians separated, the succession continued, but nothing is known about it. Disjointed and out of the way, Zeijadel could think more safely about a way to escape, and after fifteen winters and with the help of Kraven, this no longer seems far from happening...