Kanthrop History

[Brytan]

Kanthrop History

Kanthanar’s Kin
In the beginning… Mother Earth and the Father of the Heavens created seven intelligent races from which all other intelligent races have since developed. First, they created Dragons, Elves, and Giants. At this time, they thought their world though intricate and beautiful, lacked a certain speed and wholeness, so in a variation upon their theme, they also created Gnomes, Halflings and Dwarves. Still not satisfied with the total picture they added Humans,which were deliberately imperfect and short lived. With the introduction of Humans' imperfection; evil entered the world. Due to the corruptions committed by the original races, several evil races were born.

It is not clear why, but at a certain point the Dragons initiated war on the other races, thinking themselves superior to all others, whom they sought to enslave. The other races united against their dragon foes (some scholars say this happened with the help of some of the good dragons, but others claim the war was against all dragons, not just the evil ones). With the help of a powerful dragonslayer sword called Tal Alkeen the knights of Drakendoder succeeded in driving out the dragon threat. The knights then gave the Sword, Tal Alkeen, to the newly elected King to help protect the Kingdom of Seven Isles before pursuing the fleeing dragons to Terra Incognita.

Many of the Dragons who had sought to rule the known world were slain in the battle of those days, others were hunted to the ends of Terra Incognita and killed there. But several had managed to escape the crusade against their kind. Some of them prone to evil deeds, others merely hiding from the world until they could once again show themselves, resting in deep sleep in far away mountains and ancient forest caverns.

One of these sleeping Dragonkin was named Kanthanar. Hatched from the first nest of one of the firstborn dragons, she had fled the Seven Isles as she watched her kin rain terror on the isles, even before the crusade against their kind by the other races began. She had taken refuge deep within the mountain ranges, separating the Western Kingdoms from Terra Incognita, where she dreamt.

Unable to wander the world herself, she dreamt dreams of she, walking the lands around her, meeting new people and living a life outside her own, guised in human form. Her dreams led her to strange new lands, and upon one of her journeys through this Aetherial world she encountered a human man. This man woo’ed her, courted her and promised her the world in exchange for her hand in marriage. She fell for his advances and they married. They had three children who lived beside her in this endless dream, still coursing through the Aether as battle was subsiding and the first King of the Seven Isles was crowned. She was happy, intensely happy, until she was discovered.

A band of adventurers had tracked her to her resting place, for stories of her being there were widespread among the locals who lived in a valley below the cave where she slept. “It was always there, probably guarding an immense treasure.” They were told. So they went up the perilous cliffs, to find Kanthanar sleeping peacefully in her cave, having been there for hundreds of yahren. As their weapons cut their way to her heart, she awoke, shortly. Her screams of final breath echoing through the mountains and through the shards of her dream, which still lingered in the Aether. Her children, her husband, they watched her die as her draconic magic flung itself outward across the Aetherial plain, destroying the dream entirely, although...

No one knew why. The dragon didn’t have any treasure to guard. The cave had been empty and the dragon herself had seemed almost invisible, being covered in dust and rocks from yahren of seismic change in the mountains. The adventurers had returned to the valley below, hoisting what parts of the dragon they could as trophies to show back home to their families. Teeth, scales, eyes. Down below a grand party was thrown to celebrate this great victory over such an evil creature.
But at gravetide of that same night, something happened. The village was raided by beings unlike anything anyone had ever seen. A dreadfull mix between dragon and man, three of them as the survivors who kept part of their sanity claim. They came from the forest, tearing through wood and stone like it was paper, searching, hunting, for the adventurers who were sleeping off their stupors in the inn of the village. Like they had done upon the dragon, the sleeping people of the village were killed. Those that were awake fled into the woods as the terrible cries of the beings ripped through the night’s sky. In a strange tongue words echo’ed through the valley as the village was burned to the ground by dragon’s fire.
The people would never be the same. In the days that followed, they discovered they had been thrown victim to the curse of Kanthanar’s kin. Her children, or the shadows of them, had come from the Aether to punish the wretched who had destroyed an innocent life and desecrated her body. The villagers who lived had terrible dreams of Kanthanar’s death, shards of the dragon’s dream working it’s way to their conciousness, her children speaking of the horror that was committed and of the payment that would ensue. Payment in penitence and blood.

“Forever will your people pay the price of mother’s death. Forever will you be torn between the Aether and the Tether as your souls will mix with those of the beasts around you. The spirits of the past will haunt and watch you as your kin will discover what you have bestowed upon them.”

Thus was the curse the villagers suffered. And indeed, their kin did discover what they had been given.
Yahren later, when the village was rebuilt, and the people had once again settled, the original inhabitants still plagued by dreams of the wretched deeds of the adventurers who had once passed through their town, children had been born and grown to adulthood. Born and grown with the mark of Kanthanar. Their parents would sometimes see their children do things no person would do, sniffing the wind for a prey when hunting in the woods. Looking to the ground for tracks on bare rock, diving into lakes and staying under for many burns without a care in the world. As they got older sometimes a child would disappear for many tides, only to come back again, changed, different. Sometimes parents would see large beasts roam around the village, beasts which usually stayed well away from humans. Talk arose of evil magic, that the animals had come to fullfill the curse of Kanthanar as more and more of these sightings occurred as the town grew and the populace. Only the children kept silent as their parents plotted a hunt…

Discovery of Ursa
One faithfull night, the hunt began, as one of the villagers saw a group of the beasts gathered outside the village on the forests’ edge. They got out swords, spears, torches and bows and in only a short time, a large group of villagers had rallied in the square. Some of them had discovered their children to be missing from their beds, other houses of some young couples had been found ransacked and abandoned, all their belongings taken or ruined.

This fuelled the villagers’ desire to rid the village of this horrid pest, so they set out to fight the creatures threatening their children. As they came to face the beasts, they did not move. Fire didn’t seem to scare them as the villagers approached them. From between the trees even more of the creatures could be seen skulking in the darkness. Several human forms could even be seen moving between the trees. This enraged the villagers as they started their attack to drive off the creatures. The beasts withdrew as the villagers advanced, not showing any intent on retaliation. From behind the front line of villagers, and arrow was fired which hit a wolf in the front of the beasts’ line. It fell, and changed. In several breathtaking burns the corpse of the wolf transformed into the body of a young woman, the daughter of one of the villagers. One of the children which had gone missing.

The villagers stood and watched as the other beasts now emerged from the woods, changing their shapes to a human form. Before them now stood their children, their children and three others. One of these three spoke, an odd mix between a human male and a dragon, skin covered in dark grey scales and eyes a golden sheen.

“Forever will your people pay the price of mother’s death. Forever will you be torn between the Aether and the Tether as your souls will mix with those of the beasts around you. The spirits of the past will haunt and watch you as your kin will discover what you have bestowed upon them. Now is the time, you have witnessed what legacy you leave your children. You still hunt and kill with no sense of dignity. Blindly you go forth slaughtering innocents, so now we shall guide them, take them away from here to a place where they can be safe from the madness that is the human world. Your kind is flawed in it’s drive to destroy that which is different. Hopefully some day this will change. Until then the kin of Kanthanar will guide your children.”

And with those words the kin of Kanthanar led the first of the Kanthrops away from their village. Away from the cursed land which had spawned them, to fullfill a new legacy. For many tides they trekked through foreign lands, scavenging and hunting for their pack as they went. Their aquatic brethren helping them cross the waters in front of them until they reached a lush island. An island unspoiled by human hands, where only a few adhiel lived on it’s shores. The kin of Kanthanar led them to a cave, hidden deep within the island forests in which a symbol was carved in the rock floor. Passing over it, they found themselves in a place the kind referred to as Ursa Etheria. A place dreamed by their mother Kanthanar, a place where they had lived for many yahren before their dream was disturbed. Here the Kanthrop were to live, always to shelter themselves from the evils of the outlander races, living in unison with the world around them, honouring all life and never judging on appearance only, for they themselves could not be judged fully on appearance either.

“We shall watch over your kind as you grow. We shall be there when you need us, to guide you when you require it. Trust in the Mother as you trust in us, and all shall be as it should.”

And with these words the kin left. Among the Kanthrop people it is still believed that they watch over them, from the Aether and sometimes in the Tether as it was with the Great Passing. Thus is the story of the Kanthrop, remember it on your travels as the world may not be much different as it was before…

[Brytan]

this story is slightly different from a Kanthrop perspective. Their version leaves a lot of the background information out and is focussed on other angles than the original above, leaving a lot of questions unanswered. Their version is posted in the story thread here:

https://tazlure.nl/board/viewtopic.php?t=11739

Also, this thread contains various other stories pertaining to Kanthrop history and legend which might be of interest to persue as moderators.