Chapter 1: ONE WORLD AMONG MANY K hitus has a history far longer than human (or any sentient) memory, though there are few who can attest to the truth of it all in all things Herewith is an accounting of history as generally accepted and understood by modern Khitans In the Beginning … Khitus flourished in times primitive, long before the watchful Dragon Kings shepherded the young world and its races Warmed by the young orange sun, the planet hosted a fertile, untouched wilderness that stretched from pole to pole Humans emerged as the first sentient race, first hunting and gathering food before learning to plant and harvest, scratching the earth with primitive tools Their numbers grew for millennia among the temperate plains and forests, ever adapting and expanding into less comfortable terrains Years passed as human cultures built one upon another, and the other nascent races went about their activities, animalistic or otherwise Such was the emergence of the Barbarian Age Primitive Khitan Magics & Minds The largest and most successful human tribes nurtured the rare few among them who manipulated the world around them without benefit of tools or labor This unseen mastery they called magic These first mages developed incantations to shape and bend magic, and thus reality, to their will Celebrants of the savage, ancient gods sought favor from or power over others through their deity-granted spellcraft Ironically, these barbaric days unwittingly awakened a dark consciousness among Khitan sorcery Fledgling mages grew haughty through their experiments, reveling in any successes and repeating them, their newfound power’s glare blinding them to deeper consequences Humanity’s clumsy stumbles into magic nudged that consciousness and eventually roused it to attentiveness The erratic and haphazard rise of magic on Khitus further irritated the universe’s magical reservoir with its lack of respect or care for this power The universe expressed its offense with a re-