The campaign mythos is, essentially, my background for the world. This is primarily pre-history and how some events, quite obviously, differ from the real world and lead to the existence of Atlanteans in the form of Mutants and Psychics.
The history of Earth can be divided into three ages. The First Age of Mankind began nearly 10 million years ago and ended approximately 1 million years ago. The Second Age of Mankind began approximately 1 million years ago and ended 9,960 years ago with the destruction of Atlantis. We are now in the Third Age of Mankind. It is with the Second Age that we now concern ourselves. The following is an excerpt from a manuscript tentatively dated to between 15,000 and 30,000 B.C.E. It is written by an Atlantean scholar during the height of Atlantean Civilization, just prior to contact with the Dark Ones.
'Tis the dawn of a new day and I write with a heavy heart. After many successful tests, our first manned voidship has returned to the Earth in pieces, scattering the ashes of her crew. When we first began to explore the oceans of Our Mother, there were many accidents. But we believed we had come so far. Believed that it was time, at last, to leave Our Mother's womb.
It was many thousands of years past, only a few centuries past the Great Cataclysm. The Enlightened Ones of The Island saw it fit that we seek others and rebuild our civilizations. Were it not for these mentors, Our Mother would have snuffed us out as though we were little more than a candle.
The Lady of Fortune smiles this day for, despite the tragedy, signs that others have observed us as we attempted to enter The Void have revealed themselves. I hope that, soon, we shall meet our guests.
Unfortunately, the Atlanteans soon learned that those beings which observed their attempt at ascension were not at all friendly. The ignition of the experimental voidship, ironically, sealed not only the fate of the ship's crew, but also the fate of Atlantean civilization and would, eventually, result in the end of the Second Age of Mankind.
It was after this failed experiment at breaching the atmosphere that the first of the Dark Ones came. A strange race of mist, as black as a moonless night and an even darker disposition, the Dark Ones came. They came and they destroyed.
What took nearly a million years to build was wiped out in less than a thousand once these beings came in force (which was just over four thousand years later, by which time the Atlanteans had developed and perfected space-travel technology themselves; the Atlanteans were the most formidable foe the Dark Ones had encountered). Some of the Atlanteans escaped to other continents, others in their spacecraft, but most were slaughtered. Murdered in an apocalypse that wiped the continent from the face of the planet and left the region now called the Bermuda Triangle as nothing more than a dimensional maelstrom, a piece of the planet existing in several realities simultaneously. Today, Atlantis remains as nothing more than a legend, talked about only by fringe scientists and madmen. It is remembered as Avalon, Atlantis, Lemuria, and dozens of other names. But the meaning is the same and it did exist and there exists proof today in the genetics of a small percentage of the population.
The Second Cataclysm
When the Dark Ones came, some of the Atlanteans were spared by escaping to the many other regions of the world. They have left their fingerprints in many civilizations, most notably the ancient Egyptians and the Incas. Even the British Isles is not without Atlantean handiwork, seen in the many stone circles found throughout the region. It was the Atlanteans that led to the legends of gods. The Dark Ones, too, left their imprint in the form of hieroglyphics depicting an evil race, demons, devils, or spirits and legends of a continent disappearing beneath the waves.
Faced with the extinction of their species, the Atlanteans began interbreeding with humans. This had strange side effects, empowering their offspring with superhuman powers (resulting in the legends of demigods, demons, and angels), though not on quite the magnitude displayed by full-blood Atlanteans. Herakles (later called Hercules by the Romans) was the first offspring produced by a human-Atlantean union, but others including Gabriel, Azazel, Gilgamesh, Ahriman, and Odysseus, among others, all appear in human history.
Today, these beings are called mutants and make up approximately five percent of the world population. Full-blood Atlanteans (Mega-Heroes) are very rare, making up less than 0.5% of the population. Most of this race left Earth on the remaining voidships to continue the fight against the Dark Ones.
The frequency of the hybrids varies throughout history, but rose in times of great peril that affected the fate of civilizations. Such times include the invasion of the West by the Huns, the Crusades, Arthur's conquest of England, Pizzaro's murder of the Incas, World War II, among others. Each time, the latent Atlantean genetics manifested themselves in a select few descended from Atlanteans and allowed the armies to repel the invaders.
The world had experienced a lull in the emergence of Atlantean abilities for centuries, even with the start of World War I. It was not until the Nazi regime rose to power in Germany that they again began to surface at an alarming rate (scaring many governments and whipping human "purist" groups into a frenzy). Since that time, the world has seen a veritable explosion (relative to the past) of "mutants," those with Atlantean DNA which has manifested itself.
Despite efforts by the Atlanteans to keep the Dark Ones away from the Earth, this evil race began to hear rumors and investigate. Only a few hundred have made it past the Atlantean blockade to Earth. While they succeeded in the first part of their mission, their ships were destroyed and they have not yet been able to contact their homeworld. Using Earth technology, this could take decades to acquire the parts necessary to construct a transmitter powerful enough to accomplish the task. Those that have attempted to leave have been destroyed as they left the planet's atmosphere. Some that remain are attempting to build a beacon powerful enough to bring the Dark Ones' fleet to the Sol system, though even this simple device will take some time until they better understand Earth technology.
Written By: Thoth
25 October 2001
