Alright, class, let's settle in. I know this is the fourth week of classes, but this is, technically our first class of the semester. Your families paid a lot for you to attend Halus, but some of us have other priorities. I won't apologize for missing all the other classes, I was on an expedition.

I am, first and foremost, a student of history, I'm only a professor after that. For that matter, don't even call me professor, just Ilyta will do. If students started calling me Professor, they might expect me to start acting the part. Besides, my actual rank is Savant, but... nevermind.

Before being a planeswalker and before being an archaeologist, it was history that spun its allure into my dreams. It was only after learning most of our current history and finding out how stagnant it was compared to the tapestry of the past that I started to branch into my field. Well, my disillusionment in academia probably had something to do with some of that as well...

As someone who spends most of her time delving ruins and cataloging relics of the long dead, I've come to a gradual realization: Few expect they will be the last of their kind. It is terrifying to think that you might wake up one morning and the world will not see twilight, especially when it likely will be totally out of your control. Given this, I've been considering our own history and the past of my kind. It isn't impossible that experience might happen to us.

So, I've decided to do what I can to preserve the Qeran history. Nominally, this was meant to be a folio for publishing, but the Academy insists I do something to actually to warrant the office they gave me. Since expeditions don't usually fund themselves, much less on worlds nobody has ever heard of, I'm here to be your sage guide into our shared origins as a civilization.

The Codex we're studying from were written with my own pen and likely are some of the most comprehensive about our society ever bound together, including all the open secrets polite society chooses to ignore. I consulted with top people in their fields to provide passages and data in the areas well outside my particular specialty, so I assure you this is no amateur publication.

Now, if you'll open the cover, we can, finally, get started.

The Qeran Codex

Foreword
Two forces have singly shaped the history of Qera, each in vastly different ways. Their clashes consumed societies and countless lives in their conquests. They stand opposed to one another precisely because their rises to power were far too familiar to one another, making conflict inevitable. They are two sides of a coin, and Qera was caught between them.

The Imperium and the Syndicate.

However, Battlefields gave way to skirmishes and the conflict changed following the 300 year war that ended with the last true battle7: The Battle of Solis The fighting still technically continues unabated, as the remnants of the Syndicate still exist, but attacks are sudden violence born in conspiracy rather than the grand armies of the past. Much of the world lives a relatively peaceful existence under the Imperium, while the Syndicate has all but vanished from the world's sight. It was not force of arms that drove the Demon Lords into hiding, as the Archons would have you believe, but a conscious choice made by the survivors to change the rules of a losing war.


(The idea for this thread is to have Ilyta explain the history and culture of her world to her students and any questions they have will be... questions you have!)

A young woman raises a hand from the middle rows. Her appearance is very... unremarkable. Almost eerily so, in fact. One could say she looks like a careful exercise in blandness.

"Excuse me, Profess- um, Miss Ilyta? What was this plane's old name? And... do you know anything about what remains in Old Qera?"

Unfortunately, the demon records were excoriated to the point that they're virtually useless and Titan records are oral in nature, so finding any historical evidence is difficult amid the mythologization of their culture. It leaves us with broken records that we can't corroborate in this age, but what facts remain lead us to believe the world was called Aeloa before the Imperium arrived.

As to Old Qera... The process that brought the tower here was messy and devastating. The tower was not the only thing that came through and the remains of Old Qera are currently floating in our orbit. Prior to the Imperium, this plane didn't have a ring.

The young woman went very still, like processing the information cut her from the outside world.

After a while, she raised her hand again in the widespread muttering. "Has said ring been explored? And what is known about the designers of the planar travel the archons used?"

The Old Qeran artifice might have been able to facilitate an exploration of the ring, but even as advanced as we are now, that's outside our abilities. We've only barely managed to reconstruct skyships from ancient recovered relics and even then I've seen worlds with more evenly developed artifice. For that matter, most of what we've recovered, despite being ancient by now is theoretically more advanced.

Most of what we know about the ring is from recovered samples that have fallen. I'm sure you've seen it before, the "fire from heaven" that happens sometimes. Now, a secret they likely don't want to share, but those celestial impacts are what cause Mutations. Something about the way the Tower worked caused some sort of shift in the debris that came with it. Either a type of mana contamination or the trapped souls of the Old Qeran dead (oooh spooky)... Whatever it may be, it causes a second generation mutation.

When it comes to the Tower and all the rest of the Relics... We know a lot less than even the archives indicate we should. It seems likely that a lot of the first generation survivors didn't have access to the kind of artifice they were used to, likely didn't have the resources either. So even though we have collected a lot of relics, the understanding was lost to the ages. Included are the details of the people that made it all possible. Take, for example, the lost metal I mentioned earlier. All we know is that they called it Aetherium and what kind of properties we can test based on the samples we've found. Everything else is a total unknown, including how to make it.

The woman's face lit up. "Have you tried-" Then froze. "I meant, are some of those Relics accessible to the general public? And are the impact themselves generating the mutations, or are the exposure to the Relics responsible? What are the discernible patterns relative to the mutations themselves?"

Relics aren't too be handled by the public. It's not codified law, but such things tend to be confiscated once any authority learns about it. So outside some very secretive individuals, it is highly unlikely you'll get access to any such relic.

The Relics also have no discernible influence on the rate of mutations, that's all purely from the debris raining down from the ring. The exact cause is unknown, but speculation leads us to believe it is the impact itself and resultant air pollution or exposure to the debris that causes it. Still not much known.

As for the mutations and how they present, well cover the rest of that during the latter portion of the lecture when we address the origin and history of mutants in society.

"Are you worried of, well, facing repercussions after divulging this kind of knowledge? The archons do not sound too... understanding."

[what do you mean by latter portion of the lecture?]

(The class will cover all the sections and relevant details from the index)

I'm hardly untouchable, by all measures, but my circumstances as a Planeswalker and certain other extenuating factors mean I can pretty much do what I want so long as I keep my head down.

Besides, the archons are... Well, might as well take that topic now.

The ruling body of the Archon is known as the Pantheon. They've been in control for millennia, even before the activation of the Tower and each of their number is essentially a monarch in their own right. The Imperium isn't an empire, by strict definition, but an alliance between warlords, each kept in check by their peers.

On Old Qera, it was their actions that ultimately tore the world apart, but the specific details were lost again, most likely erased. It's only the Titans' accounts that tell us what we know, but those early accounts are unreliable at best and mythology at worst.

When the Tower appeared, there were few archons left following their cataclysm. Those few were enough to supplant the gods of humanity and earn their worship. Despite what humanity might believe, I assure you, the archons aren't gods. Their continued worship is a convenience, at best. However, in the early days, it was essential for laying the foundations for what would become the Imperium.

Rather than seize resources by force, the Archons and Kor survivors sought to suborn humanity's independence by sharing their advanced culture with the less developed culture. It sounds brutal, in hindsight, but the alternative was fast more barbaric and as humanity developed they proved their worth to the Imperium as more than mere serfs.

The Archons, despite how I've described them, make for poor oligarchs. They have no desire to run an empire because at their very core is a desire for conflict. Their very being calls for war and whatever their origin, their purpose doesn't seem to have changed. It isn't power that drives them, ultimately, nor peace. It is conquest, the very act of conquest.

Though they have a rather singular nature, they are still individuals with their own personal desires. They are also capable of growth and learning, as evidenced by the fact they have not somehow managed to destroy Qera again.

It's my hypothesis that the Archons chose to leave what remains of the demon syndicate in it's current state to act as an enemy they can continue to fight instead of turning against each other. By focusing on the conflict, it has left cooler heads to maintain the Imperium in our current state of prosperity.

What role in the Imperium, beyond acting as very powerful figureheads, they've taken has been a focus on establishing law and enacting justice. Said justice is rarely kind, most often being best described as "swift" and "total".

The most frustrating thing, from a personal perspective, is that the Archons are among the only beings on Qera that could shed light on most of the mysteries of both Old Qera and the previous state of the world. Archons are functionally immortal, impervious to disease and age and sufficiently strong that a concerted effort of many of their number managed to overwhelm a Planeswalker during the Godhood Epoch.

This means that outside the handful of Elder Demons, the Archons are the sole repository of their ancient history!

Unfortunately, when not engaged in their chosen role, Archons are essentially hermits and recluses. There's gossip that there are among their numbers a few who have died to the glacial plains, thousands of leagues from the nearest civilization. If true, I can only imagine why they seem such isolation. My speculation being to remove the temptation to war among themselves, but what would I know about them? They're inscrutable.

"Are Archons as one-track minded as you make them sound? Have none of them interest in something that isn't war or some form of violence?"

I've never interacted with them directly, though I have second hand accounts. Archons have some degree of depth to them, but they're... limited beings. It's woven into the core of their beings, like an instinct.

The fact that they lack many of what some would consider mortal weaknesses, like the need to eat or sleep, means they have difficulty interacting with us, doubly so given how much emphasis we put on those things in a social setting. All that said, there are records of Archons experiencing more diverse emotions, such as love and pride. There's more to them than the need to wage war, but I can only imagine what it must be like for them to live in such a fragile, mercurial world.

It must be terribly lonely, in it's own way.

The next topic at hand is one which I'm personally invested in. The Archons position as warlords is largely symbolic, meaning that the actual function and breadth of the Imperium falls outside the Pantheon. The uppermost echelons and historically significant faction in the Imperium belong to the Kor.

Hence the joke. I'm personally inves... >cough< nevermind. I recognize that much of what I'm about to cover might seem redundant to those in the class that are Kor, but as we'll cover in later topics, we have to be thorough for those who are different from you that are also present.

We Kor are a matriarchal, caste based culture. Our caste is determined once we're considered adults, which is marked by the most significant ritual in our life. Rituals, in fact, are a key part to our culture as there are as many rituals as there are events in our lives.

The three primary castes are Priest, Warrior, and Shaper. Despite this, there is the fourth caste: Nomad. Strictly speaking it is not a formal caste, but rather an outcaste. Reserved for those who have dishonored our people enough that they are not welcome in our society.

The formation of the caste system does not predate our world, being a system adopted during the Imperium's formation following the destruction of Old Qera. Our population had been devastated and many, if not most, of our rituals were fashioned at the time when our people were in crisis. Everything we know can essentially be traced back to the desperate survival of our people during that period.

"Could you introduce the most important or common rites and their historical genesis? Also, what stories and legends are characteristic to kor communities, and what values are the most respected?"

The most basic and common of our major rites has roots in the sojourn to Qera, or more precisely in the aftermath. Because our population had been so heavily impacted by the war, and the limited capacity we could manage in the Ark tower, the extinction of our people was a real threat. However, repopulation posed an equal threat of unintentionally mixing our bloodlines back into themselves.

Thus, the priesthood took it into their power, not just to be the keeper of our ancestry, but to also be the... Well, keeper of our ancestries. They choose the first partner you are to bed, the act of which is your ceremonial induction into formal adulthood. In the past, you were required to conceive a child with only the selected pairing, if you were to have a child, but given our population now, that's no longer a widely recognized practice.

I see some of the class find that embarrassing....

For women of my kind, if a child is conceived during the ceremony, you are set to join the priesthood as one of the sacred mothers. Men can become acolytes, but are never formally recognized in the ranks.

The priesthood keeps the records of our people and maintains the rites of the ancient goddess we worship. She is the world soul of Old Qera, and though shattered, she is not forgotten, nor is she dead. She came with us and now dwells in the sky of our new world. The halo of Qera is the land of our ancestors, and we are still bound to her as our ancestors were bound to the land they walked upon.

Should no child be born of that union, the other two castes are the options. While the shapers caste accept everyone to learn their crafts, the warrior caste accept only those who succeed in the Ritual of the Blood Dance. The details of that are a closely guarded secret only taught to those initiates deemed worthy of the consideration, but I do understand the Ritual, if not the "dance" they learn. It is a ceremonial blade fight with multiple combatants, the point being to score light wounds upon one another, evoking a type of blood magic. As the participants grapple with one another, their blood melds and tie the applicants to the warriors they fight. The entire affair is a way to demonstrate commitment, to share pain and form loyalty to those you bleed with.

Those are the most important rituals to the most significant castes, but there dozens of minor rites and ceremonies we observe and hundreds more legends, such as the 7,777 swords, for example.

The one ritual I don't believe I'll touch on is the one that an outcaste faces. It's not considered appropriate to speak of in public.