The Dusk Sages

In a frenzied Zipsum dance...

Through the savage eloquence of Jevumm poetry...

With a mournful Gogajin ballad...

With tract after philosophical Anakarix tract...

Through the harmonized voices of a Prill choir...

Even in the resignation of a Vorax suicide...

The Dusk Sages are remembered.

Once, like Gods, they strode in and out of the lives of the Karians bringing with them, phenomenal powers, and ineffable wisdom. They controlled the weather, the seasons, the cycles of life and death. Under their gentle tutelage the Karians grew from humble beginnings to masters of lore and guardians of nature. They taught the Prill to sing. They taught the Anakarix to think. They taught the Jevumm to hunt. More than just teachers, they were companions. They flew with the Vorax, ran with the Zipsum and brawled with the Gogajin.

The Dusk Sages roamed everywhere and remained nowhere. It was impossible to discern their numbers, unthinkable to question their motives. They ruled without defending their authority. They remained aloof without anyone charging them of irresponsibility. The did not build or construct as the Karians and Cheldrun do, but their magic permanently altered the land. The positions of the mountains, the course of the rivers, the depth of the forests, these are the monuments of the Dusk Sages.

When the Cheldrun arrived, the Karians looked to the Dusk Sages for advice only to discover that the Dusk Sages were withdrawing. Like a child who, having witnessed the death of their mother, turns to the father for comfort - the Karians were devastated by the Dusk Sages' retreat. For months, the Dusk Sages were silent. Not speaking or responding to the presence of the Karians at all they processed to the west coast and walked into the sea. In streams they simply trickled out to the ocean and were gone.

Behind them they left only a few clues, besides the land itself, that they had ever been to this continent. The lore, which they left in bits and pieces to each of the races of Karia, contained clues to the phenomenal power the Dusk Sages seemed to command. The Prill continue to find new clues embedded in the melodies they compose. The Anakarix, likewise unlock potential hints from the patterns of the stars. The Vorax, once great secret-keepers, are dying without revealing what the Dusk Sages told to them.

The only tangible piece of the era of the Dusk Sages are the masks they used to wear. Every sage, was known by her distinctive and elaborate mask. No one ever saw the face of a Dusk Sage, nor did anyone ever see a mask that was not being worn. But when the retreat of the Dusk Sages was over, the Karians found many masks littering the beaches, cast aside. The hollow eyes of each mask probe the soul of the observer. Once, the holes seem to say, the eyes of Wisdom herself looked through me.