FOREWORD

We have known it, for we have kept it. As history gave way to legend, and legend to myth, we remembered.There are few others who do, and fewer still trace a lineage to it. Harken unto me then, for I will tell you what we remember of that time: when black and white magic tore the world in two, and from whence the great flood arose.It began thousands of years ago. Three major powers reigned supreme in Eorzea’s past: the scholars of Nym, the white mages of Amdapor, and the black mages of Mhach. As with all Spoken races, coexistence was a tenuous thing that, when malice and ambition were great enough to delude their leaders, shattered into a violent catastrophe.Mhach’s devices became something perverse, dabbling with taming voidsent. There are scarcely less dangerous creatures than those of that damned plane, ravenous and accursed. Higher voidsent are incredibly powerful.It had allowed them to become one of the most powerful nations in this star’s history. They tamed Diabolos himself, one of the mightiest voidsent to ever breach our plane. With this dark magic, Mhach brought war to Amdapor.In a mixture of unbridled ingenuity and desperation, the white mages of Amdapor fashioned great constructs of stone to combat them- golems, animated by umbral magics, and most sources conclude there…yet that is not the whole truth. My people recall that those blessed with the greatest concentrations of aether, their premier mages and soldiers, had led their golems in the fore with similar suits of stone. Their bodies had been tampered with and in their wording, “unshackled”. Enhanced to tolerate greater aether flow from their own flesh, and to bear the burden of tremendous external forces.Their armor of stone was laden with aucracite, magical stones that entrap and redirect magic as batteries, yet so often they contain souls, even those akin to primals. With their bodies linked to this armor enriched with auracite, they wielded artifacts as weapons and tools whose records are long lost. Those most gifted took into their armor the spirits of the old gods that ancient Bozja had wielded against the Allagan Empire.In an attempt to stay Mhach’s madness they had toyed with their own, for such power could corrupt or kill the wielder in a short time. The “unshackled” thus lived shortened lifespans or went mad with corruptive power from the activated shards of primal souls. The balance of the natural world had been thrown into chaos, and a Great Flood was foretold as the ending of their world.My forebears attempted to stop it. They rushed to the battle of Amdapor, fighting their way into the heart of its violence. There was said to be a maligned presence somehow deeper than the insatiable hunger of Diabolos and the all-consuming light of umbral magic. It was the true catalyst of apocalypse that they made their way toward.They failed. The Great Flood came. Were it not for Nym’s exceptional shipcraft and the Twelve Archons’ aid, my people would have been swept away as all the others. Yet they persist still, sailing to the Skatay Mountain Range and starting anew. Now they scour ancient ruins and hallowed halls, they find their ways to the mouths of the mighty and listen. They record, account, and ensure.Ensure that the world might not by chance rediscover what undid us an age ago, that the old weapons of Mhach and Amdapor, of Nym and e’en Skalla remain untouched, unseen…forgotten.Annwn. A fairyland, a “realm of delights, eternal youth”...your Grandmaster took to it, and I might understand him. A place that might not exist save in the minds of the young. Innocence. He wishes to preserve it, to make a future where the young have a chance to be just that, even for a short time. A sanctuary which he can never enter, but that he can guard with ferocious conviction. If he and his might keep evil at bay, perhaps the good of our world will be protected and fostered into something grand.None of you are innocent, yet bathed in blood you may stand between paradise and the evil that would prey upon its bliss. So gather ye Hounds of ill repute and heavy sin, of long hunts and longer sorrow. As a pack, you might find purpose, strength, and a chance for peace.You scorn the light of day as it shines upon your sins and sorrows, yet you see a glimmer of promise in a paler light. Run together, and chase Moonrise.

AFTERWORD

The End Times have ended. The far fewer living mourn the ever greater dead, and the free world has taken its first breath after emerging from its deepest plunge. The wars are over. Finally, an end to fighting.Who yet has the will for bloodshed now? But it is when all wish to sleep that monsters prowl. Generations of soldiers told to disarm and disband. Where are they to go when home is but a pile of ash? No harvest nor bounty, no future to look forward to. Only ruin. Folk who had given all in an all-consuming calamity; when naught can be made, all must be taken. An army for hire forged in the greatest wars' fires and with nothing to lose.The free world tends to its wounds. It looks ahead, not to the piled bodies it leaves behind, nor to the envious and starving faces to its flanks. Only ahead. Hungry forgotten eyes linger in the dark. They will strike the sleeping, naive, and busied world square in its back. They will plunge deep. They will tear and pull with all their might, dragging all back to war, back amongst the hungry and dying and dead.Few are the folk who stand while others sleep to protect rather than take. For scant reward, they stare into the hateful visage of the hungry predator, of the demented sadist, and of the endless deep of the dark. They live in the dark with monsters. They are oft sleepless, bloodied, and thankless. Few have the strength to live as a monster without becoming one. Few love enough to give themselves to the dark to bless those in the light. But if the few do not stand, then the light will fade, and they will all die in the dark together.The few go by a lantern in the dark. They cannot wait for the morning, but must walk by its promise in a reflection. Eyes turned upward and gazing out of the sea of black, they await.To chase the moonrise.Are you one of the few?