History of Aeternum: The World Before the Schism

Every war has a before. Before the first fang was bared, before the first howl split a moonlit sky, before the words vampire and werewolf even existed — Aeternum was something else entirely. Understanding that vanished world is not merely an exercise in nostalgia. It is the key to understanding why the eternal war cannot end, why the Blood Moon Crystal holds such terrible power, and why both factions simultaneously crave and fear what lies beneath the ruins of the Primordi Vault.

This article covers the deepest layers of Aeternum's official lore: the Pre-Schism Age, the fall of the Primordi, the First Sundering, and the chaotic centuries that gave birth to the two great bloodlines. If you have not yet read the World of Aeternum overview, that article provides a solid foundation for what follows here.

The Age of the Primordi (circa -3000 to -1 BS)

Scholars within Aeternum measure history in two eras: Before the Schism (BS) and After the Schism (AS). The Schism itself — the cataclysmic event that split the Primordi civilisation into the ancestral lines of vampires and werewolves — is Year Zero. Everything before it belongs to the Age of the Primordi.

The Primordi were not gods, but they were as close to gods as mortals ever come. Standing between two and three metres tall, silver-skinned, with eyes that could shift from pitch-black to blazing gold depending on their emotional state, they were biologically capable of drawing ambient energy from both sunlight and moonlight simultaneously. This dual attunement made them unique in the known cosmos — no creature before or since has been documented with this ability.

Their civilisation was centred on three great city-complexes, all of which are now either buried, submerged, or transmuted into the current regions of Aeternum:

• Vel'Athos — the City of Knowing, built at the convergence of twelve ley lines. Its ruins lie beneath the current Crimson Wastes region, accessible only through Dungeon D9.
• Kheth'Moran — the City of Making, where every known Primordi artifice and the first prototypes of the Blood Moon Crystal were engineered. Today this site is the Shattered Forge dungeon (D7).
• Uluth-Sha — the City of Being, the philosophical and spiritual heart of their culture. No ruins have been found. Several scholars believe Uluth-Sha was the first thing to be destroyed in the Schism.

The Primordi Sciences: Celestial Engineering

What the Primordi called Celestial Engineering would be considered impossible magic by contemporary Aeternum standards. In truth, it was applied physics — the manipulation of what they called veth-energies, the invisible tidal flows of power that emanate from all celestial bodies and pass through the living world constantly.

Their greatest achievement — and their downfall — was the development of crystalline veth-capacitors: artificial structures capable of storing concentrated celestial energy and releasing it in controlled bursts. The original Blood Moon Crystal was not born inside the moon Vel'korah. It was manufactured in Kheth'Moran over the course of 200 years, then launched into orbit to charge within Vel'korah's core, which was naturally rich in raw veth-crystal substrate. The plan was to retrieve a fully charged crystal after one century and use its stored energy to power Vel'Athos indefinitely.

The plan succeeded, then failed catastrophically.

"The Crystal returned not as a tool but as a verdict. It had been inside the moon long enough to absorb its will, if a moon can be said to have a will. What came back was no longer ours."
— Fragment from the Kheth'Moran Technical Ledger, recovered from Dungeon D7

The First Sundering (Year 0 BS)

When the retrieval team attempted to re-anchor the Crystal in Vel'Athos, it discharged without warning. The explosion — later called the First Sundering — was not physical in the conventional sense. It was an energetic pulse that rewrote biology rather than destroying structures.

Every Primordi within a certain radius of the Crystal at the moment of discharge was changed. But not all in the same way. The pulse split along two resonance frequencies — solar and lunar — and the Primordi's individual attunement bias determined which frequency they absorbed more fully.

Those who absorbed primarily solar energy gained extraordinary regenerative abilities, heightened cognitive speed, and a biological compulsion to consume dense organic matter — specifically, the veth-rich blood of living creatures. Their skin became hypersensitive to raw sunlight, which now read as an overload rather than a nutrient. They became the first vampires.

Those who absorbed primarily lunar energy gained immense physical power, accelerated healing tied to lunar cycles, and the capacity for veth-shift — a full-body transformation triggered by concentrated moonlight exposure. Their cognition restructured around instinct and pack cohesion rather than individual analytical thought. They became the first werewolves.

The handful of Primordi who were not in range of the initial pulse fled. Most attempted to restore the old order. None succeeded. Within a generation, the unchanged Primordi were absorbed into one bloodline or the other through intermarriage, violence, or conversion rituals. By approximately 80 AS, the Primordi as a distinct species were extinct.

Aeternum's Timeline: Key Events

Why the Schism Can Never Be Undone

The most persistent question among Aeternum's scholars — and among players who have read this far — is: could the two bloodlines ever be reunified? Could someone, theoretically, reverse the First Sundering?

The in-game answer is: no, and the attempt would be catastrophic. The biological restructuring was not a surface-level change. Both bloodlines now have fundamentally different metabolic pathways, neural architectures, and veth-attunement profiles. A forced reunification would require a second Sundering of equal or greater magnitude — which would produce a second Schism rather than a healing.

There is, however, one recorded attempt. In approximately 650 AS, a rogue Primordi scholar named Seveth Aulthar — claiming descent from the unchanged Primordi — constructed a device called the Mirror Crystal, a crude replica of the Blood Moon Crystal designed to emit a balancing pulse rather than a splitting one. The device detonated prematurely during a test activation. The location of the explosion is now known as the Shattered Flats — a location accessible in Dungeon D6 — and nothing grows there to this day.

The Pre-Schism Heritage in Modern Aeternum

Despite the passage of a thousand years, Primordi influence is everywhere in modern Aeternum if you know where to look:

• Architecture: The iron-and-obsidian construction style used in both the Crimson Empire's fortresses and the Pack Clans' great lodges derives directly from Primordi engineering manuals recovered after the Schism.
• Language: Several root words in both faction dialects trace back to Primordi linguistic roots. The word veth — the universal term for ambient magical energy — is Primordi in origin.
• Skills: High-tier skills in both vampire and werewolf skill trees show Primordi design fingerprints. The vampire's Void Pulse (V40) and the werewolf's Lunar Resonance (W38) are both adaptations of Primordi combat techniques documented in the Kheth'Moran Technical Ledger.
• The Crystal Shard Quests: The seven Crystal Shards scattered across Aeternum are not random artifacts. They are fragments of the original containment device that was supposed to re-anchor the Blood Moon Crystal in Vel'Athos. Each shard carries a residual Primordi attunement signature.

FAQ: Pre-Schism Lore