Backstory: Part 1

Humans have been expanding across the galaxy for hundreds of thousands of years. This is because, with advanced medical treatment, the death rate is dramatically lower than the birth rate. This leaves the human race with one ever present problem, over population. After identifying a suitable relatively close planet, they must set for intergalactic travel. Even at top speeds, the closest inhabitable planet is usually tens if not hundreds of millions of years away. Due to this, the humans keep their bodies in an advanced state of cryogenics for the entire duration of the trip, leaving a completely self automated ship to do the piloting. These ships are periodically sent out, but most don't ever reach their destination. If they do reach their destination, they may find that the planet is no longer suitable for life. Still, hundreds of thousands of people choose to take the risk on a regular basis.



Our story takes place on the fifth planet that the human race successfully inhabited in this endeavor, but before we delve into life after touch down, lets talk about the state of the planet just before we arrived. When we first spotted the planet and started sending ship after ship in its direction, there were only vague signs of life, none of which seemed all that intelligent. A lot can change in 20,000,000 years though. That's how long it took for the first ship to finally reach the planet.

In this time, basic life began to flourish, especially on the surface of one particular continent. Here, life revolved around a crystalline structure that emanated some sort of healthy radiation. This is where early intelligent life began. From this point, some of the natives branched out to explore the other continents. Those that stayed on the crystal continent continued to evolve at an exponential rate, until they reached a state of near perfection. Completely reliant on the crystals, these human like people developed to the point that they no longer needed any other substance than the crystals to stay alive and heal at near instantaneous rates. Their mode of transportation became running at sonic speeds. Their language became direct thought transference from one to another. And their purpose for life became nothing more than to enjoy one another's company, playing games, and relaxing. At first glance, they look just like normal humans. On closer inspection, you will find that their eyes glow in the dark and change color depending on their mood.

Life outside the crystal continent developed at a much slower pace and, coincidentally, started to resemble that of Earthly legends.

On one continent, where the lands were flat and peaceful, the intelligent life morphed into what would be comparable to elves, dwarves, and hobbits. The wildlife looked strikingly similar to today's prairie and savanna animals but much larger. Elves and dwarves would wage war over hunting grounds. Though, even in war times, honor and respect were admirable traits on both sides. Hobbits tended gardens peacefully in remote areas.

On another continent, more dense and jungle like, the intelligent life became deeply in tune with nature, in a similar way to their crystal holding ancestors. These would be comparable to fairies, goblins, and wizards. The wildlife here was fittingly very rain forest like, with snakes, insects, and jungle cats to name a few. For the most part, things here were peaceful. The only conflicts came when the goblins would tease the wizards or when wizards would trespass on fairy land. In any case, the conflicts were short lived and quickly forgotten.

The last continent was not as forgiving. In this mountainous, rocky land, lions and bears were the least of a travelers worries. Here the dragons reigned supreme. Living in small herds, the dragons easily picked off all others, cooking them in flames. To survive these harsh environments, the intelligent life went one of two directions, becoming giant trolls impervious to fire and hard to bite or taking the literal low ground and evolving into tunneling mole people.

By the time intelligent life from other continents re-discovered the crystal continent and it's inhabitants, they had completely forgotten that this too used to be their home. Being unable to communicate with these god-like people, elves, fairies, hobbits and all others began to regard them as just that, gods. Anyone that tried to attack a god was killed very swiftly, but those that offered praise would receive parting gifts. This would come in the form of one crystal per visitor. These crystals became the new currency of the world and were used as magic enhancers at the same time.

But everything changed when the humans arrived...