Hey everyone! Let me present to you the Ancient Ruin of the First Folk, the second map for the Ancient Ruins theme.
Old ruins dot the landscape of Wordal, from deserts, to mountains and deep forests. They all seem to be part of a long forgotten civilization. All through the continent are ruins of old structures that were ancient, even in the Age of Dwarves. The ruins are made of a hard rock, exclusively found in these ruins.
Of the First Folk and the Physical Form of the Gods
A scientific book, written by Hadricis Felorus
It is with great humility and no small measure of awe that I present to you the findings of my life's work, the fruits of many years spent in the pursuit of knowledge that lies hidden within the earth. All across the land, in regions both familiar and forgotten, we have uncovered these enigmatic structures—foreign, vast, and unsettlingly incomplete. They are not like the buildings of our time, nor like those of any people known to our histories. I have traversed the breadth of the kingdom, visiting countless ruins, but not once have I been able to discern their original purpose. Each site, though in varying degrees of decay, possesses a strange and almost oppressive grandeur. The foundations and lower floors, where they still stand, reveal the shadow of something immense—something that once soared into the heavens but now lies broken, its grandeur eroded by time and neglect.
These ruins, while resembling the grand palaces and towering temples of our great capitals, bear none of the architectural hallmarks of any civilization I know. There is no resemblance to the elegant arches of the elven halls or the robust stonework of the dwarven fortresses. Even the ancient human citadels seem crude in comparison. And yet, a recurring feature in nearly all these sites is the pattern of chambers—rooms connected by long, straight hallways, which suggest a logic to their design. The repetition of circular walls, unbroken save for the straight, load-bearing supports, tells us that these structures were not built for whimsy, nor for ornamentation. They served some unknown, though no doubt important, purpose. But what that purpose was, I cannot say.
The shapes of these structures are perplexing. They are often too large to be mere dwellings, yet too sparse to suggest the grandeur of the temples we revere. I have pondered the possibility that they might have been residences, for the First Folk, as we have come to call them, must have had a place to dwell, as we do. But the scale and the oddity of their forms confound such assumptions. They are vast, yes, but also peculiar—towering in ways that our eyes are not trained to understand, with curves and angles that defy any art or science I have encountered. Some of the circular walls appear as if they might have been meant to embrace some towering figure or perhaps serve as enclosures for something… something beyond our comprehension.
As for the people who built these strange and silent structures, the First Folk, there is little evidence to speak of them, except for their work. The remains we have discovered suggest beings of great stature, though not quite as our own kind. The bodies we have found, scattered in the deep reaches of these ruins, are eerily absent of the finer details we would expect of any known people. They are not humanoid in the way we understand it, but vaguely so. Tall, yes, but far too tall, with limbs that stretch at odd angles, as if the proportions of their bodies were once otherworldly, now warped by the passing of millennia. And yet… I cannot rid myself of the feeling that these beings were not as strange to the world as we are, that they had a place here long before our ancestors trod the earth.
From these scattered remains, one might conclude that the First Folk were, indeed, humanoid—though perhaps in a form that now eludes us. They required corridors, doorways, and rooms, things which suggest not only a body of considerable size, but also an intelligence. But these findings give rise to further questions that I have been unable to answer. What manner of creature were they? What purpose did these structures serve? And why did they leave no other trace of their existence, save for these massive, decaying walls? Were they driven away by some catastrophe? Or were they themselves victims of something far more inscrutable?
The most unsettling conclusion, however, lies in the nature of the Gods themselves. For if we are to believe that these First Folk were indeed the creators of our world, as some have claimed—then we must also entertain the thought that the Gods themselves, those lofty beings we revere and fear, might also share this strange and towering form. Their physicality, it would seem, is as unknowable and as vast as the structures they left behind. The Gods, like the First Folk, may have been of a size beyond comprehension, their forms too immense to fit within the confines of any world we know.
What I have found is both wondrous and terrifying in equal measure. For to contemplate the nature of these ancient beings is to acknowledge the truth—that we, the sons and daughters of this earth, may not be the first to walk upon it. There was something here before us, something powerful, and I fear that as we uncover more of these ruins, we may find ourselves facing not just the lost remnants of a civilization, but something far older—and far more dangerous—than we have ever dared to imagine.
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