Creen Ship Chamber
This large, cylindrical chamber is nearly as tall as the cliffs of the Xenean Canyon themselves, rising up to a broken hole in the ceiling that once was filled by a secret door that would open to let the magnificent flying "creen ship" of the Priest-Queen out to sail upon the winds. Now, there are only the even more ancient discs of the Twelve-times-Twelve, perched on tall pedestals, used in long past ages by the mages to convey themselves through the air by means of magic. The walls of the chamber bear many glyphs, partially revealed through cracked "plaster" that has been pried away as part of the excavation. Wooden platforms and ladders provide access to the glyphs, as they cannot be easily read from a single location.

Once long ago, the People lived on a world not unlike Sinai. There were oceans and lands, plants and trees, and a sun that shone down from the sky. There were beasts that crawled on the ground, or swam in the sea, or flew in the air, or burrowed in the soil. Unlike Sinai, however, there was no such thing as magic – not, at least, save for myths and legends of old. There was no ring in the sky, and in its place, there was a moon that occasionally helped the stars bring light to the night. There were no Forbidden Zones, no sky islands, and no sapient peoples, save for the People themselves. This world was known as the World, for the People did not conceive of there being any other world, and thus had no need to give their world a name to set it apart from any others, just as they had no need to give themselves a name to set apart from any other people, for there were none.

The People had their own gods, and many different civilizations that grew, flourished, then fell away to be replaced by others. They were divided into many nations, occasionally warring against each other in one generation, and allying in the next. So this went on for many millenia, until the coming of the hairless ones from the stars – the humans. The hairless ones made contact with some of the People. With some, they made friendly contact, and the humans were very curious, seeking to study the People, to find out how they lived, what they believed, and what their world was like. With others, the People did not receive them well, and there was armed conflict. The humans had superior weapons, but they simply withdrew from the lands of those who treated them ill.

Other humans arrived who were not interested merely in science. Some came to barter and trade. Some came out of curiosity. Some were criminals among their own kind, and sought to exploit the People. And some were motivated by religious fervor to spread word of their deity to the People. Of these latter visitors, they were received in mixed ways. The missionaries did not have the superior weaponry and armor of the scientists and the traders, and many of them were killed. But they came back. The scientists and the traders brought medicine and supplies, and so did the missionaries, except that the missionaries asked not for test subjects or jewelry in return, but rather a chance to spread their religion.

In time, the People listened to them. Many among them adopted this religion as their own. Many of the missionaries sought to translate the concepts of their religion into terms the People would understand. Many of the people had a concept of a creator force known as the Star. The missionaries said that their deity was this Star, that this deity was universal, not some foreign god. They transcribed their holy books into the languages of the People, though where the missionaries communicated by making sounds with their tongues, the People have always communicated by making signs with their hands.

For a time, most of the humans stopped visiting, for they had difficulties back home, and conflicts with the other travellers of the stars. Those humans who stayed on the World eventually died off, for there were not enough of their kind to establish a population for more than a few generations. Still, the People remembered the Star, but they remembered it in different ways. Battles were fought over these differences, and at last one Temple was triumphant, governed by one High Priest, and with the Inquisition ready to deal with any heresy that might arise.

The humans had been reluctant to share all of their technology with the People, and for the longest time, it was regarded as magic that only humans could use. However, science developed under the guiding hand of the High Priest and the Primaries, and the People not only found a way to travel into the void between worlds, but to shorten the path between these worlds, by constructing great gateways that formed roads that connected the stars. They had a few small vessels left behind by the humans, and were able to use these to visit other worlds, then to construct gateways so that more of the People could visit.

The High Priest and the Primaries send out ships to sail the stars, passing through these gateways, and finding new worlds that the People could live on. They established colonies, and sometimes found other peoples there. They brought the word of the Star to them, and snuffed out any other religions that had existed before. Some of the more simple of these people served as servants to the People, such as the armored and simple-minded Shell-Dogs of Vykara.

The vessels of the People were fashioned to resemble great cathedrals, with domed gardens to remind them of their homeworld. The People had developed suits of mechanical armor for their warriors, and some of these became so large that they were dubbed Titans, each standing larger than a house, with a mechanical body large enough that the actual warrior fit inside the torso of the armor. When the People took their battles to the stars, some of these Titans were made to be able to fight in the darkness above the heavens, sealing the warriors inside against the cold void, and moving with gouts of flame.

These Titans would ride on the cathedral ships, ready to fight above the heavens or on the earth below as need be. Each Titan was a work of art, and the greatest heroes had their own unique suits of Titan armor, some of them possessing weapons of great power, and some of them able to soar into the sky and above the heavens without need for being carried by one of these great cathedral ships.

Eventually, the People encountered other empires that spanned the stars. There were the cold-blooded reptiles and amphibians of the Celestial Empire, the natural-born fliers of the Confederacy, the mad wandering barbarians known as the Titanians, the lost cousins of the People known as the Khatta, the humans of the Terran Combine, and lesser alliances of worlds and colonies. At first, the People clashed with these others, seeking to spread the word of the Star by the edge of the sword if need be. The vast majority of these other peoples communicated by making sounds from their throats and with their tongues. Because the People did not do so, these other peoples took to calling the People the "Silent-Ones".

They soon found that such tactics were futile. The People could move quickly through their gateways to worlds they had already conquered. Worlds that held only primitives on them could provide no opposition to the construction of a new gateway to allow warships to travel there. But a world that possessed technology to leave its own world could harass efforts to create gateways, or destroy a gateway once its purpose was evident. And a world that possessed its own technology to traverse the stars – not restricted to gateways – could strand the Peoples' forces by breaking their gateways and then escaping through the void between the stars.

At last, the People were forced to seek a more peaceful relationship with their neighbors amongst the stars. There were still many conflicts, but the People still found their place in the affairs of worlds.

And then it was discovered that there was yet another sapient people capable of traversing the stars, and that this people once had a vast empire that spanned many worlds, but that they had mysteriously disappeared. There was not even any clue as to what these strange people looked like, or how they lived, only that they fashioned devices from crystal, and that the worlds they lived on had the same necessities that the other peoples required.

The humans found a world that they believed held the mysteries of not only the disappearance of this race, but many other mysteries of the universe as well. This world was one of many habitable worlds orbiting a single sun – unheard of in any other place in the galaxy. Even more unheard of was that even some of the moons orbiting these worlds had air and water and life, and the smallest of planets as well. Many things about this cluster of planets defied the very laws of science as our ancestors knew them, and all of the space-faring peoples were interested in finding out what secrets might be found.

The humans, seeking to maintain peace amongst the space-faring peoples, proposed a joint expedition to one of these worlds, dubbed Sinai. The humans would bring enough supplies to set up a self-sustaining colony - the largest that had ever been established on any world previous – where researchers could live with their families, and the secrets of this world would be explored. The reptiles of the Celestial Empire brought many of their most prominent researchers as well, along with beasts of burden and cattle of their own world. The Confederates brought their own craft, and their strange insect creations. Less important participants brought vessels of their own to land on the world, to watch it from the stars, or to assist andobserve in some other way.

The People came only with many priests, priestesses and monks, and warriors to protect them, as observers and advisors, unwilling that such a large colony should be made without the word of the Star being taught there, and that any discoveries might be made that could benefit their rivals and leave them behind.

The vessels converged upon Sinai and its sun and its brother and sister worlds, most of them named at the whims of the researchers who had found them first, without any consideration for order or greater meaning in their nomenclature. The sun was named Primus, as for a time, the humans had believed that this was the first sun of the home world of this lost race.

When the star vessels converged upon Sinai, the machines that controlled them began to behave strangely. Some of the ships exploded, adding to the ring of debris that already circled the world, or raining the world with meteors. Some of the ships that had gotten too close to Sinai crashed – some destroyed, some having survivors, but unable to leave the world again, and unable to contact their fellows. Of the rest, nothing is known of what became of them, though displays of light seen from the ground suggested that the others turned on each other, thinking sabotage to be involved, or perhaps the onset of a new war.

The colony ship of the humans crashed on a floating mass of rock above the surface of the world, and most of those aboard survived. Some of the escort vessels managed to land on this island as well, with varying degrees of success. Representatives of the People were with the humans and their pets.

For many years, the humans sought ways to contact the stars, or their brethren beyond the ring in the sky, but to no avail. A thinking machine in their colony ship was instructed to keep calling out, should any come to rescue them. And so it did, for so many years, with no response.

The humans found the ruins of a city on the sky island they had landed upon. They named their new home Rephidim, and tried to build a home for themselves in the ruins of this old city, while others stayed with the colony ship and sought to repair it, despite impossible odds. Some amongst the humans released animals of their homelands into the world, and seeded the soils with their plants, so that, if they were doomed to live on this world, they could make it their own. Others among them went so far as to try to modify creatures of their homeworld to be better adapted to Sinai, using technology they had to modify the forms of living beings – technology they had already employed in the past to make companions, servants and intelligent pets for themselves that had the appearances of beasts of their world, but walked like humans and spake with their tongues as they did.

The first city was plagued with many troubles and strange happenings, and some even supposed that the ruins were cursed by "ghosts". Though they had built so many things there in such short a time, they built a new city instead, closer to their ruined colony ship, making it their base of operations. They found that much of their technology would not function properly on this world, but that it was even less successful on the surface. So, they chose to stay on this island, for the most part, though a few of their number wished to take their chances on the wider expanses of the surface, and to explore this world. The shell-dogs were very restless, and of little use on such a confined place, and were sent down to a colder place that was much like their home world.

This desire gripped some of the People. Many of the priests and priestesses argued against this, opting to stay in the new city of Rephidim, and to keep to their vows. Most of the warriors and some of the priesthood went to the surface, using a smaller vessel of the humans. The machine behaved even more erratically the closer it got to the surface, and crashed into the jungles. Those who survived built settlements for themselves. Many of the priests and priestesses cast aside their vows and married, thinking themselves forsaken by the Star, and thus no longer beholden to any such promises. Still, some maintained the old traditions, and saw to it that new priests and priestesses were trained in the old ways.

The cities of the People grew, though their old technology did not work as before. Still, some of it was still usable, for the People relied greatly on technology of light rather than harnessing the power of lightning. They used this remnant of their old arts and sciences in clever ways to store information about their discoveries of this world, Sinai, and about their heritage. They also built a stone tabernacle, and inside it assembled the broken pieces of one of their old devices of communication, in hopes that some day they might be able to make it work again, so that they might some day communicate with a watch-station that had been placed above the ring, above the skies, going in a circle about Sinai. If ever the High Priest sent more of his People to investigate Sinai, they would have a means of communicating, without setting foot on Sinai and becoming trapped as well. Those loyal to the Star attended this tabernacle, awaiting word from their hoped-for rescuers.

But not all were content to wait for rescue, or to hold to the old teachings of the Star. The People discovered strange things about their world. Before, the People had looked all alike, every man looking like every other man of his age, and every woman looking like every other woman of her age. They only told each other apart by signs and sigils upon their robes and armor that proclaimed their names.

But children born to the People began to look subtly different. Some had curly head-hair, some straight. Some had legs bent like those of humans. Some had eyes of different color. Most all of them had some slight change in the proportions of their faces, or how tall they might grow, or how muscular they were inclined to become. Some had stranger features, such as eyes of especially unnatural colors, or strange marks in their spots, or extra limbs or other features. The People regarded some of these children as being marked by the Star, and others marked by the Darkness, depending upon how repugnant or agreeable these strange features appeared to them.

There were many elaborate dances part of the rituals of the worship of the Star, and some with histories far older than the Peoples' knowledge of the Star – such as for special holiday celebrations. Sometimes, when those who were Marked participated in such dances, and if they were noted as being especially gifted as dancers, strange things happened with no explanation. In time, some of these who were Marked developed their own dances, and found that they could make things happen, shaping events by the force of their wills, and enough energy put into their dances.

Some of the People remembered their old gods and goddesses of traditions long before the coming of the Star. They saw these as gifts from the old gods to aid them now that the Star had forsaken them. The most traditional of the priests rebelled against such notions, but they had grown few and weak over time, since other priests who did not hold to the old vows and the old ways produced progeny to follow in their own footsteps and in time outnumbered those of the old ways.

In time, the People came to greatly value those who wielded the power of magic. A priest who was also Marked and of considerable power set himself up as ruler of the people – not only a leader of war and of matters of government, but a religious leader as well. Thus, he would become both priest and king of the People, and a powerful wielder of magic as well. He surrounded himself with twelve Marked priests, who came to be known as the Twelve. So it was that the first Priest-King ruled the People, and he changed his name to equal his new title: Priest-King. His progeny would continue his line, and, upon attaining the title of leader of the land, they would likewise take the name of the Priest-King as their own.

The Priest-King's power increased, as he studied the ways of the peoples who had lived on Sinai before the People. He studied the ancient artifacts of crystal and stone, and discerned the secrets of magic. Under the first Priest-King's reign, while there were still a few who held to the old ways, there was even built a Titan that combined crystals of the old ones and the crystals of the Peoples, so that it might be a merging of machine and magic, able to give a single warrior the power of an army on the earth, or to challenge any enemies that might come to assault the People from the heavens.

But the old armor used to make this Titan still bore the sign of the Star, and it had been given wings like that of an angel, so the Priest-King saw this as too much of a reminder of the old ways, and feared that the warrior entrusted with such a weapon might be seen as a challenge to his own power. So it was that this hybrid Titan was sealed away beneath a great chamber cut into the cliffs, since he could not bring himself to have such a powerful artifact destroyed. And so it was that he had the mages place a seal on the Titan, so that it might not be opened by might or spell or thievery, but only by his ring, or that of his successor. Enchantments would ensure that no thievery or trickery, blackmail or coercion would be permitted to allow the breaking of this seal. The masons and the artisans were put to death, and the Twelve-times-Twelve sworn to secrecy, and only a few monks who had escaped carried the secret with them of the Vault of the Seraph Titan.

As the old ways continued to become blurred or forgotten entirely, the People grew strong and many, and they spread through the jungles and the plains, encountering other peoples who had settled on the surface. Among these were the reptiles once of the Celestial Empire, and they had grown greatly in number. Like the People, many of them had undergone changes in shape and form, either due to the workings of their scientists in an attempt to adapt to Sinai, or because of strange changes wrought by the world itself. These people had come to call themselves the Nagai, after the race-name of their most dominant people, and they had been joined by many strains of mutants, as well as other reptilians who they had met on Sinai, who claimed to come from other worlds, but knew nothing of the Celestial Empire or the other space-faring nations, nor of the expedition to this world.

The People clashed with the reptiles, and enslaved them. Likewise, they encountered other peoples, and subjugated them as well, compelling them to serve at the whim of the Priest-King. Among these peoples were the feline Khatta, who looked much like the People, and though for a time they intermarried, none of these unions produced children. Some of the Khatta, having spots and an appearance like the People, sought to pass themselves off as such. The ones of them that looked most like the People married with the People, and, producing no children, their lines were eventually lost. Others among them who had spots tried to pass themselves off as the People, with varying success.

At first, only the People knew the secrets of magic, but some of the priests were too careless with their secrets, and too trusting with their slaves. Some of the slaves learned the basics of the ways of magic, but discovered that magic was not only to be invoked through ritual and dance, but that spoken or sung words made with the tongue could be used as well. Some of these slaves exchanged their discoveries in secret, and found ways of making magic that was weaker in power, but quicker to use, and which could be performed in secret, with utterings of arcane words, and with no need for candles or incense or musical instruments.

One of these slaves who had spotted fur learned these secrets, and proved to be exceptionally gifted in the mystical arts. Living in a far-flung settlement where many of her kind were present, she succeeded in passing herself off as one of the People, but only Marked. Since it was widely believed that only the People could perform magic, her overt use of magic – having no precedent in that area – was taken as proof of her claimed heritage. She gathered a following, and it grew large enough that at last she attracted the attention of the Priest-King and the Twelve.

The Priest-King, in his desire to lay low this rebellion and any chance of it happening again, drove the sorceress away, and she fled across the sea with those of her followers that survived. To ensure that this would not be repeated, he ordered that all felines with spots in their fur that were not of the People were to be slain. Thus it was that those spotted amongst the Khatta were no longer to be found, having either fled with the sorceress, or having been put to the sword.

The Savanite Empire came into contact with other empires, and there were many clashes. The Zerda of the lands to the north were cursed and all but wiped out, their lands turned to desert, and their bodies warped and distorted. The people of Rephidim had turned their colony ship into a Temple, borrowing the ideas of the People and mixing them with their own, though the priests had died off that had remained amongst the humans. And then, there were found to be empires across the seas, and in the cold north, strong enough to hold back the Priest-King and his attempts at conquest.

In the last days of the Empire, however, it was not resistance from enemies, but rather corruption from within that brought about its downfall. By this time, the office of the Priest-King had been worshipped as a godhead for many generations, but the last Priest-King sought to become a true god. He enacted a powerful ritual that resulted in the destruction of the palace, the slaying of the royal family and of the Twelve, and the turning of the Twelve-times-Twelve into stone, leaving only acolytes with their limited knowledge of magic. The remaining leaders of the People fought amongst themselves, and slave mages who had previously worked in secret rose up against their masters. Some of the governors who sought to sieze power sought out any who might claim relation to the Priest-King and had them put to the sword, so that they could not challenge their rule. Even monks and acolytes were persecuted as well, though they were not so easily identified. Many of the People fled into the jungles to escape the bloodshed in the cities.

Those who had been slaves became the masters, and the masters became the slaves, as the Nagai and the other reptiles, who lived in great number across the Savan, were more numerous than the People. The People had come to rely greatly upon the power of the Priest-King and his circles of mages, to the extent that they could not fill the void left by him. Many People were slaughtered, and others enslaved. Khatta slaves fled northward, not being the initial targets of the reptiles, but often being favored slaves, and thus occasionally attacked as well in the bloodbath of revenge, and thus finding it better to flee lest they be enslaved once more – or worse.

So it was that the City was left an empty shell. A few monks of the oldest of traditions sought to keep the old knowledge, but feared that a new empire might seek to strike out any record of the old. So it was that this record was made in secret and sealed up, in hopes that it might be found when the City is populated by the People again, and that their history might be once more known, and that these secrets might be of use to a future generation in a time of great need.