Legend tells of a time when the world was united in peace and prosperity.  Humankind filled all of the continents of the planet.  Marvels and wonders beyond description filled the globe, enabling humankind to travel across continents in a moment, fly through the air and drop to the deepest depths of the oceans to cities of unparalleled glory.  The universe seemed on the brink of revealing all of its secrets as humankind made contact with their kin in the spirit realm.  The greatest minds of the ages had conquered the plagues and illnesses of the world and extended the lifespan of humankind to hundreds of years.

At the peak of this utopian civilization’s progress, a human called Jerard challenged the current system of governing.  Although humankind had progressed technologically, the majority of them were still a barbaric race, with appetites that led to crimes such as rape, theft and murder.  Jerard argued that society needed a system of security that would police the cities and prevent criminals from committing the crime before it happened, thus saving the victim, and the would-be criminal, from a life of regret.  Jerard suggested that with the newfound contact with the spirit realm, some of the intelligences that had not progressed enough to be incarnated in a human body, but that could possess them for a short time, be set up as a police force to intervene whenever a crime was attempted.  After the enforcers apprehended the would-be criminal from their attempted crime, they would release them with no harm to either party.

The great cities of the world were very opposed to this idea, arguing that it undermined an individual’s freedom on a fundamental level.  Jerard maintained that the freedom to rape and commit murder were not freedoms that should be protected.  In a demonstration to prove his point, Jerard founded a city that he called Salem.  Many people that had been previous victims of crime moved there to show their support for the new policing system.  Jerard made an accord with the hosts of spiritual intelligences, offering them the ability to inhabit human bodies for a short time in exchange for their policing services.  Several decades of crime-free peace ensued in the city of Salem and many of the great cities began to warm to the idea. 

It was almost four decades later that the first reports of rape and murder began circulating throughout the cities closest to Salem.  After further investigation, they discovered that the rapes were a product of men possessed by spiritual intelligences who had longed to feel all of the pleasures of the flesh.  The great cities of the world unanimously demanded that Jerard disband the guardians of Salem.  Jerard insisted that these were isolated incidents and that they could be weeded out.

One of the world leaders, Terrance, insisted that Salem disband, or the great cities would have to remove the spiritual intelligence’s ability to inhabit humans, which would set them far back on their spiritual journey.  Jerard refused.  Instead, he mobilized an army of elementals, who wreaked havoc on the environment.  His Guardians possessed the leaders of the great cities, creating more confusion as people began fearing their own neighbors.  The line between enemy and ally blurred.  In an attempt to staunch the damage, Terrance formed the Derinian Order.  Their purpose was to remove the ability of spiritual intelligences to inhabit human hosts.

The war grew bitter as both sides used weapons of greater destruction and devastation against each other.  In a strike against all of the elemental intelligences, or Gorinthians as they came to be called, Terrance and the Derinian Order attempted to burn off the tentacle-like appendages that allowed the Gorinthians to possess a human.  Jerard interrupted their attempt and the Gorinthians were maimed so that when they possessed a human host, they expelled the former spirit entirely.  In a final desperate attempt to end the avalanche of spiritual entities that were overwhelming them, the Derinian Order erected focus points in geometric positions throughout the planet, uniting the amount of power that could be harnessed from the planet’s spirit.  Using this tremendous power, they attempted to make a shield that would restrict the planet’s spirit to below the surface by several miles.  Without the fuel of the planet’s spirit, the spiritual entities lacked the power to possess human hosts.

The shield around the planet not only restricted the planet’s spirit from fueling the elemental entities, but from plant life and water as well.  The planet slowly began to die.  The power of the planet’s spirit was too strong to remain bound by the shield that the Derinian Order had erected.  It soon ruptured in several areas around the world, but with much greater force than it had formerly radiated.  As the rest of the planet died, the remaining humans migrated to the hotspots across the planet.

Jerard had disappeared after a confrontation with Terrance, and most people assumed that he was dead.  In the aftermath that had ended civilization, Terrance and the Derinian Order set about trying to organize the hotspots so that the survivors would all fit.  Most of the technology that society had used was no longer functional without access to the planet’s spirit.  People were forced to walk or ride animals to travel.  Billions of people died as the space within the hotspots filled up.  In one of the hotspots, the pressure of the planet’s spirit was so strong that the people began to mutate slightly, changing into a different species.  Other animals and plant life underwent the same metamorphosis, creating entirely new sets of species.

After a couple hundred years, some of the larger hotspots began to expand as the shield around the planet weakened.  Civilization slowly began to build itself again.  The smaller hotspots were slower to grow, but they expended a much greater energy in their radius.  After two thousand years, most of the humans that had been separated to different hotspots began making contact with each other as the planet began to sustain life once again.  The stronger hotspots caused humans to mutate.  Humans no longer looked upon their mutated cousins as kin, but a different race entirely: the Zerans.  Their bone structure had changed to cartilage, and their pupils had become slit-like, rather than round.  They had a strangely fluid gait as they walked.  The mutation had also affected their psychological structure, creating a very passive and non-aggressive attitude.  They continued to live for hundreds of years, while the humans began reverting to a century-long lifespan.

The civilizations of the growing world had no history of their former glory, just legends and stories that were not really believed.  The world’s inhabitants had completely forgotten the host of elementals and Gorinthians.