The history of Channelers

Oh i imagine there are different ways they each gained the power to channel with. Some might have had it from birth, others might have gained them from a crystal shard and others might have stumbled upon ancient texts telling them how to. And i am sure there are many others as well, though i am not sure how this will play into the rpg and strategy elements, i mean in what way is it ? Though i suppose that the ways they gained them could determine certain stats, for example one who stumbled upon a shard and gained his powers from it might have more power or essence compared to one who read his way to power ,on the other hand he might be smarter and have more powers and be a better administrator and the one who had it from birth might have a third advantage and so on.

I believe that like most spellcasters, channelers are just youths who find that they have a very rare talent, the ability to shape the world around them with something called "magic", and then spend the rest of their lives practicing this new skill. Maybe in academies of magic or a personal trainer or master who teaches them "the ways of the Magic"

Personally I would say up until the cataclysm that the world was probably filled with channelers who made the world a better place, and there was a time of great learning and advancement under a so called Channeler Council. However, as the power of the channelers grew and the people became dependent on them to live, many of the channelers started to disagree with how the world should be shaped. A specific group of channelers believed that the world should be controlled, and the citizens minds enslaved by magic to keep corruption and crime down. They also believed in the study of necromancy and other forms of magic deemed "forbidden" by the Council of Channelers. In fact, this extraneous group proposed this to the council on several occasions, and each time their ideas of the world got darker. For fear that this group would cause too much dissention, The Elders of the Channeler Council decided to banish this faction from the Council telling the people that they had been "possesed by evil forces and demonic spirits" This group of channelers became known to the world as "The Fallen"

The Fallen were stripped of their magical essence and sent into the desert to reinvigorate their sense of the world, and to find "redemtion." However, the Fallen sought not redemption but revenge... They spent years in the desert, struggling to find the essence they had lost. They found that they could feed off the life essence from the creatures that lived in the desert. After many decades the Fallen found themselves back at their former glory, and with their essence they raised an army of sand elementals from the desert. At last the time for their revenge had come, and they waged war with their former people. 

Many innocents died in this so called "Elemental War", stripped of their life essence to feed the Fallen. Still other humans were subjugated and fed essence to make them stronger. They were stripped of their souls and and forced to fight as fodder in the Fallen's growing army. Soon, The Channeler Council became aware that their border cities were being attacked, and all of them rode out to fight what they thought to be an easy battle. However, what they found was that the Fallen's doctrines and beliefs had actually allowed them to become stronger than any channlers had ever been before... Fortunately, the Council still significantly outnumbered the Fallen channelers and while the war raged on for many many years, victory seemed just around the corner. The Fallen, sensing their defeated to be inevitable, sought to get the last laugh... They pooled all of their essence together and unleashed it upon the land. This act would one day, after many millenia, become known as "The Cataclysm."

Now, in present day, small pockets of humanity that somehow miraculously survived the Cataclysm find themselves still struggling to live off of a land that is utterly destroyed... All have forgotten the "Golden Age of the Channelers" and not one could recite to you how the world came to be as it is, other than to say that,"the gods have forsaken humanity." And while magic, for the time being, has all been forgotten, the time will come to pass when once again the world will see the channelers rise again. The philosophers all say you must learn from history, otherwise you are doomed to repeat it... But what happens if you dont know that history even existed?

 wow that was long but fun

And rather in contradiction to what has already been mentioned actually As what caused the cataclysm where some sort of godlike entetities and the fallen where the creations of one of the sides in the war.

So is there a small hope that at least one faction from the fallen won't totally obey to their creators?

Do you know where you read this?  I seem to recall that, too, but I can't remember where.

RisingLegend-  What you described reminded me quite a bit of some of the background stories to Heroes of Might and Magic 5, although spread among a variety of factions.

@Vieuxchat: Well i think the creators are pretty dead or sleeping in some way.. Although they could make for fun expansion content, at most i think one faction of fallen would still try to follow their creator's last orders, but that is it.

@Lord Reliant: It's mentioned in the tiny lore section there is under the cataclysm and under the fallen.

And i do believe that would be the background story of the Silver cities it reminds you off, with the fallen taking the role of the necromancers to a certain part.

the History Channel today; History of the Channelers.

I'm sorry, but I really have no idea where the channelers come from. My assumption is simply that the weave of magic is coming together again. I remember reading that magic itself was somehow crystallized and shattered by the war & the cataclysm. The ability to inherently channel magic, such as the Channelers do, may have been "commonplace" before - but as the magic was crystallized, it stopped flowing through the world.

As "the weave" or natural magic is recouperating, along with the world, it's to be expected that channelers will come with it, as magic is a part of life - even if channelers will remain extremely rare for possibly eons to come (The fact that 12 of them come about at almost the exact same time is just a game mechanic, and there shouldn't be too much stock put into that, and if you do, think of it as a magic solar flare, or go for "A wizard did it").

The closest I can find is from https://www.elementalgame.com/cataclysm.asp, and that still doesn't mention that the Fallen were one of their creations (but it does confirm that "godlike" or "titanic" powers/entities were the cause of the magical apocalypse/cataclysm).

I understand this, but what is a "god" or a "titan", Imperial? Other than something or someone that seems indestructable compared to anything else in the known world? And the human fallen could just be followers (or more likely the offspring of those that were imbued by the ancient channelers to be stronger- this is my opinion of what i think would be cool) of the ancient channelers, just to say.

And if that much of humanity was destroyed, and nothing was left but a tale, the chance that these "powerful beings" would soon be translated as "gods" over time is not impossible to believe at all

Of course I have no clue what the truth is, I was merely trying to create a story based on what I currently knew, just trying to give what it could be, not what it is because unfortunately none of us know that yet! Except maybe for Frogboy    but im sure even he will change and add onto everything he has thought of by the end.

@luckmann

When the powers strove for dominance before the cataclysm, some felt that men were too random and too unpredictable to be of use to them. Some of these powers selected men of cunning, brutality and might. They created an “improved” or “idealized” version of men that came to be known as the Fallen.

And there you have it, the "powers" who ever they were, created the fallen as more dependable troops.

@Risinglegend:

They were not humans or anything like that, and therefore not really channellers as we would know them, and titans usually means something really really big

And again, just read what i quoted, the fallen were specifically selected humans who were then changed into the fallen.

There is nothing wrong in speculating and coming up with ideas.. but contradicting the lore isn't really the way to go Besides i feel there is much more possiblity in this. I mean if the "Powers" were some higher entities, it allows for so much more than if they were just humans of some sort.

Plus it would allow for some interesting expansions where some who survived the cataclysm, but merely hibernated returns from their slumber, ready to rule the world, and seeing what is already there, sets themselves up as gods.

You're of course entirely right. I just never read it that way. I don't know how I read it. I can't explain it. I feel like a complete retard now, ignore my musings. I can't believe I somehow missed that, after reading it so many times.

I wouldn't be suprised in the least if they were humans themselves. Channelers, although in an era where magic flowed much more freely, and the war was, in the end, a war to control magic itself.

Ignore this, I accidently made a double post. My bad, my bad. I'm sorry.
Nothing to see here.

Perhaps titan could be used in some way, but it implies a largeness of some sort ! In power or otherwise. Also if you read the bit of about the fallen again, i rather get the impression that the "powers" are something quite different than humans.. Plus they would be more interesting than if they were powerful humans..

And yeah, when someone says "Titans" to me, the first thing that comes to my mind isn't physical "largeness" but rather prowess or power. While I wouldn't mind a "return" of said beings at some point, I do hope so very much that they don't just rehash GalCiv's story and make it some kind of "return of the Gods", but rather make them wholly "normal", affected by the cataclysm just as much as the next guy (Fallen, Humans, etc).

I think it would be cool to see a return of... well whatever these "powers" are, but yes I have to agree with Luckmann in saying that it sounds oddly similar to GalCiv 2 and while it was a great game, I think that so much more can be done than re-using old story elements

Considering i don't know of Gal Civ 2 i can't really say i have experience with that And i'd still say i would prefer something more than just "humans with powers" to be what said of the cataclysm..

Besides who said it had to be gods ? They could present themselves as gods, but they could be many other things..

That's exactly what the DreadLords did lol they were just supreme beings that came back from a pocket universe that they had accidently trapped themselves in like thousands of years prior. And they came back and started kicking some major butt lol You should play GalCiv 2, I think you'd love it! If you are into space and TBS games of course. It really is possibly the greatest game i have ever played I mean with SD updates and everything is def the most well supported game!