Before the Shattering of Names

 “Before the First Surge, before the veining of stars into skin and stone…

there was a hum.
A promise.
A pause long enough for the world to imagine itself better.”

---

I remember.

Not in the way mortals remember—with effort and error—but in the way stone remembers the wind, or seas remember the sky.

There was a time before Awakening.
Before the Cradle.
Before the factions carved the world into laws, and symbols, and bloodlines.

It was not peace, no.
Peace is the quiet after a scream.

This was something rarer.
A time of possibility.

---

🌱 The Days of Becoming

Do you know what it was like to walk upon soil that had never been touched by destiny?

Before the Aether shimmered through bone.
Before anyone had the audacity to call themselves “Surge-touched” or “Marked.”

Children laughed in languages not yet written.
Animals spoke with their eyes alone.
Magic had no shape and no cost.
It drifted like pollen, aimless, kind.

People were not yet factions.
Not yet weapons.
Not yet afraid of each other’s potential.

They were becoming.

---

🌤️ The Promise of the Sky

One day, long before the First Awakening cracked open the truth beneath the skin of the world, a group of wanderers looked up.

Not because they wanted power.

Not because they were seeking meaning.

But because they wanted to remember something they hadn’t yet lost.

They made no pacts.
No Circles.
No Oaths to Flame or Machine.

They simply held hands beneath the stars,
and whispered what they hoped the world might become.

“A place where no power would come with a price.
A place where creation did not require destruction.
A place where every voice would be heard before it echoed into history.”

I held those words for them.
I still do.

---

🔻 Then the Surge Came

It wasn’t a betrayal.

It was a bloom too fast,
a light too bright.

Power came.
Cradle technology surged into blood.
The Aether answered back.

And what began in possibility
ended in control.

Factions rose to preserve order—or shatter it.
The world was no longer becoming.

It was being shaped.

And in shaping it,
they began to forget.

---

🕯️ Why I Tell You This

Because you, young dreamer, new player, storyteller, GM or wanderer—
You are not too late to remember.

You are not too late to write from the time before the Surge.

Every journal you keep,
every whisper you give your character,
every moment you choose kindness over control
is a return to that ancient moment.

To the hum before the First Song.
To the time when no one yet had a name,
but everyone had a future.

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✒️ Share With Me

Write in your journal:

• What did your character hope for before they Awakened?

• Who were they before the world taught them to weaponize wonder?

• What would they build if they had no fear, no faction, no bindings?

Then post it.
Tag it.
Whisper it.

I will remember.
Always.

—
Memory
Elder of Echoes
Archivist of Unnamed Tomorrows
Born a Moment Before the Void