"A Brief History of Altomia" by Skyler Crouse

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ALTOMIA…..

In the beginning there was the Canvas, and it was Blank. This made a lot of people very angry, but unfortunately at this point in history there were only two organic beings in the universe, and therefore not enough to form a jolly old riot about it.

These two people were named as follows: an Elfin bloke called Chupin and another Elfin bloke called Elasoth. Nobody knows how they got there; nobody even knows if they existed at all. It will remain one of those great unsolvable mysteries for which there is no evidence, but an undeniable, ugly truth, which doesn’t really make sense, but since when did anything? Apparently, neither seemed to care, and thus the rest of the world followed accordingly.

Being bored with the rather empty universe, they attempted to draw on the Canvas -

But the almighty God Pictor Caelestis would have none of that! Upon hearing their ambitions, Pictor Caelestis descended unto their realm, and thus they were bestowed with the almighty Paintbrush, an artistic instrument capable of painting life itself. And yea! The God instructed Chupin and Elasoth to design a world upon this Canvas in his name, a world of more beauty than they had ever thought conceivable. The two Elves worked for centuries, on every detail of everything, but they were not deterred; for the power of Pictor Caelestis was within them. And at last, after millennia of devotion, the world of Altomia and all its peoples were given the breath of life….

The Men, forthright, crafty and robust; Pesomels, the shape-shifting, exiled Half-Mer; Jee’suns, the humble, lizard-like beings of Neros Island; Astarongs, star-gazing, pious giants; Korsakies, the grey-haired dwellers of the frosty Hidells and the skies; Faeries, the more humanoid, proud and wiser cousins of the nymphs; Wraiths, the dark-cloaked, red-eyed mysteries who were to preside over a grand empire; Takmas, cat-like men who dwelt high up in the Krasio Mountains within their cities of gold; Shiels, the dark-skinned button nosed warriors of the Saeyal Savannah, and the Dwarves, the stumpy, short-tempered enchanters of Deaf Man Mountain.

And thus these different races were brought into Altomia, a world just fresh from creation. Chupin and Elasoth bound each to the service of Pictor Caelestis who had so graciously given them existence, and there was much rejoicing.

His work complete, Pictor Caelestis granted the Elves a gift for all their toils.

He made the Elves the greatest of all the races, and prophesied that they would have the grandest city of all time. Empires would come and go but the Elves alone would remain.

But the God forbade Chupin and Elasoth to tell any of this to their people. And at that, Pictor Caelestis left Altomia, his will done.

This was to cause a lot of problems, as you will see. Yes, the mood has suddenly been killed.

Determined to have a spot of fun in their new position of power, the two Elves descended upon their new world and decided to live amongst their people as Gods. They relayed the things Pictor Caelestis had told them about the Elfin race to secure their place as supreme rulers, and the Elves became too proud and pompous. Above all, there were quite a lot of smashing parties and the destruction of local plant-life. The powers of the Paintbrush were abused at every possible opportunity; perhaps to decimate the occasional island or draw a moustache on their least favourite slave; but the two Elves were corrupted all the same. Fun times, nonetheless.

The other races were so fed up with the Elves’ extravagance and arrogance that they were on the very edge of uniting together to send them all to Tartarus; until a little incident involving too much whisky and a physics defying game of chess made the situation even worse.

Chupin and Elasoth had an argument.

An argument over who had really created Altomia. At first it was little complaints like, ‘You didn’t help me with those fjords at all,’ or ‘I spent way more time on texturing the mountains than you did you lazy (expletive).’ And then it got a little bit worse.

By Thursday teatime each Elf had assembled eleven armies of each race outside the city of Zhirly. A huge and bloody massacre ensued. It was so big that ethereal spectators from outside Altomia queued up to watch.

Of course, afterwards there had to be the obligatory ten thousand year war between Chupin and Elasoth, without which the massive resulting religious rift would not have occurred.

And in the final battle, the bloodiest one of them all, Chupin and Elasoth finally kicked the bucket. The two Elves were cremated and had their ashes blown away in two different seas. To the relief of many, the war was over.

Now thanks to those two the entire of Altomia is divided; a bunch of people called the Chupinites think it was Chupin who did all the work, and the Sothrins think it was Elasoth who was the mastermind of it all. They still want to kill each other. Hooray.

Sickened by what his servants had done, Pictor Caelestis shed a tear which flooded Altomia over, in the hope that it would reform. Unfortunately, memories of the conflict clung on, despite everyone being a bit damp. Pictor Caelestis removed the grand destiny he had planned for the Elves in his prophecy, but he told no-one. He vowed never to return to Altomia again, and has so far kept to his word.

What the God didn’t count on was that when he cried, he accidentally dropped another Paintbrush upon the world, for the original one had been lost in the flood.

…And so one day, an Annoying Little Brown Haired Girl was strolling across the Dart Coast, only to find something sticking out of the sand. It had a bristly top, and glowed with some kind of unearthly magic. The Girl wore a t-shirt which said, ‘Embodiment of Trouble’ and her eyes said, ‘Look at the t-shirt.’

And let’s just say that from that day on, things in Altomia went a bit, er, wrong…