ADDENDUM // Phantasm AU Extras

A Brief Comprehensive History of Phantasm as We Know It

Creation

Our story starts in controversy. Religion tells us an epic tale of two warring gods (Jeb and Notch), and the excess of divine energy that somehow formulated itself into soil and stone and natural life. Philosophers and scientists tell us something different - an evolution of sorts, tracing back elements and fossils to creatures of old. The 'how' of it all doesn't matter too much though - not for this story.

The Three Realms

Religion and science both agree on one thing though - when the world was created, it was created in three parts. The Overworld, the Nether and the End.

The Overworld is thought to be the largest of the three realms - no one has mapped it in its entirety (though many have tried). It houses the widest variety of creatures (both in plant and animal life). The land is separated into different biomes according to the climate, each biome coming with its own variety of native creatures. Throughout all of these biomes though, two dominant species can always be found - villagers, and their more aggressive offshoot, pillagers.

The Nether is only accessible through an obsidian portal, lit with a flint of steel. This route was discovered by Overworlders around 500 years before the killing of the dragon, and would be influential in technological progress as the Nether is rich in gold. The dominant species in this realm is sentient (much like villagers) but more suited to the hot temperatures and hostile environment of the realm with thick pink skin and snout like noses (these creatures are referred to by Overworlders as Piglins or Pigmen, depending on where they are from).

The End is the most difficult of the realms to reach from the Overworld - only one known End portal exists in the world, buried underground in an undisclosed location. It is only opened by Eyes of Ender, and once a person travels through, they could not return until the Dragon was killed (though this is less of a restriction now that the Dragon is dead). The dominant species here - Endermen - are not only found on these starry islands, as they can move between realms freely, without portal use thanks to their teleportation.

The Overworld Genetic Divide (Leading Into the First Pillager War)

While the Nether and the End each only have one dominant species (Piglins and Endermen, respectively) you may have noticed the Overworld had two - villagers and pillagers. Again, as before religion and science disagree here. Religion tells us that the two different tribes had existed since the creation of the world, always separate. Science tells us that neither villagers or pillagers have existed since creation - rather a common ancestor evolved into two subspecies - making the tribes almost cousins. Still, the 'how' doesn't matter so much for this story.

What's more important (and that religion and science agree on again) is that at some point in the past, villagers and pillagers lived in peace. There was a period in time where the two tribes worked together to survive the legions of undead that rise each night - the pillagers using their superior strength to help defend the early foundations of villages as we have come to know them. It is not quite clear what exactly happened to disrupt this peace (some philosophers say the invention of the crossbow), but after a certain point the tribes separated, and the pillaging tribes turned on their previous allies.

The First Pillager War

Using their superior strength (and now possession of higher technologically advanced weapons, such as the crossbow or the axes commonly used by Vindicators) pillagers began engaging in the act that would give them their name - pillaging. Separated from the villages that they had once lived in, they turned to looting and killing, stealing resources that villagers had in abundance and leaving nothing behind. The weaker species, villagers had no real way of stopping the onslaught, and thus many villages were burned to the ground.