A Mage's Tale

Prologue

You are ready to delve into a world of magic, to see it in its entirety, to marvel at its greatness and to gasp at its terribleness. That may be true, and all good and well, but first I must tell you why you lost it in the first place. Humanity was once composed of two spirits in kindred, those without magic, called the Unborn in our lingo, and those with, the wizards and witches of the world. We were your companions, in life and in death. We built your greatest structures, helped you in your darkest times, and enjoyed the greatest of times with you. We healed wounds your enemies made, killed those who dared to oppose you, we fought with you, we fought against you, and we died with you. Our blood runs through the veins of humanity still. But that all changed when an army of dark wizards set their sights on killing us both. Dark magic had been trampled, pulled out root and stem, its spells forcibly forgotten, and all for good reasons. Dark magic either had nefarious purposes, or was too strong for any man to wield. Yet they never gave up, and raised an army with all the strength they could muster. They fought like the monsters they were, and killed only the Unborn to estrange us from humanity, leaving us alive with not a thing to be done. Their goal had worked, because soon peasants raised up arms to kill us. Kings and queens soon bent with, and not even the quietest of villages were safe. We were evicted, banished, killed, abused and denied shelter. When our kind seemed doomed, a saviour came.
    His name was Arthur Pendragon, and you knew him as King Arthur. In truth, however, he was a simple peasant, an Unborn with not a drop of magic in his blood, or so we thought. Yet he destroyed the army where it camped, and set to work on saving us. First he killed species of magical animals, save for a few he thought noble, then he destroyed every book of us in Unborn possession, every building and every reminder of us, going so far as to erase the memories of anyone who even had the vaguest notion of our existence. He could not erase himself, however, only alter the memories related to him. Nine magical families stood by him, and so nine were named as his knights in the memories. The last act Arthur did was his greatest, creating worlds scattered across the globe, in every major city and in every continent, even those we had not yet discovered. He died as a result of it, naming no heirs and having no family to speak of. The nine families which supported him, along with the wizard aristocrats and royal families of the Unborn world, formed a Conclave in his name, destining it to rule over the world with his goals in mind.
    This isn't a warning, Unborn. This is a message, which you may interpret in any way you'd like. Now, ready yourself to marvel and wonder at the world your ancestors made you lose.