Long ago…,

prior to the cataclysm, an emergency plan was thrown together by the peoples of Vero in an attempt to survive and retain their accumulated knowledge.

Large deposits of equipment were buried in large caverns underground to speed up the civilisation’s later road to recovery. Communal living bunkers were made high in the mountains across the world, but when the time came, world communications were severed and knowledge of other survivors was inaccessible. Technical knowledge was stowed in the Truth Keepers’ Monastery high in the northern hemisphere. Many fled fled there to survive the rising water, the eruptions and shifting land. Once it was clear what was happening there was little enough time to save a mere million lives in this one location, including all ages and genders.

But over the years that followed, other problems emerged. No other survivors had been heard from and although things had settled at the monastery, the survivors talked extensively of leaving the mountains to reclaim their land and livings. Mals outnumbered femmes, six to one, and again survival was on everyone’s mind.

Disagreements about how to deal with the need for population growth became extensive until finally, it fragmented the survivors…

War between the factions was ruled out and terms to allow the splitting of their community into three tribes began to gather traction. They split on good terms. Each having decided on a different strategy to boost their population numbers and agreeing to uphold the TRUTH by each taking and treasuring a transcription of the Truth Keeper’s original volumes.

Over time, the tribes forgot the other volumes existed, focusing on their own, believing in only one TRUTH — theirs. Each tribe’s Guardian diligently kept logging their progress toward the auspicious day when their numbers might be more fortuitous and the idea of finding and unifying with other tribes of the world would be achieved. In the lifetime of a planet it had been but a bat of an eye, but in terms of the survivors, many, many generations had passed.

One tribe lived in the great forest — unbeknown to them — the last forest of Vero. The second tribe found high cliff caverns to live overlooking the sea to be close to their chosen food supply. The third remained in the mountains believing the other two tribes had perished until the occasional news of trade with the cliff dwellers. Occasionally, stories from the cliff dwellers reached the mountains of the feral forest hunters who were best left to themselves if you wanted to live.

Over generations, the way of communication had diverged and the tribes had lost the means to interact even if they met by chance.

And so the story continues…

GREATEST TRUTH…

All the Truth Keepers throughout the Firmament come from… Vero, and if they ever discovered this TRUTH, they would wield great power within the universe.