Athenaeum (The First to be Forgotten)

Prehistoric Article This article contains information said to be from Prehistoric Times. The validity of prehistoric content is dubious at best due to poor recordkeeping in the era, and should be considered unreliable, or at best: Legend.

The first colony in prehistoric Quelmar was Atheneum, knowledge of whose tragically ephemeral existence has reached us only through divination.

After losing contact with their home world, the settlers perxisted* for a single generation before being overwhelmed by the physical chaos of ancient Quelmar. It is a great irony, given the isolated group's devotion to meticulous record-keeping, that this brief document is all that remains to proclaim their existence.

Let them not be forgotten again.

Connor's Vision

A vision of ancient times fascinated the human diviner Connor. He saw glimpses, from long before recorded history, of Quelmar's first settlers from another world. Seeking to learn who they were and how they had been lost to memory, he devised a powerful divination to let him see firsthand whatever a long-dead individual had experienced during their time in Quelmar.

Unable to harness the new spell's magics alone, Connor attracted a team of diviners to pool their power. Framing the opportunity as "a game about language and how it dies", he assembled the party during the realm-wide worldbuilding conclave known as QuelmarCon 23. His team comprised Nell, Kelsey, Erin, Alexandra, Nick, Cat, and himself -- who would each experience the inner life of one of the doomed settlers.

The Inner Life

In a few short hours, these seven "players" respectively lived out the lives of seven early immigrants to Quelmar -- Jones, Joan, Pythea, Luna, Keeper Horis, Jyn, and Augustus.

Chosen for their expertise in various fields, these settlers had been part of a group of 2000 to travel to Quelmar aboard the Osugbo 12. Having established a new home in a settlement they named Athenaeum, they lived and died trying to master prehistoric Quelmar.

By the end, the seven diviners had garnered a valuable glimpse into the colony's evolving culture and language as well as its people and their fate.

Aspects of Athenaeum

Several aspects of the settlement held particular significance to its people. First, their culture put a marked emphasis on documentation and record keeping. The ship's mission was not only to colonize Quelmar, but to document their progress and their experience, to which end they kept a great archive underground to protect this collective knowledge from safe from the elements.

Second, the volatile weather of ancient Quelmar threatened the existence of individuals, of the settlement, and of their hallowed archive. This threat would have a great impact on their thinking and their language.

Third, the people valued expertise since those areas of expertise for which they had each been selected for the mission were essential to their survival and to their well-being in this new world.