Template:The Ancients

A Lieutenant of The Ancients 3D render.

This is one of the lieutenants that exists of the Ancients; and you can see they have an almost alien look to them and that is because they have deviated over such a long period of time from their original creation, which looked something very very different: more akin to the Elven and Human races that we have now. But over time through their manipulation of the Essence and the corruption that has ensued within their race, they have taken the form that you can see. – Steven Sharif

Suffering Wanderer 3D render.

You're going to see really a dark, more insidious creature that's present as the primary antagonist within the storyline of Ashes of Creation. You know they don't have the typical physical attributes you come to expect from a bipedal species like eyes and a mouth, but more something alien- that exists something that is just not natural in its appearance. – Steven Sharif

The Ancients (the original creations of the Ten gods) and The Others (the banished gods) are the primary antagonists in the lore who defiled and perverted all of creation.

• The Ancients learned from The Others how to use The Essence to achieve immortality. This was a pure form of immortality, more akin to the godhood that exists among the Pantheon. This immortality prohibited them from encompassing undeath in the manner of King Atrax.

• The Ancients were imbued with all of the traits of the Gods, whereas the four parent races of Verra had those attributes spread amongst them.

If the Verran races were combined they’d be the ancients. – Steven Sharif

• King Atrax unwittingly alerted the Ancients to the location of Verra in his efforts to discover and exploit The Essence.

• The Ancients arrived at Verra through the Harbingers, which are comet-like celestial bodies powered by a very strong source of magic that essentially acts as a bridge between The Void and the Material plane where Verra exists.

You're going to see lieutenants, captains, generals, and raid bosses and they're all going to take different forms because their whole perversion of Essence through the corruption is to take creation on the material realm, that the Pantheon of good Gods did, and twist and bend it to the corruption that exists within the Essence, because they view that as a more powerful form, a more raw and arcane form of what magic is meant to be used for. There's no point in these false constructs of morality when utilizing and harnessing the power that comes from the Essence. That is a social construct that was created by inferior gods, according to the Others; and it limits the ability of their creation to really capitalize on what the Essence is to be used for in its pure, innate nature. – Steven Sharif

• The Ancients' race exists in a caste-oriented system because the Essence has a profound effect biologically, physically, and visually on the appearance of the creatures that are manipulating it and are corrupted by it.
  • Grunts are the peons or soldiers on the front lines who are specifically geared toward combat, or magic utilization, or specific environments or climates.
  • Lieutenants have wing structures and more asymmetrical appearances.
  • Captains and generals are also ranks in the caste system.
  • Large raid bosses and/or world bosses are monolithic in their appearance and unlike what standard creatures look like. These are huge, imposing creatures.

The gods... wanted to represent their qualities, their characteristics, their attributes within creation with the creation of something, so they started with a race that are now known as The Ancients; and they imbued them with all of their qualities. Essentially now that that turned out to be a mistake because with those types of qualities all in one species there was a a pride that happened- a desire to become more; and that led a little bit of conflict between the Ancients; and actually there was a partition created between some of the gods within the pantheon that embraced the idea of introducing the Ancients as part of essentially their plane of existence and teaching them the ways of the Essence, in all of its facets: not just what can be used for good, but also what could be used for evil as well. And three of the gods split off and went against the quorum that was established about not interfering with the Ancients after they started this down this road of learning more of the essence and how to manipulate it; and these three gods are known as The Others. So the others really embraced teaching the Ancients knowledge of the essence that they had learned through their eternal existence; and this caused a celestial battle to occur; and the pantheon of the Seven were able to defeat the others; and they banished the Ancients and the Others from the material plane and from the plane of the gods to the void which is the furthest from being connected to the essence. – Steven Sharif