Human Discovery

This information, written in the style of a textbook, provided backstory for the Spectra Books.

Hundreds of years ago, the first year according to our calendar, human explorers landed on the gentle beaches of our land, in the region of Lectranis known as Hunan, or Human Landing. They found good farmland backed by the Shield Mountains, with the rich prairies of central Lectranis to the south and the great deserts of Nomelands north and west over the Shields. Those first explorers called the land Vesspucia, though even now they argue over whether it is a large island or small continent.

 

Further explorations revealed the rich variety of climates across our land. They sent colonists, who built a new town at the first landing place, a home base from whence other parties could set out to explore. They soon ran into their first Spectra. The Lectrans treated them well, interested in their culture and new materials they had brought with them, but other clans were less friendly. The humans were wary with every clan, and rumors flew, with strange words like ‘magic’ and ‘witches’. Violent conflict began, and after many years, the Spectra went into hiding and all but disappeared from human awareness.

 

Spectra written history begins from this point. While the Spectra did have a system of runes, painted onto rocks or carved into trees, the humans introduced a more comprehensive written language, and paper for portable records. Within two hundred years the Spectra language had all but died out, and only a few scholars could read our runes. The Spectra also adopted the human calendar and began counting years, starting from the year humans landed on our land. Thus, when we say the Spectra went into hiding in the year 22, we mean that it took place twenty two years after human discovery.