6:1 Time flows like water through the hands of The Remnant, countless seasons passing as memory fades to myth. The wild lands of the Sundered Realm stretch vast and untamed, reclaiming the works of those who came before. Ancient ruins lie half-buried beneath root and vine, their purpose forgotten save in fearful whispers around night fires.

6:2 Through the long Age of Shadows, scattered tribes of humanity cling to existence in hidden valleys, along untamed coasts, beneath the shelter of ancient forests. Their bodies grow lean and strong, adapted to the harsh demands of survival. Their eyes grow sharp, learning to read the subtle signs of prey and predator alike.

6:3 They fashion crude tools from stone and bone, weaving shelter from reeds and bark. The old ways of power are lost to them, the mighty works of the Sky Gods now nothing more than weathered stone and rusted metal rising from wild growth. None among them remember the true nature of their ancestors.

6:4 In the deep of night, when the stars wheel overhead in patterns unchanged since the world's reshaping, the elders speak of The Great Fire. Their voices drop to whispers as they tell of a time when the Sky Gods warred among themselves, their fury so great it shattered the very foundations of the world. The children huddle close, eyes wide with fear and wonder.

6:5 Strange beasts roam the wilderness, creatures transformed by ancient powers none now living understand. Massive birds with scales instead of feathers soar on leather wings. Wolves the size of bears prowl in packs, their fur shimmering with unnatural patterns. In deep waters, lights pulse and dance beneath the waves.

6:6 The tribes mark the passage of time by the turning of seasons, the migration of beasts, the ripening of wild fruits. They have learned which plants heal and which bring swift death. Which mushrooms feed and which summon visions. The wisdom of survival passes from mother to daughter, father to son.

6:7 When storm clouds gather and lightning splits the sky, the old ones speak of the Sky Gods' wrath. They tell of mighty beings who once walked the earth, their forms blazing with inner light, their voices like thunder. These tales carry echoes of truth distorted by time, fragments of history preserved in story and song.

6:8 In certain places, where ancient structures pierce the canopy of trees, the very air grows thick with unseen presence. The tribes avoid these grounds, marking them with warning signs of pile stone and knotted vine. Here, they say, the ghosts of Sky Gods still linger, jealously guarding the remnants of their fallen glory.

6:9 Some elders claim their own grandparents spoke of a time when humans possessed powers like unto the gods themselves. These tales are dismissed as fancy, for who could imagine mere flesh commanding the forces of nature? Yet on quiet nights, when the stars shine bright enough to cast shadows, something stirs in human blood - a distant echo of forgotten potential.

6:10 Generation follows generation, each more removed from the truth of their origins. They develop new ways, new beliefs, new explanations for the mysteries that surround them. Yet deep in their bones, in the very essence of their being, they carry forward a spark of something greater - dormant, but not destroyed.

6:11 The Age of Shadows stretches long, a time of forgetting and survival, of adaptation and perseverance. The tribes endure, guided by instinct and necessity, their true heritage buried beneath layers of myth and superstition. They are The Remnant, though they know not what remains.

6:12 In their dreams, sometimes, they see impossible cities of crystal and light. They wake with tears on their cheeks, aching with loss they cannot name. These visions fade like morning mist, leaving only a hollow yearning in their hearts - a sense that they were meant for something more than mere survival in a savage land.

6:13 Dawn breaks over the wilderness of the Sundered Realm, painting the sky in hues no human tongue has names to capture. The people of the scattered tribes rise with the sun, their bodies attuned to rhythms more ancient than memory. They move with practiced grace through morning rituals unchanged for countless generations.

6:14 Women gather at the stream's edge, drawing water in vessels of fired clay decorated with patterns whose meanings have been lost. Their fingers, callused and strong, work swiftly at morning tasks - grinding seeds, preparing hides, weaving fibers stripped from hardy plants that grow thick in the changed earth.

6:15 Hunters move in small groups through the morning mist, reading signs invisible to untrained eyes. They track beasts that seem born of dream and nightmare - deer with crystalline antlers that catch the light like prisms, serpents whose scales shift color with their moods, creatures that defy classification in any tongue still spoken.

6:16 Children learn by watching, by doing, by failing and trying again. They gather eggs from nests built high in twisted trees, their small hands guided by parents who learned the same ways in their own youth. They learn which fruits can be eaten raw and which must be prepared with specific rituals to draw out poison.

6:17 In the heart of the camp, the old ones tend fires that never fully die, feeding them with wood chosen for its properties of smoke and flame. They say different woods carry different spirits, different messages to the sky. The truth of such beliefs matters less than their power to bind the community in shared purpose.

6:18 When hunters return with meat, none eat until proper shares are distributed according to ancient custom. First portions go to the very young and very old, then to mothers nursing babes, then to those who brought down the prey, and finally to all others. These rules, they believe, keep harmony between people and the spirits of what they consume.

6:19 Beyond the circles of their camps lie the forbidden zones, where stark shapes of metal and stone rise from earth claimed by vegetation untamed for millennia. Strange lights sometimes dance among these ruins in the deep of night. Sounds that have no source echo from their depths. The tribes mark these places with signs of warning and teach their children to avert their eyes when passing.

6:20 Some ruins bear scars that speak of the Great Fire - walls melted like wax, earth turned to glass, metal twisted into impossible shapes. In these places, nothing grows. No animal makes its den there. The very air feels wrong against the skin. The tribes say these grounds are cursed by the dying breath of Sky Gods.