Foreword

Foreword

I write this journal in the hopes that, one day, humanity returns to its former glory in the world, and that future generations can benefit from my experiences in The Village.

A Brief History of Humankind

Oh, humans, once the mightiest race in the world.  We commanded the elements of magic, mastered the mysteries of redstone, created engineering marvels that boggled the mind and pushed the envelope of possibility.  Our cities were many, and our powers were great, but little did we know that our power would be our undoing.

I suppose I'll skip to the end, the Fall of Man, and the Rise of Monsters.  As they say, laziness and necessity are the mother and father of invention, and it was these two forces that brought about our demise.  Our hunger for resources was so great, that our labor forces in the mines of the world could no longer keep up.  Even with the vast powers of magic at our disposal, we could only do so much with our frail, corporeal forms.  A group of enterprising sorcerers saw a near-infinite expendable labor force in the dead.  As it were, they were just lying in the ground, rotting, and being of utterly no use.  The zombies and skeleton guards were the first monsters to be created in our hubris.  Zombies could work endlessly with no need for food or rest, and animated skeletons proved excellent archers, without the limitations of muscles holding their arms back.

These beings were designed to be rugged and durable, what's the point in animating a labor and security force if it just falls apart in a few days?  Well, our hunger wasn't enough.  We needed more, we needed simpler methods of demolition...and, thus, we began our first foray into magically-engineered species, the first success coming in the form of the Creepers.  Creepers were mobile mining charges, capable of finding rich ore veins and, upon reaching one, would explode just like TNT.  These beings were marvelous!  Humanity expanded even further, and we became indolent.  And complacent.

The first rash of human miner disappearances were ignored, assumed to be the result of accidental cave-ins or lava-related mishaps.  Then, our engineered labor and security started becoming restless, they started wresting free of their magical control, and began acting on their own.  Then, one day, the reins keeping the vast army of Creepers and walking dead broke, and their wrath was great.  It was found that those whom the undead killed would later rise as undead, themselves.  Creepers, being literal walking, intelligent demolition charges, unleashed their violent rage against their former masters, destroying cities with casual ease.  What's worse, experimental bioengineering magic flew wildly out of control, a single miscast spell led to the creation of gigantic spiders that could, and would, easily devour a man.

The monsters raged out of control, and our indolent species could do nothing to stop them.  Thus, our Fall was ensured, and humanity now lies decimated, only existing in tiny, scattered pockets of fear-filled, sun-worshiping tribals.

This, is where my tale begins...