back to the Index or the Ascended

The ancestors of the Ascended were intelligent snakes, foxes, tortoises, spiders or other creatures. They envied humans, and defied natural law to become human in all outward aspects; they took a short cut on the ladder of reincarnation. They assumed human form through years of meditation and spiritual practice.

In time, Taoist monks and Chinese sorcerors sought to restore the natural order and return these beings to their proper forms -- an irreversible change. The Four Monarchs were the last and most powerful of these sorcerors, and the most dangerous to the transformed animals. A cabal of transformed animals learned of the time portals in 1988 AD, and travelled back to the late Tenth Century AD. There (then?) they surreptitiously gained control of many feng shui sites (prior to the rise of the Four Monarchs in the 16th Century or so) and undid the strength and utility of magic twenty years ago (in the year 998 AD).

In the centuries that followed, some of the clans of transformed animals rose to power in a China mostly free of magic. They subverted the Song dynasty and aided the Mongols, gaining power during the Ming dynasty and eventually controlling the Manchu (Qing) dynasty. Beginning in the 17th Century, the Ascended began to spread overseas.