Also known as the Ancients, the Cetra were a magic-using race who spoke to the Planet and believed in the search for the Promised Land.
”History”
Before humans kept record, there was a time when they were the only sentient people on their planet. Then a race came from the stars, calling themselves Cetra, people who could use magic and work with nature.
These Cetra were a race who travelled from inhabited planet to inhabited planet, in search of the Promised Land. When they found a planet with life on it, they worked to wake the planet up, give it a consciousness of its own, and hope that it was their Promised Land.
On each planet, some Cetra would grow tired of travelling and become attached to the ground under their feet When the greater part of the Cetra left, over 1000 stayed on the planet they”d come to call Somaro (sow-mah-row), after the teal-aqua liquid that formed the lifestream of the planet.
These Cetra settled away from the humans already living as hunter-gatherers in the plains and woodlands of the planet, on a northern continent too cold for humans. They coaxed the planet into letting things grow there, and sometimes travelled to help humans learn how to farm. By humans, they were viewed as angels or demigods, and sometimes revered.
To organize themselves, the Cetra appointed a king, whose job was to give sagely advice and maintain order. At first the monarchy was to be one of talent and skill, where new kings or queens were appointed as needed, but it settled into a hereditary monarchy less than 100 years later and it became a mere formality to vote the king’s eldest son into the position after the king died.
Cetran society was presided over by a King and Queen, followed by a council whose primary duties were to elect the king and advise the royal family. Appointed officials took care of disputes and kept the peace. The royal couple held a place in society more akin to high priest and priestess.
The king was a vessel fo the planet, to the extent that when he was crowned, an elaborate ritual ended in his being swallowed into the lifestream, dying, and being reborn. This was referred to as “receiving his wings” because the king was reborn with wings large enough to fly under his own power. His body was literally remade by the Planet. He had no flaws, no scars, and little memory of what happened while he was within the Planet. The king’s power was not just to speak to and hear the Planet, as all Cetra did, but to act on the will of the Planet as if it was his own. Basically, his will and the will of the Planet became one. Thus, the king couldn consciously do many things the Planet allowed to occur naturally, such as cause the lifestream to bubble up into a natural fountain where one was needed.
The queen’s duty was similar, but was put into practice very differently. While the king enacted the will of the Planet, she was the Planet’s simplest mode of communication. The queen’s primary duty was to dance. This may seem strange, but it was in her dance that the Planet could communicate most effectively. Before she was crowned, the queen was taught the dances of the Planet among the priestesses known as the Voices of the Planet. (The queen was usually considered the head of this order.) At the most important festivals, the Queen danced before the King alone, and he then interpreted the words of the Planet to the people.
When the crown prince reached age 17, he took a bride to be queen. Both were trained by the king and queen before their coronation. (The council’s vote for the next king was largely ceremonial.) After acting as advisors for about five years after their retirement, the former king and queen left in search of the Promised Land. Where they went to search for it is unknown, since no one could follow, but it is said that the call to find it came from the Planet itself.
”Culture”
Dancing was the most important pasttime to the Cetra, and was the center of every festival and party. The dance was usually conducted in pairs or groups, and the aim was for the dancers to tell a story. A popular party game was for teams to take turns making up stories to go with the music, sometimes retelling popular stories or acting out the lyrics.
On a more serious level, an order of priestesses called the Voices of the Planet used dance to express the words of the Planet. In training, these women learned the established dances and were drilled in them until the could do them without thinking. Then they were able to go into a trance in which they opened themselves to the Planet, and the Planet influenced them. The way they danced was an expression of this influence. Each movement or short routine had an established meaning that was expressed in it. Occasionally, the Planet took a dancer so completely, she danced in new ways, and when the meaning of these new movements were deciphered, they were added to the canon routines for the Voices.
Music was secondary to dance in Cetran society, but was essential to it. The modern music we’ve found that sounds the most like Cetran music is traditional Celtic, but there are also elements that evoke Japanese, Chinese, and Indian. Cetran music was sweeping, deep, and could express many emotions in one song. Almost all Cetran music was written with dance in mind, though there was also a strong barding tradition. Much of this music was celebratory, written about the Planet and the Promised Land, but all emotions were addressed in song.
Education was important in Cetran society, but not the way most Westerners have experienced it. At the age of 11 or 12, an adolescent Cetra would be apprenticed to a tutor, a craftsman, or a scholar. While they chose a course of study at this age, they were not expected to stick to it. By the time a youth chose a path for their life, they usually had experience with at least two or three masters, and half a dozen was not unheard of.
”Destruction”
The last king to truly rule over the Cetra was named Eduwin (pronounced Eh-do-win). He was basically a good king, who tried his best to be honest and fair. Unfortunately, he had horrible luck with wives. His first wife died in childbirth, a highly unusual death for a Cetra and widely regarded as a bad omen. His son died soon after. Eduwin mourned for years, and had just begun leaving the palace again when the crisis struck. A large meteor crashed into the nothern point of the world, leaving a huge crater. Many Cetra rushed to the north to help the Planet heal this huge wound.
When they found something in the crater, the king was invited to observe it. Eduwin agreed, eager to distract himself. The meteor melted away, and what remained was a young woman with white skin and subtle lavender hair. Eduwin stood over her as she woke, and he was the first to see her golden eyes. The woman seemed to recognize him, and identified herself as Jenova (jay-no-bah). Very soon, they were married, and within the year she bore him a son, whom they named Ayden (ay-dehn).
Some people in the court were displeased with the king’s decision to marry an outsider. These people began to plot against the queen. When a plague began to spread in the court, and then through the population at large, these people spread rumours about the queen. Jenova was a witch, a sorceress, a powerhungry alien after their throne and their lives. When Eduwin became ill and died, these people raised a coup against Queen Jenova.
Prince Ayden was spirited from the palace by his tutor and some others who were loyal to the queen. Once she was sure he would be safe, Jenova gave herself up to her pursuers. They took her, along with the body of her husband, to the crater where they had found her. As she wept over Eduwin’s body, Jenova was frozen and imprisoned in crystalized spirit energy.
Nearly 2/3 of the Cetra died during the plague that eventually came to be called Jenova. Almost a quarter of this number died during the rioting and chaos surrounding the king’s death and the queen’s deposition. The combined popularity of King Eduwin (who had been liked by most common people) prevented anyone else from truly claiming the throne of the Cetra. This did not stop several of the opposition members from trying, however. Several of them managed to set up fiefdoms in the more populated colonies. Knowlespole, the capitol, was desolate and abandoned. The only one of these noble lines that enjoyed any power beyond a generation or two was the Keysairage, who were absorbed into the imperial line of Wutai, eventually becoming the Kisaragi line.
The prince himself, Ayden, and his supporters ended up in a settlement in the far south which they called Cosmai and is now known as Cosmo Canyon. Rather than be absorbed into the human population, these few Cetra absorbed the humans into their own ways instead. In this way, they passed the knowledge of the Cetra on to the future.
The few other remaining Cetra either died out or married into human tribes. Though the race was decimated by Jenova, small colonies continued in Wutai, Cosmo Canyon, and the area that would become known as Icicle Inn.
