——————————————————————————————————————————
Custodes Animarum is a multi-book saga built upon a hidden history stretching back four thousand years. The following prologue offers a brief historical backdrop to the arcane world, its spiritual origins, and the institutions that shaped it.
This section is optional. Readers who prefer to begin directly with the story may skip ahead to Chapter 1. All necessary context will unfold naturally through the narrative.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Prologue: A Hidden History
History remembers kings, wars, and empires. It remembers the rise and fall of civilizations, the building of cities, and the conquest of nations. But beneath that recorded history lies another story – one carefully removed from the collective memory of mankind.
Four thousand years ago, two sorcerers left a Pharaoh's court in pursuit of a higher purpose. In the distant Himalayas, they discovered an intrinsic energy residing within all living beings.
They harnessed it. Manipulated it. And healed.
What they discovered was not merely a force to be wielded, but a discipline of the spirit – a path toward mastering the self and connecting with something beyond it.
The two sorcerers are remembered today as Petrichor and Pollux. Their sanctuary became known as the Sanctum of Prostasia. And the energy of the soul they discovered survived into modern times by one name – Ki.
Among their earliest disciples was Rasalhague, later remembered as the third of the First Masters. Where Petrichor and Pollux studied the energy of life, Rasalhague searched beyond it and discovered its dark reflection – Dark Ki.
Petrichor forbade its practice. Rasalhague disagreed. Pollux remained neutral. Yet even this dispute did not break the Sanctum, for Rasalhague was not remembered as evil – misguided by some, feared by many, and revered by others, but not inherently evil.
For nearly three thousand years, the Sanctum and its sister sanctuaries spread knowledge of the spirit across the world. The sick were healed. Lost communities were guided. Seekers came to discipline the body so they might purify the soul.
But no teaching, however sacred, remains untouched by time.
The knowledge spread farther than the wisdom required to bear it. Meaning faded. Discipline weakened. What had once been a path toward self-mastery became, in lesser hands, a means to acquire power.
The corruption did not begin with one man. It crept in quietly across generations.
Eventually, from within the Sanctum's own legacy, a clandestine group emerged: the Cult of Assassins.
Its members inherited the teachings of the First Masters, but not the discipline that gave those teachings meaning. By the time the Sanctum understood the threat, it was already too late.
The following struggle lasted nearly two decades.
By the turn of the first millennium AD, the Sanctum of Prostasia had fallen. Most of its sister sanctuaries had been destroyed. And when the Assassins were finally stopped, only a shattered remnant of the arcane world's custodians remained.
The survivors sought to rebuild.
But they could not agree on what had caused the ruin.
Some believed the Sanctum had shared too much. Others believed it had watched evil grow for too long. All agreed that the knowledge of the spirit could no longer be entrusted to the common world.
From the ashes of the Sanctum arose two great arcane powers: the Eye and the Order.
The Eye chose distance. From its hidden city in the Siberian wilderness, it watched the world and intervened only when imbalance demanded it.
The Order chose presence. Its followers scattered across the globe and struck before disorder could take root.
The Order's strikes were often bloody.
The Eye's patience often allowed disasters to grow.
Each saw the other as reckless. Each believed itself necessary.
In the sixteenth century AD, the Eye and the Order went to war.
The conflict devastated the hidden world. Independent Cults were dragged into the struggle. Ancient lineages and communities were lost. What had begun as a discipline to heal the body and enlighten the spirit had become a weapon of mass destruction.
The heightened spirits were gone. In their place stood Ki-manipulating Martial Artists.
In the aftermath, the Eye created the Outsiders – a wing tasked with operating beyond its hidden city. For centuries, they monitored the Order, negotiated with Cults, and preserved a fragile equilibrium.
Then, in the 1990s, a warlock known as the Basilisk rose to prominence.
Once a student of the Eye and a resident of its hidden City of Ayn, he challenged the institution that had trained him and accused the leaders of the Eye of deceiving the arcane world and preserving their own power through secrecy.
When the Basilisk was finally defeated, the Eye searched for someone to blame.
Its judgment fell upon the Outsiders.
The initiative was dissolved.
Without them, the Cults grew harder to negotiate with. The Order became harder to contain. The fragile balance began to crack.
The newly anointed leader of the Eye responded with severity. Sanctions, fines, swift punishments, and harsh imprisonments restored order.
For a time.
Then, in 2006, reports surfaced of people witnessing the use of Dark Ki – a power not seen in over a millennium.
Months later, powerful artifacts began disappearing.
The two mysteries were soon found connected.
And at the centre of it all stood one mysterious bounty hunter…