Editing Warhammer Meta-Setting (section)

====The Proto cycle====

The cycle that came before the fantasy cycle. We don't know much about this cycle: are most concert bit of information comes from a quote from the Obernarn Stone found in Tome of Salvation. The quote reads as follows: 

''"And then the Cataclysm came. King Taal rose from His Forest, and with Dark Morr muttering dire portents in His ear, He banished all immortals from the world. But the Cataclysm’s architects refused His order. The Crow, the Hound, the Serpent, and the Vulture were jealous of King Taal, and had tried to use the Great Gates to take what was His. They had failed. As the other immortals fled, the Four attacked, bitter and angry with their frustrations. Many died. After countless battles, King Taal was eventually surrounded. There were few still by his side. Ulric the Wolf. Noble Margileo. Just Verena. Sotek the Snake. Manann of the Sea. And Gentle Shallya, tear-stained and afraid. Even Smiling Ranald had fled, and now hid in the Places Between, fearful for the future. Then, just as the Four and their allies arrived for the Final Battle, Flaming Phoenix, whom all had thought dead, returned from atop His Gleaming Pyramid, and He smote about Him. Thus the rebels were pushed behind the Great Gates, and were sealed there forever. But they were restless in their cage, and soon worked to escape."''

Why does this matter? Because the Flaming Phoenix is clearly Asuryan, and the Elven gods were all refluffed to be survivors of the proto-cycle, therefore this could be a recording of an event that actually happened in the proto-cycle. If we take this as assumption as true this indicates a few things.

First that the [[Warhammer_Fantasy_Gods#Humans|Human gods]], are all survivors of the protocycle, with status comparable to age of Sigmar Gods. [[Sotek]] is an odd addition as well as the only non human god mentioned by name. 

Second: Asuryan is not typically associated with 'Gleaming Pyramids', but Sotek of the lizardmen very much is so, in fact lizardmen have temple-pyramids-spaceships. As the stone refers to him '''returned from atop His Gleaming Pyramid''' thus implying the thing is moving (replace pyramid with chariot and it makes just as much sense), this could be the first (both in and out of setting) depiction of these star ship-pyramids. Also Asuryan is associated with prophecy, something the old ones are also very much associated with. This perhaps points to Asuryan BEING an old one.

Third: old lore has the old ones had polar gates ([[Webway|webways]] in all but name) that broke apart and let chaos into the world. In the Obernarn Stone however the gates are not destroyed but instead chaos is merely 'pushed back' beyond them. As you read bellow the idea of chaos emerging into a world, running rampart, then being pushed back is replicated both in the Fantasy and Age of Sigmar so it thematically fits with the other two settings.

Ultimately though we can't ignore that the Obernarn Stone is only found in Tome of Salvation, and that book was published in 2008, long before the end times or age of Sigmar. Still it is the only real look we have at that proto-cycle and the parallels between it and later cycles are interesting. Additional nothing in the stone is self have been contridicted. . . yet so it is still canon, albeit as canon as an in universe stone can be.