The Pre-Cataclysmic Age

Of that epoch known by the Nemedian chroniclers as the Pre-Cataclysmic Age, little is known except the latter part, and that is veiled in the mists of legendry. 

The main continental landmass was known as the Thurian Continent, on which flourished the kingdoms of Valusia, Thule, Commoria, Kamelia, Verulia and Grondar.  Their inhabitants spoke similar language, which argues for a common origin.  Other peoples, of different and apparently older origins, lived among them and often had their own lesser, but still highly civilised, kingdoms.

Vast regions of land remained however unexplored on the Thurian Continent.  East of Grondar stretched endless deserts, lived scattered clans and primitive tribes, and beyond them dwelta mysterious and non-Thurian human civilisation.  In the extreme South dwelt a pre-human civilisation of serpent-men whose contours are particularly shadowy and uncertain.

West of the Thurian Continent was a lesser landmass named Atlantis; and further west where the Pictish Islands.  To the east of the Thurian Continent could be found a chain of large islands, inhabited by a people calling themselves Lemurians.  Beyond the Lemurians was, supposedly, to be a found another large, nameless, continent.

It is clear that in its final centuries, Thurian civilisation was crumbling.  Particularly bloody wars between Valusia and Commoria allowed the Atlanteans to carve out a kingdom on the mainland, Under a certain Kull.

History was however stayed in its course, for a terrible cataclysm rocked the world.  Atlantis and Lemuria sank beneath the waves, whilst the Pictish islands were heaved up to form the mountain peaks of a new continent.  Sections of the Thurian Continent vanished under the waves, or sinking, formed great inland lakes and seas. Volcanoes broke forth and terrific earthquakes shook down the shining cities of the empires, blotting out entire nations.