Ancient Folk (Mercia)

The Ancient Folk once roamed the original Four Continents, looking after and protecting the areas and land. They had special powers to provide the resources needed. They are rumoured to be the children of God. They used to live in harmony, but they split up into five groups after many battles and they began to look after a specific continent each.

Biology
There are no records stating how the Ancient Folk originally looked. Only their modernized forms are alive, and these are hard to relate to a common being, so it is easy to say that the original Ancient Folk were different to suit their responsibilities. Their powers were granted by the fact they could already use magic and their pulses were already using a variation. A number of arguments have sprung about their biology.

Ancient Tormen
The Tormen, before their change to wood, would probably have been great adapters. They might have looked similar to apes or monkeys, but bipedal. They would not need wings, and they would have been pretty strong. Their enviroment in Terran was full of plant-life, however, the power to create plant-life creates an inconsistency:

If only the Tormen could create plants, then either the other continents had no plant-life (no life existed outside Terran except the Ancient Folk), the plant-life created before they divided, adapted to their new surroundings, all Ancient Folk had the power to create plant-life or plant-life was present at the beginning of the Earth (God created them along with the Earth).

Ancient Mermen
The Mermen were water-breathers, to explain the amount of lakes and rivers in Aralan, if they had the power to change the humidity and precipitation in an area. They probably had fins to help them swim, but there is disagreement about their colours; whether they were blue to match the general colour, brown to look like fish or transparent so as to seem invisible.

Ancient Larmen
Larmen are the centre of dispute about whether they were warm-blooded or cold-blooded. It is hard to tell and decide, since cold-blooded suits the modern larmen's biology, but the Phyron are said to warm-blooded. The larmen did not breath fire, it is said, sicne they only had the power to affect the amount of heat in an area. They are said to have claws and very light on their feat, reflected into the Lizards of the East.

Ancient Urlmen
The Urlmen obviously had wings, to live with their bird counter-parts. They had feet that coudl latch onto materials, allowing them to sit on branches, rocks and so on. They were possibly beaked, and the sounds they made were natural to birds probably to sound friendly. They were unlikely to have feathers, but that doesn't end the speculation.

Ancient Girmen
The Girmen are the hardest to define. Although they live forever, and have not moved their homes for millenia, there are no records or testaments of any girmen alive of today that were alive before the Great Migration. They were there, but the fact that there are no eternal creatures who were alive in the beginning makes many believe the Undor were 'made' by the original Girmen, and have all died off, leaving behind their metal servants. This explains the lack of evidence of early Girmen.

Ancient Fairies
The Fairies were very similar to the now nearly extinct species. They were the original Xyrmen, the creatures who were not given a place and had extensive powers over Spirit, but were generally thin in all areas. They did have wings, so as to escape quickly from attackers, but more stronger types, other than the lady-like wings of today.

History
History on the Ancient Folk starts at the very beginning, where the creatures were made alogn with teh Earth by God. They are called God's Children by some people, and were given the job of looking after and protecting the areas of the world. At this time, the continents were one in the centre. And so the creatrues began to live in harmony, each with their six powers: the Tormen, Larmen, Mermen, Urlmen, Girmen and Xyrmen.

But after some millenia and after the continents began to separate, the folk had fights and bickered about their strength, utill a war broke out for millenia, until they settled on all having an area to themselves. The Xyrmen scattered and the Girmen buried themselves underground as the last four gained control over the Four Continents. They then lived for some time like this, until the Great Migration.

The Great Migration caused all the Folk to run to Mercia for an undisclosed reason. There, they made their homes. The Folk had variations in their segments, and soon these became the main races of Mercia, such as the Humans and Ogres. Over time, they split off, and the remaining Folk who stayed to their roots fused themselves with their magic and became one with their powers.

The fairies of today are said to be variations of the original Xyrmen, but some still call themselves this name. And this brings us up to the present day.

Language
The Ancient Language was an old fairy language spoken by all the Folk. It is the basis of the mdoern day languages, but now is dead. It contained many letters and had a 57 letter alphabet due to their biology, with 32 diphthongs. The Urlmen had this expanded to 75 letters due to a number of slang words borrowed from birdsong, and used whistling, clicks and screams. The language was very amazing to look at, and many remaining records written in it show how complex and difficult the language was, yet harmonizing and flowy. They used a variety of language types involving Lowercase (Ending a sentence or name), Middlecase (normal lowercase), Uppercase (Starting a sentence or name), Formalcase (lowercase for reports), Undercase (a substitution that can be used instead of Upper or Lower case), Impolitecase (lowercase for declarations of war. Has been used only once), Ritualcase (lowercase for religious writings) and Quickcase (used in quick situations and like a handwriting or pretty form). The language also includes some pictograms, in the range of about 2000. This, couple with the Urlmen alphabet creates a grand total of 2600 symbols for writing, opposed to 52 in English.