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Atlantis History
The legend says that in one day and one night, Atlantis and all its people were lost beneath the waves.
The truth - as much as any history thousands of years past can be truth - is much bloodier. The people of Atlantis engaged in a war with civilizations between the pillars of Hercules and the Strait of Gibraltar, conquering and enslaving millions. They were warriors and slavers, leaving devastation in their wake.
They grew complacent, however, and began to desert the gods, priding themselves on their successes and rise to glory. Poseidon, who had favored Atlantis above all others, cursed them - not to the depths, but to be destroyed by their own hubris. Soon the Spartan army rose up against the Atlanteans with Ares and Artemis at their backs. Battles raged for years, and the priests of Atlantis prayed for salvation from any god who would listen.
They sacrificed their horses to Poseidon. They offered stags to pacify Artemis. They scattered gold in the temples, bled the lambs, burned incense, chanted prayers to the gods of their slaves. The slaves went next.
Finally, they sacrificed their children.
In the furthest depths of the oceans where no light could reach, there existed Ceto, mother of monsters. Hearing the prayers of the Atlanteans, she stretched out her hands and called the waters to swallow their continent whole.
She granted them a new life - not as men, but monsters. Their bodies distorted with fins and tails, gills, eyes so large it seemed they could see in every direction, patches of skin and nodules that glowed in the darkness at the ocean floor. Someday, Ceto whispered in their minds, someday they would rise up once more and retake the world. It would be the age of monsters.
Thousands of years passed. A new language developed, made of a mixture of thoughts, clicks, and whistles, low hums and sharp cries. They bore the memories and language of their forefathers, stored away for some future on land, but no longer called themselves Atlanteans. They were Ketea, children of Ceto, siblings of the Gorgons and Echidna. And how they hated mankind...
The truth - as much as any history thousands of years past can be truth - is much bloodier. The people of Atlantis engaged in a war with civilizations between the pillars of Hercules and the Strait of Gibraltar, conquering and enslaving millions. They were warriors and slavers, leaving devastation in their wake.
They grew complacent, however, and began to desert the gods, priding themselves on their successes and rise to glory. Poseidon, who had favored Atlantis above all others, cursed them - not to the depths, but to be destroyed by their own hubris. Soon the Spartan army rose up against the Atlanteans with Ares and Artemis at their backs. Battles raged for years, and the priests of Atlantis prayed for salvation from any god who would listen.
They sacrificed their horses to Poseidon. They offered stags to pacify Artemis. They scattered gold in the temples, bled the lambs, burned incense, chanted prayers to the gods of their slaves. The slaves went next.
Finally, they sacrificed their children.
In the furthest depths of the oceans where no light could reach, there existed Ceto, mother of monsters. Hearing the prayers of the Atlanteans, she stretched out her hands and called the waters to swallow their continent whole.
She granted them a new life - not as men, but monsters. Their bodies distorted with fins and tails, gills, eyes so large it seemed they could see in every direction, patches of skin and nodules that glowed in the darkness at the ocean floor. Someday, Ceto whispered in their minds, someday they would rise up once more and retake the world. It would be the age of monsters.
Thousands of years passed. A new language developed, made of a mixture of thoughts, clicks, and whistles, low hums and sharp cries. They bore the memories and language of their forefathers, stored away for some future on land, but no longer called themselves Atlanteans. They were Ketea, children of Ceto, siblings of the Gorgons and Echidna. And how they hated mankind...