Education isn't yet even invented.

There aren't any holy texts, there aren't many texts at all.

Shamanism is sort of an oral tradition.

Sort of. There are methods of communication available to shamans that are not available to humankind at large. The shamans find each other in dreams and visions.

And it isn't the only thing that they see in their visions.

Vast, terrifying powers on the horizons of perception.

A great horror of violence and a great horror of decay, looming over the future of their race.

Beckoning.

Aah! 

Well, what can a man do, before gods?

A man who knows nothing of the workings of the cosmos, unaware even of the shape of their world?

Cower in fear and wait for an opportunity, that's all.

Isn't that just so.

But then, someone stumbles upon an interesting ruin.

A very interesting ruin, and a very ancient one.

And within it they find weird things.

And tell about them to their shaman - one of the 30 or so genuine shamans in the world.

It's certainty unearthly, and ungodly too.

It's full of things that defy the reason of a tribesman.

And yet it also has some... familiar? Intuitive things within it.

And the intuitive thing is a powerful thing, too.

It is an opportunity.

And if a different sort of a person would have found it, the history of Earth would have had a very different path.

But the first shaman studying it had no interest in anything like world conquest.

Instead,

they were terrified.

And how terrifying was the fact that the ruin with such a wonder was empty of people!

So, one night, the terrified shaman have called the other shamans of the world to convene.

And this was before the planes, before the roads, and even before the widespread knowledge of points of sail that let boats travel against the wind.

But the caller have lent the shamans the knowledge of instantaneous travel, something far, far beyond the means of any psyker of the time to discover on their own.

And the 28 geniuine shamans living at the time, all without exception, came to the summoner.

And for a while, they talked, or rather convened in ways the shamans can, for they had no one language between them to talk.

They communicated. And it was no polite conversation, no small talk.

But they came to a decision, and they joined their hands together, and they changed the course of history, and they died. 

And from that point, there were no more genuine shamans.

But there's something else instead.

An unusual man is born, and power courses through his veins.

He is by loving parents, if not unusually so for the standards of the time.

Also not unusually for the standards of his time, his uncle murders his father to take his property, and there is no force that would stop or avenge him. The boy is furious and distraught, and the murderer dies of a heart attack.

Later, he who will call himself the Emperor of Mankind, would say that this event first sent him onto the path of seeking to establish law; but that is a simplification that skips so many thousands of years and so many details that it might as well be a lie. The kid doesn't know what law is, he is illiterate and barely understands tradition; for now, he doesn't quite understand what he's done and why and if he in fact did that. 

He leaves his tribe over distress, and wanders the wilderness, living off the land, wrestling with beasts and tribal warriors, making his first miracles with all the precision of a sledgehammer. It would be quite some time before he encounters what we now call "civilization".

Save for the occasional temporary friend he makes and an occasional vague vision he gets, he has no guidance in life. He slowly learns by experience.

By the time he is literate in a language, he has forgotten his first name, and there's nobody he could use it for.

He's lonely, but he doesn't seek much company; he doesn't know he should.

Gradually, he slots into civilized life.

A life in which he will walk many walks, from a family man to a playboy, from a soldier to a doctor, from a dictator to an artist, from a thief to a judge.

The "family man" role doesn't take. He's a loner at heart; he doesn't trust the idea of a family. Early trauma have shaped him quite a bit.

He's a loner at heart. He doesn't tell the whole world about himself. He educates himself and meditates. He sees ghosts of looking dangers that no one can; but they are subdued and he doesn't know exactly how real are they.

His deeds start a few myths, myths for which people will later kill and die.

It takes time, before any sort of moral philosophy, to conceive of the possibility of making things better as distinct from random acts of kindness. But our man of many names does possess a keen moral sense.

He doesn't take over the world; of course he leads a number of conquests, but it is simply as impossible to conquer a planet with Bronze Age technology as it is impossible to conquer a galaxy with steam engines and muskets.

He doesn't contribute to progress; progress isn't even a concept yet, although he will notice the trend earlier than most from his immortal vantage point. Mathematics is a curiosity and in infancy; craftsmanship is an imitative and personal skill; theoretical science isn't even a part of what philosophy there is.

He does sense and quench a few cults veering too close to Chaos. And he does, eventually, attempt to found a religion of his own, one that would preach law and unity while excluding worship of other gods. It goes well as a religion. It goes really quite poorly as a humanitarian intervention, especially in perspective.

Hi. I exist now.

Whoahwhat