Taking a prompt from the list on GLoGtober '22: Under New Management we discuss "Prehistory (no dinosaurs)" from a promptlist by The First Gokun
Prehistory being the time before writing, for the purposes of our fantasy world let us say the time that current records do not record.
d6 Those who came before
1. - Titans. Everything that is happening is just the long slow degradation of the immortal gods down through their ever smaller and shorter lived descendants. The first age was the gods themselves, then the first titans, who could die but not of age. Then their descendants were giants, long lived but smaller and things all started going wrong (in the Gods view) from there
2. - Snakes. Had great empires, ruled for millions of years, plumbed the vastness of knowing. Failed to notice scuttling warm-blood busy-bodies becoming dangerous, too distracted with internal concerns, suddenly it was all lost. Warmbloods call it all 'pre-history' because they never learned to read Snake; it all adorns their ruins but noone today recognises it is even writing.
3. - The deep time thinkers - the mountains once walked, like great barnacles, with gigantic fronds that soaked in daylight and they carved the world and left all the ecosystems behind in their trail. This is why such different terrains are so close together there. The dreamers all fell into deepest sleep eventually and all sentient races are the condensed dreams of one of the dreamers.
4. - First there were the elements and the Princes of the Elements warred with one another for territory, then came the genii - the dao, marids, djinni and efreeti - who stamped their sense of beauty and order on the raw elemental chaos. They all brought companions and servants to fill their dwellings and realms and when eventually the elemental connections faded, all those one-time vassals were abandoned and the genie took their wisdoms with them, including knowledge of writing, their histories and left their vassals to fumble their way alone
5. - In the beginning there were aboleths, that dwelled deep in the oceans. They willed into existence servitors to venture ashore and claim resources they could not reach. Their purposes achieved, they retired to the deep ocean once more and their tools became free. Some say this too was part of their ancient plan, but noone knows because to the aboleth, tools had no need of writing.
6. - Long long ago there was an age, much like now, with being and civilisations and magic. And all was overcome by fungus, consumed until there was nothing more, then the fungus too died. All that came since has arrived here through extraplanar portals, seeding the mulch of this dead world with new life, and so we come to today.
7. - Vampires built a dread empire, blocked out the sun, messed up the ecosystem and killed the world. Some undead shambled around a bit, some things survived in the deep underdark but not much. Then a fireworld in the outersystem collided with another planet and ignited as a new star. A second age dawned, this one seeded by the things that had survived huddled around oceanic vents and the deep underdark. Analogues of almost everything exist but are fungal derived if plants or mostly evolved from molluscs.
8. - There was a time, much like this, but then the god of writing and knowledge was usurped by a god of secrets and with that passing went all writing and records. There was a period of chaos as societies were upended - more chaotic societies coped with this shock better than lawful societies who were now without their laws. By the time the upheaval passed and writing was relearned, much had changed. There are some very ancient beings who remember the before times but for most all is lost. It is a recent prehistory, one with many fine and visible but mysterious sites and artefacts
Noting all this is in the shadow of the the amazing Goblinpunch take on this topic: Dinosaurs Fuck Off - read that if you are interested in this prompt.
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