The Lifeweavers picked up the pieces of the Pre-Entity civilization.
They trickle down to us as legends of divine angels, prophets, wizards, mysterious demigods and guides to other worlds. At their height, they travelled between nine different habitable planets, populating them as they saw fit with beautiful and useful creations. For that is the Lifeweavers' one overarching talent: the ability to shape DNA as Michaelangelo shaped marble.
There is no doubt that they have a special place in their scheme for man. Whether they created, modified, or simply used us is a matter of some contention. But undoubtedly they made contact with the first ragged human societies many thousands of years ago. We built temples to honor them, wrote songs and poems exalting them, and in return they bestowed on us the occasional gift, or took a talented poet or two on a trip to another world.
And who can blame our forebears for worshiping them? The could take on the appearance of a flaming Phoenix as easily as you or I change our clothes. They typically appeared to us in human form, albeit exceptionally large and attractive. Their technology met the threshold of being so advanced as to appear magical.

We do not know much about Lifeweaver culture or history, save that by the time they interacted with us they had solved many of the problems that have dogged man through the ages. Hunger, disease, war, crime and above all fear were apparently eliminated so long ago that the words for them were considered an arcane part of their vocabulary.
In their pride, and to their lasting sorrow, the Lifeweavers delved deeply into the knowledge of the Pre-Entities. A large collection of touchstones was discovered on the planet Kur, one of the nine worlds of the Lifeweaver span. The probing scientists gained the ability to make use of the vital auras on which the Pre-Entities fed.
The first hint of the schism that doomed the Lifeweaver civilization came about during debates over what to do with this new-found knowledge. "A miraculous cup has appeared to us, wanderers in a desert, a cup that does not empty" Dar-Al-Milinin-Kur, one of the chief proponents of adapting to extending their lifespans through the use of vital auras, argued at the Third Council. "For our ability to travel, to learn, and to grow is limited by our lifespan as surely as one's ability to cross a desert is limited by the water supply."
However the majority argued that Those-Who-Came-Before (the Pre-Entities) had tried that road before, and it ultimately destroyed them. But Dar-Al-Milinin-Kur and his associates would not be dissuaded despite the weight of opinion against them. They raced against their own lifespans to acquire, largely in secret, the key to making use of other being's vital auras.

And tragically, they succeeded.