A history of creation by Kione
PREFACE
Myth is the beginning of everything. Shrouded in mystery is the way all things begin and eventually how all things end to begin again. As stories pass down, each race, culture, tribe, person, makes them their own, creating a diverse tome of history of the world. And with so many worlds split apart from each other, the beginning is all in the mind of the beholder. There are hints and clues and theories, but conclusions differ across the world. The following is the most widely accepted story of the creation of Gimura.
-Adelaide Mooning – 614 AT
INTRODUCTION
This work is a compilation of many years of research and study and gathering of information. It is also as unbiased as possible when it comes to areas of faith. I spent most of my life traveling and talking to multiple temples of the multiple gods to figure out what parts of this story seemed the most truthful. Not only does each faith have their own stories, but so do each worshiper, and so accumulating a universal tale, at first, seemed impossible. But, stories are strange in a way. When themes begin to overlap, or names are mentioned more than once, you find your hook and you go from there.
There’s so much that was lost. Any time before Totality (B.T.) is mostly lost. These are the puzzle pieces I was able to put together.
-Kione – 174 AT
THE FOUNDING
Long ago, the world was one large, empty void. It was a dark nothingness. It was here that the Ancients arrived. These were giant beings of enormous cerebral power. Finding a place of emptiness that offered them isolation, they settled. They were mental, divine creatures beyond the need for creation though that did not mean creation did not follow them wherever they went: a side effect of their raw power. They kept to themselves, in this new world of their own, eventually becoming one with the plane. For years, they remained, slumbering, hibernating in their dark solace.
THE FIRST CREATION
Many years later, maybe one, maybe a millennium, the rift was once again discovered, and the Creator Gods found their way into the darkness: Terrin (Earth), Vianh (Knowledge), Zotos (Chaos), Dhamos (Death), Albin (Creation), Erasis (Destruction). They were unaware that it had already been claimed, finding themselves in a dark world with one stretch of land that went as far as the they could see. Their one goal was to find an empty world that could be there’s to create as they pleased.
They were the ones who lit the world, who raised the earth, who fashioned beautiful, almost unbelievable, things. This world was soft, viable for life and so the Creator Gods continued to create. Humanoid creatures began to arise, stepping from trees, walking out of the sea, and traveling down from the high mountains. These were the Children of Nature, the forebears of the race of elves. They were almost gods themselves yet not divine. They were graceful, one with nature and knew nothing else. Next, creatures rose up from the ground, The Children of Stone, the dwarves. They were stout creatures of stone-like will and ready for hard work. Then, the last of the gods sculpted from the clay of the earth, not dwarves, but humans – The Children of Clay. The humans were not bound for long lives or made to withstand the biggest blows, yet they were made. They were made with heart and passion and gifted with laughter.
THE RISING
As the creations moved and lived and built, they awoke the Ancients whose backs they were thriving upon. The Ancients, realizing what had happened grew angry. Awakening from their slumber, they stood, cracking the land, ripping it to pieces. They had been gravely insulted and were bent on bringing destruction, to punish the Creator Gods for their great offense. They thrashed at the land year after year, ignoring the plight of the vulnerable creatures.
For a time, the Creator Gods could only watch, paralyzed to see that the creation, so near and dear to their hearts, was being devastated. But it became too much, the punishment for their intrusion lasting much longer than they thought just. They fought back. In their blind rage, they couldn’t see that they were bringing their own devastation. Snow flew where only desert was before. Lightning and thunder pelted the verdant earth, wrecking the earth with earthquakes, ravaging the fertile lands. Water churned and toiled until it splashed over mountains, crumbling and downing them under its weight.
Suddenly, it all stopped. The anger of the Ancients could only last for so long and eventually petered out. They cared nothing for creation, only for the disturbance caused to them and they retreated once more, finding another plane to call their own and resting with their own magnanimous thoughts, never to be heard from again.
THE RENEWAL
The Creator Gods looked upon their ravaged world. The majority of the populations had been wiped out and those that were left did not have the ability to sustain themselves in the new layout of their world. But they saw something else, underneath the ruin. They looked at the destroyed creation with less frustration and more intrigue. They found that the anger, though devastating, had created what they had wanted from the beginning: the world as it is now known. They realized that their perfection had not been what they really wanted.
They began to shape the world once more. The world became bright under the sun. Rain came down, bringing life to the once again fertile ground and pooled. Snow lied softly in the northern regions and at the highest peaks. Dry oases sprouted up, seemingly at random. Eventually, the world softened again, viable for life.
The hardiest of their children had survived and seeing the need for more, they created new races. It helped. Together The Children of Nature, The Children of Stone, The Children of Clay, and these new beings worked together. They were granted knowledge and divine gifts as they grew and attempted to create themselves, spreading across the land and building. But they weren’t completely free from the wild elements that enjoyed consuming their energy and their lives. They looked to their creators for protection.
The Creator Gods found themselves in a position they didn’t belong in. They weren’t protectors or rulers or guiders, they were creators and creators only. Succeeding in their goal, they itched to move on to the next. And so, they did, leaving their creation to fend for itself.
THE CHAOS
Unknown to them, during The Rising, the ruin had opened rifts deep under the earth. Monsters and demonic entities crawled forth unleashing terrors that the people couldn’t fathom. Terrified and abandoned by the only greater powers they knew, the people turned on each other. They used what were once gifts of creation as ways to destroy. It became an unsafe world of havoc, fear, and festering evil.
The cacophony reverberated among the other planes. Greater beings looked in and watched. Many were drawn to the discarded creation. Some were filled with grief for the lives of the wayward people. Some were filled with anger at the Creator Gods for their carelessness. Some saw the possibility of growing their powers. And other simply relished in the idea of further chaos.
Many arrived, many tried, and many failed. The ones that stayed to garner peace, sow propriety, foster growth, and ultimately teach them control over the arcane arts they were wielding with so little respect would become known as The Soul Gods. There were others who came and tried to prolong the warring, sow discord, growing their power with death and decay and would be known as The Defectorate.
They each succeeded in their own way though, ultimately, an unstable peace was brokered. The warring had created disdain among many, and the races splintered. The people clamped onto these new entities for dear life, naming them their new protectors. They were worshiped.
THE PARTITION
This peace time did nothing to unite the warring races. The peoples split, crossing seas and finding new homes. The Children were the ones who split the farthest from each other. The majority of elves flocked to one continent and christened it Etraria. The dwarves found their homes in the mountains and underground across the world. The humans spread out the most, claiming any piece of land they could get their hands on. Civilization started over, each group creating their own culture separate from the other, further distinguishing their differences.
Though relationships remained strained and there was always a sense of distrust, of fear. Kingdoms were built, cities solidified, government and armies arose. Knowledge abounded, language flourished, religion grew. Treatises were signed, trade established. The land was explored to the deep depths of forest, the highest peaks of the mountains, and the farthest stretches of the coasts.
THE TOTALITY
There was a tenuous peace between the Soul Gods and The Defectorate. For a long time they were entities of equal power; one was never able to best the other. They were all thriving on their new strength, neither group wanting to depart from the world. As religions grew and they gathered more and more worshipers, their strength grew. They started testing their boundaries and limits. The Soul Gods furious at how The Defectorate were treating the people of Gimura while The Defectorate were disgusted at the Soul Gods for their lack of initiative.
hey started infringing on each other’s territories, stealing or killing a worshiper of a different sect here and there. The string snapped and one of the Soul Gods threw the first blow of yet another war that would tear Gimura apart. The Defectorate responded and the Soul Gods backed up their brother.
The people tried to sway their gods but they, like their fore bearers, were too blinded by rage to see the destruction they were causing. Even the Soul Gods lost their admiration and respect for creation, wreaking havoc just as The Defectorate did. People with control of the arcane tried to step in, using the power granted to them by the gods to stop the war, but it was mostly futile.
The war lasted years before a solution was found. In the midst of the fury and desire for control there was one mage, a woman whose name is lost to history, that wielded the arcane in a way that impressed both the Soul Gods and The Defectorate, though she sided with neither. Even with magic, the mortals could not stand against the immense power the gods held yet they were collateral in the war that had been brimming for two hundred years. She saw that their power was not good for the people of the world, that they more often used them for their own desires than for guidance and service.
So, whether misguided or not, the mage sealed the rift from which all of the divine forces had arrived in the realm. The explosion of power through the world that this created thrust the gods from the Material plane back to their own realms. The Soul Gods were devastated at their own actions. Realizing what they had wrought, they thanked her, believing that less interference was better for progress. The gods of The Defectorate were filled with rage at being shunned. They wanted to escape the prisons of their own domains, to feel the thrill of wielding innumerable power once more.
THE FALLOUT
The gods, locked outside the world, were still able to exhibit their influence and guidance, but with much lower stakes. During the Totality, the gods had showed their true colors. People under the spell of the Defectorate realized the true evil they had been following. Though most wanted to relinquish themselves of their bonds they found, there were some who wanted to stay and chose to stay, seeking power for themselves.
The Defectorate watched and waited for their time to once more descend. They still held some sway. They asserted the power they could, wherever they could. The Soul Gods watched as the people valiantly picked themselves up again, bringing brightness back to their cities now strewn with rubble. It took many years of rebuilding and recovery but eventually fields grew fertile again, history was written down, as well as it could be, and stored for future generations, and a bright hope returned. The most devout were granted knowledge and gifts.
In the aftermath, people of all races realized that they were not the threat to each other they once thought they were. It had been the powerful gods all along that would bring them to true ruin. This wasn’t believed or accepted by all, and tolerance was still hard to come by in many places, but some of the dwarves came down from the mountains, a few elves returned from Etraria, and some of the re-emerging cities of greatness, became home to a diverse group of races, living peacefully among each other, like never seen before in Gimura.