The First Flame

The First Flame is the concept that brought all forms of Disparity to the world: Heat and Cold, Life and Death and most importantly, Light and Dark.
== Lore ==
=== The World Before Fire ===
When the world was unformed, a barren landscape of gray crags and ruled by the Ancient Everlasting Dragons, the First Flame appeared. The Flame gave souls to creatures, allowing them to become sentient and alive, but there were four souls that were discovered that were not like the rest. Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight discovered the soul of Light. The Witch of Izalith discovered the Soul of Life. Nito, The First of the Dead discovered the Soul of Death. And the Furtive Pygmy, so easily forgotten discovered the Soul of Dark.
Following the discovery of these Great souls, the Lord challenged the Everlasting Dragons and with the betrayal of Seath the Scaleless, were able to overthrow them and begin ruling the world.
=== The Rule of the Lord Souls ===
With The War of Souls over, the Lords created Lordran to rule from and constructed the City of the Gods, Anor Londo. The First Flame was venerated for giving life to the world and the power to create and shape the world in its image. Gwyn made sure to try and protect the Flame from any outsiders and so constructed a great building deep below the earth where the Flame was located to house it and limit its access to his most trusted allies and friends and called it the Kiln of the First Flame.
Gwyn, fearful of the power of Humanity and the Dark Soul in general decided to take it upon himself to brand every human and link them directly to the First Flame with the Darksign, so that they would remain subjugated under the First Flame and limit their true power. Gwyns fear of the Dark Soul being more powerful than his however, came to fruition a lot sooner than he thought it would.
=== The Fading Of The Flame ===
Eventually however, in 239FA the Flame began to Fade, much to the dismay of the Gods, especially Gwyn as he feared the darkness more than anyone, being the wielder of the Great Soul of Light. There was however something that Gwyn had not intended to happen, following his branding of all Humans. 
With the Fire Fading, the ring of fire branded on the Dark Soul and every human began to fade too and as such began to consume the humanity and soul within each human and weaken them. When they died however the Darksign would further consume their humanity to reanimate them, creating the first of the undead. With the subject dying more, they would eventually go completely hollow, a shell that had no appearance or knowledge of what they once were. To sustain the Darksign, the Undead had to consume others souls and humanity, leading to a new economy being created, being that of Soul currency.
Gwyn, now desperate, separated his entire Great Soul and gifted it among his children. Now with only the power of his regular soul, marched into the Kiln with his Knights where he used his body as kindling and linked the First Flame, but the inferno that ensued following the Linking destroyed the Kiln and incinerated the Knights that journeyed with him.
=== The Future Of Fire ===
Throughout the history of time the Flame becomes linked many times and the First Flame has persisted. Many famous names have taken it upon themselves to become Lords of Cinder including the prophesised Chosen Undead (in 286FY), Aldrich of the Deep (in 1335FY), Yhorm the Giant (in 1649FY), The Abyss Watchers (in 1381FY) and Ludleth of Courland (unknown year). 
Firekeepers were created from many areas of the world, but most from Thoroland and Astora with the intention of creating bonfires to help protect future Lords of Cinder and guide them on the path to Linking the Fire. All the bonfires were directly linked to the First Flame and the Firekeepers began to gift undead with Estus Flasks, filled with the embers of the Bonfires to help strengthen them and gain powers of the First Flame.
Though when Prince Lothric was chosen to become a Lord of Cinder in 1664FY when the flame began to fade once again, he refused to Link the Flame. Panicked, the protectors of the Flame began to resurrect long dead Lords of Cinder from the Ashes to become Lords of Cinder once again (including Aldrich, Yhorm, Abyss Watchers and Ludleth), but they all also refused to take their thrones apart from Ludleth of Courland. Now desperate, the protectors decided to resurrect those that failed to become Lords of Cinder before and that were turned to Ash, creating the first of the Unkindled, bringing back many of those back to life to try and become Lords of Cinder. One of these unkindled was the Ashen One, who was tasked with bringing back all the Lords of Cinder who refused back to their thrones which they succeeded.
With the remains of the Lords brought back to their thrones the Ashen One was taken to the Kiln of the First Flame where he fought an amalgamation of all of the Lords of Cinder that came before him known as the Soul of Cinder. Upon his victory the Ashen One chose to let the flame fade for the first time in history, finally stopping the Undead Curse and plunging the world into Darkness.
=== The Resurgence ===
With the Resurgence of the First Flame and the subsequent new and unique Age of Fire that it brought with it, many of the Souls sacrificed into the First Flame over time were released back into the world with some of them attempting to return to the original bodies of those that they belonged to and some splitting and being claimed by others. The original souls that were created by the First Flame were that of the Soul of Light, Dark, Life and Death and whilst these souls are said to have been reborn into the world, they had also split into new and unique souls, harbouring new and unique abilities. Scholars across the lands have witnessed these new and unique abilities and are believed to have been fragmented from the original souls and are classified as follows:
* Soul of Life (Claimed by Corvand, The Demon King)
** Soul of Blood (Claimed by The Moon Presence)
** Soul of Rebirth (Claimed by Gwaed)
** Soul of Power (Claimed by Gormund, King of the Giants)
* Soul of Death (Claimed By Nito)
** Soul of Disease (Claimed by Sharday, The Diseased Queen)
** Soul of Rot (Claimed by Malenia, Goddess of Rot)
** Soul of Desolation (Claimed by Lady Lilliane of Morion)
* Soul of Light (Claimed By Gwyn)
** Soul of Ruinous Flame (Claimed by Messmer, The Impaler)
** Soul of the Stars (Claimed By Ebrietas, Queen of the Cosmos)
** Soul of the Storms (Claimed By The Nameless King)
* Soul of Dark (Claimed By The Ashen One)
** Soul of the Eclipse (Claimed by The Moon Presence)
** Soul of Shadow (Claimed by Gwaed)
** Soul of the Abyss (Claimed by The Furtive Pygmy)