Primordials

The **Primordials** are the personification of evil in the multiverse. They caused the Primordial Crisis. The primordials are: Ghûul, the primordial of destruction and war; Eth'Kai, the primordial of ambition and sin; Bulkkar, the primordial of rage and blood; Yvv, the primordial of madness and mutation; Borlorg, the primordial of plague and decay; and Qilinti, the primordial of terror and death.

## History

### Creation

When the universe was young and while the ancient ones slept, there was only chaos. Mundanus was newly formed, and there was much destruction. Volcanoes errupted with fire and brimstone, the earth shook with force that could level mountains and the world was uninhabitable. Until the very nature of magic wrapped around this concept of destruction and gave it life. Gave it purpose.

Thus, Ghûul, the primordial of Destruction and War, was born. When he looked around him and saw the destruction he saw his home. His life. And yet he could do more. So much more. As he began to reshape the world by mere thought, seeing the extent of his powers, he began to plan. And he planned big. But he wasn't aware that magic would latch onto this, too.

And so, mere minutes after his birth, Ghûul heard a voice. The voice of his sister, Eth'Kai, the primordial of ambition and sin. She spoke to him softly, with care, though she knew what she wanted. Ghûul had gained power from being the first, but she could take it, given time. However, she underestimated Ghûul's volatile nature. Ghûul cursed at his sister, enraged by the fact that he needed to share this world with another. And such, a third was born.

The madness and chaos that descended with the first primordials' attacks caused the formation of the third, Yvv. Being the primordial of madness and mutation, Yvv's imagination ran wild and therefore, by extension, so did his physical form. He never truly decided on a physical form and was always changing and experimenting. He would have likely left his siblings alone if their fighting didn't disturb him, so he created his fortress there on the spot. A huge, crystalline structure with ever-changing corridors with visions of madness within, Yvv's keep was practically impenetrable. When the gates to this fortress opened, the siblings finally stopped fighting as they were forced to flee from the swarm of gibbering demons that flowed from within. Yvv had already discovered how to create his minions out of his own power, a technique all of his siblings would soon discover and use to wage their wars.

Ghûul, seeing that he would now have to share his world with two others, flew into a rage. Bulkkar, the primordial of Rage and Blood was thus created. He ignored Eth'Kai's sweet words, Ghûul's threats and Yvv's madness, instead simply beating Ghûul's body around while wielding Eth'Kai as a weapon, using her hair as a grip, all while crushing Yvv underfoot.

For hundreds of years, demons fought one another on Mundanus, their blood seeping deep into the soil on which they fought. Soon, natural life took root somehow, perhaps through some kind of magic used by Yvv, or perhaps through diffusion from the Feywild. Soon, the physically weaker demons of Eth'Kai and Yvv began using this plant life to their advantage, turning this war of attrition into a guerrilla war. And while Eth'Kai and Yvv took care of the life growing in their corners of the world, Ghûul and Bulkkar largely ignored it or even burned it. Naturally, their ignorance spawned a fifth primordial.

Borlorg, primordial of pestilence and famine arose from the shadows spreading his filth across Mundanus, adding a new player into this war that was now spanning planes. His legions marched slowly and tirelessly, their zombie-like forms taking damage, but never truly dying.

### The Next Generation

What came next was truly horrifying. Eth'Kai with her scheming approached Yvv with an idea, one that was so preposterous that only a madman would accept. Luckily for her, Yvv was by definition a madman, and an unsteady alliance formed between the two. With Yvv's powers of creation and imagination, combined with Eth'Kai's knowledge, the two created a being that did not rely on the primordials' power to function. They had created the soul of a god, and named him The First.

The First was the ultimate warrior, capable of slaying minions and heralds alike, swatting them aside as if they were nothing, and the two sent out this warrior on a killing spree. After seeing his success, they began to make more of these warriors, as watching them fight these battles was far less draining on their own power.

Eventually, the gods learned sentience and began to learn from each other, communicating while not in battle until they began forming their own personalities and opinions. Soon after this, the gods decided that they were tired of playing slave to their primordial overlords and decided to fight back.

### A War in Heaven

The gods fought with ease against the weak manifestations of their overlords, fighting their way to the Silver Citadel that Eth'Kai resided in. The First, leading the assault, lead his warriors through the complex maze of halls, past temptations none of the warriors even realised they would be tempted by and, in the end, found their way to Eth'Kai's throne room.

The First declared a challenge to the primordial who created him, listing the length of her crimes that inspired all of his fellow brothers, but the primordial just laughed in his face, daring him and his warriors to strike her down. In truth, Eth'Kai had planned for their betrayal; they were her children, of course. And so, she had warped their souls in such a way that they would never be physically be capable of directly harming a primordial, almost like a geas. When the First found himself unable to strike the primordial, she simply took up her blade and began cutting down his brothers.

Only two warriors escaped the Citadel alive.

The First fought to keep his remaining brother alive. Both were powerful warriors in their own right, but the First was far more powerful than the other. The two travelled the wasteland of what is now the celestial plane. Their, the younger brother found a book buried in the sands under the blazing sun. It was a rather large tome, and it gave this brother the information required to fight back against the primordials: the ability to create life.

This younger brother, now known as The Artisan, got to work, using the weave of magic to steal back his brothers' souls from Eth'Kai's clutches, weaving them and forming new bodies for them, but without Eth'Kai's geas. These souls did not remember their former lives and had to be trained once more, but the army of gods trained once more under The First until they were a fighting force once more, while the Artisan studied this book further. Oddly, it contained much information on magic as well as an artefact known as the Loom of Fate that was to be found in an ancient fortress on the very plane they were on. By using the Loom, the gods could create a demiplane for the primordials to trap them within, ending the endless war on the planes and ceasing the unnecessary destruction of life that this war found. But, as with all power, it came at a cost. And the Artisan kept the nature of this price to himself.

### Hope

The army of gods travelled under the glaring sun towards an ancient citadel of glass and marble built deep within these desert sands. What horrors the gods found within was never recorded, but eventually they obtained the Loom of Fate, and the Artisan reformed the bodies of any casualties, reforging the god anew. Curiously, a new-born god was weak and had no knowledge of their past lives or power, and could have vastly different personalities than before. Regardless of these minor setbacks, the First was just grateful for his brother's power.

Having the Loom of Fate to hand, the Artisan started on his plan to rid the world of the primordials. One by one, he got all of his brothers and sisters, himself included, to bind their power to the Loom of Fate, saying that it would make it far easier to revive them if they fell in the battles that would follow. Without questioning, the gods did so, each time the Loom becoming more empowered. Eventually, the Loom of Fate spoke to the Artisan, showing him how to make the demiplane that would trap the gods' foes.

And so he got to work. While the other gods were fighting their battles, the Artisan was weaving with the Loom, creating a solid object out of the strands of fate that were now empowered. Soon, he completed his work, having created a small box that could be held in the palm of your hand. After the box's completion, the Loom of Fate never spoke to any other being again.

### Allies

As the gods fought their way back to Mundanus, they were aided, in secret, by creatures native to the Feywild. The fey had always protected their homeland, but never ventured out. But these exiled fey, now calling themselves the faerie, had decided to try to put an end to the primordial threat, against their Summer Queen's wishes.

The First distrusted these fae at first, but their five leaders seemed powerful and honourable enough. Together, the fae and the gods pushed forwards deep into enemy territory, trust forming rapidly between the two powerful races.

### Final Stand

The hordes of demons were now no match for the combined forces of faerie and god, and demon bodies fell quickly. The first to be captured was, of course, Eth'Kai. Her intelligence was simply too great to give her time to react and use her enemies' plans against them. The next was Borlorg, being the greatest threat to living beings. Yvv and Bulkkar fell shortly after, and the final stages of the assault on Ghûul's lair were being prepared.

Throughout this crusade, the Artisan had noticed that whenever he revived his brothers and sisters after a primordial was contained, their power seemed a little less, as if the Loom of Fate was drawing on their power, which made sense to the Artisan. After all, the power to contain the primordials' power must come from somewhere.

Then the assault on Ghûul's volcanic lair begun. The gods and fae fought well, side-by-side, breaching into the each cavern with ease and clearing the place of demons as they searched for the primordial within. When they found him, the Artisan started his ritual as he had done four times before, but in the final moments before the ritual was complete, the air chilled around them, and everyone present in the room felt a large shift in the weave of magic. But still, Ghûul was trapped and the primordial threat was ended. But no one knew what to think. The large shift in the weave had been an anomaly, an event that had never happened before. Everyone was on edge.

### A Threat Remains

Several screams rang out as gods and fae alike were felled by a single strike. Panic filled the room as the First tried to keep order, with the five Faerie Princes fighting to regroup their own men, getting them ready to fight some horrific demon of Ghûul. The Artisan was the only one who worked out what had happened. The power surge had come from Ghûul, but it wasn't his. The weave had been studying him, for lack of a better word. The primordial had seen his brothers and sister defeated and encased within this box and had then been facing his own defeat.

This primordial, a being of sheer strength and unbridled power, had been scared. And that meant something.

Qilinti, the primordial of terror and death, had emerged. And she was doing the only thing she knew, and that was killing. The Artisan, without missing a beat, began his ritual once more, knowing full well the price that would be paid. Gods and fae died all around as this primordial was so full of power and her enemies were so unprepared while the Artisan chanted in an ancient tongue.

The ritual finished with a flash and there was silence. No more surprises this time. This new primordial had done more damage to their forces than any of the other primordials had previously, but there wasn't a single soul who didn't congratulate the Artisan on his quick thinking. But the Artisan was solemn as he looked upon his surviving brothers and sisters. Their souls were all that were left. Thirty-one of them in total. The rest had been absorbed into the Loom of Fate. There was no bringing them back.

### Divided

The primordials each blame each other for their own defeat, claiming that if the others' had been stronger or smarter, none of them would be trapped in this plane of Pandemonium. As such, wars between them have started once again, though now limited to their planar prison. Aside from waging their wars, the primordials also seek to break free of their prison, which falters due to the presence of six, not five, primordials. Their influence seaps out into the world, and sometimes there are enough people in one area that worship the primordials to form a cult. These cults spread corruption, decay, fear and discord wherever they go in accordance with their gods' aspect. Occasionally, the primordials will all work together like before in attempts to take back their place as rulers of the planes. Their most recent incursions into the Mundanus was during the Primordial Crisis, where Velfrik the Merciless, champion of all the primordials, was successful in his plot to breach the barrier between the planes, using Nigel DeRosa to do so, leading to the deaths of countless innocents, though the primordials themselves were not able to free themselves fully. After a year of conflict, the primordials were thwarted by the Orphans of Fate, including Lord DeRosa himself, sending the demonic armies back from whence they came.

## Primordial Heralds

* Drothe - Herald of Ghûul
* Salaan - Herald of Eth'Kai
* Mel'atakanii - Herald of Yvv
* Khûrnnon - Herald of Bulkkar
* The Vile One - Herald of Borlorg
* Death - Herald of Qilinti

## Primordial Champions

* Velfrik - Champion of the Primordials Undivided
* Unknown Champion - Champion of Ghûul
* Unknown Champion - Champion of Eth'Kai
* Unknown Champion - Champion of Yvv
* Rudolph Aspall - Champion of Bulkkar
* Crimson Midnight - Champion of Borlorg
* Thorn-in-the-Side - Champion of Qilinti