Deities

Deities are anything from patrons of elements and disciplines, to minor godlings that have a small influence over some aspect of Din.

## Creation of the Higher Powers and Creatures:

Din and Makar combined was the "consciousness" of the universe. Din was the Wisdom and Makar is the Power. Din (The Earth) created Nyrn (The Sea,) Bato (The Fire,) Gyle (The Sky) and La'norn (The Underworld.) From the discarded and rejected pieces, Kaos (The Darkness) was born. Spirits and Gyro were created from Makar. Din, Gyle and La'norn created the Celestials, while Nryn and Bato created the Daegons.

The Celestials were charged with crafting from Makar, and giving the resulting Magic and its rules to the Daegons, who were charged with the task of bending the rules and making sure everything was working smoothly. DEVs and QAs if you will.

With these other deities, Din created souls and the First Plane, where they created different races of people, animals and creatures. The Celestials and Daegons were tasked again with distributing Magic as they saw fit. Each deity was to populate their realm with creatures as they saw fit. Din populated the earth with nymphs, elves, beastfolk (canynes, felynes, bovynes and reptynes,) tauri, predators and prey, and the creatures of the soil. Nyrn populated the sea with mer, nymphs, elves, reptynes, predators and prey, and the creatures of the deep. Bato populated the deserts and volcanoes and the hot caves with dragons, nymphs, elves, titans, cyclops and all the creatures of the flame. Gyle populated the skies with avians, nymphs, predators and prey, and all the creatures of the clouds. La'norn populated the underworld with nymphs, elves, tauri, centurions and all the creatures of the dark. She lovingly took in all the wandering spirits and souls of the dead and gave them purpose in keeping the underworld as beautiful as it started. Kaos wandered through the realms with none of her own, lending aid when asked or needed, never staying in one realm for very long.

The First Six created godlings who then grew into fully fledged deities. Many became patrons of Magic elements or disciplines. Makar was split into three threads for the sentient races. Elemental, which gives the wielder influence over the elements. Manual, which allows the wielder influences over entities; whether that be themself or others. Versatile, which allows the wielder a choice over what their influence reaches. Different races were taught to wield Makar differently by the patron deities and the celestial's rules were set in place that could not be crossed to prevent any one people from rising above the others.

## Creation and Greed of Man:

Eventually, a new race of men evolved from elvish demigods and yet another set of rules was placed on this people. For many many cycles the residents of Din bickered and argued, but either on their own or through intervention of other races or deities, peace was always found. Eventually though, the humans grew bored and a small uprising began. Slowly the humans poisoned the minds of other sentient races, fueling them with discontent for the deities and the world and the way it was run. They desired power, more power than their rules allowed. Rather than fighting each other for the power, they fought the gods. At first, all they could get their hands on were young or weaker deities. Slowly more powerful interveners came, only to be cut down by the sentients who by now were sick of the First Six hiding behind their creations. Finally, it was Kaos who stepped into the plane to put an end to the uprising.

Kaos still had no realm of her own after all these cycles and since she was not bound to any one place, stepped foot onto the ever widening battlefield. Since she was not bound, however, she had no constant source of power. She tried reasoning with the sentients but their anger had blinded them long ago and she was taken, forced to fight or be cut to pieces so insignificant that she would never be able to pull her consciousness back together. So she became the force of death. She found herself as the Sower of confusion, the unknown, of fear and endings. The sentients began to retreat underground, where she followed them.

Gyle from the skies saw what was happening and flew down to intervene. Not only was he caught in the crossfire, but so far away from his realm that his bond with the skies was easily severed by the sentients and his consciousness was severed from his body. The sentients consumed his physical and magical form; and with the combined power of all of their races and rules and a high deity from Dins own hands, their power grew exponentially in size. They caught Kaos and held her underground at their mercy for cycles. Eventually, she was able to force them to free her consciousness, and she disintegrated into pieces so insignificant that the sentients wouldn't be able to consume her power.

With her remaining strength and as her consciousness dissipated, she cried out to La'norn to save the sentients from themselves. La'norn, who had noticed a significant increase in wandering spirits and souls of the dead, was already preparing for catastrophe. However she wasn't the only one that heard Kaos' final plea. Din, who had been 'sleeping' since the Patrons unraveled Makar's true form, was awakened by Kaos' cry. He reached out with his own consciousness and tried to gather the quickly fading bits of Kaos. He lulled Kaos' consciousness into a deep slumber and pulled her into a protective chamber deep within the earth to protect her. Enraged by the death of his son Gyle and to see his daughter forced to disintegrate into fragments so small only he could pull her back together, he rose from his realm to truly survey the chaos.

## Death of the High Six:

When he emerged he found that the sentients had taken what slivers of power Kaos had left behind and, combined with the might of Gyle, slaughtered La'norn and had taken control of the dead for themselves. With the armies of the supercharged Makar wielders and the dead, they marched on Bato and Nyrn. Bato, taken by surprise, had been felled after a horrendously bloody battle. Immortal blood, esen, and sentient blood alike flowed so deeply that none could pass through without soiling their boots. Even though half the sentients had been cut down, Nyrn was teetering on the verge of losing consciousness to the remaining. The remaining sentients had now absorbed the power of Gyle, silvers of Kaos, La'norn, and Bato. Having surpassed even the Patron deities, the sentients hoped to purge the High Six and rewrite the world anew, in their own likeness.

They succeeded, to an extent. When Din rose, he watched Nyrn fall. Her consciousness rushed to him, and he watched as the sentients consumed her physical and magical forms and turned on him. Din's fury blinded him. His power seeped from his form into the world he created. He shattered the consciousnesses of young and minor deities. He wiped out hundreds of innocent creatures that had been lovingly crafted by the dying consciousnesses that now swirled around him. He shattered the minds of the creatures that roamed the underworld. He crushed the bodies of the creatures that wandered on land. He destroyed the natural orders, upturned the cycles of the sky and the underneath and finally he turned his back on the sentients. Though all humans had been slaughtered in the blind rampage, the older races had still survived, and they attacked as one. They were able to deal many deathly blows before Din's mind returned to him and he saw what he had done.

## Creation of the Second Plane:

Din froze the world as it was and as he lay fading, looked around at what was left and what could be saved. He looked into the wild and confused eyes of the sentient children, of the non magical creatures, of the predators and prey who had had their home devastated by consequences they could not understand, nor could they be faulted for. He saw into the hearts of those who had been truly content and had taken no part in the massacre. He saw into the souls of the dead, wandering aimlessly with no purpose and no shepherd. He sobbed for his creations then, cried for the lives he had blindly taken and for the souls he had shattered with a thought. He then set in motion a cycle of life that would ensure the survival of what creations had been spared.

He gingerly took the fragments of Kaos and whispered to her that she would remain in a cycle with the humans until his power no longer remained. She may take billions of cycles to reform, but eventually, her consciousness would repair itself and she would be reborn into the mind of a human. It was to be her duty to make sure that the humans didn't destroy themselves or his creations a second time. He gathered the splinters of his slaughtered children's minds and shut them away from the sentients, creating a seal that would keep them hanging on by a thread until he would once again awaken to repair them. He created a Second Plane, and gingerly ushered Celestials and Daegons and Patrons into this new plane. He left with them whispered instructions on how to create what he had, how to work together to achieve the power that he had in a single breath. He left with them the promise that Kaos would someday return and reopen the gates to the First Plane, where they could leave the Second Plane and come back to repair what they had left.

He used the last of his power to seal the gateway and unfreeze the world, wiping the sentients of their power and memories. Then he allowed his realm to open up and swallow him, where he slipped into an unconsciousness so deep, not even slivers of dream fragments could reach it.

## The Mortal Realm:

The Celestials and Daegons who had moved between the planes of existence helped show the Patrons how to thread the unraveled Makar through the plane and create a world that much resembled the first. Working together, the Patrons created the earth and the sea and the skies and the underworld. In Din's absence, they created the godlings that grew into full fledged deities. They divided the world amongst them by who had been the Patron in the previous, and what was left was shared among the minor gods. Some gods had large influences, like manipulating the weather, or the currents of the sea, while others had small influences like the falling of leaves or the dust that kicks up underneath the travelers. None of them ever showed a sliver of jealousy or self pity, because they remembered what had happened to the First Plane.

When it became time to populate the world, all the deities were hesitant to gift sentience. Celestials created new rules and Daegons bent the rules as far as they dared, but no deity wanted to be responsible for the next conflict. At a standstill, many of them agreed to go off into the land and each create two humans, a man and a woman. They would create them far far away from one another so that they had time to mature by themselves before meeting other cultures, or races. Most decided to create the humans out of mud and clay, as it was easier to shape and then breathe life into it, rather than pulling life from nothing. Others decided to split themselves into two, pulling from what already exists rather than making new. Some still used the eggs from other animals, using the yolk to nurse the human to age and then forcing them to break free to guarantee strength to survive in the world. Some shaped the humans out of tree trunks, or split flowers, or used their own esen to fertilize the earth so that humans would rise. Each of these peoples grew into their own societies and taught their creation stories to the next generation and the next, slowly making up their own religions and with it, creating their own gods.

The deities didn't dare create other races of sentients however, and collectively decided that only humans would ever roam this realm with the knowledge that they were conscious. It was also decided that the deities would largely remain in the background and behind the scenes. They didn't dare show their face, lest the humans get jealous of their power and revolt as they once had. It was bad enough that they fought over their own religions, not understanding that all of them were technically the truth. Every time a mass of humans agreed that a god existed, said godling would be born. While miniscule in power, these godlings still had heavy influences on the humans, as they had been summoned for and by them. The Celestials, Daegons and Patrons simply watched from the background, refusing to interfere with the mortal affairs.

Humans were given small marks on their fingers, partly to downplay their power, and partly in hopes that they would forget about something so insignificant. These marks were only visible to other Makar wielders, and so throughout history the Wielders - Magi, they called themselves- would consistently try to assert their power over the mortals. It was foolish, they were all mortal. But Makar, even unraveled, fuels vessels and keeps them young and strong for almost 5 times the amount they should have.

After many cycles of death and destruction amongst the humans, Kaos finally awoke.

## Kaos:

She was reborn into human after human, living and dying with them, each time waiting until the celestials found her another soul to share. She learned how the humans thought, how they acted, how they interacted with each other and the world around them. She lay dormant in their minds, slowly growing and pulling more and more of her shattered consciousness together. The more she was reincarnated, the angrier she grew with humanity and with the blessing Din had given her, as it had turned more into a curse. She was tired of watching humans tear themselves apart and tired of tearing the world they inhabited apart. She began to despise Din's selfishness, giving the humans a second chance when the outcome was no different. Selfishness of pulling Kaos and the Patrons out of their homes in the First Plane and leaving them with the harrowing responsibility of looking after the greedy sentients. Selfish for keeping the First Plane for himself and expecting the banished to bring up the humans as he had brought up those that came before them.

While the dwellers of the Second Plane went about their lives, Kaos lay dormant in her vessels slowly drawing the old pieces of her consciousness back together. With each new reincarnation, a more powerful soul was required for her to exist with. For this reason she started keeping her vessels as healthy as possible, to operate for as long as possible. She communicated through dreams and stray thoughts, hinting at small jobs her mage could do without being discovered. If she was discovered, she manipulated their minds into giving her full control of their body. If this didn't work, she would return to dormancy until the vessel was weakened enough that she could force control without damaging the body.

Soon she began using her vessels to directly summon the Patron deities. While the humans had long forgotten about them in favour of their new gods, Kaos remembered. She spoke to them, confessed her anger, and the Patrons agreed. They had been plucked from everything they had known, everything they had created and burdened with creating a Plane from scratch, a feat that only came to be when all of them worked together. A feat Din had completed with a thought, a breath, not even a wave of his hand. Din had expected them to build what he had built with a splinter of the power he possessed. The Patrons had grown weary and weak watching the sentients destroy their world, a second time. Together, Kaos convinced the Patrons to start over one more, wiping the sentients from the world. However, without the sentients there would be no one to remember the mortal gods, who in turn remembered the Patrons, and thus they both would fade away, collapsing the Second Plane.

## The Great Flood:

A great flood was called for then, and the Celestials and Daegons looked on as the seas rose and the skies opened. For nine cycles the world was a single vast ocean, with the mortal gods instructed to keep select humans under their protection. When the world was drained and what fragment of the humans remained stepped onto dry land, the mortal wielders of Makar were then given strict instructions to hide their power from the non-wielders. The surviving non-wielders' memories were wiped of anything related to Makar and the magi were charged in keeping the world safe. Thankful that they had been spared, the magi agreed, and that was the order for many many cycles. The magi kept their world hidden from the mortals, and Kaos continued to reincarnate into souls of humans to watch them grow once more.

## The Gates to the First Plane:

Still her anger grew. The longer the blessing progressed, the more it became a curse. Every reincarnation was more frustrating than the last. Sometimes it was weeks between the death and the rebirth, sometimes it was cycles. Kaos never knew when or where she would emerge. When her vessels' Magic had solidified she worked at slowly gaining control over them. The more the Makar wielders' generations grew, the longer they lived and Kaos found herself bound to bodies for longer and longer, the cycles blending together. If she could force control, she could decide when the host lived or died, and she could set about trying to open the gates to the First Plane to release her humans onto Din and his creations as punishment for banishing her, the Celestials, the Daegons and the Patrons.

Finally, splinters in the seals surrounding the plane began to appear, visible only to higher and older deities. Kaos could see them while her vessels could not. She could sense the bond between her and Din, as they were both elder gods, through the fractures in the fabric separating the planes. While she was still not strong enough to pass through, she slowly- over hundreds of cycles- was able to expand the fractures into small portals that she could then thrust her vessels fingers through.

To this day, there is only one fracture in the seal that is large enough for Makar wielders to pass through...