World History

## The World of Evaliss

TODO

In the ancient wilds that sprawled across the planets, the Twelve Titans sought to create representatives of themselves to rule the natural order. They moved across the world and selected the most well-adapted creatures -- creatures of the air, of the earth, of the deep -- all manner of creatures that represented the great traits of their survival. To the mightiest individuals, they bestowed each one with the spirit of anima and the power to influence their kind. Each was an avatar of a particular trait.

Each Avatar grew in knowledge and strength, building strongholds and empires. The Avatars shared the spirit of anima with their many children and they flourished through passing down traditions built around their own particular virtues.

But virtue has a dark side. Taken too far, to an extreme, any virtue can become a fixation. Some of the Avatars corrupted their virtues by oppressing their people with obsession. Conflict rose. Wars ensued. Immensely powerful Avatars clashed in cataclysmic power, scarring the face of the world and decimating civilizations. The blessings of the Avatars became a curse.

The warring twisted the Avatars who fought. The conquerors lost their spirit. Inundating their lives with ambition, hatred, and vengeance, the warring Avatars devolved into singularly cruel emperors, and their children devolved into heartless and obsessive acolytes.

Yet not all was lost. Some of the Avatars watched their brethren in horror as they descended into egotism and imperialism. The pacifist Avatars began calling themselves *Aesir* -- "the humiliated ones" -- and the conquering Avatars *Vanir* -- "the lost ones". For the Vanir taught the Aesir a lesson: that they were not whole without each other. Each needed another's virtue to balance out their own.

But the Aesir had no power to fix the war-torn world. Many of them and their children were driven into hiding after resisting. Others maintained small nations seeking to stay out of the many conflicts. They were powerful Avatars, but overpowered still. This state of the world lasted for 40,000 years. The mortal children of the Avatars were formed by thousands of generations of strife.

When the Titans returned to Evaliss, they could not believe their eyes. The peacefully balanced world they had created was pockmarked and scarred. They were wroth with their children. The Vanir had forgotten their creators, and the Aesir had been arrogant in their apathy.

The Titans set to destroy Evaliss and start anew, but the Aesir pleaded and insisted that they had learned from their mistakes. The Titans revealed that they could not simply destroy the Vanir because each was linked with an Aesir counterpart. Destroying one would destroy the other. The Aesir offered a solution: imprison the Vanir and provide each Aesir with a race of wards. Allow them to teach their new children without influence. Allow them to strive to build up from lowly beginnings, until each race has learned to bring balance to the Aesir.

And so the world was reforged. The roaring and defiant Vanir were imprisoned deep within the planet along with all of their children. The Aesir and their children retreated into hidden enclaves. The Aesir were given a new race to watch over, filled with the spirit of anima but incapable of surviving the harsh elements alone. The Aesir set out to teach their new, frail children about how to survive and how to develop virtues. The Aesir know that they must succeed. The Vanir scheme to escape and influence the frail races to falter. They need time, for they know that the frail races have an incredible destiny if they will take it.

The day will come when the Titans return. If there is no one worthy to replace the Vanir, then the Titans will indeed start anew.