Baotai Legends

## The Ballad of Void's Love, the Baotai Creation Story

The Order of Chaos have no true God of their own, but instead worship aspects of the universe. This is their story of how they came to be. Every child is told this story numerous times before he is old enough to speak.

In the beginning, there was only Void, and it was the only time anyone was ever alone. Much time passed, and Void became lonely, so she gave half of herself to create Existence. Void and Existence were very happy together, and gave birth to two sets of twins: Willpower and Waste, and Light and Dark. Light and Dark quickly consumed the entirety of the Physical World. Willpower and Waste preferred the Spirit World, and upon settling there gave birth to the great variety of Spirit Magics that exist. Void and Existence quickly shifted into the Spirit World also, to allow Light and Dark to grow. Light and Dark gave birth to Earth and Sky. Sky was much more ambitious than Earth, and grew to a much larger size than her brother, surrounding him. Earth and Sky lived in harmony before giving birth to Fire and Water. Sky took Fire into her embrace, while Earth chose Water for his own. Fire visited Water one day, and together they conceived of Dust and Metal. Metal rested atop of Earth, while Dust moved across his grandfather aimlessly. As Dust raced across the earth, he took pieces from metal, which formed the life of Facinovus. Dust and metal also gave birth to Life and Death, the first Baotai, before Metal faded into the Earth.

## Birth of the Paragons

Life and Death thought it would be wise to populate Earth before they died, and so gave birth to eight pairs of children: Wrath and Patience, Envy and Kindness, Greed and Charity, Pride and Humility, Gluttony and Temperance, Lust and Chastity, Sloth and Diligence. The last pair never chose their contrast: they both died before they had the chance to. Envy killed the both of them in their sleep one night over a matter of claims to their great-grandfather's gift to them: the Earth itself. Life and Death had said that they would receive the largest share of land. Envy didn't like that. Life and Death soon heard of Envy's deed, and punished him for it: he would receive the smallest share of land upon his parents death. Life and Death then chose not to have any more children, for fear of Envy striking them down like he did his youngest siblings.

Eventually Life and Death died, leaving behind a map of Baotai, which to them represented all that remained of Earth the Progenitor, one of the creators of Facinovus. They allotted Envy the smallest portion of the island, tucked away from most of the rest of his siblings. Kindness did not mind this too much, as she was quite thankful for what she was given.

In the present time, these fourteen children of Life and Death are looked up to as the perfect example of their aspect. They have reached demigod status within the Order: they have been reborn in the Spirit World, always looking over their descendants, and making contact with them upon request.

Life and Death's map has survived, largely intact, on the island of Baotai today: the original borders they drew for their children is close to the borders of the seven countries that exist now. A side-by-side comparison of maps is shown below.

       As you can see, not much has changed, but  Sloth and Diligence have since split into two countries.  This is the only major change.  This split occurred because of an event called the "Sloth War" in which dissagreements in how the country should be run led to a mutual decision by the entire nation to simply divide their lands.