Almetta

Before time, there was Night. There was no earth, nor sky; no stars, nor sea, simply Night. Alone and all encompassing, night only knew herself and could know nothing further, but it is from this solitude that thought was born. She knew not what she wanted, she knew nothing other than simply being, but she felt alone and she thought this was no way to spend eternity. Whether summoned by her from far away, or born of her desire to be more than endless nothing, Time came to her. Time was so very different than Night: Time was ambitious and perilously focused in his ideas for existence, while Night was simply consumed by the desire to be more than infinite nothingness. Where Night bore the magnitude to expand and become, Time was the one who saw grand designs for what could come after them within her own desires. And in this mutual wanting to be more than they were, to become more and to create, they came to know each other. From their union, existence was born.

Their children were many, bearing shapes and forms and desires all different from one another. These children spread themselves across the Night, learning how to reshape her form with the knowledge of Time. It is said that the greatest children of Time and Night, though old and tired, still sit at the far corners of existence, waiting for a reason to be remembered. It is also said that many of their lesser children fell, and from their bodies, vast and primordial, were carved into new shapes, eventually coming to be various planes of existence, drifting across the nights sky, only accessible by those who knew the way.

For endless eons, the children of Time and Night fought and fucked, destroyed and created, as their parents looked on, wondering what their desires had wrought. They could not have anticipated their children being so cruel towards their own kin. They desired order amongst the spheres, so that lesser beings, the creation in which Time took the most pride, could be born. But Time, not immune to the conditions of his own being, had grown old and tired, and Night was spread too thinly to bring her children to heel. So they made love once more, and from this, the first Gods were born. They were not cast off freely across the night to experience themselves, but were instead given direction and purpose at conception. Time knew he would not live long enough to see his first children, whom the Gods named The Titans, fall. So he entrusted the future of his children to the Gods in the infinite shapes they took and the limitless powers they held over certain aspects of existence. All across existence did the Gods meet the Titans. And so The War for Existence began.

When the war was ended, most of the Titans had been slain, almost the entirety restrained, sequestered, or made to see the truth in their father's vision. The gods had lost more than half of their total number, despite having continued to expand their ranks through conception of generations of younger gods. And father Time had succumbed to himself, his consciousness disseminating across all of existence and leaving his presence in every aspect of being that he had forged with mother Night.

And so, the bountiful being of night belonged to the gods to shape and re-shape and shape again as they saw fit. Worlds and entire planes of existence were crafted across her inconceivably fast scope, worlds that the Gods kept respectfully distanced from each others' domains. Families of deities took to calling themselves pantheons and spread their rule and creations wide. Other gods, already tired of their nature and their reason for being made to exist, took refuge within the void and carved dark realities in which to reside and conjure things to leave more sinister impacts on existence around them. But these Gods who took paths divergent to their father's wishes did not create strife among their kin, instead sending their monsters and miseries to the other Gods' creations, who were already becoming quite numerous.

Across existence, worlds bloomed with life, and thought. The grand design of Time, mortality, proved to become a driving force in the minds of all beings that his children had created. Great lamps were hung above worlds, forged with the blessings of Mother Night, to guide travelers between planes. Even now, one can still see many lamp lights from distant worlds, though it is said that many are simply lights that have yet to fade from long dead worlds. Physical travel between planes proved difficult for anything that wasn't a deity, or at least rivaled one in power, but the mortals eventually developed a way around this; magic. Magic was the act of bending the gods-given aspects of existence through sheer willpower and intention, mortal willpower always being something recognized and respected by the Gods.

However, the Gods, these supposedly perfect beings, failed to realize that aspects of every single realm of existence was being effected behind their eyes until another plane had been born autonomously on the far side of the night. Liminal passageways had coalesced beyond the Gods' perception and met to form something that was every one of their creations naturally existing in harmony. All of this had been lit by a golden lamp that danced across the spherical plane in such a way that all sides were met with it in some level of even favor. Some believe this was a parting gift from mother night, before her spirit left her body behind for us all and left for something that none of us could hope to understand.

The Gods looked upon this plane, assembling in droves just to see what had happened, and quickly blood was spilled in attempting to claim it. They warred across the surface of this plane for a commendably short period of time, quickly realizing that this plane needed balance, as it had connection to everything. All Gods, Titans, Demons, High-Elementals and every being of repute agreed to a concord; that this plane was to be the first to be protected when the night came down, and the last to fall if it should, and thus combined the words for first and last in their mutual tongue.

Almetta is the closest most mortal tongues can pronounce it.

At least, that's what I was taught growing up. -Abbadon; Asmondeum Abbanius de Leale