History of Domhan

## History of Doman

**The current year is 2350 of the 5th Age**

Much of Domhan's history has been lost to time, but what is known paints a picture of a world born of love and torn apart by chaos.

#### **Before Creation**

All the religions of Domhan tell a story of the creation of the universe. Each varies slightly, focusing more or less on the specific god their temple serves and their importance to the creation, but the basics are always the same.

In the beginning, there was nothing. Then, from that nothing, sprang twin gods. Celest and Zayir. As they exploded into existence, raw matter and energy flooded out across the cosmos, in a roiling sea of molten chaos. Zayir thought this chaos was beautiful, the perfect state of beginning, and a pure example of their power. But where Zayir saw perfection, Celest, The All-Mother, saw the potential for something more. She used her might to bring order to the chaos and forge the planes. Then, in the center of her creation, she made Domhan. She gave birth to a host of children and bade them each to create creatures to populate her world.

Zayir was outraged that his sister would dare to bring order to his glorious chaos, so he withdrew to the darkness at the farthest edges of reality, and made plans to return the world to its true state of being.

#### **The First Age**

In the first age of the world, when Celest still reigned upon the heavens, Domhan was a world of peace. One great continent spread itself across the surface of the world, populated by the peoples of the children of Celest. During this time they built a great kingdom that ruled over a just world, devoid of war.

But this utopia was not to last.

#### **The Second Age**

The beginning of the second age was marked when The Dark One, Zayir, began his war against Celest. Disgusted by the order Celest had wrought, Zayir and his children laid siege against Domhan and sought to return the world to molten chaos.

This war was waged on the surface and in the heavens. The gods rallied around their progenitors and fought tooth and nail, leading the races they had birthed in a world-shaking conflict for the very fabric of existence.

Billions fell in the First War, and after millennia of conflict, Gods and men alike were laid to waste as great swathes of the world turned to ash. And Celest had seen enough.

The final battle of the First War was fought upon the surface of Domhan. Zayir had returned from the darkness to make one final push against the forces of light. He plucked the Feywild and the Shadowfell from their place in the sky and flung them at Celest, destroying shattering them and raining destruction down upon Domhan. Outraged, the All-Mother unleashed all of her divine might against Zayir and in a great explosion of arcane and divine energy they collided. In a single moment, Celest and Zayir were destroyed and Domhan was forever changed, its surface completely shattered.

#### **The Third Age**

In the aftermath of the First War, as the dust settled on a universe without its patrons, the heavens wept. On every plane of existence, the skies opened and a torrential downpour was unleashed. The shattered surface of Domhan was flooded as an ocean of water fell from above.

When the rains stopped, Domhan was a changed world. Gone was the land upon which Celest's people had built their kingdom, and in its place, an endless ocean, dotted by thousands of islands.

The third age of Domhan was marked by the races attempts to rebuild as the gods withdrew from the world and fell silent, unsure as to whether they would continue to reign with Celest and Zayir gone. The peoples of the world were scattered and separated, each island gave birth to a society of its own, and Domhan did its best to heal.

Scholars are undecided as to whether this age was the longest or the shortest of the ages. Many empires rose and fall, hundreds of wars raged, and numerous incursions from otherworldly entities marked the third age as "The Time of Uncertainty." Some historians argue that these events constantly overlapped and that the Dragons and Giants rose up quickly, but many argue that these events had to have occured over an incredibly long period of time. Either way, we can mark the Third Age as the time responsible for the numerous ruins that mark every portion of the world.

#### **The Fourth Age**

With the gods absent, the peoples of Domhan squabbled among themselves. The different races had clustered together near the regions where their creators had first made them. Some islands built just societies and alliances, paying homage to the gods they hoped would one day return while living out their lives in relative solitude, others raged and warred. But only two rose to prominence.

On opposite ends of the world, two empires were rising, conquering and laying claim to all in their path, until nothing was left for them but to make war against each other for control of the world.

Ostoria, the empire of Giants and Arkinash, the empire of Dragons had laid claim to Domhan. Each believed they were the mightiest of all the races, and thus had the right to rule in the god's stead. They subjugated the smaller, weaker races and pressed them into service of their armies.

The Thousand Year War, as it came to be known, was the first conflict Domhan had known since the end of the First War, dozens of generations came and went while it raged.

And it was during this furious war, that Dyadis was born.

Dyadis was a human born on a small, inconsequential island on the frontlines between Ostoria and Arkinash. He witnessed firsthand the cruelty of dragons and giants alike. Tiring of the deaths of innocents, Dyadis rallied the small folk of the world and led a great rebellion against both empires. Falling in line behind this new hero, the enslaved races rose up and overthrew both of these great empires with their superior numbers.

As the Thousand Year war ended, and Dyadis' forces overthrew the Arkinash capital, they discovered the draconic wizards had been amassing the power to breach the outer planes and find the gods.

Dyadis took this power, and on his own, he ascended to the outer planes in search of the gods themselves.

Nothing is known of Dyadis' journey in search of the gods, but it is known that he succeeded in finding them. Dyadis was gone for five years, but when he returned he did so with a host of angels. He told his people that the gods would return, but there were conditions. He would not be allowed to return to the material plane, and the empire that had risen from his rebellion would be broken up.

And so it was. Dyadis ascended to godhood, taking the place of Amaunator as the god of the sun. And his empire was broken up into more than a dozen smaller kingdoms. The majority of the peoples of the world retreated to the territories of their ancestors, giving rise to kingdoms helmed by the different races, giving praise to their patron deities.

#### **The Fifth Age**

There was a brief period of peace, as the newborn kingdoms of Domhan rebuilt their homelands. Centuries passed without any major conflict, the kingdoms worked in relative harmony. Trading and building together.

But time passes, and new tensions rise. Small skirmishes over minor offenses turn to wars that flare and die in a matter of decades. But over two millenia of cyclical wars and the rise and fall of dynasties have given birth to a new landscape.

Present day Domhan is a world on a precipice. As border skirmishes and ideological differences flare, alliances are being forged in preparation for greater conflicts, pirate fleets sail the Celestian seas waging unallied wars against the trade routes which crisscross the world, and with the rise of the undead empire of Zarath, the world holds it's breath.

Something is coming to Domhan. Be it war, or something new. Something is coming.