Primordials

**Primordials** are creatures or entities that have supposedly been around since the creation of Ygdren. Legend says that during the turbulent years of creation, when matter and arcana were at their most volatile, The Weave sometimes coalesced into beings of great power, which shaped the foundation of the planet into what it is now. These mysterious entities are said to be the first living beings that spawned on Ygdren, and range from gargantuan creatures that moved seas and mountains, to subtler beings that wove fate and reality together. In most mythology, they are attributed little actual intelligence, considered to be creatures of instinct and impulse rather than thought.

## Elemental Titans

Before the cosmology of Ygdren formed into what it is now, the four elemental planes overlapped with each other, with the material plane at the centre of that overlap. According to various mythological sources, particularly Kyoshite myth, the four elemental vortices were formed around gargantuan titans that warred against each other, tearing the world apart and reforming it with every blow. Eventually, their hostility died down as their respective planes slowly separated and they were isolated away from each other to circle the material plane.

The lingering effects of the elemental titans continued to shape Ygdren even after the planes separated into their own individual bodies. The height of this came following the War of Ashes, when the magic used to banish the dreadborn also broke down the planar barriers to the elemental planes. The volatile forces began to overlap once more, threatening to consume the world like they had before. The planar disturbances were centred notably near the Searing Cauldron and in the region of Kyoshai. How this effect was stopped or was reversed is difficult to ascertain, but follows of the Shénziao Enclave claim that their gods, once mortal, had somehow been responsible, in an event known as The Convergence.

The existence of elemental titans at all is difficult to prove. While elementals do exist and sometimes find their way into the material plane, the truth of titanic variants of such elementals defies belief. If they were to exist, most legends and faiths point to them being the cornerstone of their respective elemental planes, presumably to be found at the very centre of those same planes. Followers of the Shénziao Enclave believe that at the end of time, these titans will return to do battle with the gods, destroying reality in the process.

### Titan of Air

Depicted as a towering vaguely humanoid storm made of billowing black clouds and crackling with perpetual thunder and lightning. Said to dwell in the eye of the perpetual gargantuan maelstrom that forms the Elemental Plane of Air.

### Titan of Fire

Depicted as a hunched monstrosity of molten magma and fierce flames that sear the very air around it. Said to inhabit the heart of the ever-erupting super-volcano at the centre of the scorched wastes of the Elemental Plane of Fire.

### Titan of Earth

Depicted as a massive stag-like creature formed of vines, wood, flowers, and roots intertwined into the graceful creature. Said to roam the evergreen forest in the endless maze of caverns of the Elemental Plane of Earth.

### Titan of Water

Depicted as a humanoid yet amorphous water spout made of turbulent currents and speckled ice. Said to wander the bottomless ocean depths in the sea without surface of the Elemental Plane of Water.

## Sea Matrons

Remnants of the elemental chaos from the time before Ygdren formed, these primordials are said to dwell in the abyssal depths of the ocean. Some aquatic cultures, such as factions of Tritons, worship them as deities, believing that they were the ones who breathed life into the seas. Common mythology talks of five Sea Matrons, who take the forms of vaguely humanoid shapes with varying physical characteristics.

### The Wave Matron

Depicted as a withered old woman with a powerful tail instead of legs, webbed fingers on spindly arms, and a humanoid torso with fins along the spine. Long tendril-like hair hangs listlessly from her head encasing her face and body, but comes to life like tentacles when it is time to claim the soul of one who has drowned. It is said that she gave birth to the ocean currents, the waves, and the storms; and claims all those who fall prey to them.

### The Wyrm Matron

Depicted as a twisted facsimile of a hunched humanoid figure with five heads on sinuous wyrm-like necks sprouting from the crone's back. The body is made from twisting wyrm bodies that constantly shift and reform like the ocean which birth them, whipping into a frenzy when it is time to feed. It is said that she gave birth to the wyrms and drakes of the sea, amongst whom she remains the undisputed queen.

### The Frost Matron

Depicted as a frigid crone made entirely out of shifting crystals of black ice, almost transparent and near invisible in the dark water, except for the perpetual passage of frost left behind in her wake as she roams the cold polar stretches of uninterrupted ocean, where icebergs reign. It is said that she sculpts and shapes the layer of frost that encases the ocean in her domain, and yearns to spread her grasp to devour the world.

### The Ink Matron

Depicted as little more than a bloated face above a tubular body that sprouts into a multitude of tentacles. The skin is rubbery, like that of a giant squid, and is lined with spines and bony ridges, as well as four blue-black slime-secreting orifices in a line along the bottom of the body. The slime clouds water and burns the eyes of mortals. It is said that she gave birth to the krakens that now slumber far beneath the surface in the deepest darkest reaches of the ocean.

### The Shell Matron

Depicted as a misshapen crone with the body of a giant crab arranged into more humanoid form. The central shell that forms the torso is encrusted with moss and limpets, cockles and mussels. Long jointed arms that end in disproportionate crab-like claws drag behind the body under their own weight, but can crush a ship like paper. It is said that she gave birth to all shelled creatures, and that the yearly migration of glittering sea turtles is in her honour.