The First Age

## Primordial Existence

During this time, only one consciousness existed: that of the universe itself.  It is said that before the primordial existence first thought reality into being, it pondered whether it should or not for it feared bringing the uncertainty of free will and further imperfection into existence.  But to simply continue existence as it had been it deemed would be less meaningful. Without experience, everything is meaningless, and though some of those experiences may be painful and imperfect, without them, joy and perfection are meaningless.  Thus the Supreme Attendants were born of existence.

## The Procession of Divinity

The first beings created of the primordial existence were merely extensions of itself and subservient beings to serve the will of it and its creations.  Each being created was born of a specific thought or attribute of the universe and its design of creation. Their capacity was thus limited to their intended purpose in design.

## The Province of Creation (The Genesis of Man)

* Here the Supreme Attendants saw to the construction of the multiverse as it had originally been conceived.  The elemental barriers between the primordial existence and the new reality were mined and used in the production of the latter.  Each celestial had its own purpose, and many were granted subservient beings to aid them in their construction of the physical dimension.
* Two celestials in particular, brothers of sorts, saw to the overall design of the others.  These beings were immensely powerful and capable and possessed the strongest connections with the design of the primordial existence.  One of these brothers loved all of his brothers and sisters, but questioned the wisdom of building such wonders for what he considered to be lesser beings, for it was the great design of the primordial existence to build a new reality not for itself or its attendants, but for new beings as yet to be created.
* When the time came, the Elemental Titans arose to help the Worldsmith construct the world, bending to the will of his hammer.  Many creatures were first conceptualized during this creation process: the base elementals, the giants, the dwarves, the Aboleths and many others.
* After the base world was constructed, Minthyra, goddess of nature, brought beauty and life into the world as was her purpose.
* When the time came, after the world was completed, the Spirit Forger brought the Genesis of Man into the new realm within the Gardens of Minthyra.  Happy with the work that had been done by its Supreme Attendants, the primordial existence offered rewards to his servants and had the Spirit Forger forge new spirits for the Attendants to watch over.  To the Worldsmith, the dwarves were granted free will and spirits of their own. Minthyra wished for a son to watch over and enjoy her beautiful creations and so it was granted unto her.
* The Doubtful Brother having already become envious of the creatures that were to inhabit the new world, became enraged and spiteful when he and his brother were denied races to look over and call their own, for it was their design to look over Man -- the prize of existence.

* + Possible Redaction: Two similar races were granted, one each, to the brothers to look after.  One would stay Man and the other would eventually become the Orcs.

* + - May need a possible catalyst to lead him down the path of destruction
		- The Doubtful One grew envious of the new creation races, but out of love of his brethren, he accepted what was and grew ashamed of his impulses to destroy.  He instead turned to the Fate Weaver, putting his faith in and developing feelings for her, believing that there must be some reason or purpose for his existence that he did not understand -- a reason he was so different than his brethren.  When the Fate Weaver refused to return his affection, the Doubtful One understood as it was not Fate’s place to show favoritism, but when Fate was overtaken by the love of Minthyra’s Offspring -- a surprise for even the Weaver of Fate --, the Doubtful One felt betrayed and grew angry in his envy.  It was then that he unleashed his Scourge.

## The Scourge of the Estranged Servant

* Having felt betrayed by his creator and brethren, the Doubtful One sought to destroy all that he had helped design and create out of spite.  He despised the new world and sought to return existence back to what it had been before setting out on this endeavor. He kept these desires secret to him and sent his own servant to seek out the Spirit Forger who she convinced into speaking unto her the secrets of life and the knowledge of ending it.  She then brought back the Spirit Forger to her master who kept him prisoner whilst he released Death upon the world.
* Horror stricken at what their brother had done, the Celestials struggled to understand the betrayal.  Minthyra sent her son on a quest to preserve life while she aided the Doubtful One’s own brother in freeing the Spirit Forger from the Doubtful One’s grasp.
* When she returned from this quest, Minthyra found that her son had sacrificed the essence used to give life into himself in order to form a new realm of existence -- a realm free from time where Death could not reach.  It was filled with the creations of his mother and fueled by the wild spirit of her offspring. Minthyra filled this new world with spirits taken from the Soul Forger she had helped rescue, claiming them as reward. She also allowed Men to pass into the Timeless Realms of the Wild in order to escape the fate of Death that now lingered in the Mortal Realm.
* For those who did not pass into the Timeless Realms, however, Death would not be the end of their souls, for the Architect of Creation, devised a new answer in response to Death.  Utilizing knowledge granted by the Soul Forger, a celestial servant was chosen and given new purpose: to shepherd the souls of Men from the Mortal Realm to the undying realm of the celestials -- the heavens -- where their souls could still live eternally alongside their own creators.
* This angered the Doubtful God who in losing the Soul Forger allowed new life and the mysteries of the soul to be allowed back into existence.  He and his mistress plotted against the other celestials and descended upon the Mortal Realm, bringing with them Darkness and Shadow which would envelope the world.  The world was thrown into perpetual darkness where the mortal races were cut off from their gods. The very lands themselves were split as the earth shook, mountains erupted in flame and ash and the oceans swallowed pieces of land.  In this darkness, the Doubtful One, having never been successful in creating his own race, instead began to twist and defile those already in existence, fueled by the malevolent powers of the corrupted shadow which poisoned and twisted and cursed into madness and evil those who succumbed to it.  He sought to turn the race of men into a mangled and corrupted version of themselves, but found that he was unable to do so. Enraged, he instead twisted the dwarves into a race of proto-orcs and began twisting the giants into his own evil renditions, who lost their elemental base in the process.  With these new tortured creatures unleashed upon the world, an era of destruction and despair took place as the dwarves battled to protect what their Father had created from these new foes. The orc precursers and giantkin were relentless in their pursuit of the destruction of Man, but the dwarves did all they could to hide and aid the humans and halflings from their pursuers.

* + Rédaction: The Doubtful One indeed sought and failed to twist the race of Men, and when he couldn’t, he sought to have them destroyed.  Having previously neglected his own race granted to him, he now called upon them to destroy their cousins. Very few resisted his call to arms and even fewer survived his subsequent contempt at this disobedience.  This race was twisted from their original divine appearance into the orcs. The Doubtful One also successfully recruited many of the Giants to his cause, who were also twisted and corrupted into new forms.
* It was during this cataclysm that the Aboleths were able to move from the depths of the oceans inward into the seas that now split the land.  They added to the chaos and darkness of the times. Never truly allying themselves with any particular god, they did share similar goals as the Doubtful One and often one’s actions would benefit the others.

## **The Second Province**

* This dark period would not last, however, as light once again would return to the world when the Doubtful One’s brother crafted the sun out of the fires of his own being.  The darkness was cast away wherever the sun was able to shine. And where it wasn’t, the moon reflected his gaze. When the sun was created, it was done so with the power to abolish the creatures tainted by Darkness, forcing them to flee into the shelter of the earth to avoid its gaze.
* The solar, lunar and seasonal cycles became part of the Second Province as the eternal twilight still found in the Timeless Realms became no more.  Now darkness and the cold, climates and the seasons could be found within the world, though some claim this resulted in an even more beautiful, albeit imperfect, world.  Some also mix in the creation of the Timeless Realms as the Second Province, and while both were the result of the Scourge, the Second Province more accurately refers to the changes that directly lead to the end of the Shadow of the Scourge.

## **The Fey Mark**

* Following the reformation of the world that the Second Province brought, came a brief age of settlement as mortals and gods struggled to make sense of the new world.  Humans ran and hid from the orcs that pursued them. Their race was separated several times by this constant pursuit. The dwarves settled the mountains as they always had, making use of their gifts and continuing to fight against orc and giant, though by this time, their hatred was more the result of an eternity of fighting one another rather than anything to do with protecting the humans -- though some may still have found refuge with the dwarves.
* Possibly as a direct result of the creation of the moon, they Fey Realm was drawn into the world of men in a series of events that would become known as the Fey Mark.  To the east, within the wilds, elves, gnomes and fey creatures poured into the world, and with them came conflict. Many fey creatures were pesky and some held vendettas against this world, convinced it was rightfully theirs before the Advent of Death.  The most egregious arrival from the Eternal Wilds, however, was the spread of lycanthropy. With no natural cure in this realm, the curse spread like a supernatural plague.
* This caused massive conflict with the mortals of the realm who saw this more as an invasion.  The dwarves in particular did not welcome these new creatures. They sought a way to combat this incursion and the Dwarf King Dorrok blessed the Gift of the Gods (Dadu Relor) and the Mines of Binduur within them to yield an enchanted iron and veins of truesilver capable of striking true against the fey and lycanthropes that plagued the lands.  This did not sit well with the elves who were met with more conflicts as they sought to appropriate these weapons from the dwarves. The advent of these weapons along with the elves bringing wolfsbane into the world from the Fey Realm helped quell the spread of lycanthropy.
* The Fey Mark brought fey-creatures all throughout the world.  To the east, the elves split into two factions: those who guarded the Fey Gate (Athum Idauiin) and the Druid clans.  To the west, the elves mingled with the native men that wandered the area. Similar events happened all throughout the world as the elves, gnomes and fey laid claim to the wilds of the world.  Even areas never touched by men or outsiders wait still undiscovered in the most remote reaches of the world -- their inhabitants given millennia of time to themselves.

## **The Second Scourge**

* The Doubtful One eventually discovered that, unlike the races of divinity, he was able to warp, twist and manipulate the fey-touched mortals as he did his own race of orcs by tempting and corrupting them.  He waged war against the elves and gnomes, capturing and twisting them into a new vile race of goblins. The elves pleaded to the dwarves and even primitive man for help against the orcs and goblins to varying degrees of success.
* During this era, which became known as the Second Scourge, the Mistress of Darkness unleashed her second and most vile attempt at subverting life -- she unleashed Undeath into the world as she had once released Death itself, utilizing her powers and the knowledge she obtained from her time with the Soul Forger.  This proved to be a perversion even more vile than Death, as in some cases, she was able to prevent even the soul of a being from moving onward to its afterlife, instead trapping it in a state of neither living nor dead.
* This dark and difficult period saw the beginnings of major disagreements and infighting amongst the mortal and fey-touched races.  Many of the races struggled to find their place in this world. The fear and temptation of the Mistress of Darkness caused many to seek her matronage.  Many saw an eternal place of power in this world more alluring than what might await them in the afterlife. In these early stages of Undeath, many did not know of or simply did not care about the lasting consequences of their choices.  Cults to the Matron became common. This angered the Doubtful God immensely as he had never known such adoration. The Mistress of Darkness became the Matron of Darkness as her power grew with her ambitions. It was this betrayal that had perhaps the single greatest consequence in the history of the multiverse -- The Fracturing.

## **The Fracturing**

* The Doubtful One has long since desired the primordial powers of the Prime Plane.  Though he could shape and reshape, bend and twist and manipulate matter and reality, he had never possessed the power of his predecessor to simply will new things into existence, a power he envied vastly.  Though he had always sought to destroy the creations of the gods and all mortal life, he did so only for his desire to unite the cosmos back into one entity as they had been once before. He cared for his fellow brethren and had never wished harm upon them specifically.  With the betrayal of the Mistress, however, all of this would change. Fueled by hate, the Doubtful One lashed out against his own kind and did the unthinkable -- he destroyed the essence of the Prime Plane itself -- fracturing the very Heavens themselves.
* The Doubtful One split the Heavens by destroying the essence of its creator and gaining some of its powers over his new domain.  The Doubtful One created a new realm out of a portion of the Heavens, corrupting it, as he had with the mortal races, with his dark intent.  Within this new realm, he reigned supreme and was able to bend reality to his will. Collecting the souls of those he had corrupted in life, he reforged them into an army of fiends that, along with his Fallen Servants, rivaled the celestial servants of the gods.  His power grew greater, as did that of his armies.
* The destruction of the primordial consciousness, however, had unforeseen and devastating consequences on the multiverse.  The Aether of Chaos spread in the absence of this primordial existence. Sometimes referred to as the Void, strange and seemingly random occurrences manifest from the remnants of existence.  This phenomenon had disastrous effects within the overlap of the Void and the borders of the Doubtful One’s new hellish domain. Here, the Aether became corrupted and vile mimicking the essence that emanated from within.  From these pits of chaos came beings of pure destruction and evil. With no order or direction, they poured into the multiverse in their quests for annihilation. This surprised even the Doubtful One who found himself also combatting these new manifestations in their efforts to destroy and undo what he had done.

## **The Thwarted Apocalypse**

* Before long, both the Divine and Mortal Realms found themselves in states of war and chaos against the legions of the Doubtful One as well as the beings of chaos ascended from the Chasm and Aether.  An apocalypse was upon the world.==
* The Elves of Ithirun, abandoned their city and fellows and retreated through Athum Idauiin back into the Gardens of Minthyra, closing the gateway behind them.  The Druids had held council and invited the Elves of Ithirun before their departure. At the Council of Nubaer, the elven kings and queens debated the future of the elves in this world.  Eventually, the elf king of Ithirun declared his intent for his people. A few Druid clans took his offer and retreated into the Fey Realm with their highborn kin. At this council was the druid elder Ylthuiir who first expressed her doubts to the council about their ability to fight against these new threats.  In the end, she yielded to the grand elder -- the archfey-touched elf responsible for cursing the fomorians in the Fey Realm -- the Fey-Touched Elder, Ferinar -- and his decision to stay and aid the mortals in the defense of the world -- for it was also the creation of Minthyra and worthy of their protection.
* Though many strange new creatures and phenomena manifested from the Aether of Chaos, none bore the sheer strength and might of the All-Dragon -- the first dragon from which all others were born.  The All-Dragon was a beast of destruction and greed born of unfettered elemental chaos. It lusted for power and control, and took what it saw fit to take. While in the East, wars waged between the mortal races, celestials and fiends, in the West came the All-Dragon and its dragon children.  Outmatched, the fey-touched sought help from the giants of the east, convincing them to come to their aid. Others aided in much smaller proportions. The hill dwarf noble, Dain brought his people from the east and fought the dragons alongside men and the fey-touched. His arrival heralded the oldest traces of dwarves in these regions and his memory is sung and praised among the descendents of all the allied races of the area.  He is even worshipped to some extent as a lesser patron.
* These wars, as well as countless others brought on by the chaos and the Aether, waged for aeons.  Eventually, the All-Dragon was cleaved into two beings and the power of the dragons was thinned. A decisive blow would not come against the war of the fiends for some time, however.  Cults to various beings began to appear throughout the world as mortals learned of the power of these hellish and demonic beings. Many pledged loyalty rather than suffer at their hands -- even if suffering at their hands is exactly what happened to them in the end.
* One of these cults formed within the Druid circles.  The elder Ylthuiir would succumb to the demonic temptations in her desire for power.  She tried to convince the others of her people that they should embrace these beings rather than fight against them.  For this, she was ostracized and civil war amongst the Druids ensued. Ylthuiir sought to wield the power of the demons for herself rather than worship one as a patron.  Instead, she embraced the chaos from whence they came, hoping to harness its raw potential. Eventually, her people would pay the price for their betrayal. Tainted by the darkness they pursued, their hearts grew evil and full of malice.  The archdruid Ferinar cast her and her followers out of their domain and cursed them to live beneath the surface world.

## The Exodus of Man

* With war surrounding them on all sides and eternities battling those who sought their destruction, the race of men was vastly dwindled.  Tribes had been decimated and others turned agents of darkness. Many attempted retreats from the land, but were often met with disaster in one form or another.  Of those that did not retreat or turn, very few survived and those that did became a rough and tough people. Seeing that the race of man was faltering, the Architect of Creation, the Sun God, sent a champion to lead his people to safety and ensure the survival of man.
* This champion lead his people to the west and into the rocky deserts inhabited by the nomadic tribesfolk long since settled into the area.  Some of these people joined the exodus which grew as it moved across the lands. Within the heart of the desert was found a land of rivers and plenty.  The tribes who called these lands home welcomed these newcomers as they aided them in combatting a demonic overlord who had subjugated them.
* Here in the oases of the riverlands, the first civilization of man took root as kings were crowned and blessed by the Sun God.  Farming and agriculture were learned and permanent settlements and later cities were erected. For the first time in their history, humans had a foothold of their own within the world.
* Religion thrived as temples dedicated to the Okasha -- the god chosen -- were erected.  In this remote corner of the world, human civilization began to flourish. The crises of the East and West had little effect on these lands.  When trouble did trickle in, it was easily enough dealt with.
* During this time, many of the races battled to survive.  Some delved into the earth or hid for safety. To the West, new races emerged from the splitting of the All-Dragon, and with them, new conflicts.  For an age, evil and chaos gripped the lands, and goodly beings were forced to live in hiding or in their shadow.

## The Divine Curtain

* After the Fracturing and the subsequent events of chaos, the Doubtful One found himself once again doubting -- this time he doubted what he had done.  He had established a hierarchy within his hellish ranks which promoted ferocity, power and cunning. This hierarchy would come to be his undoing, however, as the fiend that would come to serve at his side, plotted against him.  The Doubtful One saw that he had nothing left. He had destroyed all hope of reuniting with his brethren and had lost those few he felt he had cared for. His fiendish creations saw all of these doubts as weakness and overthrew the dejected god, imprisoning him within his own hellish domain.  These usurpers would become the new rulers of the domains of hell.
* The gods, seeing what had become of their creator, their brother and the world they helped craft grew desperate to put an end to the chaos.  Allied with the strongest of the mortals, a war was waged to end the madness. An assault was made into the depths of Hell where the fiendish denizens succumbed to the desires of the gods and gave up the imprisoned god to the alliance in exchange for them never to cross through their boundaries again.
* The Doubtful One was ashamed at his own actions and the bravery shown by both his brethren and the mortals in rescuing him.  He vowed to atone for his doings and knew he was beyond forgiveness. As punishment and redemption, the Doubtful One was to be sacrificed in order to produce a Divine Curtain whose purpose would be to shield the Mortal Realms from those of the Divine.  The Doubtful One agreed to his sentence, but requested it be held off temporarily as he wished to see his former Mistress pay for her crimes and discretions.
* The Doubtful One aided the other gods in thwarting the Matron of Shadows and banishing her essence to a new dimension of Shadows.  Here she would remain trapped in a twisted and dark reality meant to imprison her and her atrocious creations. In time, these twisted abominations would seep through the fabrics of reality and make their way back into the world.
* Once the Divine Curtain was drawn, the First Age had come to an end.  Many of the Mortals who aided the celestials in their battles against the Darkness, had either perished or otherwise found themselves on the other side of the Curtain when it was raised.  These heroes would largely become known as gods themselves by the mortal races and kin they left behind.