Initium Creation Narrative

The Scripta, or Holy Book of **Ortueism**, begins with the Initium, an account of the creation of the planet of **Anfang** and all the living creatures in it. It also includes the fall into iniquity that created the various **Races** and lead to the present condition of life that includes suffering and hardship. And finally it explains the fate of the originator of this diminished state of being.

## Creation of the World

In the beginning, there was Ortues, the origin of all things. His power stretched across the unformed universe which roiled only with formless potential. His first creation was his daughter Sarupa, whom He cherished dearly. Ortues brought forth light to shine upon her by creating stars within the heavens, and a blazing sun around which the planets could dance across their circular course.

After the cosmos came into existence out of His divine Word, Ortues then formed Anfang from nothingness. The planet of Anfang was beautiful and lovely, and Ortues took Sarupa upon its surface. They made the mountains and planted the forests; their swimming created the whirlpools, and their laughter blew the clouds into existence. And eventually, once the world had become the perfect garden, Ortues decided to create other beings to share in the fullness of existence with Him. He shaped the dirt into the forms of creatures and animals and beasts, one after another, presenting each as a gift to His daughter, and Sarupa cherished greatly these first creations and was delighted, naming each one. Animals spread across Anfang and she took great delight in their chaotic nature and variety of color and shape and size.

Ortues then saw fit to create Man in His own image; two-legged beings that could marvel at all that surrounded them and both feel and return His love for them. He breathed life into the dust and formed Humanity as the true inheritors Anfang, and showed them compassion by teaching them right from wrong. As they learned under His wise guidance they thrived and multiplied across the planet, growing in number and developing tools and social structures with which to mark themselves as masters of the world. Ortues created the heavenly messengers which He made His own likeness, and also the sprites of nature which He formed in Sarupa's image, granting them as servants for her to help oversee nature and the animals she'd come to so deeply appreciate.

## Birth of the Races

And so Ortues created Humanity, giving them physical bodies but also spiritual souls that transcended the flesh they inhabitated. He created the first two humans, a man and a woman, and named them Mino and Narma respectively. He instructed the terrestrial sprites who served His daughter to watch over these two and ensure their wellbeing. He gave them stewardship over Anfang and command over the beasts of the land, and gave them the rules by which this paradise would be maintained.

But Sarupa grew discontent with her Father's children, jealous of the attention and affection Ortues showed His creation and spiteful of the preference they received to do as they would with the land and the animals upon it. In a fit of petty envy, she decided that she would corrupt the sanctity of the Man which Ortues so loved, by mixing their blood with that of the beasts so as to reduce them to dumb animals. Surely then, she said to herself, her Father would not be so enamored by them.

So she wore the forms of many animals, and went time and time again to Mino to seduce and copulate with him. Each time he resisted at first, but Sarupa enticed him with forbidden unions until he gave in to his curious lustfulness and committed unclean acts with her. And each time, their union produced a new hybrid monstrosity that slunk off into the garden, neither Man nor beast nor spirit, but a miserable mix of all three.

Ortues was not ignorant to the doings of His daughter, but He tried each time to let her confess her wrongdoings of her own accord, speaking to her patiently despite His great disappointment. Each time, she lied to hide her deeds, her bitterness hidden behind a false smile while she hoped that eventually her Father would come to despise the Humanity she had dragged into her degradation.

In time, those hybrid beast-man offspring threatened to destroy the garden. They had wings to fly, or claws to rend, or venom to poison, and Mino could not protect his own children as a result. Many were lost, and much ruin was wrought, before Ortues heard the cries for help from Narma. He went forth and sought out the Humans he had made, to confront them with Mino's actions. Sarupa watched their meeting from the trees, hoping that He would strike down all living creatures in a blind rage.

And yet Ortues heard the mournful apology of Mino, the sympathetic pleas of Narma, and witnessed the suffering of the hybrids who shared the image of man with the baseness of beasts and yet lacked a fully-formed soul to elevate them to the point of rational thought. And though His first inclination was to remove them from existence, to end their misery in an act of fatal mercy, He listened to the pleas of Narma and Mino. In spite of all that had happened, they wished for a chance for the wretched children to attain salvation.

And so with a gentle touch, Ortues gathered the sorry creatures that Mino and Sarupa had begat, and He lifted them up to the level of Man, gifting each a name and a soul from which their own Race could issue forth. But He spoke to each of them and the Humans as well, telling them that their dalliances in this sin had marred each of them and would separate them from His perfection while they still lived. But as a mercy, He would limit their lifespans, so that their separation would not last forever, and when they died they could return to Him if they so decided during their life. Only those who rejected Him would cease to exist after death, and He would dispatch His celestial spirits to deliver His Will to His chosen prophets to shepherd the nations. And so He sent them out into the world to begin their lives, forced to labor and hunt and give birth and age and die.

## Exile of the Adulterous Queen

Only after that task had been completed did He summon His daughter to Him, to give her one final chance to repent. Sarupa appeared at last, but in her stubborn resentment she steadfastly refused to admit any wrongdoing. Despite His great sorrow, Ortues rebuked Sarupa then, regretting having formed her in the first place. Ortues stripped His daughter of her place in the Heavens and intended to annihilate her entirely. She wailed and raged but before He had fully unmade her, she gave a final plea: banish her to the far reaches of Anfang, that she might at least watch over her misbegotten offspring.

In His infinite mercy, Ortues granted her this wish, carrying her to the frozen wastelands at the edge of the world, where He imprisoned her for her sins. There He gave her one final gift: a heavenly flower that would keep her safe from harm, and remind her always of the Fatherly love He he had always had for her. With her divine status lost and the influence of the world rushing in, the many sins of infidelity began to twist and reshape Sarupa's form nearly immediately. Taking on many of the attributes of the beastly skins she had wore to produce her marred children, Sarupa sprouted the dark wings of the **Night Ravens**, the cruel claws of the **Wolfen**, the equine hooves of the **Half-Horses**, the sharp horns of the **Dragon Daughters**, the thin tail of the **Fey Cats**, and more. All these features warped her body, manifesting outwardly the hatred she had demonstrated to the Living God who had created her first above all else.