Gods, the Basics

In this book, we are going to chronologically list the order of events from creation to the start of the Tournament of Valor, Nirvana.

lets not dilly dally now with pointless pleasantries, its time to get into the meat and talking potatoes.

It a widely accepted ideology that the gods did not always exist. But were rather born of the Aether, the mother source. The Aether was an near Unending Spheroid of pure concentrated mana that was formed in what many like to refer to as "The Big Bang." Where in a cataclysmic anomaly rang through an otherwise completely empty and rather dull plot of space. Emanating such raw energy that forced something into existence. We are unsure if reality was in fact empty before the "Bang," but there are no signs suggesting there was anything else in existence at the time. There are those that believed that the "Bang" signified an attempt at restarting the universe. For what purpose we have yet known, or possibly have already passed on by. This is of course conjecture for the sake of argument. As once again there is no evidence to suggest that there was anything before "The Big Bang."

A millennia passed following the creation of the Aether. Not much happened during this time. though Duck Borris did eventually get bored watching the limitless blue mass of shifting energy, so he roundhouse kicked it. The force of the kick knocked the first god out of the mass and into the general nothingness at the time. The first god, known as Magnus, decided against the amorphisity of the Aether and instead opted to form himself into a shape akin to that of Duck Borris. Who, disgusted by this poor imitation of his greatness, decided to stop existing. Magnus, determined to recreate the conditions that led to his creation, started swatting at the Aether, but failed.

Frustrated, he grabbed the Aether, and pulled it, expecting it to be yet another fruitless endeavor. To his surprise it responded much better to this gentler albeit still very forceful method of interaction. The Aether allowed itself to be pulled, the slower and more gentle Magnus worked the Aether, the more it responded to his command. Using this method he created the next six gods.

Maltyte, a thin Humanish Male who wields a cane in all known depictions, would become god of the moon Ceptis. Kalatyte, a stout heavyset woman who many assumed made the dwarves, would become goddess of the moon Hadvin. A sister to Maltyte. Next was Peter, who looked like most Humans, would become God of the Humans, caretaker of the Pearly Gates. Next would be Lucifer, who would go on to be called many different things. He created our planet, Eden, as well as became the guardian of the underworld after its creation was deemed necessary by the Pantheon. Next to be created was Varn, the first god to divert From the "Human" look. Being an amalgamation of thousands of different animals, She would go on to create many of the beast races with help from magnus. Varn was also a patron for hunting and the hearth. Considered by many to be the most good aligned Creation pantheon member as well as the only pantheon member to object to the creation of the underworld, also known as hell. And finally we reach Orcus, he looks like an orc, god of the Sworn oath, and god of the unbeloved.

He is also very much a good and forgiving deity, exempt when his followers broke promises for whatever reason be it to him, others or even themselves.

Many modern Theologians agreed upon an alignment chart for the creation pantheon. From good to slightly morally questionable, seeing as the creation pantheon had no definitively evil deities, and would not until the 45th day of the 4th month of the 5061st year AC(after Creation). When the Eden Pantheon Became the Solus pantheon.

Varn, Orcus, Magnus, Peter, Maltyte, Lucifer, and Kalatyte. With Varn and Orcus being neutral to good. Magnus to Lucifer being generally neutral and Kalatyte sometimes acting out of emotion rather than reason which leads many to consider her to be morally ambiguous despite that not really being the case.

A short while after Orcus was born the Creation Pantheon decided to, well, create things. Magnus created the sun Solus, wanting to test the limits to aetherial power. And noticing that there is a slight pull from the sun said so to the others. Using the newly founded laws of gravity. Lucifer, interested in trying his hand in creation, carefully weaved the aether, and molded it into a spherical shape, and tossed it past the sun, which set our orbit into place. The twin moon gods also did the same. One tossing their space rock around the planet's poles. At a relatively close range to the planet. This moon is of course, Ceptis as you all would know.

Kalatyte was upset that her sibling's moon was bigger and tossed it without much regard as to where it ended up. Putting it on the same orbital track on the opposite side of the world from Ceptis.

We could talk about this whole period for a century, but we sadly must skip ahead a good bit to save time seeing as this book could be 700 pages long if i'm not careful.

**The first "Acceptable" race**

Humans. There were many races before them the gods have created. Including dwarves, gnomes, satyr, and most fey. But these were all "imperfect creatures" as Peter would say. Peter wanted to create a race in his own image. The gnomes were as close as his attempts got him, gnomes aren't humans. All his attempts to create a human from the Mother Source, failed. So he tapped into his own Aether, Believing that it would give him greater control. And using this method, he created the elves. Which were "close, but no cigar" to use a modern expression. The main and only physical difference between elves and humans is the ears. "It seems the more Aether in a creature, the longer and more pointy the ears." said magnus to peter. "Yes it seems to be so. I figure I could make a race in my image, but I wonder if they could survive Eden without enough access to the Aether." Replied Peter disheartened. "Well now don't be too sure, Varn's dwarves Have Absolutely no point to their ears. And have been seen using the Aether. Ask him about it."

Said magnus. Begrudgingly the god asked for help from Varn. Who told him of how he created pacts with certain individuals of the race, allowing them to tap into his own Aether stream to cast magic. He had created Clericism.

He then went on to create humans. The master race..... Who then went on to commit a bunch of atrocities to the other races that haven't even been thought of up until that point. We won't get into those, human history is not my expertise. It goes without saying that the other gods were upset with Peter and his humans. "Well we could cause a giant flood and grab the best male and female from every species and race-' "no." interrupted Magnus. "Peter this is on you and the humans." we will punish the humans with a millennia of torture in death for each evil act they have committed in life." Magnus said firmly. "Well what about the elves and Dwarves? Hmm? My humans may have started it but in the end they too committed the same atrocities."

"I hate to say it, but Peter is right, you can't punish one without the others in this case." Orcus said, adding his own thoughts on the matter. "Very well then, Lucifer! design a facility and watch it to make sure no being escapes before their time. As for you Peter, create the opposite, a place to reward the virtuous beings after they expire. You're also to watch over its entrance."

"And it was so." This exchange happened in the 32nd day of the 4th month 342 AE. The humans were created on the 5th of that same month and year.

A question many theologians get is why we have such exact dates and dialogue from the former gods, it's because the god magnus gave us this information on stone tablets. Magnus had kept track of everything that happened after the creation of Eden, using Eden's orbit as a guide for the calendar. a day is twenty hours, as that it is the time it takes for our planet to rotate around its axis completely once. a week is ten days, the time it takes Ceptis to rotate around its own axis. As you should well know, Magnus named each of of those ten days in order of Jundi, Moudi, Fendi, banadi, tsundi, namadi, kachidi, swahdi, Piodi, and Junpokdi. Magnus also divided the time into months, based on the change of the seasons, Spring, Summer, harvest, fall, and winter. all of them have fifty days, or five weeks, except harvest which has thirty days, this of course follows the amount of time it takes for our planet, Eden, to orbit Solus.

While there's still a year and a half worth of reading on the events leading upto the rise. We shall cover that in a separate book titled "Minor Gods and where you find them."

The Rise was a world Changing event, literally. It brought forth the Great mountain of Auburn which is named after the land it resides in. 18 kilometers high (60k feet)at its top 20 miles wide at its base. However the rise wasn't just a mountain forming or an extinction event or anything of the sort. Well actually I guess it was an extinction event. The extinction of the Solus Pantheon.

Now the exact order of events is still trying to be understood, but as of this book's writing on the 36th day of the 2nd month of the 1,685th year AR (After Rise) this is what happened as we know. Quickly I would also like to mention a couple quirks with our calendar system because it's relevant. The god magnus as i mention kept track of everything including the current date for us, he was a very active part of mortal lives. When he was slain it took anywhere from 3 years to 4 decades for us mortal races to recover and continue recording history. So the current year is actually up for debate, though many countries did agree to use the same starting year in their calendar. Secondly excluding whatever time passed during the null period, our god started our calendar at year 0. Year 342 was the ending point of the first era which would retroactively be called After Eden. Magnus Renamed what would have been year 343, year 0, AC (**After Creation** of the heavens and hell.) which as stated earlier in this book the after creation era ended when the Eden Pantheon Became The Solus Pantheon in the year 5,061. And as you probably guessed, Magnus Once again renamed the following year, year zero, of a new Era. the SE (Solus Era.)

The last date Magnus recorded before the rise/null period was 7th day of the 1st month of the year 20,000.

Well that was a side track and a half, back to what actually happened in the rise. A Human Blacksmith whose name was lost to time, was tried and executed for multiple murders in the old kingdom of Animas in 19,867 SE. His soul, heavy with the weight of his sins, was drug down to the fourth ring of hell known as Damnation. Now damnation is the specific ring of hell we get the term "hot as hell" from. With temperatures that burn at 4000\* Celsius, where you're forced to endure your flesh being incinerated without ever actually melting off your body, for a millennia per sin. It was around this time Lucifer was looking to equip his many commanders to better keep the damned in line. they needed weapons that could physically harm souls, which are our inner Aether source we were created with. So the devil went to the blacksmith. "How about we make a deal, sinner. I shall reduce your sentence to purgatory if you would forge my commander's weapons." and it was so. The blacksmith forged each of Satan's commanders a weapon (there were a lot of them, 150 give or take.) However When the Last weapon was forged, instead of handing them over to Lucifer and his army, he used this Aether slaying weapons against them. Successfully killing a god. It doesn't end there though, one of the weapons, greed, didn't just destroy Aether, it was made to consume it. Using greed he absorbed the powers of Lucifer and his commanders. Giving this single blacksmith the power of gods. He burst forth from the underworld creating MT. Auburn in the process. One by one he systematically killed off each god and absorbed their power, all falling Before the Great One.

In the wake of his destruction of the gods, he left one message to the mortal races Written in stone. "I Am the Lord, bow before me and fear. I have locked away the Aether as It shall remain, until a new Champion presents themselves. I have scattered my artifacts upon Eden, Bring them to the spot upon which I slew magnus. Find Them, and you shall Achieve Nirvana." There was also a symbol, a simple cross that would later go on to be used as his religion's primary identifier.

As we rap up, let me acknowledge a question that's commonly asked. What did our new god actually do by locking away the Aether? **Everything.** We will start with magic....there is no longer any magic, clerical or otherwise. Our old gods were very active in our everyday lives to the point that we lost years of history to time because our god would record history for us. And other than the bumps with humans when they first showed up there wasn't much crime, and war wasn't even a concept. That's all out the window now isn't it? Is there ever a time these days you don't hear about squabbles over resources or land or gunshots outside the bar at 3 am? More importantly, when we do shoot people, and they die, what's happening to their souls? It used to be simple, they go to heaven or hell, or in the time before either of those existed your soul would return to the Aether source it was forged from. We know because that's what Magnus said. Following the lock down of the Aether, we're not sure if any of those 3 things can even happen anymore. we're not even sure if we even have souls anymore, Which is a major cause of worry that no species had until this point.

anyways thank you For reading This Book on the history of the gods.

Kalibus Cristof, lv 3 Storyteller. Copperfield Publishing Company, Circa; 1685 AR.