History of Materi

## The Binding of Chaos

### Precise Timeline Unknown, Estimated Around 5,000 Years Pre-Campaign

Oral and written histories from different cultures vary on the exact details of their creation myths, but they all converge roughly on the same basic premise of The Binding. The most reliable records come from the elves, whose long lifespans make them best suited for the task of recording history.

According to elvish record, the Binding began when the gods arrived on the Material Plane from the Outer Planes, and crafted the shapeless forces of Primordial Chaos into a stable and solid world. The cornerstone of this world - the very foundation on which it was built - was the Weave. The Weave was created by the gods to give shape and structure to Chaos. It constrained the wild energies of Chaos, harnessed them, and built them into the planet now knows as Materi.

The magic of the Weave suffused every part of the world, binding together the primal elements from which it was formed. And it was from the Chaos, and through the Weave, that the gods created all life. If Chaos was the thread from which life was formed, the Weave was the needle that sewed it together.

The gods first created the elves, then the dwarves, then the humans. From there they created all of the thousands of other forms of life that occupy the world, all after the gods' own images and from their imaginings, all born from the energy of Primordial Chaos and the structure of the Weave.

The gods entrusted the elves, their first children, with the task of naming their world, and the elves gave it the name Materi.

## The Age of Divinity

### Lasting Until 1,746 Years Pre-Campaign (0 AC)

Life flourished and multiplied on Materi. Civilizations rose, and culture developed. The gods walked amongst their mortal followers in the flesh, pleased to watch over their children as they grew and learned.

Over thousands of years, life rapidly evolved and mutated on its own, branching off into new creations beyond even the imagination of the gods. Materi had been formed from Primordial Chaos, and Chaos - though constrained by the presence of the Weave - still suffused the world. It affected the mutations and evolution of life on Materi, always straining against its bonds, manifesting itself in the evolution of new forms of life. Monsters were born, and these creations of Chaos multiplied and evolved alongside the creations of the gods.

In order to help their children protect themselves from the inherent dangers of Primordial Chaos, the gods saw fit to bestow upon their children the gift of magic. Their most loyal and devout disciples were granted access to divine magic - channeled directly from the gods' own beings, but by the hands of their followers. And for a time, this divine magic was sufficient for the people of Materi. Civilization continued to build and grow, as the people of Materi used divine magic to keep the dangers of an inherently chaotic world at bay.

## The Age of Arcana

### 1,746 Years Pre-Campaign (0 AC) - 985 Years Pre-Campaign (761 AC)

It is said that humans - ever a resourceful and ingenious race - were the first to discover the ability to manipulate the Weave and create magic without the aid of the gods. Thus was born arcane magic. And once discovered, its ubiquity spread like wildfire.

Mortals learned to use magics that had previously been unimaginable - gifts that the gods had never seen fit to share with their children. Mortal kind rapidly ascended above the highest expectations of their creators. Magic became a cornerstone of daily life for most, and a tool to reach incredible heights of power by those who could master it. Some of the most skilled arcane practitioners even aspired towards immortality, and achieving godhood themselves.

But in keeping with the nature of mortal kind, magic inevitably turned from a tool for the betterment of society into a weapon for subjugation and violence. Conflicts arose, and kingdoms waged wars fueled by the arcane, wreaking incredible destruction across Materi. The gods began to fear that, left unchecked, their children would tear asunder the very fabric of the Weave, unleashing Primordial Chaos and bring the world to the brink of ruin.

This sentiment was shared in kind by the gods' followers, and practitioners of divine magic. A schism began to form between the followers of divinity, and the masterminds of arcane magic. The arcanists viewed magic as a natural right of mortalkind to use as they see fit, while the religious devout believed that magic was meant only to be a tool for the gods' divine purposes.

This tension between the divine and the arcane, which began as a matter of politics and philosophy, quickly boiled over and become the Gods' War.

## The Gods' War: Part One

The great war is known by many names. Most disciples of religious faith refer to it as the Holy War, while arcanists often refer to it simply as the Massacre. But in historical record, it is generally referred to as the Gods' War.

Despite this moniker, the war began as a conflict between arcanists and the religious, who took up arms against one another in a war of ideology over magic - whether magic was a natural right of all mortalkind, or a tool of the gods and their faithful. The conflict was bloody and destructive, as both sides fueled their armies with powerful magic, at the height of Materi's magical prowess. The Weave itself strained and thinned from the power being pulled from it, threatening to unleash Primordial Chaos upon Materi, and undo all of mortalkind's centuries of progress.

The gods saw the destruction being caused by the war, and many of them viewed the rise of the arcane as an existential threat to Materi. Nevertheless, they abstained from the war at first, preferring to let mortalkind resolve their own conflicts.

## The Gods' War: Part Two

The gods continued to abstain from the Gods' War for several months, despite the destruction and carnage brought about by the war. This changed, however, when a powerful archmage accomplished a feat that had once been unthinkable: the killing of a god. The archmage, whose identity has been lost to history, slew the god of death, and ascended to take their place, becoming The Raven Queen.

After the ascension of The Raven Queen, the gods could no longer stand idly by, and they joined with their devout followers to make war against the practitioners of arcane magic.

Once the gods intervened on behalf of their followers and took up arms against the arcanists, the tide of the war quickly turned. Even the most skilled arcanists were far outmached by the unbridled power of the combined gods, who laid waste to entire armies and cities in matter of weeks. When the conflict was over, the great magical kingdoms and armies of the world had been laid to ruin, and the gods and their followers emerged victorious.

## The Gods' War: Part Three

When the war between the arcane and the divine ended, a new schism formed in its wake - this time between the gods themselves. One faction, now called the Aegis Deities, looked upon the destruction that had been caused by the war with sorrow and regret, viewing themselves as responsible. The other faction, now called the Scourge Gods, wished to take the war a step further and eliminate all life on Materi, viewing mortal kind as beyond hope for redemption.

A final conflict broke out on the battlefields of Materi, between the Aegis Deities and the Scourge Gods. The damage caused by this final stage of the Gods’ War was cataclysmic, leaving vast swaths of destruction in its wake, as the gods waged war against one another. At the conclusion of this final battle, the Aegis Deities subdued the Scourge Gods, banishing them to the Outer Planes. They knew, however, that their victory was only temporary. The Scourge Gods would never cease in their desire to destroy all that they had created, and would inevitably return.

## The Severance and the Divine Gate

Resolved to prevent the eradication of life on Materi, the Aegis Deities conceived of a costly solution. They returned to their rightful homes in the Outer Planes, and from there, with the assistance of the goddess Aedra, they created a planar barrier called the Divine Gate: a shield which would prevent all of the gods - themselves included - from interfering directly in the affairs of Materi. Surrendering themselves to a life of exile from their creations, the Aegis Deities saved Materi from the betrayal of the Scourge Gods.

This monumental shift in the structure of the planes, and the gods’ departure from Materi, is referred to historically as the Severance. And in its wake, mortalkind was left alone in their world to fend for themselves for the first time.

## The Age of Rest

### 984 Years Pre-Campaign (0 AR) - 210 Years Pre-Campaign (774 AR)

In the centuries that followed the end of the Gods' War and the Severance, mortal kind fell into a dark age. The most skilled arcanists, whose handiwork had previously been the cornerstone of society, had been slaughtered in the Gods' War. And without the presence of their patron deities on the Material Plane, the religious devout found themselves adrift and abandoned. Even the Weave itself, which had been strained and stretched to its limitations in the Gods' War, entered an era of slumber, and Primordial Chaos became difficult to manipulate.

Apart from the most devout religious, society at large blamed the gods and their followers for the destruction that had been done to Materi. Religious followers found themselves pariahs in the new Materi, and ultimately built a new and isolated capital of their own, far from the rest of the world.

Over centuries, society rebuilt. Parts of Materi had been irrevocably damaged by the Gods’ War, and its most opulent magical cities would never return to their former glory. But walls and castles could be rebuilt. Crops could be grown. Life, as always, would go on, after a fashion.

The practice of magic largely became a lost art. It’s practitioners - both religious and arcane - were few and far between, and were generally mistrusted. Due to the precipitous slowing of Ley Phases and Zeniths, even those with an interest in magic found themselves unable to practice it at a high level. Vestiges of the Age of Arcana remained: magical artifacts and relics from before the Gods' War, arcane creations fallen to disuse, dilapidated airships that no living person knew how to captain. But mortal kind, by and large, adapted to a new life - one without magic, and without the gods.

## The Age of Awakening

### 211 Years Pre-Campaign (0 AW) - present (211 AW)

It was only a matter of time before the Gods' War and the devastation that it caused faded from immediate living memory. Very few survivors of the Age of Arcana were still alive on Materi, and the events of the Severance and the Gods' War had been relegated to history books. And mortal kind, as is their very nature, eventually grew dissatisfied and curious.

The people of Materi began, once again, to practice magic. It was a long-lost art, and few lived who understood it. But Primordial Chaos was awakening from its long era of slumber. Having been subdued without an outlet for centuries, the inherent magic of Materi had ripened, and those who sought to tap into its power found that Ley Phases and Zeniths had begun to rapidly accelerate. The Weave was eager to be exercised, as Primordial Chaos strained, as always, against its binding power. For the first time since the Severance, magic began to awaken in Materi.

Though the knowledge of the Gods' War and the Age of Arcana were esoteric lore to the common man, the learned elite of Materi knew all too well the very real repercussions of the spread of magic. If the cataclysmic destruction of the Gods' War had been the result of the gods putting a stop to the spread of arcane magic, then the spread of arcane magic left completely unchecked seemed an existential threat.

Before the situation was allowed to freely grow out of control, a joint council of arcane archmagi and religious devout was formed. The Weavers Conclave, as this council was dubbed, was founded as an independent body, separate from any government or ruling class, with the goal of impartially advising the governments of Materi on the use of magic. Although the Conclave was ostensibly intended to be independent from any state government, it was formed in the Alviren Empire, from which the majority of its founders were native. The Conclave headquarters were established in the imperial capitol city of Ossidia, and they worked closely with the imperial government. The formation of the Weavers Conclave, in conjunction with the acceleration of Ley Phases and Zeniths, marked the beginning of the Age of Awakening.

At the advice of the Weavers Conclave, the Alviren Empire instituted a sweeping set of regulations regarding the use of magic. Under these regulations, the practice of magic required a permit issued by the Conclave. These permits required mages - arcane and divine alike - to demonstrate a basic understanding of the responsible use of magic, and also to swear a legally binding oath to never use magic to bring harm to their fellow mortal, except in self-defense.

Although the principles represented by a spellcasting permit were indeed of importance to both the Empire and the Conclave, in truth, the primary reason for the regulation of magic was to arbitrarily limit its use. The Conclave and the Empire were in agreement that if magic were to return to Materi, it must be done in a gradual, metered, and deliberate fashion, which could be closely monitored by the Conclave. As such, a relatively high price was established for obtaining a permit. This price was less a matter of generating revenue for the state; but rather, a deliberate measure to limit the number of people who would be able to afford a permit. In this way, the spread of magic use could be kept in check.

The Alviren Empire required all of its states to implement its magic regulations. Outside of the Empire, the Conclave attempted to influence other nations to adopt similar regulatory measures, with varying degrees of success. And over the following decades, the practice of magic began a gradual but steady renaissance. The glorious days of the Age of Arcana suddenly seemed less like a lost and distant past, and more like an attainable goal. But under the watchful eye of the Conclave, great care would be taken to insure a measured and slow growth.

But among the most progressive scholars of magic, a new concern began to grow. Primordial Chaos was still awakening. Ley Phases and Zeniths grew stronger and more frequent, as centuries of untapped Chaos strained against its bindings. Bizarre occurrences began to spring up - unexplained bursts of magical energy, the opening of planar rifts, the appearance of strange and ancient monsters believed extinct since the Severance.

A vocal minority of magic scholars began to raise a grave concern to the Conclave: Primordial Chaos was awakening, and nothing could be done to stop it or slow it. Materi was founded on Chaos from the very beginning. And Chaos would find an outlet, one way or another.