Gods and the Mythic Timeline

The Land was created by the First Ones. There were two First Ones Aria and Aerer. In their beginnings they took joy in each other and in the Universe that seemed to form around them without effort. After a while, measured in their time, they decided to direct their creativity in a new way. The First Ones created the Land from some of the essence that formed the Universe. They created the elements and then from those elements they created the oceans and the continents, the seas and the islands. With new places to inhabit, the First Ones created many fantastic species to walk the Land, communicate and become something more

This wondrous Land was a delight to look upon but Aria and Aerer had made it too fragile and they could not interact with it directly for fear of harming it. They decided to create stewards that they could relate with, almost as powerful as themselves, who would look after the Land and make changes when necessary. After all, the Land was a work in progress.

They created ten Stewards to watch over different aspects of the Land. The Stewards became Gods of the Land and watched over it and added to it. Soon, the Gods wished to create their own species and allow them to inhabit the Land. The First Ones would not allow it and the Gods conceded, knowing their actions were limited to the First Ones wishes.

One of the Gods took matters into his own hands. Seeing only one way to wrest control from the Gods he arranged an intricate plot to trap the First Ones and destroy them, scattering their essence across the Universe. The other Gods observed the disappearance of the First Ones but it was unclear to them how or why they had gone. However, with the First Ones gone, the Gods could now manipulate the Land as they wished. The First Age of the Land was at an end.

The first mortal species were created soon after that. The mortal species were clever and spawned quickly. They learned new things promptly and soon they were building towns and fighting amongst themselves for resources. The Gods could see that their creations were getting out of control and the Gods understood their motives less and less. The Gods decided that two amongst the mortals must be brought up and imbued with the power of the Gods. One would be a God who understood battle and war. He would be strong and magnificent, loving life as much as he loved battle. The other would be brilliant and understand the complexities of the human mind, a lover of plots, subterfuge and diplomacy. Thus, Oculus and Arah, brothers in nature, were brought above the Land and were gifted with the power of Gods. Up until this point the Gods had always worked together. The Second Age of the Land ended.

The introduction of Oculus and Arah changed the relationships between the Gods in unforeseen ways. The Gods started to see themselves as unique and no longer mere parts of one fundamental whole. They all began to develop new plans of their own for the Land. The Land was thrown into chaos. Empires grew and were toppled, the Gods walked the Land as mortal Avatars and the Races of the First Ones, the Titans, began to make ready to protect their own territories.

The War between the Gods and the Titans began. Vast armies of mortals did battle with hosts of dragons, giants, demons and other extraordinary beasts. The whole Land was at War. The War was leaving the Land devastated and no side could win. The destruction of the Land seemed inevitable. A last ditch effort was made by the Gods, particularly Oculus and Arah to bring the fighting to an end. Arah issued a challenge to the Titans to send their greatest and most violent into battle while Oculus found a way to talk to some of the smarter Titans into forming a pact while the dangerous and chaotic element were out of the way.

The Pact was made. It was a huge and complex spell woven by the Titans and the Gods. The Gods would leave this plane and give up their right to appear as mortal Avatars on the Land and the Titans would return to their own territories and protect only those lands leaving the mortals to their empire building. Not all of the Gods agreed with this Pact but none could see another way to stop the utter destruction of the Land.

The Gods disappeared from the Land but when they returned to the Heavens, two of their number were missing. Ebrus, bright God of Magic and creator of the Elves and Novem, Violent Goddess of Storms did not return. It soon became clear that Ebrus had found magical means to circumvent the Pact. Fortunately, the Titans remained unaware of his presence at least for the time being. Of Novem, nothing could be found. The Third Age of the Land ended.

Ebrus became a God-King in the Land. His Empire became a shining monument to the achievement of his Elves. The other species formed vast empires also, but none of the others lasted. Other Empires rose and fell at the whim of Ebrus. It was only when an Empire started to form in the wild, cold North that Ebrus became greatly concerned. Fierce and strong humans were gaining in numbers quickly and their innovations both in war and peace were far exceeding those of his Elves. Thus began the war of the Shattering. The humans were strong and hardy, and only the toughest warriors had survived the centuries of tribal battles amongst themselves and the elves were bright warriors backed by the sorceries of the God-King Ebrus. The War of the Shattering was insignificant compared to the Titan-God wars, but it was the biggest war between two mortal armies in history. After many decades the Elven Empire began to push the Northerners back. However, a small band of humans, dwarves and Boreal elves moved secretly through the defenses of the Elven Empire and found their way into the inner chamber of the God-King himself. They discovered an amazing magical device, the bright Crystal of the Gods and shattered it into many pieces. Those who survived the supernatural explosion escaped with the pieces and scattered them far and wide. This Crystal was the anchor Ebrus had used to remain in the Land; with it gone he felt his mortal Avatar dying. As an act of vengeance, Ebrus unleashed awesome dark powers that changed him forever and shattered the Land sinking three quarters of the landmass and annihilating the Northern Empire. The Land was left in Chaos. The Fourth Age of the Land ended.

The Shattering sank the Northern continent and splintered the Southern continent across magical planes. Goblinoids and foul beasts began to rise out of the wastelands and mountains in numbers. With the influence of the Gods all but gone, the mortal races struggled to defend themselves against the hordes of chaos. Small communities of Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings and Gnomes gathered and those last remnants of civilization joined forces and grew. Places, such as the Kingdom of Midion and the core of the Elven Empire, became beacons of peace against the chaos. Meanwhile, factions of the Dusk elves set plans to collect all of the shards of the Crystal of the Gods so that they could bring the Avatar of the God Ebrus back into the world. They were thwarted by a band of adventurers who had one piece of the Crystal swallowed and consumed by the dread Dragon Malignon at great sacrifice.

Ebrus had not been the only God who had tried to circumvent the power of the Pact. Moments before the last spell was woven into the Pact, Oculus tricked Novem into imprisonment on the Isle of the Eye. When the Shattering occurred, the Isle of the Eye was left untouched, protected by a powerful maelstrom. Oculus left the keys to her imprisonment in the Land fearing their detection by the other Gods. The keys were in the form of two powerful and sentient magical swords, Malice and Fate. Malice was found by a ‘broken’ warrior and after causing much devastation of its own was consumed at the same time as the Crystal shard. With only one key holding Novem’s magical prison closed, she found a way out. The Pact was at an end.

Novem would have her revenge. She called upon her old allies; Arah, God of War and Ebrus, God of Magic. She called upon new allies, giving the Dragons and their kin reason to fight for her. The War of the Gods began. The Land became the battlefield of the Gods once again.

In the midst of these events, three powerful Elves of the Old Empire, one Human orphan of the lost lands of the North and a Dwarf of Karak’Thor sought knowledge of the First Ones, Aria and Aerer, and their passing. They discovered the truth, that one God had destroyed them. They also learned a way to tap the power of the First Ones. The mortals took the fate of the Land into their own hands with the help of Ianuar, Goddess of Wisdom. They halted the war of the Gods and banished the Gods from the Land. The Gods were shattered into forty one demigods. In a similar way as the Gods had once done to Oculus and Arah, the mortals, the three Elves, the Human and the Dwarf gave up their mortality, imbued themselves with the power of the First Ones and took on the mantle of five greater Gods to watch over the demigods. They took five of the names of the old Gods: April, Ebrus, Ianuar, Novem and Oculus.

Using their new powers they reformed the Land. The Northern Continent was lost to them, but the Southern Continent was reformed to its original state, though its inhabitants were forever changed. The Fifth Age of the Land was at an end.

The Sixth Age would be dominated by events in the far south of the continent, in a region called The Storm Coast.