Auras

Auras is a unique world amidst the multiverse, for it was not created or fashioned by the gods it its infancy. Rather it coalesced spontaneously from the Blind Eternities; the tangible essence of creation, the unlimited potentiality of what could be, that fills the gaps between planes and worlds. In its earliest days, the plane was pretty nebulous, fluctuating in size and shape as the raw energies of the elements raged in chaotic war within it. Soon, those energies gave rise to elemental civilizations and those elementals went to war with each other. Not seeking dominion over each other, but instead reveling in the constant state of creation and destruction. However, even as the elementals and their lords conducted this never ending campaign, they slowly shaped a somewhat stable border and the plane fully became its own world, individual from others and Blind Eternities. Once this had happened, then landmasses and oceans appears. Tundras and deserts formed. Fast jungles of verdency grew so quickly they strangled themselves. And areas of light and energy so bright they became radioactive competed with shadows so dense they were solid, physical things. And all constantly shifted and moved about as the elemental armies tore down one kingdom's triumphs and built their own in their place.

Around this time the first mortal races arrived, from where no one knows and none of their histories survive this far back. But Elves and Dwarves and Dragons came first, and not long after that Humans and Halflings joined them. Life was not easy in a world where todays lush forest could be tomorrow's ocean or arctic wasteland, but however it was the mortals arrived, they were either unable or unwilling to depart . Very, very slowly small communities managed to form in the most stable areas. Those communities realized that in order to ever have more than a bare survival lifestyle, the chaos of the elements must be tamed; and thus did the first true research and learning about the nature of Auras begin.

One of the greatest discoveries of this period were the Source Stones. Motes of the unlimited potential from the Blind Eternities that became trapped within plane as it formed around them, they crystallized into gems of indescribable power. Fonts of an unlimited magical energy that was neither arcane nor divine but something much more primal. The representatives of the various races thought they might have found their answer. A source stone of sufficient size to power a worldspell to bind the elementals to specific territories on Auras, leaving the rest stable enough for mortal habitation. A group of representative was selected and set out to find such a source stone and to develop a ritual of binding capable of carrying the burden. The found The Grande Stone, a source stone roughly the size of a large bull and began their war on the elemental lords. One by one they besieged the elemental armies of Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Light, Shadow, and Nature and bound them and their ruling lord into an extradimensional space within the Grand Stone.

Unfortunately, upon completing the binding of the Elemental Lord of Nature, the group discovered the technical difference between an unlimited SOURCE of power and an unlimited CONDUIT of power. The binding spell pulled too much energy from the Grand Stone at a time and its physical form could not hold up. The stone fractured and release all of the bound elementals, their lords, and a world shaking explosion of creation energies. The heroes as well as the seven elemental lords absorbed huge amounts of this creation energy and were transformed into Auras's first Pantheon of deities. While initially, this meant that the war between elements simply began anew, only now complicated by the addition of the new mortal gods, the elemental lords found that they had ascended and evolved beyond the impulsive creatures of instinct they had been. Capable now of more advanced reason and empathy they realized the hardship life was for mortal races and a concord was struck between all the newly minted deities.

They formally became the Alethean Pantheon, and used the remaining powers of the Grande Source Stone to craft a great tower of marble and ivory at the center of Auras which serves at their point of contact for the world. Each deity then used their new divine powers to create their own demi plane where mortal worshipers found their souls to appear in death, although that feature was not discovered until later. The elemental gods and goddesses created their respective elemental planes where the vast majority of their armies now reside, from which they can still launch attacks upon each other in their never ending game of war, which to this day is still exercised almost completely for the simple fun of it. With that job complete they set about forming the rest of the world into a place mortal races could thrive and worship them. And thus the basic form that Auras exists in even still today was made.