The Myth of Avalor

Inspired by Matthew Mercer's "The Myth of Exandria" & Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition's "Dawn War"

Life ever seeks to understand its inception. Every civilization has its own interpretation of where its story began. Even within the world of Avalor, different cultures have creation myths that eventually converge with history, but there is no known definitive story. The most widely accepted tale of the world's origins is the myth of "The Founding". This is the interpretation held and embraced within the vast lands of Avalor.

The Founding

Long ago, this world was one of tumultuous and chaotic forces. Naught but unbridled fires, and churning, sawlike rock made up its substance. Through the ashen skies of Creation Primordial, the gods came from beyond the ether, new and formless. Looking upon this roiling realm, they saw potential for great beauty, great strength, and the chance to learn their own place in creation.
Thus, divine hands formed the First Children, the elves, created with physical grace reflecting the gods’ own divinity, to walk the verdant lands and know the music of the blue skies. A second creation was wrought—the dwarves, a hearty people intent on taming the land, filled with the craft and invention of the divinity beyond the ashen void. A third people were given life: the humans, endowed with hearts of passion that burned as brightly as their spans of life were short, filled with the celebration and laughter of the hands creating them.
Other creations followed as the many races of Avalor were given form from the boundless inspiration the protean gods expressed. These Children of Creation walked the land, and as their knowledge grew they attempted to build. But the land was fierce and treacherous, and the children were largely dashed and consumed by the elements. Sorrow filled the hearts of the gods while these first races continued to struggle against a land that did not want them. The children looked to their creators for guidance and protection. The gods gifted to them slivers of their own essence, lending their own power to their children to create and shape the world around them; these were the first divine magics.
With these magics, the various peoples began to learn how to bend the angry earth to their will: to temper the fires that burst through, to tame the floods that threatened their abundance, and to foster seedling into fruit and beast into meal. Language became commonplace, culture was born, and governance replaced anarchy. The protean creators, the divinity beyond the ashen skies, saw progress and saw that it was good, yet fragile and in need of guardians.
So were born the First Protectors: the Dragons Metallic of Avalor, who safeguarded the gentler races. The realm grew quieter, the people multiplied, and new races were given form and life. As culture grew, and the people further understood the world around them, they too looked up to their Creators and gave them worship, gave them form, gave them title, and purpose.
But this realm did not wish to be tamed. Quaking cliffs roared in defiance. Seas swelled and swallowed. Flames erupted from underneath the lands. Beneath the elements, unknown to the Creators beyond the ashen skies, lived ancient beings who had already taken this world as their home: the Primordials. These great elemental titans that once dwelt deep within the land now rose from their unseen domain to sunder the land once more. The gods watched as their children, their joy, were flung against the broken rock or fed to formless terrors unleashed in the wake of the destruction. Demonic entities spilled from the umbra of the Abyss to feast on the carnage, called forth by the violence and released to pick the carrion clean.
Some gods were so full of grief and anger that they wished to leave this world behind and start anew. They tried to convince their divine kindred to join with the Primordials, allowing chaos to reclaim the realm. Others of the Creators wished to remain and subdue these native Primordials, to tame the land for the sake of their creations. This caused a divide among the gods. Some left the family of the Creators to give into madness, joining their song and sword to that of chaos and destruction, taking and twisting their children in the image of their intent. Celestial sentinels once dedicated to battling the chaotic forces of the Abyss now fell to hate and tyranny, forging new hells under a fallen angel now claiming lordship over all the realms of sulfur and brimstone.
The Creators that remained, wishing to salvage their home, their creations, and their realized selves, were forced to take up arms and learn to protect that which they valued most. These gods are referred to as the Prime Deities. They organized their followers and taught them how to draw from the powers of creation on their own: to build, to change, and to destroy, all without the aid of divine power. Mortals learned to defend themselves through practices such as alchemy or by bending the very fabrics of existence, though not on the scale of the gods’ works.
This gift was the knowledge of the first arcane magics. With these newly granted capabilities, the good children drove away their traitorous kin, banished the Betrayer Gods to their own prison-like planes, and ultimately destroyed the Primordials, scattering the chaotic elements to their own planes of existence just outside of this one. This founding conflict is often referred to as "The Dawn War". Peace finally blanketed the world for the first time since creation, and the first real pockets of civilization began to take root. Culture developed anew, the races ventured beyond to explore and discover their own lands, and great music filled the air to give name to this world once and for all: Avalor.

The Age of Arcanum

Over time, some of the people of Avalor grew arrogant. Seeing their arcane gifts as proof the gods held no sway over their fate, a belief developed that, with enough understanding, they could become as powerful as the gods. Many began to shun faith in favor of their own pursuits. Though this hurt and surprised the Prime Deities, they understood the willfulness of their creation and endured out of love and hope for redemption.
Great kingdoms sprang up. Castles were built in a day, accelerated by the arcanists’ newfound power. Erudite cities hovered and drifted through the skies, shifting under the direction of scholarly magi to wherever their interests took them. Even though magic could be used to complete the most difficult tasks with hitherto unknown speed, magic-users strove always to innovate. As mages practiced and perfected their powers of creation, they soon unlocked the secrets of life itself, giving birth to wondrous, dangerous new forms of life and power. Powerful archmages such as Vecna the Whispered One began to carve their paths into history during this era of unbridled magical experimentation.
The advent of the arcane seemed to be the key to a bountiful age of plenty but also proved to threaten it, as prosperity soon gave way to greed. Petty squabbles erupted over resources and wealth among the elite, while the rumor of immortality through perfected arcanum began to drive the greatest mages wild with a lust for unending power. One mortal mage, her name either lost or struck from history, crafted now-forbidden rites to challenge the God of Death, felling him and taking his place among the pantheon, making her the first mortal to ascend to godhood. Another powerful archmage, inspired by her success, sought the guidance and power of the banished gods, rending open the gates of their prisons and releasing the betrayers into the mortal world.
During their imprisonment, these gods of hatred and despair twisted their prison into their own image, spawning unthinkable horrors that lived only to transform peace into suffering, and righteousness into arrogance and greed. The Nine Hells and the Abyss began to push their way into Creation. The Betrayer Gods and their hateful children, unbanished and allowed re-entry into the Creation that had exiled them, discovered the world unspoiled, save for the avarice of mortals. The urge to ruin was now replaced with the desire to dominate, and the Betrayer Gods turned their sights to the remnants of their offspring, now scattered across the world.
As the lands of evil began seeping into and twisting Avalor, the lords of darkness tainted the minds of mortals, hungrily welcoming those who had forgotten their way home, and offering great promises and boons to hearts easily swayed. These poisonous seeds found fertile ground in the hearts of mortals obsessed with the unlimited power of the arcane. With a legion of the damned behind them, the Betrayer Gods began their first assault upon humanity. The Prime Deities descended to trade blows with their former brethren. The battle between divinity and mortals, between heroes and demons, raged ceaselessly for twenty days and nights until the dark forces, their surprise attack thwarted, were finally forced to retreat.
Evil was repulsed momentarily, but with the revelation of such a terrible foe, a dangerous arcane arms race began. Trust was shattered indefinitely: If mortals could fall under the sway of the Betrayer Gods, who was an ally? If ruin like this could be unleashed under the watchful eyes of divinity, how were they relevant? Not trusting any but themselves, the self-interested and singular humans beat their instruments of celebration into instruments of incredible power—artifacts that could be wielded by worthy heroes. The dwarves’ fascination with rock and earth turned toward isolation as they burrowed further into the mountains, using their divine gifts to animate legions of autonomous golems to protect their ancestral halls. Elves used their understanding of creation’s beauty and intricacies to weave spells of unimaginable destructive force, the likes of which Avalor had never seen before.
For the first time since the Primordials were destroyed, the focus of magic was warfare. The gods themselves agreed to join their children on the field of battle, descending from the heavens to aid the humans in creating new arcane engines of war. A war that would become known as “The Calamity.”

The Calamity

Little record remains of the terrible war that followed, but its effects are still felt today. The sheer magnitude of the energies unleashed in the ensuing battles of gods and mortals alike was enough to fray the boundaries holding back the elemental chaos, spilling unbridled destruction into the world. It completely rearranged the known flow of magical ley energy across Avalor. The conflict devastated Avalor's peoples, reducing most cities to ash, inspiring in many a desire to flee from this plane of existence entirely. So great was the loss of life during the war that historians believe no more than a third of Avalor's population survived.
The world entered a long, dark period of recovery, when history had to be recovered and purpose had to be restored. The Betrayer Gods were banished once more to their realms of deception and hate, but the threat of their return weighed heavily on the world. The Prime Deities felt that their involvement in mortal conflict was to blame for the cataclysmic damage inflicted upon Avalor. They knew that while the divine gateways were left open, the prison planes that held the banished Betrayers would remain imperfect and temporary.
Thus, hoping to ensure that such ruin would not befall Avalor again, they left their children to fend for themselves. The Prime Deities returned to their own realms, dragging both Betrayer and abomination with them and sealing the pathways to the mortal realm behind them with the Divine Gate. Only in this way could they prevent their corrupted brethren from physically returning to the material plane. Sadly for the Prime Deities, this action also carried with it a self-imposed sentence of exile. The Creators would henceforth never be allowed to visit their creation.
The disappearance of the gods is known by many names: “The Second Spark” for those who study the arcane and “The Penance” for those who seek closeness to their gods. The most common name for this time of warfare and divine separation is “The Divergence,” and it marked the end of the Age of Arcanum.
Much time has passed since, and the world has been reborn once again. The gods still exhibit their influence and guidance from beyond the Divine Gate, bestowing knowledge and power on their worshipers, but the path of mortals is now their own to make. New cities, kingdoms, and cultures have retaken the world, building over the ashes of the old. New songs fill the air, and the hope of a brighter future drives people day after day, while buried ruins and forgotten relics remind all people of a darker time of mistakes that should never be repeated.