The Primordials

Elementals, eh? Nasty brutes they are, the damned things have a tendency to turn up where they're least wanted, and where they can do the most damage. There's a hundred stories about where they come from and a hundred more about why they come in the first place. Sadly, most of them were made up by people with a little too much time on their hands, and a little bit too much brew in their stomachs, if you take my meaning. Not much that can be done about it, though. Tongues loosened by drink have a tendency to flap even when they have nothing to flap about, and that's just the way of it. What was I saying? Ah, yes, elementals. See, the stories are all plenty good for a tale at an inn or a story around a fire, but to tell you the truth, they all lack imagination. Anyone with half a mind could tell you elemental's come from the elemental planes. Most could tell you that they're more than happy to slaughter just about everything around them, wherever they appear on Del Atar. I'd even wager there's a few who could describe the strange things that they do if they're left alone after they've reduced an area to charred ruins, or caused it to be subsumed by the sea, or stripped away by the winds, or whatever it is that earth elementals do. But the thing is, they've got it all wrong. Such a simple little mistake means that it all makes no sense whatsoever because they think of all of these things as individual moments — random acts of wanton destruction and massacre. But the thing is, they aren't. The machinations behind the elementals are ancient and nearly incomprehensible. Because there aren't many different elementals, all popping up randomly on Del Atar to kill and eat and get destroyed by some wandering group of adventurers. There are exactly four elementals: the Primordials.

The Primordials are the oldest things in the Multiverse. By most arguments, they pretty much are the Multiverse. They were the first Animiria, and, given that there was literally nothing in the Multiverse other than the four of them, they were unbelievably powerful. So, what was the first thing that they did, these neigh-omnipotent, incomprehensible beings? They tried to kill each other. I can't fault them too much, because, while they had power and abilities, they were essentially just animals in the end. The Multiverse was just too simple for them to be anything more yet. It was their fighting that eventually created their undoing. It weakened the walls of reality and shook the foundations of the planes, and when the dust cleared, there stood the Ancient God. Perhaps they understood their mistake at that moment. Perhaps that would be ascribing them too much foresight. Whatever the case, their fate was sealed the moment the Ancient God was born. The Primordials are fundamental to the Multiverse. So long as it lives, they live, and vice-versa, and so, rather than destroying them, the Ancient God did the next closest thing. It chained them, deep in the hearts of their own planes, surrounded by defenses and wardings that could hold back all but the Void itself. It stripped their minds, stole their powers, and forced them to slumber. Around them, the Multiverse grew, and flourished, and yet they knew none of it. Until the Ancient God departed.

When the Primordials awoke, they were shells of their former selves. Chained in the heart of planes that they no longer controlled, guarded by unbreakable magic and unspeakable horrors. But they lived. They could not die, and so they waited, nurturing their anger until the time was right. That anger was unleashed with the Sentinal's betrayal. When the Elder Gods fell, the power of the Elemental Planes was freed, and at that moment, each Primordial reclaimed their own. They bucked and strained and fought against the chains that held them, but the chains, even weakened as they were, held firm. While the Primordials that had been born millennia ago might have continued to fight, eternally locked in struggle, they had grown smarter. The Multiverse around them had matured, as had they. Thus came the elementals: pieces of the Primordials that seek to find a way to unseal their creators, and unleash them into the world. They have eternity to test their prisons, and should they ever escape... well, there are no Gods to help us anymore.

-Karth Poshment

Divine Domains

Each Primordial is associated with its own element, as well as the multitude of offshoot elements that stem from the primary four. They are also worshiped in many darker, more twisted lands as the rightful rulers of the Multiverse, and as vengeful reclaimers who will one day return to place all things in proper balance. Being Animiria, the Primordials have, in many ways, become precisely that, and thus they can be called upon by many of those who seek dark power or undeserved reward, in order to perform all manner of ill deed.

Holy Books & Codes

There are whispers of a single great book of the Primordials. Not one meant for worship or prayer, but one instead detailing a plan. The plan. A sequence of events that has been in motion since the fall of the Elder Gods, perfectly executed. Who wrote it, and where it is are both lost the time, but if it were ever found, it would hold the key to the destruction, or salvation, of the Multiverse within its pages.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

The Multiverse has always known of the powers of the Primordials. The oldest spells were woven from them, and the worlds themselves crafted from their bones. Their symbols are everywhere, always simple, always understandable, and always unsettling, as though they hold unknowable secrets within their lines.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

The Primordials long for a singular thing: freedom. All other actions they take stem from that single desire, and they will stop at nothing to achieve it. They are willing to treatise with devils, angels, Sentinals, and all things in between, and often the favors that are traded for seem almost absurd. Extraordinarily specific actions, or incredibly random items, often with no understandable purpose. Some believe that the time in silence drove them truly mad, and they are now simply empty creatures, animated only by the beliefs of those around them, and yet they continue, following a plan known only by themselves.

Divine Classification

Animiria

Religions

• The Breakers of Chains

Realm

The Elemental Planes

Church/Cult

The Breakers of Chains