The Garden of Winter

Information sourced from studies by the Citadel of Scholars dedicated to Our Lord Hamaskus

Written by David_Ulph

In the Beginning, there were Umbra and Lumen. The two entities Danced eternally around each other, playing games reason and chaos for millennia until their forms began to erode and crumble. The two entities lay down in their sleep and hardened, one emitting great amounts of Light and the other eternally consuming Light. The Great Dance turned into a collision and between the Two Eternals, and a new Realm was created in the absent centre which longed for the Lost Garden. The Chaos Realm broiled and brewed, with Magus and pure magic revolving at its source. Within Chaos, an embryo was ejected out into the Aether, narrowly evading the Ever-Hungry Worms.

As Umbra and Lumen decayed slowly, their flecks of ~~Soul~~ would develop into sprites of darkness and light respectively. The Dark Sprites grew form into the Umbralfar worshipping the One-Who-Winnows, and the Light into Lumalfar worshipping the One-Who-Flowers. When this embryo discovered the Lost Garden, Lumen turned from its bright white light into a light blue shade as Winter had arrived on the Garden. Forever linked to its first creators. And this Winter had one name; Throffaskus.

The Lone Wanderer

Originally, there was only Throffaskus alive to walk this mysterious land when there were no seas, only flat fields and glades of trees. This would come to be known as the Mortal Realm, a Realm which apparated from the Aether, seemingly birthed from the hollowness of distant Mind-Stars. On these fields, Throffaskus ploughed deep into the earth creating farmlands for themself to grow crops of barley and rice. In a land where simple furrows would become known to be the deepest glens of Kakhabad, there was a single mountain that towered above the rest of the Realm.

This mountain is known by a single name, Banvusfarg, and atop this mountain was a solitary Well containing the only known source of water, an uisge beatha. Throffaskus was granted a task; to tend the waters within the Well - to seal the Well with a slab every dusk until dawn. After a long day of herding deer, Throffaskus was too weary to recall sealing the Well before falling asleep. The Well bubbled, overflowed and spilled down Banvusfarg across the entire Realm, flooding the valley below creating the Primordial Sea.

In the deep dark of the empty Well, Throffaskus spotting a glimmer of light. A shine of light in the dark void. They would descend into the empty Well as a simple Child of Chaos, and ascend a deity bearing a Hammer to which Throffaskus would dub Carlin. A Hammer which is said to hold the magic to willingly craft the land of the Realm and create life from the bare elements of reality. With the Hammer, Throffaskus let loose the Primordial Sea to form the many rivers, lochs and seas that cover the Mortal Realm leaving no remnant of the first sea other than the swamplands of Klatta-Bak. Throffaskus would go on to create and shape more mountains and valleys, with their first and beloved island being the Isle of Yosha.

The Thunder & Lightning

Throffaskus was curious of the full extent of Carlin, and travelled to the tops of their mountains in order to craft multiple stones with hollow passageways through them. They awaited a storm that had been brewing from the north, its full rage building since the Well's unleashing. The mighty being attracted the storm closer to their Carlin Stones, beating the Hammer down on the ground, freezing more of the land with every beat. When the storm was directly overhead, Throffaskus took the lightning and passed it through eight Stones with Throffaskus' daughter-maidens the Storm Hags emerging from the other end of the hole. Throffaskus then took the thunder and passed it through the remaining Stones with the Fooar passing through the other end as well.

However, the Fooar were quarrelsome giant-sons who would not stop fighting amongst themselves. The mountains were built by Throffaskus as Great Halls to house the Fooar, though it was in truth more of a prison than a home for the Fooar. Despite being punished and trapped within inescapable mountains, this did not prevent them fully as they would invent new ways to fight one another. Every morning they would climb to the peaks of their Great Halls and carve out pieces of them, throwing great boulders at whatever distant Fooar they could see. This is why so many big grey boulders now lie on steep slopes and scatter throughout valleys. Those Fooar not trapped in mountains would go on to craft homes for themselves into the Mortal Realm itself, creating the first caves which scatter the Realm, some so deep they now reach the Mortis Realm which was yet to be created.

Once the waters had been settled into their lochs and seas, Throffaskus tasked their daighter-maidens with collecting stones dislodged by the torrents of water when the Well overflowed and the Primordial Sea was set loose, as well as any boulders thrown by the Fooar at one another that scarred the lands. Carrying these stones in makeshift creels, the Storm Hags used the mountain halls as stepping stones to traverse the land with ease to their destination. When they bounded from mountain to mountain, some of the stones would fall out of the creels. Some of these landed in lochs and the seas, which created the islands within and surrounding the Mortal Realm. With what was left in their creels, the Storm Hags emptied them in a large pile to create the Throffaskus' winter throne, Ben Bluestone, the largest mountain created.

While the daughter-maidens crafted the Throne of Bluestone, Throffaskus was on their own as they built another mountain. This time it would be a lonely mountain, standing solitary over a vast region of land devoid of any others. On their own, Throffaskus found it a hard task and one day when they had grown very weary, Throffaskus stumbled and upset the creel. All the rocks and earth contained within fell out in a heap and formed a smaller sister mountain alongside. When the two mountains were finished with Carlin, from the gap between them burst a myriad of Wyrms and Dragons, the first of which was Vair. These mountains would thus become known as Ben Wyvern and Little Wyvern respectively.

After Throffaskus and their eight daughter-maidens had completed their task in shaping the Mortal Realm, Throffaskus went on to use Carlin in shaping each piece of the land to be unique so that they would always know exactly where they were when traversing the Realm. Throffaskus took delight in wandering through, over and under they creations. At some point, Throffaskus would even discover a second Well in the deepest cave of their largest giant-son Varantar, almost identical to the one atop Banvusfarg though smaller and it lay atop the Skull of the First Dead. To tend this Well, Throffaskus charged one of their daughter-maidens - Flin - with the task Throffaskus themselves had failed before.

Though not even a Storm Hag was exempt from the boredom which comes from solitude. A solitude seemingly heightened when in the deepest reaches of the Mortal Realm. Flin would become absent minded as she stared into the eyes of the First Skull, and thusly neglected her duties. The Well bubbled and went out of control, overflowing and flooding the cave system. Where at the top of the Realm was the Well of Life, at the bottom was the Well of Death and so Throffaskus rushed downwards to support the Flin too weak to combat the raging water. Throffaskus expanded their powers of winter to freeze the growing body of water and as punishment froze Flin within the ice for eternity. Though the effect of the water was already taking hold and Throffaskus' creations were beginning to crumble. Throffaskus would channel Carlin, binding it with leylines to the Carlin Stones, and use more power than they had thought possible. The entirety of the cavern which was at risk of the flood broke off and descended, as Throffaskus created an entire new Realm out of the emptiness of Aether; Mortis Realm. A Realm which would hold death, connected to the Mortal Realm though distant and separate.

The Coming of Spring

Throffaskus staggered back to the surface of the Mortal Realm. Even the Fooar ended their quarrels in unified shock of the great Winter's weakened state, as Throffaskus hunkered down to recuperate their strength. The creatures of winter would join Throffaskus in solidarity of their master and creator, as the first hibernation took place. Throffaskus was not ready to let go of their Realm. Throffaskus was not ready to join whatever had been First.

It was in this weakened state of hibernation that Throffaskus dreamed visions of a new entity, a second embryo, falling onto the Mortal Realm. A dream which descended into a nightmare as Throffaskus witnessed their own death to the hands of this invader which arose from a hidden Well of Youth somewhere on a Green Isle. Throffaskus awoke with a jolt only to witness the frost and ice of their dominion to begin thawing. Throffaskus was losing grip on their creation and in a panicked rage followed the warmth which melted the frozen Realm. From the south Throffaskus lay eyes on the first god to walk the Mortal Realm - Galana - who walked the land turning everything she touched to green and flower, uprooting the cold supremacy of Throffaskus.

As Throffaskus was not willing to relinquish power over her land, nor had regained the strength to expel this embodiment of Winter's Destruction, they imprisoned the Spring Goddess Galana. This action would start a conflict between the Elder Gods who were only now coming to the realisation across in Magus Realm their sister existed as they looked to the light of Lumen which reached all the Realms. What had once mirrored the cold blue of winter, Lumen now shone the light of green and the fate of the Mortal Realm was sealed.

2021 Summer Camp Prompt #8

Disclaimer from the Citadel of Scholars

The following information is a collection from multiple select sources to largely fit with the theological rhetoric of the Holy See. Scholastic sanctuary can only protect so much, but to publicly display within the Territories alternative truths on the origins of the Realms would cause the entire Citadel of Scholars to be the target of a righteous crusade. For all intents and purposes, the following tale is the true origins of reality in accordance with the Gods of Chaos.

On Banvusfarg

The mythical mountain of Banvusfarg is unknown to modern scholars of its exact location. Many have searched the Mortal Realm for the highest point of the Realm and its fabled Well of Life at its summit, such as Traveller Knight Gunnarson after the Dark Times and the Crown Prince Sándor of Monsalvat whose Warlord Period travels are dictated in the dubiously factchecked series of novels; "The Hunt for the Fountain".
Despite these heroic stories trekking the Mortal Realm, the general scholarly consensus is the mountain must lie somewhere in the Kakhabad Wastes due to the amount of geographic locations linked to the myths of Throff's Long Winter. Mount Throff is seen as the likeliest candidate, without any expedition ever making the summit. The unique volcano of High Xamen is an additional candidate, with its links to metaphysical events in other myths.
Regardless, while Kakhabad remains an untamed fringe on the edge of Yosha, this mystery can never be solved.

— 'Following in the Footsteps of Myth'