The Reshaping

In almost any culture that worships the Ten, the Reshaping is the creation myth told and propagated. Little is truly known about this event. Was it an entire age unto itself, or a brief period of rapid change? What actually happened in the Reshaping, and what was just the early Age of Rebirth? Is there a meaningful difference between those two periods? These questions and many, many more will probably never be answered in the wake of The Reckoning as almost all records of the earliest periods of Emaxian history were lost. This article is a mostly objective retelling of the Reshaping that only deals in the things people know of in present Emaxus. These are the stories Emaxians tell themselves about where they came from.

The most ancient Yamman records and scriptures tell of an event called the Obsidian War. Nothing is known of this event, save for three things: the mortal who became Yamma slew a being named Vivrah; Vivrah was the one and only God before the Reshaping; the Obsidian War unraveled reality. The scriptures say the heroes who slew Vivrah fell and their spirits combined with some of Vivrah's Divinity to become Yamma.

Telling / Prose

The Birth of Yophas

Related Locations

• Yophas, the Eternal Design

Thus, the Reshaping began.
Yamma, First of The Ten, awoke to chaos. The Obsidian War broke reality and unbound the Titans from their slumber, and much of Vivrah's Divinity had split across the universe into five new entities, two of whom merged with Titans themselves. Yamma, once mortal himself, knew he had to restore order and reseed mortal life. The Obsidian War had just ended, and now Yamma began a new crusade: to pacify an unbound reality.
Two Titans did he recruit to his side: Alindr, Titan of Order, and Laianath, Titan of Death. They say the nascent Divinities growing in their opposites (Marzak, Titan of Chaos, and Ix'kythael, Titan of Life) and knew they would need to pick sides. Yamma granted them portions of his Divinity and required only that they bend their domains to the benefit of a reality more conducive to mortal life: Alindr needed to bring order, but not too much order, and Laianath needed to protect the souls of the dead, but not bring death to all. They agreed, and the Three were born. Together, they built Yophas, the Eternal Design. Alindr designed Yophas: the planes, the lunar-arcane, all of it. Yamma slew the physical Titans (Fire, Earth, Air, and Water) and built Yophas with their infinite elemental powers channeled through his Divinity. Laianath enchanted the Titans' corpses to stay dead and never disturb the planes. It is this event that is most often specifically referred to as The Reshaping, although it is sometimes given the name of "The Great Ordering" and "The Birth of Yophas."
Even with this enchantment and despite their bodies forming the planes themselves, the Titans' incomprehensible elemental power could not be contained. Thus, the elementals were born.
Marzak and Ix'kythael could not be slain, however. They could be killed, yes, but they could not be slain like the non-Divine Titans. And, during the Great Ordering, Yamma discovered three more nascent Divinities born of Vivrah's endless conquest, hate, and lust for the End. Yamma saw a Dark Pantheon that, if allowed to mature into full-fledged gods, would surely destroy all Yamma and his allies built. So, the final plane was built: Accorion, the Halls of Black. At its heart, five planar prisons for the nascent Divinities of the Obsidian Lords, with countless new prisons laid atop them as more and more evils were imprisoned by Yamma. This event, known as The Shackling of the Five, would directly cause The Reckoning countless millennia later.
Yamma split his Divinity and created seven more gods to handle the many other aspects of the natural world and mortal life. These seven, known as the Children, would complete the pantheon of The Ten. With the Great Ordering, The Shackling of the Five, and the Birth of the Seven, Yophas was ready for life. Under Yamma's guidance, the Ten spread across Yophas and created and/or oversaw the reseeding of mortal life. Thus, the Age of Rebirth began, though many racial and cultural creation myths take their Reshaping origins further than this moment.