Gods
In the primordial expanse, before time was measured, there existed only the Source and the Black, vast and eternal, yet separate. Then, in a singular moment of cosmic union, the Source stirred, its essence reaching out to touch the profound depths of the Black. With this divine contact, time unfurled, a river flowing from the infinite, as the Source infused a fragment of Its boundless being into the Black, cleaving Light from Darkness and banishing the Black to the Outer Dark.
With time's advent came entropy, the relentless tide of disorder. To counter this, the timeless and negentropic Source once more extended Itself, seeding the cosmos with Its organizing principle. This divine essence fragmented, each shard imbued with the imperative to spread Light into the Darkness, shaping and ordering the formless void.
Our saga unfolds around Suwel, a radiant star, and the celestial bodies that orbit it. Guided and shaped by the Shard Yaldaboath and His consort Priyaha, the world of Ersetu, third from Suwel, was chosen as the cradle of life. Here, Priyaha and Yaldaboath bestowed their essences upon the oceans, preparing the canvas of creation. As Priyaha bid a poignant farewell, descending into a deep slumber upon the eighth world, Yaldaboath divided Himself, birthing the Aeons, who would oversee the flourishing of life and the unfolding of destiny.
The first to emerge from the divine loins of Yaldaboath was Maneya, eldest and most feared among the Aeons. Born of necessity, a harbinger of life's inexorable march, Maneya's essence stirred with purpose. With deft hands, Yaldaboath fashioned Maneya in the likeness of a cosmic gardener, a weaver of life's tapestry. Maneya's first act was to cultivate fungi, seeding the barren rocks of Ersetu with the promise of fertility, laying the foundation for all life to come.
In the ancient eons of creation, the divine tapestry unfolded with meticulous care, each Aeon contributing its essence to the burgeoning cosmos.
First among the Aeons was Maneya, the cosmic gardener, who with gentle hands fashioned fungi to turn rocks into soil, laying the groundwork for life's grand spectacle. She created the first Gallu in this time.
Following Maneya, Lil'Rimanka stepped forth, sketching the blueprints for the untamed beasts and the cyclical dance of life and death that would define the natural world.
Shemuduga, the Tester, was created to evaluate the works of his brethren and enforce compliance, employing the uduga, hungry spirits, as his assistants in this solemn task.
Then came Shu'Maḫḫi Tana, who wove the fabric of time and tide, anchoring the march of time within the genetic code of burgeoning life forms that teemed in the oceans below.
Deastire and Dag'Ng came together, splitting the genders of microbes to enable more complex reproduction, hastening the pace of evolution. As helpers, Dag'Ng created the šumun-turtur'ra, and Deastire made the kulullu and gave all complex living things the urge to procreate and the ability to remain content.
Pirosetu, the Great Wolf, emerged next, mastering the Cosmic Way and enabling travel between worlds, allowing the Aeons to venture forth and shape other realms around the radiant star Suwel. Pirosetu fragmented into the Twins, Susisinum and Wulwutuwl, each overseeing one side of the Way Gates, ensuring safe passage across the cosmos.
Anshenamru followed, finalizing the cycle of violence between predators and prey, planting the seed of warfare in the minds of beings, a concept he relished and nurtured.
Hulupulil was the architect of the trees and seeder of the grasslands, planting her seeds in the soil made by Maneya's fungi. She set the stage for the beasts to crawl from the water to the land.
The god of smithing, Zabaptaba, then appeared, crafting ingenious tools and devices that marveled all, laying the foundation for future innovations.
To facilitate communication among the Aeons, Shukalu'Umgaba emerged, holding the Emerald Tablet and serving as the Scribe of the First History, ensuring that knowledge flowed freely among the divine.
Nenedeneger was then born, infusing love into the hearts of early life forms, fostering bonds of affection and devotion among the primal beings, the first stirrings of worship.
Zishumgal came into being to oversee the rise of the First Ones, the ascension of dragons and serpents, as intelligent life began to shape and tame the world in ways only sentient beings could fathom, though they lacked the soul that would later animate mankind.
The Plan was always for Mankind to rule Ersetu, though no such being had yet been created or imagined. To make room, the First Extinction was ordered by
These Aeons lived and worked in harmony as they were supposed to, and Yaldaboath birthed His final son: Theosabimus, who took some of the dragons and drew them into the sky as he ordered the clouds and the rain cycle. Yaldaboath, spent utterly, sank into the ocean and was buried by His children in a vault in the deepest trench.
In accordance to Shemuduga's purpose, the šumun-turtur'ra and kullulu were ordered to die. Dag'Ng and Deastire made a deal to instead devolve them into simple beasts, and Shemuduga was moved by their please. Unbeknownst to the others, this was the First Betrayal, as Dag'Ng and Deastire secretly left a spark inside the kullulu and while they installed a gene to destruct the šumun-turtur'ra after mating, those that were chosen for uplifting could be cultivated and allowed to grow into the genius-intellect of their forbears in secret.
The next Extinction came for the First Ones, who were beloved by Zishumgal. In the end, he too disobeyed, though unlike his siblings he did so with revenge in mind. He forewarned the First Ones and assisted them in going underground, though most of the dragons were gone in the long winter that followed.
The rabisu came next, rising above the ascendant mammals with cunning, strength and savagery. The Aeons cultivated the rabisu for a quarter of a million years, assuming that they would have at least fifty million years with the rabisu dominant as they had for the First Ones and the šumun-turtur'ra and kullulu. This was not to be, as a mere two hundred and fifty years later Mankind arrived, exiled from Y'Den beyond the awareness or power of the Aeons. This was the Age of Dawning.
Mankind was shepherded at first by Zazebul and his Watchers, foreign Aeons, and sheltered from Shemuduga's tests by Zazebul, which increasingly desperate Shemduga, who failed to adapt when the Plan was interrupted. Shemduga attacked Zazebul when it became clear that Zazebul and the Watchers were teaching Mankind the secrets of the Aeons, and interbreeding with them. Shemduga and his uduga fought the Watchers and were cast down, with the Tester himself chained in Sheol. The Age of Dawning had ended, and the Age of Innocence began.
The other children of Yaldaboath rose against the Watchers and scattered some, imprisoning others, though they did not free Shemduga. They took control of Mankind as their shepherds, enslaved the uduga for themselves, and didn't follow through with Shemduga's Plan to eliminate the rabizu, believing that the two species could live together in harmony.
This is when Theosubimus discovered a use for Mankind. He marshalled their devotion and prayer and discovered that they were spiritual amphibians, beings with animal bodies in three dimensional space and yet a protrusion into the fourth dimension, a soul. It was this that gave their devotion power, and Theosubimus gained in might above his peers, rising from the least of his siblings to the most powerful as he gathered more worshippers to himself. This began a race, where all of the Aeons divided up Mankind amongst themselves and cultivated their devotion. Of all the children of Yaldaboath only Maneya didn't seek worshippers as the goddess of death was feared by all mankind and thus she quickly became Theosubimus's peer.
As the Most Beloved, Nenedeneger rose quickly as well, and Theosubimus saw her as a rival in a way and came up with a plan to become the only god of Mankind, first to take all of the living worshippers and then rival the Queen of the Dead and eventually cast her down as well. Nenedeneger discovered the harvest and storage of ambrosia, but she was unable to keep such a valuable secret to herself for long.
An arms race began as the other Aeons divined Theosubimus' purpose. Some sought to ally with him, some sought to oppose him, and some simply went about their business. They began to arm and organize their humans, seeking to undermine each other's support through war, they developed priesthoods and individual dogmas. Lines were drawn, the Age of Innocence over, and the Time of Primeval Fires began.
The factions finalize in coalescing, though none feel strong enough to overtly move against the others and none of the Aeons are sure how to actually harm one another directly. Most of the actions in this period are accomplished through proxy wars, missionaries, and the creation of monsters to plague each others' kingdoms. In part, it was Maneya that made the war so long in coming. Both sides courted her attention, but she showed little interest in intervening in the squabbles of her siblings. She was locked in a conflict with Anshenamru over control of Giredin, where her undead masses swarmed against men driven mad with bloodlust brought to her door by Anshenamru.
Heroes rise in this period, champions of the gods, and the first demigods are created as well. Tensions run high through this entire period, until Zabaptaba developed the process for creating suguranse, the first as a hammer with which he would forge wonders and harvested from the doom that came to the dragons.
Attempting to impress Nenedenager whom he saw as a mother figure and envious of Theosubimus' and Anshenamru's dalliances with Deastire whom he desired for himself, he struck a mighty blow against Theosubimus, separating a portion of his head and an eye. For the first time, an Aeon had been wounded with violence. Theosubimus would never again possess a second eye, but summoning his power, he threw his eye into the Mighty River and it emerged as Gishbanda'Duga fully armed and arrayed for battle. She fought next to her father, saving his life and emerging as one of his most prominent and loyal allies. Her cunning and craft matched Zabaptaba, and the battle turned.
Gishbanda'Duga created spidersilk armor which humans would poorly emulate with silk and flax, and sahanse. She was the first to make the True Monsters, humans turned into warped creatures and horrifying things for the purposes of war. These could be produced in larger numbers and often had more power than those produced by other Aeons.
The battles and devastation were terrible, with millions of humans, tens of thousands of servitors, and thousands of heroes and Demigods dying on all sides. Entire worlds were traded in devastating wars, and continents were picked almost clean of resources to fuel the great war machine.
Several years into the war, Gishbanda'Duga threw down Zabaptaba and slew him, severing his ability to make a corporeal body forever. Diminished and crippled, he whispered to his priests, sending them the plans for him to build himself a new body to operate. The machine was made of suguranse, though he would never enter combat again, his wonders turning into defensive measures as his thoughts became insular and paranoid. No Aeon had ever experienced the agony of near-death or the humiliation of a truly crippling blow before, and he could not bring himself to face the possibility again. In his place, he made suhianinti, the Golden Maidens, which he fielded as vast automaton armies. Deastire was delighted by their beauty but somewhat less delighted by their general asexuality, so she set out to make her own female servitors. She used her pharmakian arts to create the damninti, beings of flesh cloned on Gisgaly'Den with no minds, into which she could place constructs of spirit-stuff to create beautiful servitors. These damninti had some combat applications, some breeds more than others, but she found more use for them as gifts, spies, rewards, and assassins. She gave various varieties of them to her allies.
Decades of this devastation passed in a grinding war until Gishbanda'Duga made an offer to the other side to betray her father and restrain him. Gishbanda'Duga sent the Aezura to battle over the fields of Dhool and left Theosubimus alone in his throne. She ambushed him with the Daevanir and bound him with wire made of Adamant. He struggled mightily, enough to damage the continent and bringing mass devastation to his city. Nenedeneger drew close to Theosubimus to deliver a killing blow and avenge Zabaptaba when Gishbanda'Duga sprung her true trap. She had turned the heart of Dag'Ng, who betrayed the Daevanir and along with Gishbanda'Duga captured them in a clever trap made of more Adamant wire. Theosubimus was freed, and as a trophy he hanged Nenedeneger over a jagged cliff. As an immortal, she was not harmed, but she was trapped all the same. Theosubimus' intention was to draw the last of the Daevanir out of the unassailable City of Pillars to save her. Instead, Zabaptaba sent a messenger to Theosubimus and offered to submit to him if his 'mother' was freed by Theosubimus' own hand and if he received Deastire's hand in marriage. The final armistice was signed, though Theosubimus neglected to inform Nenedeneger of this. Instead, he came to her with an offer to free her in exchange for a marriage alliance, the first of its kind, and so long as she agreed never to attack him again.
She agreed, and they were married, unifying the Aezura and the Daevanir. The War Between the Gods was over, and the Age of Heroes began. In the Age of Heroes, the gods still fight each other, but now almost exclusively through proxies. With the combined might of the Aezura and Daevanir behind him, Theosubimus was able to bring an end to the conflict over Giredin. Seeking to weaken his most powerful sibling, he granted Giredin to Anshenamru. Maneya relocated her fortress and court to Kur and laid a curse on the Cosmic Way to Kur, ensuring that she would be the only Aeon to set foot on her world. She stewed, and plotted revenge.
On Ersetu, the gods of the Independent League emerged from hiding and swore their own fealty. Theosubimus was loathe to forgive them, as they had been scavengers and opportunists during the war, but ultimately executing them would have proven more troublesome than simple pardons.
Ultimately, the only true and open adversary for this new Pantheon was Zigaba'a Udugalea, who had come from Priyaha's dreams. Zigaba'a Udugalea was furious that the Aeons had so lost their way, but was unable to match them in power due to his relative youth and his refusal to harvest ambrosia from mortals, something he sees as an unforgiveable sin. He gathered to himself rabizu and barbarians and plotted to destroy the world the children of Yaldaboath had built.
Comments