Brazen Creation Myth
Summary
In the earliest recorded version, the world was made as the First Beings warred with each other. Their enormous swords carved out the valleys as they were dragged along, their footsteps became lakebeds, and their blood washed the surface like rain.
After a stalemate, the First Beings left to fight in other battlefields. As their blood trickled down to form the oceans, the gods and the first ores crystalized from it in the mountains, and the rest was separated out into water.
Some emerged from underground before others, but the gods soon set to making the land hospitable, each using their gifts. The twin goddesses of plants and animals, for example, set to giving it life.
The god of earthquakes and volcanoes accidentally unearthed the first dwarves from Great Mt. Khairas. Feeling a parent-like obligation to them and wanting to keep them secret from the others, he gave them caverns to live in so the sun god couldn't see them, and taught them how to use fire craft. The other gods wondered at his cheery demeanor and confronted him, discovering the dwarves. They forced him to share and subject them to mortality like the other creatures, and so the dwarves spread down to the coasts from the mountains.
After this event, the god of earthquakes was not happy. He convinced the god of storms to rebel with him. After much fighting and the near destruction of the first dwarves, they agreed to go cease fighting but to leave the presence of the mortals. The gods that took the side of order created Mirala to dwell in, while the rest hid themselves around Kyre.
Spread
This world origin story is an old legend, originating from well before the first dynasty of the Ereduarn Empire. While some variations of this tale have survived to the modern day, it is not accepted as the definitive truth. This is partly because there is no guarantee that the gods ever explained it this way themselves, and partly because of conflicting evidence with natural history and what confirmed gods from other religions claim.
In Literature
Scholars interest in the inaccuracies of the myth and its many variations led to an entire genre of literature, in which philosophers would rewrite the story as a sort of thesis to support their arguments.
This practice exploded after the Wake , but the retelling genre went abruptly out of fashion after the Consolidation around a long generation ago. Even so, the familiar story structure is still a staple of most literature today.
In Art
A stylized image of a sword ploughing the ground, a reference to the first became a recognizable symbol of the Ereduarn Empire's military because it represented how war was a way to prosper.
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