The Dawn of Mortality

For eons the gods watched as the universe swirled and coalesced into a beautiful and stable form. Truly, this was beyond anything Todra or Nifra could have imagined when they had first begun, and they were learning a great deal about what was possible within the realm of their creation. Yet still, they were objective, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful. The gods were still limited to viewing the universe from their objective, godly perspective. As the swirling, dancing vortex of energy coalesced into the forms of matter, becoming galaxies, stars, planets and moons, their shapes and forms contributed to the knowledge of Todra and Nifra.
Yet this was not enough to slake the gods' thirst for greater knowledge. Todra said to Nifra, "Look at all we have created, all we have learned! We know everything about everything, and it is all so marvelous. Yet, for the first time, I realize that I do not know everything that there is to know."
Nifra had recognized this as well. "Yes, dear Todra. We have learned ignorance. We know all that exists, yet we do not know what it is like to lack all this knowledge. Thus, we have become ignorant of ignorance."
"Yes, exactly," said Todra. "We do not know what it would be like to be limited, to be ignorant, to be a single thing, rather than all things. We have learned so much, only to realize that there is so much more we do not know."
"How can we know less than everything?" asked Nifra. "How can we be limited in such a way? We are gods! If we became limited in power, scale or knowledge, we would no longer be gods."
"Perhaps there is a way," said Todra. "See here, this planet is part of us, made from us, yet it is not the entirety of us. It is limited in scale and lacking awareness. What if we could see from the eyes of this planet? We would know the limitations of being less-than-whole."
"Yet," countered Nifra, "if we see from the eyes of this planet, we would know only the limited perspective of a single planet. And we already know the planets quite intimately; I doubt they could teach us much."
"What would you suggest instead?" inquired Todra.
Nifra thought a while, then said "What if, as the planets are a small piece of us gods, we create beings that are a small piece of their planet, limited in scope and knowledge, and mortal as well? They would not only teach us what it means to be ignorant, small, and mortal, but they would also teach us about a boundless variety of lives, each subjective and unique."
Thus, Nifra conceived of mortality, a means by which the gods could experience and learn a nearly limitless bounty of knowledge.
Together, Todra and Nifra devised a means by which simple entities could be formed, tiny and frail, from the dust of the universe. They then breathed life into these creations, giving the spark of divine animation, after which the entities danced and lived and reproduced and died, each generation growing and shifting and changing. It was from these first entities that all life in Periva originally evolved, shifting and evolving over time.
Eventually, these creatures grew more and more complex, with deeper intelligence and greater capacity for feeling. Todra and Nifra were delighted with all they were learning, yet they wanted to see what would happen if some of Periva's denizens were to gain a much deeper, stronger intellect, one that was closer to the gods, yet still limited and mortal. So they planted the seeds of self-awareness and philosophy in the minds of various species, each of which became swiftly distinct. It is in this way that the dominant races of Periva came into being.
From these dominant races The Third Wave of Divines and The Fourth Wave of Divines were conceived.