The Truth of Creation

Source of the Truth of Creation

Long ago, the Truth of Creation was imparted by the Aether gods to their followers. The story has been re-told by many cultures over the centuries with their own flair, but the general contents remain the same. Since the Aether gods often walk the Material Plane and interact with mortals, there is little room for error in the story.

The Beforetime

Before time existed, the universe was homogeneously filled with positive and negative Energies of the Universe. Since positive energy is naturally attracted to itself, it began to coalesce, forming energy densities in the universe. The largest of these densities slowly gained sentience and became the first being of creation, referring to themself as Enas, the Creator .

Creation of the Isocrystal Layer

Since there was an equal net amount of positive and negative energy in the universe and Enas was an anomalously large density of positive energy, the universe around Enas had a negative energy balance. Enas could feel the negative energy around their edges, threatening to consume them. Enas shifted the balance of positive and negative energy in order to save itself.
Doing so created the Aether, the domain of positive energy, and the Nether, the domain of negative energy. No longer was the universe a homogeneous balance of energies. But, the Aether was unstable because positive energy flows toward negative energy. In order to prevent the gradual loss of positive energy from the Aether, Enas used 1/3 of their energy to create the Isocrystal Layer.

Birth of the Aether Gods

Enas soon felt lonely. They were a being of positive energy, filled with the desire to create, but had no one to share their creation with. Enas used half of their remaining energy to create the Aether Gods.
The first to be born from Enas's body was Ilos, God of the Sun and Agriculture, who arose from their right bicep. Selin, God of the Moon and Sleep sprung from their left bicep. From their left thigh came Gin, God of Earth and Craft, and then came Pano, God of Storms from their right thigh. Thelia, Goddess of Knowledge and Magic came from their forehead. From their heart came Agapi, Goddess of Beauty and Love. The last two gods, Vio, Goddess of Life and Urbos, God of the Nether, came from their groin and lower back respectively.

Creation of the World

Creating the Material Plane

The gods saw the Isocrystal Layer and decided to create upon it. Thelia, with her extensive knowledge of the energies of the universe, knew that Isocrystal has to be heated for anything to adhere to it. She used her extensive knowledge of the universe and its energies to create the Sun and asked Pano to create a scaffold to suspend it above the material plane, in the lowest part of the Aether. The Isocrystal Layer became hot, and now energies could be stuck onto its surface.
Once the material plane was sticky, Gin fired up his forge. He hammered mountains and valleys onto the material plane, and then filled the plane with rocks, gems, and minerals.
Pano, in the meanwhile, filled the material plane with atmosphere. He then created water in the form of oceans, and filled the air with storms as part of a perpetual machine that moved the water across the material plane.

Creating Life

Trajectory of the Sun and Moon

Vio had an idea to create life, but the earth was too hot for the delicate processes of life. Vio asked Pano to create a cycle of light and dark so that the earth would not be so hot. However, Pano refused because he liked his scaffold that held the sun in the Aether. Vio then turned to Ilos and Selin, who thoroughly enjoyed a practical joke, and asked them to intercede. The two of them stole the sun and tossed it between one another as Pano tried to catch it. The two had such fun that they decided to keep their game going long after Pano tired.
But, the earth was still too hot for life. Pano, seeing that he had been bested, created the moon to cool the earth and gave it to Selin. Now, Ilos and Selin toss the sun and moon to each other on the far edges of the world. Ilos launches the sun from the east to the west, where Selin catches it. Once caught, Selin tosses the moon to Ilos and it travels from west to east. The two head upstairs after dawn and dusk to exchange celestial bodies. However, Pano, ever the cynic, remodeled the skies with stars, holes that give a glimpse into the Aether, to remind those who look at the night that the sky was his first.

The First Plant and Animal, and Death

Vio took the positive energies of the Aether and created the first plant and animal, entities who subsisted strictly on energy expelled by the sun. These entities could reproduce, creating more of themselves, but lacked creativity and could not create anything new. They simply existed and were filled with contentment.
The other gods were amazed and begin to tinker and mold different plants, animals, and spirits. Soon, the material plane was crowded with life. The gods could no longer create, the early plants and animals could not reproduce, and no one was happy. Urbos traveled into the Nether, tapped into negative energies, and created death to keep the plane from filling. These first plants and animals willingly retired their energy from the material plane so that others could enjoy the world, and Urbos would travel into the Nether to recover their energies. However, Urbos's contact with negative energies changed his mindset forever.

Creating Consciousness

The First Being

Vio, Agapi, and Thelia worked together to create the first being granted with consciousness and creativity. The three sisters were protective of it and did not want the gods to alter it as they had the plants and animals. The first being lived in the Aether, free from negative energies and death, but it could not create when this far away from the material plane, like the other gods. The first being eventually became bored.
Pano, the cynic, convinced the first being to leave its shelter and come to the material world. The first being gave up immortality for the opportunity to create. Then Pano helped Ilos, Selin, and Gin make their own copies which they put on the earth.

The Elder Races

Ilos created the Aasimar, the first people, who glowed like the sun which Ilos still considered to be his treasure.
Selin created the first Giants, the Goliaths, and the Firbolg. These huge people learned how to create during their sleep and taught the secrets of dreaming to the other races.
Gin created the Dwarves and the Genasi. He put the dwarves onto the material plane so they could create art from his rocks, minerals, and gems, while Gin created the genasi out of pure elemental energy as a personal exercise.
Pano created many races: the first Fey, Gnomes, Minotaurs, Tritons, and Aarakockra. The fey he made as a reflection of his cynical self. He created the gnomes as an intelligent race and challenged them to figure out the workings of his water cycle, while he created the aaracockra to enjoy the eddies and jet streams of his sky. The minotaurs and tritons were dedicated to exploring the oceans; the minotaurs spend their lives on the surface in boats, and the tritons control the depths below.

The Younger Races

Seeing how Pano convinced their prized being to forgo immortality, the three sisters mourned. Eventually, Thelia and Agapi were overcome by amazement as they watched the common folk build the first societies on the material plane. They too created races.
Thelia created Elves and Humans as two sides of the same coin. She granted elves long lives to glimpse truths that can only come from wisdom that accrues with age, while she gave humans enough ambition and drive to change the world.
Agapi made Halflings and Tabaxi and instilled them with different kinds of love. The halflings are filled with a love for family, while the tabaxi have a love for the entire world that fills them with wanderlust.
Vio, still affronted, was eventually convinced to create more life. She created the first Dragons and Dragonborn to be the pinnacle of creation, gifted with immense strength and intelligence.

Utopia

The world was filled with life and creation. Urbos, as the keeper of death, did not feel it was appropriate for him to create life. He devoted himself to the recycling of energies. While there was death, there was no disease, strife, or war. All people lived in harmony and understanding. There was no winter, and all creation shared ambrosia and nectar created by the gods. Enas looked over the world and was filled with happiness.

A Fall from Grace

Love and creation filled all the gods. But the regular contact that Urbos had with negative energy began to change him. Because negative energy is attracted to positive energy and these energies cancel one another, every trip into the Nether was dangerous. During these trips, Urbos would purge these negative energies before returning to the Aether. However, this was an imperfect process and Urbos would always retain a baseline of negative energy, which Urbos began to compartmentalize, like an Isocrystal. Now with a core of pure negative energy, Urbos had the powers of creation and destruction at his disposal.
This arrangement was not without consequence. His mindset became darker and his thoughts often fixated on destruction. Over time, his love for the material plane became twisted into jealousy, and his demeanor changed. His demeanor changed and through his interactions with the people of the Material Plane, they began to fear him and stopped surrendering their energies to be recycled. As fewer beings began to die, the plane began to fill.
The Aether gods discussed how to restore the flow of energy and Urbos, without their approval, created The First Disease to steal their energies back. This method horrified the other Aether gods, but Urbos convinced them it was the only way. Pano and Thelia began to suspect that the negative energies of death had changed Urbos, but they did not act on their suspicions.
Urbos later confirmed their suspicions when he set in motion a plan to destroy the entire world--a world that, in his eyes, had rebuked him. Using negative energy, Urbos corrupted Potami, the largest river spirit of the Agon Desert. Potami then dragged Enas through the Isocrystal Layer and into the Nether, where Urbos implanted a core of negative energy into Enas. Urbos then filled his core with as much negative energy as it could hold. The passage of the gods into the Nether warped the material plane along the river, temporarily plunging any settlements that depended on Potami's river into the Nether with them. The denizens of these cities were corrupted by negative energies. Elves were transformed into Drow, gnomes into Deep Gnomes, and Dwarves into Duergar. Where the river once flowed, the Great Scar of Urbos remained. Negative energies continued to pour out of the Great Scar and Potami, formerly the guardian of the river, was missing.

Birth of the Nether Gods and the Death of Enas

Enas, the Creator then assumed the form of Enas, the Destroyer. Enas then combined his remaining positive energy with an equivalent amount of negative energy to create the Nether Gods. Chelmonos, God of Winter and Cold was first born from the right forearm. Efia, Goddess of Nightmares and Darkness soon followed out of the left forearm. Polemos, God of War and Destruction emerged from the left calf, while Navaros, God of Fate and Prophecy was born from the right calf. Enas then spewed profane knowledge from his mouth, knowledge that formed Thanatos, God of Forbidden Knowledge. Lies settled into Enas's stomach and erupted as Psemia, Goddess of Deceit and Untruth. From the groin came Asthenia, Goddess of Wither and Corruption. The last Nether god to be born was Koumos, God of Revenge and Murder, from the upper back. With his positive energy exhausted, Enas faded into non-existence within the deepest levels of the Nether, surrounded by negative energy.
The Nether gods, filled with their new power, broke through the Isocrystal layer and out of the Nether to wreak havoc on the Material Plane. Since none of the Aether gods knew the secrets of Isocrystal, the resultant Isocrystal Breach remained open for the next 100 years, draining positive energy from the Aether and expelling negative energies from the Nether. The force of the Nether gods impacting with the Isocrystal Layer caused a lattice of cracks and crevices to form along its underside. The smallest holes allow for a gradual leak of negative energy from the Nether into the Material Plane. The deepest tunnels of the Material Plane began to fill with Nether energies and transformed into the Underdark, corrupting any creatures that lived below.

Children of the Nether

The Nether gods innately knew their precarious position. Filled with the desire to destroy and gifted with the ability to create, they could use their positive energy to form agents of evil that could sow more destruction. However, the Nether gods also knew they had a limited amount of positive energy to work with. Their first act of creation was to fill the material plane with their own children. These children of the Nether would make sacrifices to the Nether gods to grant them more power.
Chelmonos, oldest of the Nether gods, used his power to create the first Long Winter. Clouds covered the sky of the Material Plane so densely that the energies of the sun could no longer reach the denizens below. Temperatures plummeted and the people suffered. Those who died during the Long Winter had their energies pulled into the Nether below, to nourish Chelmonos.
Efia, inspired by the darkness created by Chelmonos, created nightmares to plague the denizens of the Material Plane. All races used to control over their dreams, as the Firbolg and Giants had taught them how to harness their dreams. Efia's new nightmares bested even the most wise Giants and Firbolg, stealing their strength and sanity. Then, Efia created the Beholders as masters of nightmares, giving them the ability to control the nightmares of others. Those who died during these violent night terrors similarly fed Efia.
Polemos had no interest in subtlety. He craved destruction, so he made destruction. Goblins, Bugbears, Hobgoblins, and Orcs sprung from his fists and wreaked havoc on the world. Giants and Goliaths driven insane by Efia's dreams joined in and claimed Polemos as their new god.
Navaros knew what future awaited the material plane, so he carefully created the Kenku to further his prophecies. When Navaros created the Kenku, he gifted them with sinister voices and the natural aptitude for subterfuge he knew they required.
Thanatos craved to unravel the forbidden mysteries of the universe and directly created two races to accomplish his goal. The Yuan-Ti create forbidden magic that uses the energies of life and death--magic that requires live sacrifice. Mind Flayers perform dark experiments to learn the secrets of life and death. With the knowledge and magic gleaned from his servants, Thanatos then set to tempting the people of the material plane. In return for power and knowledge, Thanatos transformed them into Tieflings and forced them to do his bidding.
Psemia was fascinated by the raw power of the Dragons, so she created the Kobold to corrupt them. These sycophantic creatures lie when they see fit and began to worship the dragons. Some were taken with the attention and began to listen to the lies of the Kobolds. As their heads filled with lies, Psemia's dark magic corrupted them and their scales lost their luster. Thus the Chromatic Dragons were created. Psemia also created the first Changelings to sow discord within the races of the Material Plane.
Asthenia convinced Urbos to give her control over disease, and then created all of the negative blights that afflict people. To spread death across the world, she created Wither, an unstoppable disease which drains the positive energy of any who come across it. To spread the Wither, Asthenia created the Gnolls and taught them the rituals required to control Wither.
Koumos created the Lizardfolk as a manifestation of the grudge he held against the Aether gods. As his agents, the Lizardfolk culture was born of holding grudges and taking revenge. Only two things brought them together--a deep hatred for the Aether gods and for the other races of the material plane.
With his energies freed from disease, Urbos decided to create Undeath as a punishment to the world that rebuked him. Any who died during this tumultuous time did not rest easy, but were instead turned into soulless monsters that brought destruction around them.

The Great Aether War

The Material Plane suffered under the Long Winter, nightmares, Wither, undeath, and the destruction wrought by the children of the Nether gods. The conflicts between the forces of the Aether and Nether lasted for 500 years are known as The Great Aether War. The final death toll is lost to history and the gods, but the death and destruction wrought upon the Material Plane is still manifest in some areas and cultures.

Upwelling of the First Dwarven Empire

Negative Energies were seeping through the cracks in the Isocrystal Layer, placing the denizens of the First Dwarven Empire in immediate harm. In an act of desperation, the Aether Gods aided Gin in bringing the most populous Dwarven cities from their subterranean slumber onto the earth's surface. This rapid ascent led to the deaths of countless dwarves but ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives. The Aether Gods triaged their response and worked together to save the most populous cities--one is the present-day City of Vern. Unfortunately, millions of dwarves were lost as their deep tunnels and settlements were turned into the Underdark.

Initial Losses

The Aether gods argued as to the best course of action against the Nether gods. Ilos and Pano wanted to take the fight straight to the Nether Gods, but Thelia knew they would be bested. With Urbos's betrayal, the Nether gods outnumbered them and would swiftly overpower them. Selin and Agapi saw the damage inflicted by the children of the Nether and wanted to devote their resources to eradicating them all. Gin and Thelia felt the negative energies of the Nether building, and felt it was best to close the Isocrystal Breach before taking any more action.
Vio convinced the other gods that more lives would be lost if they tried to solve one problem before moving onto the next, and that the right call was to triage and stop the loss of life. Thus, the gods divided their efforts into solving the immediate problems. Ilos provided temporary relief to communities effected by the Long Winter. Selin devoted himself to healing those closest to death to stop the flood of undead assaulting the living. Gin, together with Thelia, worked on stabilizing the Isocrystal Breach before it tore the Material Plane apart. Pano collected and purged negative energy as it built up on the surface of the Material Plane and the Aether. Agapi and Vio found a way to stem the tide of Wither. And the people of the Material Plane suffered for 50 years until the situation stabilized.

Breaking the Long Winter

As Ilos kept the Material Plane warm and Pano removed negative energies from the plane, the two of them formulated a plan to break the icy siege of the long winter. They set their followers on conquests to defeat any children of Chelmonos to prevent him from amassing more power. At the same time, Ilos carried the sun across the skies as Pano formed the air into huge lenses, slowly burning away the clouds. Over the course of 5 years the gods broke Chelmonos's icy hold over the Material Plane. Plants could grow and the people of the Material Plane worked to refill their granaries.

Stopping Undeath, and the First Celestial

Selin's first efforts were to prevent those closest to death from passing, in an attempt to halt the growth of the undead horde threatening the material plane. Once the Long Winter was broken, far fewer people were at risk of dying and Selin could turn his attention to stopping the curse of Undeath. Selin soon determined the mechanism of Undeath--Urbos was collecting the souls of those who pass and filling their bodies with negative energy. Urbos was able to do so by following the path taken by their souls from the Material Plane into the Nether.
Selin realized that if these souls were instead escorted to the Aether, then Urbos would not be able to create undead. But, Selin was already busy managing the moon and healing as many people as he could. Selin asked Vio to help him create an immensely powerful being to guide souls from the Material Plane to the Aether--the first Celestial. Thus, Selin and Vio created Synod, Guide of the Departed, who he charged with escorting souls and easing their passage into death. Synod worked with his followers to create rituals that, when performed over the dead, would keep Urbos from noticing their soul. Synod then guided these souls from the Material Plane into the Aether. Ten years after the Curse of Undeath beset the Material Plane, the curse was broken.

Stemming the Wither

The corruption caused by the Wither disturbed the Goddesses of Beauty and Life. The Wither consumed all life as it surged across the plane, spreading disease and death. The two of them spent ten years throwing their energies at the inexorable tide of the Wither. When the two goddesses made progress in one area, the Wither regrew in areas they had previously cleared. Vio and Agapi changed strategies and prioritized areas of the Wither nearest settlements to keep the people safe, and the goddesses spent 5 years locked in a desperate battle to save the Material Plane.
Once the Long Winter was broken, the momentum shifted in the goddesses favor. As the Material Plane began to warm, the goddesses spent 10 more years driving the Wither back to the edges of the arctic. Vio and Agapi realized that Wither thrived off of the cold, remnants of Chelmonos's power, and that the Wither near the arctic was too strong and could not be destroyed. The goddesses would need to remain vigilant against the Wither forever, or else it would regrow. Instead, Agapi and Vio created a Celestial to keep vigil in their stead, Froud, Sentinel of the Ice. Now considered the Saints of the Arctic, Froud and his band of rangers spend their time patrolling the edges of the Wither to ensure they do not grow. For fifteen long years, the Wither had strangled the life out of the Material Plane. With Froud's watch begun, the Wither was stemmed.

Sealing the Isocrystal Breach

The beginning of the Great Aether War was characterized by the Long Winter, the Curse of Undeath, the spread of Wither, and the Isocrystal Breach. While the former three trials were quickly addressed by the gods' power and cunning, the Isocrystal Breach proved to be more challenging. Gin and Thelia assembled the most skilled craftspeople and brightest minds of the Material Plane to approach the problem, forming the First Spellweavers' Circle. For fifty years the gods and their followers investigated the breach, trying to reverse engineer the secrets of Isocrystal--secrets that died with Enas, deep within the Nether. In the process, the Spellweavers discovered many powerful secrets of how Isocrystal can serve as a magical focus and developed the schools of magic as we know them today.
As the Circle worked, Pano purged negative energies from the Aether and the Material Plane as they built up. This process was exhausting and Pano understood the pain that Urbos went through as part of his trips to the Nether. Pano could feel his mind beginning to slip as he collected and purged these energies, and once the Wither was stemmed he asked the other gods for help. The gods decided it was best to take this job in shifts, and all but Thelia and Gin pitched in.
Fifty years after the opening of the Isocrystal Breach, the First Spellweavers' Circle had a breakthrough. By harnessing some of the energies of the Aether, they were able to weave a barrier to catch and return negative energy as it escaped from the Nether as well as positive energy as it drained from the Aether. The flow of energy finally stopped, the Circle began the slow process of repairing a god-sized hole in the Material Plane.

The Ultimate Prophecy

Before the final conflict between the gods, Urbos approached Navaros and demanded that he prophesy their victory. Navaros refused and instead left Urbos with a sinister prediction; Urbos's assault on the Aether would fail. Furious, Urbos used his power to bind Navaros into a sword, ensuring that Navaros's prophecy would be his last. Urbos took the Blade of Navaros with him against the Aether gods in the final battle, hoping to foil the Ultimate Prophecy by tying Navaros's survival to the outcome of the battle.

The Final Battle

The Great Aether War culminated when the Nether gods led an assault upon the Aether. Their forces were numerous as they had spent decades amassing followers and strength. Battalions of their worshipers were led by their chosen ones, Devils and Demons alike. Urbos led the charge with the Blade of Navaros in hand and atop Potami, the Agonian river spirit he had corrupted centuries before. Urbos was confident that the Aether gods were too weak to resist, their strength sapped by their battles with Winter, Undeath, Wither, and the Breach.
However, when the Blade of Navaros clashed with Ilos's spear, the blade shattered and Urbos was dealt a grievous wound. The Ultimate Prophecy was fulfilled. The Aether gods and their children were emboldened and soon turned the tide of the battle, routing the forces of the Nether.
Urbos was too wounded to run and was captured. Potami was coaxed into a deep sleep by Selin. The other Nether gods escaped back to the Nether, leaving their followers on the Material Plane. The Aether gods elected to imprison Urbos for eternity, and legends tell that his prison is located in the lowest levels of the Underdark. Potami continues to sleep to this day, within the Agon Desert.

Restoring the Material Plane

After another 50 years, the Isocrystal Breach was sealed for good, but the scar still remains on both the Material Plane and the Isocrystal Layer. Pano filled the resulting hole with ocean, leaving behind the Abyssal Trench. Gin now dedicates much of his time to inspecting the Isocrystal Layer, looking for imperfections which the Nether gods could use to break out of the Nether once again.
The Nether gods await their chance to challenge and defeat the Aether gods. To this day, Chelmonos covers the world in clouds for many months and creates winter as a sinister reminder that he lurks in the shadows of the Nether. Efia still brings night terrors to those who sleep unguarded. War bands of Polemos's children still roam the Material Plane, pillaging as they go. Although the Kenku, children of Navaros, no longer have a voice, they are still harbingers of doom and often bring misfortune on their dark wings. Thanatos still tempts mortals with forbidden knowledge, and although the Tieflings are no longer beholden to him, some traded their freedom away for more power. Chromatic dragons who were tempted by Psemia still destroy entire cities once angered. The Wither still lurks in the arctic and grows stronger in the winter, while diseases created by Asthenia end lives every day. Murders and grudges sown by Koumos have toppled entire kingdoms. Followers of Urbos pass knowledge of the Curse of Undeath among them, creating abominations as they please. And the Underdark is still filled with unforgiving horrors that kill without a second thought.
1000 years have passed since the Great Aether War, and although there have been attempts by the Nether gods to usurp the Aether gods, the Material Plane has flourished in relative peace. None but the Aether gods remember this horrible time, but the stories are still told.