A segment from the Codex of Life and Death, concerning the creation of the world, as well as the origin of mankind and the patron gods.
In the beginning the universe dark and empty, barren of all existence except for Sune, who gave herself a beautiful form. It was Sune who watched over the universe and was saddened by how barren it was; and so she breathed into the void and made a space to fill the blackness. Within that space existed the stars and below them, the world. The world was much like the void, it was barren and had no form. Across its surface, only the rolling desert lay, endless and eternal, with only the light of the stars to lighten it. Sune was not satisfied by this and wanted the world to reflect her beauty.
Once again she breathed into the void and he created her first children. To them Sune bequeathed the world and with it two gifts. The first gift was magic, so that they would craft a home in the world and make it beautiful. The second gift was the greatest, as to give it, Sune reached within herself and granted them eternal life. Never would these first children suffer the woes of death, for they would exist immortal for all time, like Sune herself.
Tired from her work Sune rested while her children began to mold a beautiful home upon the earth. With their magic they sculpted the world, forging stone into high mountains and deep valleys, and from the space in between they created the plains and the hills. But as they built, the First Children looked upon the world and saw that for all its beauty it was still barren.
Once again they set to work to cover all that they had given shape with splendor. Into the valleys they poured water to form great oceans; and in the plains they built towering mountains and looming canyons. But, again when they completed their task and looked out, all they saw was a world of emptiness.
In that moment, the First Children would realize what it was Sune had deprived them of, the one thing, she had kept to herself, and not given them before descending into her slumber. The power to birth life. Angry, and jealous of the power, some of the First Children took up in a rage, and went to her as she slept. Knowing it lay within her, they attacked the Goddess, cutting at her flesh and showering the desert in her blood. From these droplets, the mineral gold would litter the world, shoved underground by the stomping and kicking of the First Children as they attacked their mother.
Awakening in a fury of anger and rage, Sune easily drove off her traitorous sons and daughters and subdued them.Taking from them her gifts, she banished them into the west, and inhaled the creations of that land, creating Nu, the Timeless Twilight. Identical to the mortal world itself, Nu, would be a dark shadow of it. There nothing beautiful could reside, and in it, the banished children went mad, turning into horrific monsters, desperate for even the tinniest fragment of beauty.
Seeing in them her mistake, Sune knew that giving her children eternal life, had made them greedy and ungrateful. By bestowing upon them plenty, she had prevented them from respecting what they had, and vowed to never make the same mistake again.
Looking out over the world though, the Goddess soon found herself agreeing with the First Children's sorrow, seeing just how empty the land they had sculpted was. Of the First Children only a few had remained loyal to their mother, but despite this they had fled, fearing the power their mother had unleashed; and so Sune, was once more, entirely alone. Deciding to try again though, she breathed once more into the universe, giving birth to new children, whom she would gift the world.
Known as her Second Children, or mankind, Sune would give no gifts unto them. Left without magic, to shape the world as they wished, man would have to struggle to create beauty, and would in turn, learn to respect it more once achieved. Left without eternal life, man would some day die, and so made every moment count in their short, but meaningful existence.
Overtime though, as Sune watched on, and the first of mankind began to die, she started to pity them. Dying early, many left the world without ever achieving their goals, disappearing into the void, as sad, innocent creatures, with a life lost. Deciding to help mankind Sune came up with an idea.
Breathing out a half breath upon her children Sune gave them an escape from death, while also maintaining the order she had set forth. Reincarnation. Man would die, of that she had to assure, for life without death lead only to greed and selfishness, but then, man would return. Brought back into life, in an endless cycle, Sune bestowed upon man endless lives, rather than a single eternal one.
From this, a golden age would last, as Sune watched over man and was awed by the beauty they created; but gradually, over time she began to slumber; drifting off once more into her great sleep. In her absence, man began to realize like their elder siblings, the effect of eternal living. Descending into greed and wickedness, they became content with leading evil lives, for a new one awaited them in death.
As she slept, the few remaining First Children once more came out, and ruled over their little siblings, as petty gods. Still loyal to Sune though, these "good" children, respected her wishes; and tried to guide mankind down lives driven by beauty and morality. But as much as they tried, they lacked the same power of Sune, and could not threaten mankind beyond death, and for this reason the decadence and decline of man during Sune's slumber, grew worse and worse.
Overtime, the First Children, would become what are today, seen as the patron deities of Sunarian Polytheism, and foreign gods of strange distant lands. Weaker than Sune in every way, the patrons remain powerful beings, for which man often worships, out a desperation for divine favor, and a small fragment of Sune's first gift. Magic.
Sune would awaken once more eons later, and be ashamed of the world sprawled out before her. Vowing to never rest again, Sune summoned the most righteous of mortals to her, the First Emperor, and instructed him and his disciples, the high priests of Sunas, to make mankind aware, that she was back, and watching. Committing herself to being the appraiser of souls, Sune took the First Emperor as her husband, to bind herself to mankind, and began her eternal task as the keeper of morality, and protector of her children, safe guarding them from even themselves.
Judging mankind, around the life they lived, Sune punished those who had squandered her gifts, and rewarded those had not. From this the Sunist view of the afterlife was formed; with the wicked and damned being denied reincarnation, as their souls were sentenced eternally to suffer in Nu, alongside those of the First Children who Sune had banished long, long ago.
To this today Sune watches over mankind, and though the First Emperor is gone, his heirs, be they of his blood or the golden blood of Sune, live on. So long as this marriage between man and Sune remain, so to must man's morality and his loyalty to the Goddess, lest she cast them into the darkness for tarnishing her holy gifts.
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