In the beginning, there was the First People and the Dragons. The Dragons were as gods, walking the lands and shaping it to their will. The First People worshiped them, and lived under their sufferance.
The exception was Gunthar, ever compassionate, who came in kindness among the First People and gave those who would accept them two gifts: agriculture, and his own blood full of Divinity. They were transformed, taking on the features of beasts of burden, the ox. They were large and strong, their bodies resisted disease, and their vitality was so great that they could regain lost limbs with time. With agriculture came the first vestiges of civilization. They built farming communities and villages under the protection of Gunthar along the northern coast of the vast fresh water sea and prospered. Thus were they the first of the divine races, the Minotaur.
Gunthar's generosity led to his consort, Vraa, emulating him though none know the why of it. Unlike Gunthar, who offered his gifts freely to the First People, she sought out those who lived in the perilous mountains. A difficult place to live, the people there hunted powerful wild beasts both to protect and feed themselves. Seeing their merit as warriors and defenders, she judged them worthy of her own gift. To them, she granted bloodlines, gifts that would breed true through each line, as well as a vigor that outmatched that of the Minotaur. While a Minotaur could regain a lost limb in a matter of a month or two, they could reclaim them in as little as hours. The vigor of their bloodline was inversely related to its strength, so that Far Speakers [long range telepaths] and Greenthumbs [farmers] were rigorous and hardy, while Artificers [makers of magical items] are less hardy, and Oracles [seers of the future] are frail in health and rarely outlive their childhoods without care. Between their vitality and bloodlines, some consider this race, the Trolls, the most divine of the divine races.
Time passed, and the Trolls and Minotaur lived in peace. The Trolls mastered their mountains, but while Greenthumbs could grow crops in the harsh terrain there were limits. The Minotaur could till the land, but they relied on the Trolls for good metal tools. There were obvious benefits to trade, and little reason for either to exert the effort to conquer the other.
The peace lasted even after the birth of Gillas, and the recorded tribulations the world underwent with the coming of a new Dragon. Mountains burned, the skies choked with smoke and ash, and the earth heaved and broke. This was, according to the oral traditions of the Minotaur and the records of the Trolls, a rare occasion attested to less than a dozen times.
However, peace did not last Gillas's youth. The young Dragon looked upon his parents' worshipers and he envied them. As he grew in age and power, he plotted to take the Trolls and Minotaur from them and make them his own. He took his time, having the patience and immortality of Dragons, and he whispered into the ears of the Far Speakers, who were dissatisfied at their role in the Troll lands. They were the lowest of the bloodlines, their numbers large and thus depreciating their gift, something all today envy.
He spoke to them about conquest, of rising up as the proud warriors who subjugated the Minotaur much like their ancestors had subjugated the beasts of their mountains. The Far Speakers heard, and they reveled in the dream of glory and conquest. They raised their voices, to convince their peers of the grandness of this endeavor, but it fell onto deaf ears.
Ignored, they took it upon themselves to take action. They ventured into the lands of the Minotaur and attacked them while proclaiming themselves as acting on behalf of the Trolls as a people. War was slow in coming, but the Far Speakers were themselves a vast undeniable host. The Trolls could not slow them. Thus did war erupt, and the two sides fought.
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This attracted the attention of other Dragons, and they saw the war as a grand game. They would divvy up the sides of a conflict between themselves, offering their favor and increasing the damage and casualties. Neither Vraa nor Gunthar could stop the war once it started, held in check by the Dragons avid for this new entertainment.
The war would not end until the Minotaur entreated Gunthar to commit a trespass against the cosmos itself. There are two powers, things like gods that are the living will of the world themselves and not Dragons or raised mortals. Unlike a god, who intervenes in the working of the world on behalf of mortals, they are the mechanisms of the world. Arkiss, the Advocate of Vice, and Arliss, the Advocate of Virtue, who together judged the souls of the dead and granted them passage to the Heavens or condemned them to the Hells. Arkiss was ripped from his throne of Judgment, his power taken to mold a weapon called DragonBane. This weapon was wielded against the Dragons until they fled the world, leaving only the three who would become the first gods.
This was the end of the Blood War, so named for the children of the Far Speakers and Minotaur born during the war lived in the lands between the two nations, and are known as the Hill Kin Minotaur. They are a lesser kin, with less strength and vitality than either, though they still retain the gift of the Far Speakers to speak with each other over great distances. The Hilken (derived from Hill Kin) Minotaur were not grateful to Gillas for their creation. Thus, his plot to forge a people of his own through war was a failure.
For their part in causing the war and the death of Dragons, the Far Speakers were slowly corrupted by their ambition and desire. Their bodies, souls, and minds all rotted until they became the Goblins.
Gillas was not deterred by the failure of his first plot. Some whisper that he went and found the remaining First People, and that he ripped off the eastern part of the continent, creating the God Finger Cliffs, to forge a land for them apart so that his own people could not be stolen from him.
What is known is that he then went to the Shadowlands, the lands beneath the God Finger Cliffs, and he began to create life. Many Monsters were made in his quest, but the fruits of his toil were two races. The first are believed to have been made in the image of Dragons, the Reglad. They are big and strong, with natural armor, but they are only half-made. They have no ability for magic, and while the males are intelligent and capable, their females are larger, stronger, vicious, and cunning beasts.
The other are the Humans, who while the weakest of the races, and not divine in their own right, could be said to have the greatest potential. Humans can be Awakened. They work together. They have ambition, suited to Gillas's will, and seek their own aggrandizement. Truly, Gillas surpassed his own designs for they can become gods in their own right, meaning that they can become future competition for the worship of mortals. Certainly, he intended that Humans would form a pantheon below him, affording him a broad appeal over the limited domains of his parents.
With an army of Humans loyal to him, he once more sought to conquer the world. First, he established his people in the Southlands, and gifted them the knowledge that Minotaur and Trolls possessed. Agriculture, reading, writing, smithing, engineering, and plethora of other skills were sown among them until the Three Kingdoms were built. Once the people had built a civilization capable of war, they began the march north under a great general.
Early on they attempted to invade the mountains of the Trolls along the western coast, but the terrain did not favor them and the Trolls, still cautious after the Blood War, were ruthless in putting down the army that attempted the narrow passes. So they turned their eyes to the far north, and marched along the God Finger Cliffs. They conquered the Sacred Beasts they met along the way, until Elfé was lost in the woods. The tale of Elfé and the Sacred Wolf is a well known story, and will not be repeated here.
Vraa, either out of compassion or in revenge for her own lost Goblins, gave the Elves Divinity. They became the third divine race. For them, the gift is thin. Their vitality goes no further than a longer natural life, and their bloodline ability is to inherit any blessing their parents possessed. So the Elves formed worship around the Sacred Beasts who would bless and protect them, and the Sacred Beasts, starved for company, took them in. This would cause the rise of the Kin races, who are in truth Elves who have mingled their blood with Sacred Beasts who haven taken Human form.