At the dawn of time

When Vazotz and his siblings were born, they were already orphans. Their ‘parents’ Kelheit and Hiela, the primordial gods of the binary, were already dead. Vazotz and his siblings were born from their death. Some, like his older brother Vigros the god of light, made the false assumption that the primordial gods were originally light and dark themselves. This was patently false.

They were more opposition than anything else, calling them Light and Dark wasn’t entirely incorrect, but it was just as correct to call them Order and Chaos, Life and Death. They were opposites. Something Vazotz dwelled upon more and more as his siblings fell into strict hierarchies and began divvying up existence. They had petty squabbles and disagreements, sure, but for the most part they all got along, there was no real opposition. Not anymore.

They were of the same blood, in a metaphorical divine nature sense, none of them truly hated one another. Even Vazotz for all his disappointments and jealousy for being born without domain didn’t truly hate his siblings, nor their children. He did however have a sinking feeling that this lack of opposition would come back to bite them. The other shoe would eventually have to drop, and other such metaphors that had yet to be invented.

So, without a domain to call his own, Vazotz resolved to watch. To wait. He would come into his own power sooner or later, he would make sure of it. In the meantime he could learn more about how his siblings operated and how they intended to steer the newfound reality. His twin siblings, more siblings than all the others and with claim over space and time, took up the first hammer. Where they struck, existence followed through. Suddenly there were places, for things to exist, and an order in which events could happen to those things. Fire and Light were next, forging beacons in the vastness to illuminate and provide warmth. Then, everywhere they were not, darkness moved in behind. He and his children drink in and eat the light and the warmth, leaving only empty cold behind.

From there, the other elemental gods began contributing. Earth and water scattered dust and ice, rock and vapor, a primordial soup of sustainable planets slowly warming. The largest of these rocks attracted the attention of the god of wind, and he granted them atmosphere. A universe recognizable as the one you probably know slowly took shape as they molded entire galaxies with their hands.

There was, of course, nothing for Vazotz to do as a god with no domain. It was in fact at this same period of time that he found the pit that he would later forge into the hells, but his birth of the devil race is contingent on the existence of mortals so that is a story for another time.

With planets and solar systems, galaxies, nebulas, and all the trappings of traditional space extant in their world, it was time for motion. The goddess of life, and her brother, death swept through all of reality at once. An inhale and an exhale. The oldest of the stars began to flicker and fade, collapsing inwards on themselves, new stars condensing and exploding from deep concentrations of mana in wild space. Plants bloomed and withered on the rocks and soil that sat as of yet barren and infertile.

Their creation was not perfect though. It was still, cyclical, predictable. Some of the other gods, who could feel their domain but not yet express it, took this as a chance. The first of the life forms sprang forth then, the god of beasts populating planets with animals of fur, fang, scale, wing, and many many other forms. These new creatures were slightly less predictable, they could move from place to place, interact with each other, and bring about new lives and new deaths. But it was still not perfect.

Then came dragons. Immense and powerful, made of more magic than muscle and more knowledge than anything prior. Functionally immortal and vastly superior to all other life forms, they quickly began conquering entire planets, entire solar systems. They could move through space, some even attempting to move through time, unhalted and unhindered by any of the elements. But they too were still somewhat predictable. They could not reproduce fast enough to build grand civilizations, and their egos would not allow them subservience to another for long.

Thus, the Colossi were born. Likewise to dragons a Giant contains powerful magic, and many of them attune to one of the wild elements. Their free will and propensity for tool making was a step in the right direction, but their stature and power made them competition for dragons. A competition that would become bloody. Above these Colossi reigned the semi-divine Titans, as the Giant god had no true children of his own at that point. The Titans would serve as subordinate gods to him.

It took far too long for the gods to put an end to that fight, but once it was resolved by the invention of borders and territories, things got very, very, interesting. Mortals. Actual, honest to goodness mortals. None of the multi-millenia lifespans of dragons and giants, maybe one thousand years at best. The entire pantheon worked together to make humans, and the humans would repopulate and cross-breed with other races at an alarm rate. It was only a stark few generations between the god fire and goddess of earth creating dwarves that humans had already birthed half-dwarves. The process repeated when wind and water created elves.

Even the beasts that crawled, walked, and flew, were not left alone. Tribes of beastmen, half man half animal came to live in the forests and jungles of the world. The humans, and their like, had free will, and were unpredictable even to the gods. The gods could see, and hear, almost everything they did, but not what they thought. Some rejected the divine, others even tried to convince others they were divine themselves, many simply created new things.

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Life was good, and life was peaceful, and life had death. It wasn’t without sadness, and it wasn’t without sickness, but it was natural. That was good. Then, from beyond their world and beyond their reasoning came the exact opposition that Vazotz had feared. Evil. Actual evil, not anger or thievery, not even murder or slavery. Humans could already be cruel. Evil without cause, without purpose, destruction for the sake of destruction, cruelty with nothing to gain.

The “Extras” as the mortals took to calling them spilled in from beyond and consumed everything in their path as if they had never eaten before. The gods themselves did combat with generals and leaders of massive armies, striking wounds and being struck in return. The reality itself was at risk of being torn apart.

But this clearly wasn’t enough for them, as once the forces of evil had carved out their foothold on the continent their focus shifted to raising additional armors. Massive swaths of land were cleared, burned, and salted. From the poisoned land and pits of roiling toxicity sprawled the first Orcs and Goblins. Spilling over the land as the new armies of darkness.

Of course, the humans in time would bring some of these forces over to the side of good (and the other side of the bed), but that would not be the end of it. The mortals unfortunate enough to be captured in battle were thrown into pits of cursed blood and reborn. The first demon-born. When Vazotz’ own devils started to fall in combat, their bodies were not as useful, yet their blood had a similar effect. The Devil-Born clearly bristled under the yolk of having to work alongside demon-born, a hostility they have maintained into the modern era. Yet both of them were brutally effective soldiers. The power and strength of demons and devils, rolled into the cunning and tenacity of humans.

A fearsome enough foe to face that the tide of the war actually began to shift. The mortals and the gods lost cities and villages one after the other. The legions of hell were being culled faster than the pits of sin could churn out fresh ‘recruits’. It was a dire time. In that moment of darkness, the oldest of all Vazotz’ siblings spoke up. The first born god, the witness to everything that has happened since the time before time, the goddess of change. The god of Chaos.

They have many names, and many titles, yet the eldest does not contribute. He did not form any mortals, nor did she raise any kingdoms or muster troops against evil. They are the change, and they do not take sides, merely observe. However, if left as they are there will be nothing left to observe. The time for intervention was upon them.

With a word, barely more than a whisper, the Lord of fluctuations spoke into existence the system to govern the world. Classes, Numerical Status, Leveling and empowerment. All woven from a vision of a place beyond her own world. The system took quickly to the world, even the forces of darkness were woven into its fabric. All the same, it took the burden of worldly maintenance off the rest of the gods.

This would be the final opportunity granted. So it was seized with full force. The god of death attempted to sever his connection to the elves, long lived as they were, to grant immortal soldiers that would multiply indefinitely. His attempts resulted in the expanded lifespan of the Dark Elves, yet their fertility was reduced and they were not truly immortal. A failing on his part.

The god of giants original Titan children had been all but exterminated in the war, and his lesser children corrupted by the forces of darkness into Ogres, Trolls, and various abominations. So, he evacuated the Titans into his divine space and gave rise to a new race of titans. Smaller, lesser, yet adaptable and fiercely loyal. The hope was they could succeed where their predecessors failed. His efforts also saw the redemption of his prodigal children, the birth of Trollkin and the Giant-Touched humanized Ogres.

With Dragons effectively leading the forces of the divine, their resilience and pride had led them to be great generals. There were unfortunately not enough of them to staff the many ranks of officers though. So scattering a myriad of scales to the winds and planting them like seeds to the earth, the god of dragons gave rise to the first Draconids. Humanoid and rapidly multiplying, yet scaled, powerful, and cunning like their older siblings.

Yet, for all the expansion and creation the defenders saw, their numbers were still culled from the world at rates they could not ignore. So this time, the god of death begged his sister’s help, life and death working in concert to create something that was neither alive nor dead. The first attempt was weak, and while unknown to life the first born ghouls could still be slain. They did succeed however in being able to spread their power not only generationally but from conversion of others.

The younger twin though, was all the gods had wished for and more. Stronger, faster, more perfect in every way than any mortal yet. The first Vampire. They could fight for days on end, and hungered only rarely for the stolen life essence that powered their abilities. They could spread and make more of their kind, and it was even found that they could breed with the living and produce weaker strains of their power. These spawn later became known as Dhampires.

It was on the back of these new soldiers, who could not be slain only destroyed, that the walls of encroaching darkness were beaten back once again. So immense was their power that the gods themselves rarely did any fighting anymore. Their focus now turned to the system. If they could block the invaders from their connection to it, it would render all mortals safe, presumably indefinitely.

It would, of course, also block them from interfering directly with the very world they created, but that was a small price to pay to prevent total destruction. Assuming that is, that there were no gods left undetected by the barrier. Nothing hidden or rewritten into the margins. Fortunately for Vazotz, his plans had already been in motion for some time. Unfortunately for his siblings, by the time the barrier went up he was already in place.

Constructed memories to serve as a base, and anger to fuel ambition. Combined with the first hand experiences of the other side of the barrier, and by the time Vazotz reclaimed himself he would be the most powerful being in existence. At least until the eldest got involved again.