It began with a Book

Within the Void, before the void and when the void was lost, there was the book. For uncountable aeons, its pages sealed away and untouched by the unfathomable chaos that existed within the timeless, unending expanse. Ceaseless and formless powers battered against its sides, holding power without direction, each flickering strike carrying enough force to extinguish entire galaxies, but left no mark upon the book.

Gradually the turbulent sea of energy cresting upon the book was stilled, rebuffed time and time again, beholden to the existence of an immovable object refuting the existence of an unstoppable force, its very being disrupting the insanity of existence.

And so the universe stilled in its self-mutilating efforts to collapse and instead settled like a kicked and frightened beast into malevolent order.

When the Gods came into existence, naked of clarity and lacking in purpose, driven by curiosity and suicidal boredom, they scoured existence in search of meaning.

It is unknown, even to them, how long and how far they searched. Distance and time maddened them, but held little meaning to them beyond that crushing loneliness.

What is known, however, is that they succeeded.

When the first unnamed God came upon the book, it was resting on the surface of a sun many times the magnitude and power of any that exist today. It felt no great power within, no trace of the chaos that broke itself across the cover, no malevolent or benevolent sensation, just an uncontrollable desire to approach it.

Hands weaved from the purest energy laid themselves gently upon the bound cover.

Without majesty or aplomb, the book opened, a single page was shown to the first power to view it. Beyond words but beholden to them, the page tore soundlessly from the book and fluttered over to the God. Its hand outstretched and grasping, it snatched the page and looked upon it without comprehension. The page seemed incredibly fragile, crumbling to less than ash of the surrounding star, but the words were not consumed by the decay, the words hung in ether before the God, as though still written upon the destroyed page. The words were perfection, they could not be misunderstood, misconstrued and spoke without falsehood.

The God stared at the words, understanding them without knowledge.

Slowly the words began to dim, but never did they disappear. They flowed slowly along the arm of the god, winding around them, becoming one with the God and imbedding into their immortal soul.

The God Understood.

The God Knew itself.

The God Became.

Sending out a clarion cry across creation, the God summoned all of its kin.

Before their uncomprehending eyes the God spoke.

'I am Innatia and this Book is the Titan's Tribute and by its power I give you understanding.'

The book opened once more and countless pages flowed from its cover, torn and ripped from their binding and each page drawn and consumed.

Each God present found themselves within a single Page from the Book, bound to their undying souls.

Each became aware of their purpose, their strengths and their failings knowing them to be the truth.

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The heavens trembled with sobbing tears and joyful cries, but none could deny who they were, none could deny the fate that was created within the words.

Suffering and Ecstatic, the masses of newly sentient Gods proudly spoke their names and in their name, their place in creation was forged.

All assembled acted immediately and without reserve. Their mandate was unquestionable, even unto themselves. They saw the universe for the first time and all nearly wept at its lack of Form.

They set about to change that.

Their power shaped the universe, but what they made was not truly within their control. They acted in the only way they could, not knowing or understanding any other way beyond what the book had revealed to them.

Millennia later, their seeds planted within creation, domains carved out without challenge, they sought contentment within the passive form of the worlds and stars they had wrought.

Time passed, but the Gods felt little of it, they bathed within the tranquillity and acceptance of their existence, without expectation or faith, simply knowing that they must remain.

But change begets change and no power can challenge a universe that resists stagnation.

Within the stagnation, small flickers of chaos lingered, joining, reforming and changing the very undercurrent of existence like an echo unheard, but felt within the air. Much of what was changed went unnoticed, but what was noticed was that across the worlds these changes all lead to a multitude of disjointed entities that grew and floundered within the barren worlds.

Slowly, tumultuously, agonizingly and with a valour that defied all that the God's had known. Mortal Life sprouted across the backs and in the depths of the worlds and galaxies of Creation.

Much was crude and ugly, lacking the grace the deific beings that presided over their whole existence. This accident, this mistake, this Life refused to be snuffed out, seeking continuity within procreation, adaptation and alteration.

And so the cycle of death and rebirth began.

These unformed and mindless beings, once born, would toil and strive in their own meaningless and equally inconsequential way until they could no longer sustain their fragility.

Their souls were unlike the god’s, lacking eternity, lacking power in any form that the God’s could comprehend. They became the oddities and playthings of higher powers who sought amusement from toying with the lives of those which could not understand or respond to their plight.

Perhaps this would have continued for the rest of eternity, if not for the intervention of the first.

Innatia, Keeper of the Tribute descended upon the souls or mortals. And once more opened the book.

‘I give you understanding’ she said, for she is the mother of us all and with her words and with the Titan’s Tribute, Mortal Life expanded in understanding. The pages of the Titan’s Tribute once more spread across existence, touching upon every life and providing unspeakable clarity to every soul.

We Understood.

We knew Ourselves.

We Became.

However, we are unlike Gods. Their souls hold eternity within them, ours are but the briefest candles. We lost so much of our greatness in the span of a single heartbeat as the magnitude of our existence became unfathomable once the divinity receded.

But once known, the perfection of understanding cannot be lost while the soul still endures.

All life has purpose.

That is the gift, given willingly across creation by the Titan’s Tribute and its Keeper Innatia.

And thus the mortal’s, being unbound from their ignorance, rejected the Gods that played with their lives, rejected the world created around them. Our ancestors and the ancestors of every race and form that still exists today, chose to shape their worlds as the Gods did, so their progenitors may live as Innatia allowed us to, within the perfection of our own purpose.

Many God’s found joy within Innatia’s principles and many more lost themselves to anger with the creation of their perceived usurpers within the paradise of stagnation.

Pantheons were formed and Hells were birthed as the Gods tried to assert their will, both malicious and benign, onto mortals.

But none could refute Innatia or the Tribute.

When our souls are born, we are embraced by Innatia. From her love, we see the words of the Tribute, a single page torn across the surface our souls, laying out our lives and giving our infant consciousness a sense of what we will become. And by Innatia’s will, when our soul is torn asunder, we see those words again with open eyes that may understand the truth and hold it for the briefest of histories.

And then we pass.

The first and last infallible truth you will ever know, the sum total of who you are and all you will ever be. These are the words that exist within the pages of the Titan’s Tribute.