It was the height of the technological era of Earth, an age where progress seemed untouchable and humanity prospered beyond recognition. Neon skyscrapers towered above the clouds, while the lower city drowned in their waste. Biotechnology and genetic engineering consumed the scientific community, igniting a fervor of research and human experimentation. Among those experiments were a group of twelve individuals who received the most dangerous treatments. Throughout the experimental trials, a young woman named Vihiara emerged from her testing chamber forever changed. Her eyes were opened to the secrets of the universe when she emerged from the testing facility, becoming the Goddess of the void. As the first deity to awaken her powers, the scientists monitored every change until they figured out how to create more like her.
Vihiara became one with the void as her connection with the cosmos expanded. Yet after grueling effort, the scientists managed to create more deities. Over time, the deities numbered twelve and encompassed the very elements of creation. The divine concepts of Order, Chaos, and Balance arose among the deities, yet despite their world-shaping powers, they weren’t powerful enough to save their world from imminent destruction. In their pursuit of limitless power, the scientists managed to create a hole in space-time that tore our planet asunder. As the screams of the dying reached the deities’ ears, they were powerless to stop the world’s destruction. The continents crumbled and the oceans boiled under the stress impacting the planet. In the wake of the destruction of the Earth, the deities sought to create a new world free of the corruption of technology.
With their various genetic enhancements, the deities found they no longer had to breathe. Instead, they could travel through the endless expanse of darkness without any problems. So, Perigor, the God of order, suggested that the deities create a new world around a younger star similar to our sun. Ubelyta, the Goddess of chaos, voted against such an idea, arguing that the relative stability of the star would stifle the process of evolution. Ellewyn, the Goddess of balance voted in favor of a slightly cooler star than our own because of its longer lifespan. All the deities bickered for centuries until Vihiara discovered an orange star slightly smaller than our star, which held a world slightly larger than our own. It was a baren rock, pock marked by impact craters and unsuitable for life. After several centuries working day and night, the twelve deities curated a new habitable world from a lifeless husk.
However, the deities had a problem. The oceans roiled as storms raged across the planet’s surface, drenching the continents in constant torrential rainfall. The Goddess of water, Elenirah, spent many years fixing the temperature and rainfall to keep the climate stable. When Nirel, the God of life, tried to create the first life forms, his experiments proved to be successful to some degree. Dragons and elves were some of the first species to arise among the various plants and animals that Nirel created. Many of the creatures brought to this new world were from Nirel’s memories on Earth, though the new creatures he made were more adapted to the new world. In fact, the elves were the closest creatures to magic and wielded various schools. Despite this, the used their magic in secret, ensuring that no outsiders saw their gifts. Nirel himself had no idea the elves were capable of such techniques. In his blissful unawareness, Nirel continued his efforts to create life and made the first humans. These first humans adored the gods and worshipped them among the elves. A few centuries later, the humans and elves began intermingling, bringing forth the half-elves into the mix.
When the dragons emerged from their caves to explore the world, they ransacked and devoured many of the mortals. Entire villages were razed, the buildings left as nothing but smoldering piles of ash. When the elves living among the humans saw their plight, they petitioned to the gods to save the humans as they had saved the elves before. As such, three deities descended to protect the mortals. Elenirah, Goddess of water, protected the people of the north, forming the kingdom of Ilmaria in her name. Theorellius, God of fire, protected the people of the west, though he found the violence of these people disturbing. Mashalek, God of death, protected the people of the east, taking pleasure in the cutthroat politics of the eastern tribes. Cilmania, Goddess of Shadows, defended the people of the south, yet her protection went unrecorded by the elves as they knew nothing of her presence.
After the dragons retreated to islands beyond the central continent, Perigor grew dissatisfied with the chronic chaos unfolding among the people. So, he convened with Ellewyn to create a code of laws to regulate society. As the two deities forged the contract, Perigor refused to allow Ubelyta to lay a finger on the laws as chaos had no place amongst order. While conflicted, Ellewyn chose to side with Perigor as she believed that his desire was to protect the world from the same devastation that had destroyed the Earth. Yet, no one could be more aware of his treachery than Ubelyta. She vowed to wrench the world from his grasp and created an army of demons with her own essence. A schism grew between the deities as the code of law was introduced into the world. Cerci, Nirel, and Aegis sided with Perigor, while Mashalek, Zelltarim, and Theorellius sided with Ubelyta. Yet, Cilmania, Elenirah, Vihiara, and Ellewyn sided with humanity, electing to stay neutral in the politics of their fellow deities.
When the laws were codified, Perigor and his compatriots retreated to heaven. Ellewyn was left at Perigor’s temple alone. Ubelyta began her march upon the temple shortly afterwards, leading an army of demons against the realms. This battle raged on for several grueling days with both sides experiencing numerous casualties. Ellewyn and the elves who stood alongside the goddess fought with everything they had, banishing Ubelyta and her cohorts to Hell near the Southernmost point of the continent. This victory came at a tremendous cost as Ellewyn, the weakest of the three divine concepts, received mortal wounds and her essence dissolved into silver mist. The mist scattered in the wind as the avatar of balance drew her last breath.
With the death of Ellewyn, the continent grew more susceptible to perturbations of the status quo. Wars broke out between the rising kingdoms, elves were cast out of human lands, and the climate morphed from tropical to something more varied. The northernmost kingdom of Ilmaria experienced six long months of winter at the most extreme places, burying the land in snow until summer. The western kingdom of Tatsunia was rather temperate, though the geysers made several regions treacherous to live in. The eastern kingdom of Driktha beheld a deep expansive swampland that was so defiled, many refused to step foot in and called it the Forest of Screams. The southernmost kingdom of Myrthia was founded by the elves after their banishment by the humans, though there were small pockets of elves who remained among the humans in disguise or in their own communities. Yet as the centuries passed since Ubelyta was sealed, she managed to find a way to tear a hole through the seal and send her strongest soldier, the demon prince of destruction, to ravage the world.
When the portal tore open, Kel-tran emerged in the kingdom of Myrthia. Within a few months, the elven kingdom was decimated and the other kingdoms unified to stand against the demon. By this time, magic had proliferated throughout a small fraction of the human race through demigods and blessings bestowed by the gods. As the Ilmarian king studied the battlefields, he realized that the human armies were no match for the demon hordes. So, he sent his youngest daughter as an offer to placate the demon. The gambit paid off even more than the king had anticipated as his daughter didn’t return to the castle for five years. During those five long years, the king had lost every one of his other children, except the daughter he sent to the demon’s castle. Yet his daughter had two young surprises with her, one was a two-year-old boy and a newborn little girl. Upon returning to Ilmaria, the princess was sworn into her role as the crown princess. As political tensions rose all throughout the continent, the deities that swore to protect humanity began to devise a plan that would revolve around that little boy and the power that resided within him.
