Aeldryn: The Origin and the End

The word Aeldryn means "The First World" in the Eldertongue. It is a large, temperate world, orbiting the star Orin. It has series of five tiny satellites, known collectively as the Moonband. Its surface is broken into four continents, the largest of these called Tashyn, a name meaning "Heart of the World" in the Eldertongue. Legends say that somewhere deep below this land lies a chamber at the core of the world, the now-abandoned birthplace of the very first Gods, known as the Cradle of Divinity. Supposedly, Aeldryn was the original planet of the Material Planet and the seed from which the entire multiverse eventually grew. In the time before the Gods, Aeldryn was ruled by horrors from the Far Realm, who enslaved or preyed upon the primitive races of this world. At some point during these ancient times, the Elderlings emerged, the original ancestors of all modern races. They overthrew the aberrations in a long and terrible conflict known as the Origin War. In the process, they journeyed to the cradle, seized the power there, and Ascended to become the first Gods. With their deific powers, the pantheon pushed back the essence of the Far Realm, freeing Aeldryn of its influence. As they grew in power, they created new worlds, and then new planes, sculpting the very substance of reality, expanding it outward into what would eventually be known as the World Axis. What had once been a tiny bubble of stability within the morphic expanse of the Far Realm grew to become the Multiverse itself.   During the Collapse, the essence of the Far Realm moved slowly but inevitably through the Material Plane, eventually reaching Aeldryn. The Unmaking Tide has consumed the other planets in the system, and has created a film of fungal organic growth across the surface of the sun, causing its light to turn a sickly green. The Moonband itself has been transformed, strands of sinewy flesh growing between the moons, until they resemble a colossal segmented creature. It still sheds light in the night sky, but in the form of great lidless eyes that stare down upon the world, shining with a pale yellow light.   When the morphic tendrils of the Far Realm finally touched Aeldryn, they spread the Unmaking Tide onto its surface, roiling banks of viscous fog the colour of gangrenous flesh. For nearly a decade, the Tide has ravaged the world, advancing in spastic fits and starts, transforming everything it touches, while eroding the laws of reality themselves. Most of the land has been utterly consumed, becoming realms of madness. Only one continent remains.   Refugees have gathered there from across the Multiverse. And the arrival of the Kindred have offered a chance for escape. Using unknown means, they have created a series of massive portals to a world they call Zeldryn, a name that means "The Last World" in the Eldertongue. It is an unknown, uncharted world...deep within the Far Realm, but somehow habitable, untouched by that primordial morphic essence. This alien place represents an uncertain salvation, an unpredictable future. But it is the only spark of hope that remains, the only possible refuge from the Unmaking Tide.   Now, a Coalition of the remaining nations works together to orchestrate the Great Migration, the mass evacuation of an entire continent, alongside the remaining survivors of the entire Multiverse. They must do so before the final barriers fail, and the Unmaking Tide consumes the last sanctuary, on the First World of the Material Plane.