The World Spheres Through the Ages

The Founding

Before time began there was the Primordial Flux. Energy unsorted into good nor evil, law nor chaos, undisturbed by guiding hands of consciousness. Out of the garden of chaos and order grew the Primordial Mother, a queen of life so all powerful, all wise and all knowing, she swept the beauty of the elements into existence, moulding the it into balance and substance with love and care.

Out of the beauty of this new order, she birthed five primordial sons, and forged them each a home to reside:
Grumbar the Earthlord, master of stone and matter, resided in Terra, the Plane of Earth
Istishia, the King of Peace, the master of water and purity, resided in Aqua, the Plane of Water
Kossuth, Lord of Flames, the Master of Fire and King of the Righteous, resided in Ignus, the Plane of Fire
Akadi the Air Maiden, the goddess of the sky, resided in Aura, the Plane of Air
Finally, the fifth son, the youngest, who with the help of his four brothers brought into existence the material realm. He is known by many names across the spheres, Anum All-Father, The Balance, The Progenitor of Worlds, the Creator by Thought, or simply: The Prime.
Anum drew upon his brothers energy to create land, skies, weather, plants, animals, knowledge, magic, time.
He flooded his home with life and growth, marvelling in the movements of his very surroundings as they grew and fell in the passing of time.
As his brothers grew old from their millennia of creation, and fell dormant in their respective homes, Anum used the last of their energy to form himself a bride, a maiden for whom the very elements would reside in. Her name was Othea, the Lady of Creation

The Rise

Anum and Othea lived and thrived together in their material realm, crafting a kingdom to which they would leave their offspring.
The pair together had 16 children to assist in their creation, each born with a fragment of existence in their hearts for which they were bound for eternity to possess and protect, Life, Beasts, Nature, Heaven, Thought, Chaos, Darkness, Entropy, Death, Order, Power, Strength, Law, Magic, Light and Time.
These were the Prime Deities
Together the children, alongside their mother and father, sung aloud the song of creation to perfect a world of pure material, a place where life could thrive and grow. Each child claimed a region of this material world, the sixteen gardens of the crystal sphere, and the children were at peace.

The Fall

While the children of Anum built the physical realm, only he and his first son Lathander could create life.
The realm of mortality was created by the father and the son alone, and this life was perfect and without flaw.
Jergal, the god of death and things that end, fought with his mother over the perversion of their eternal life. Stricken by conflict and possessed by righteousness, Jergal murdered Othea as a display of strength.

As Jergal defied his father's command, he sung a different tune of creation which parted from his siblings.
Many joined Jergal, turning their backs to their father and scarring his creation for eternity. They created death, decay, storms, power and malice.
Stricken by grief and shame, Anum banished his own children from the material plane and sent their realms into the Astral sea into the lower world. His other children, distraught by the corruption of their creation, fled to the upper planes and shut themselves away.
Anum, with a world of empty material and corrupted mortality, took his own life. His body became the earth, his blood became the water, and his tears became the souls of the mortals which he left to thrive.

The Awakening

His tears bore 3 demigods, to lead the mortals. Their names were Iallanis, the fair maiden youngest child who bore the power of magic; Obadai, the strong of heart middle son who bore the power of the earth and soil, and Arno, the tall and proud eldest son who bore the power of the divine.

Together, the three children walked the Prime Material Plane as the home of their father fell to ruin, ash, and became part of the very soil. They birthed three peoples, shaping mortal flesh into races to live in their image and spread the beauty of life without the threat posed by their divine fore-bearers.

Iallanis called forth the elves: noble, beautiful and wise beings, blessed with long life, whose connection to the arcane craft is unparalleled.

Obadai called forth the dwarves: hardy, brave, and smart beings whose connection to the earth gave them mighty gifts from the All Father.

Arno called forth the humans: righteous, courageous, prideful beings whose connection to the very gods tempered their lives and power - but gave them the unique ability to create and thrive beyond Anum's wildest imagination.

This was the Awakening, the dawn of the first age, an age of peace, harmony, exploration and solidarity for ten thousand years. The three peoples of the Prime Material Plane watched civilisations grow, developing magic, art and culture.

The Ten Thousand Year Slumber

The mortal beings of this new plane lived in solitude and independence for a long, bountiful ten millennia. Civilisations rose and fall, wars and treaties saw politics and law thrive and expand, and culture shifted and evolved by the actions of Anum's offspring.

In the far away spheres of the outer planes, the Prime deities lived and grew their own kingdoms, empires and domains. Many gods devolved their power, passing the duty and care of aspects of life to younger and less powerful deities who were called from the divine halls of their respective planes. Some sat in solitude, focusing, dormant and wise in their castles in the far reaches of the astral sea, as they watched the world change around them. Others collected power, experimenting in dark magics in their hidden fortresses - the eldritch, the fiendish, the necromantic - recruiting long dormant primordial beings to serve their evil interests.

On the material planes, long lost artefacts and evidence of divine presence began to open the eyes of mortals to those who watched over them. Religions formed, wars were fought over interpretation, and devotion to the divine swept through civilisations. Intervening magic of divine nature had not yet been discovered, and the magic which was available was confined to the elves in their towers far away. Worship of the divine was often the uniting principle and key to order in many civilisations.

The Convergence

When the powerful arcane remnants which remained on the material plane were re-awakened, the relationship between mortals and the divine changed. The beings which were grown in the depths of the sinister lower planes leaked onto the prime material plane through gateways created by mortals, and the civilisations which were before only rocked by conflicts between each, began to cave and cower under the presence of ghastly, unnatural foes.

Fearful of the demise of their father's world, the gods of the upper planes began to grant the clerics and paladins of their domains abilities and powers to fight back against the invading creatures. Slowly, masters of these new arts began to grow, and knowledge of the arcane began to spread throughout the new mortal world. A new age had begun.

The Astral War

As the deities of the upper planes began to interfere with the affairs of men, those hungry for power and domination saw fit to gift their mortal counterparts powers of their own. Like puppets of the divine, civilisations tore themselves apart and erupted into war, unrestricted chaos and destruction from new arcane ability amplifying the tragedy of conflict to deadly heights.

Three corrupted mortals, powerful princes of ancient civilisations, attracted the attention of Jergal and were granted god-like power to spread their will on the material plane.
These were Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul, the Dead Three, and together they commanded the armies which flooded the material world in service of Jergal.

As these once mortal tyrants spread their will upon the world, they turned against their master. Wishing the power over life and death itself as Jergal once did, they struck down Jergal and took command of the lower planes.

War tore through the prime material plane, bringing nought but disaster and bloodshed into the world. The gods and their armies battled on the mortal planes and in the far away skies, spreading terror and conflict to every corner of the world. No sphere saw peace for a thousand years.

The Schism

As alliances were forged, powers were discovered and pantheons grew, the damage done to the face of the world only grew with it. The presence of great evil, beings of terror and hunger were to stay upon the world until the end of time. Only by destroying that which converged the planes would mortal-kind have any hope to survive.

The dead three, these lords of evil and malice, turned civilisations against their own mortal brothers with the promise of power, bringing ruination to civilisations aeons old.
Those true to their realm turned to any god who would grant them the power to save their home.

Amaunator, the god of sunlight, he who had power of the energy of Sol itself, gave a select few of his followers his power in order for them to destroy the gates between worlds, hunt down the Dead Three, and put the world to right. In his final act, he sacrificed himself to destroy the source of the gates - the aurabice, an act which released a wave of energy so vast it tore the tectonic plate the continent rested upon in two, opening a rift between the two continents which mortals call home today.

Taking advantage of the ensuing chaos, the Paladins of Starlight took the fight to the armies of the lower planes. They killed the dead three and destroyed the threat to mortals, closing the gates for good. These final years marked the end of the Astral War.

The Third Age

With new peoples walking new continents, races brought into being by vengeful and interfering gods, and monsters roaming the wilderness and beneath the surface, a new age of mortals had begun. New civilisations rose, new alliances formed and new power structures emerged. Magic, now abundant and available to all those who would study and work for it, fell into the hands of clerics, sorcerers, wizards, druids and many more all across the world. The gods, shut away from the prime material plane, declared never to let a conflict like the Astral war break out again, ensuring the Aurabai would never return to use in the mortal world. Their homes rebuilt, the planes distinct, the known mortal world is once more alone. It is an unpredictable and dangerous time.