All Father

The great creative spirit that built the world, created the gods and brought life to Aihrde. He now is resting waiting for the conflict at the end of time.

FIRST ORATION - THE DAYS BEFORE DAYS
Of the beginning of days. The dragon upon the Void and the MAELSTRON. Of the Val Eahrakun and their wars. When the All Father made the world upon the face of the Void and unfurled the Arc of Time. Of the gods in their youth and the creation of Aihrde, the world to be. This is accounted the FIRST RIN upon the Arc of Time.
THE RIVER OF ERDE
In the beginning was the VOID, and the Void stood empty of all form.  With his first thought the All Father brought light to the Void. In this light he could see the empty space from its beginning to its end, and he saw that the Void was both enduring and timeless.
The All Father saw the Void as a place unrelenting, and he cast out upon it. A great wind rose about him and this was his second thought and he governed it. It stood like a vessel upon the Void, wide and open, and from it all his thoughts flowed as a river into the Void. But the river of his mind was not wholly ordered, and the thoughts flowed out from the beginning in many directions, in streams great and small. Some crossed over one the other, some gathered in deep pools, others wandered into the Void alone and without governance.
He perceived that the streams of his mind would fray and split on their journey through the Void, some going wither they would. It was ever the All Father’s desire to fashion his thoughts into form and to order them as he would, for he knew that his thoughts would take on a life of their own and cause mishap to his design. And in this he was prescient, as is known. So, he took care and made of himself a Shadow to watch over the streams of his thought.
The SHADOW OF THE ALL FATHER governed the streams and set them all on a course that bent in the same direction, for it was the Shadow’s task to make certain that all the streams and rivers of his thought ended together in deep pools. In this we see the All Father’s eternal strength; but it is also known that when the last of the rivers pool at the feet of the Shadow of the All Father, then the Shadow must consume time itself and thus bring the RIVER OF HIS THOUGHT to completion. All know that those shall be the end of days, the GONFOD. Time and all things that are, or ever were, must end, and only the All Father knows what comes of the new beginning. But none know, save perhaps the All Father himself, when his creation will halt and the Gonfod come, or what might bring it.
Thus the ARC OF TIME, what the dwarves call THE RIVER OF ERDE came to be, from its beginning in the VESK, the Vessel of the All Father’s thought, where resided the EA-IUL, the First Wind, which flowed through the Void, to its ending in the ENDLESS POOLS. And TOTH, the Shadow of Erde, was the first of the great order of beings known as the Val Eahrakun.
SUBSTANCE UPON THE VOID
Even before the creation of Toth, the All Father perceived a mote in the Void. He saw a creature who was not of himself and whose form he had not imagined. It was long and serpentine, with claws and massive snout and wings: the DRAGON. He watched as it rent the Void with talon and fang seeking to unmake the emptiness, filling it with the madness of destruction. And the All Father knew then that he was not alone in the emptiness.
So the All Father learned that there was form in the emptiness. This thought proved a marvel to him, and he sought then to find meaning in form alone.
The All Father looked upon the Dragon and the havoc of her chaos, and he thought, too, that he should take form, one ordered to the tasks at hand. He created a shape for himself, with hands to grasp his tools and feet to stand upon. His hair was long and wild, and his beard full and flowing. His eyes bore a fierce light that reflected the lust of creation and illuminated the rivers of his thought. Thus he stood both beautiful and terrible.
He stood then and watched the Arc flow from him, time slipping away. He pondered the Shadow of himself and the Dragon in her infinite thrashings. At last, he ordered his realm and spoke his thoughts into form. His words became tools, and with his tools he fashioned a great forge and anvil upon the Void and a bench for his workings. The iron of his will became the substance of form upon which he beat the shape of things he dreamed and imagined. His words lit the darkness with the fire of creation like no other light before or since, and his words flew into the Void, hot, like embers of a flame. So the Alenerde-ut-Pilt, the LANGUAGE OF CREATION, Creation, came to be.
With his words, he let fall substance from the well of his own being so that it took shape. Some shapes were governed by his design, others of their own will. The All Father labored long and created all manner of creatures both great and low. The lust of the task overtook him so that no sooner had he finished one than he began work upon another.  As the Arc flowed, many creatures came to be and these are known as the order of the Val Eahrakun, those who the All Father created with his own being.
As is known, some of his creations were as the Void, empty of life or thought. But others stood aware of all around them, marveling at he who created them. Still others stood in envy, filled with hate and rage for him. Yet others only sought to aid he who had created them, and they loved him. The majority of them were indifferent and wandered from his side to find their own paths. Besides the Shadow Toth, the greatest of the All Father’s creations were Corthain, MORDIUS, and ORNDUHL. They were created of the same thought, though Corthain was the older. Corthain came of the All Father’s love of creation and, thus, the greatest. Mordius came of his desires and possessed his strength. And Ornduhl came of his hidden thought and was thus driven by selfishness and nothing could contain him.
Like the rest, he set them aside as new tasks called him. When he did so Corthain held up his hand and bid him wait. Possessed of all that was good and kind, Corthain sought to dissuade his creator. “Erde! Why do you cast us off? For we are your children and wish to stay at your side.”
So the All Father was named Erde, which is the root of all the words of the tongues that came after, and it means Father.
And Erde looked upon Corthain and in that instant Corthain glimpsed the Arc of Time; and Corthain saw many things from that moment to the Gonfod, when all must end. Though Corthain saw the Arc of Time, he did not see all that lay upon it, nor did he understand all of what he saw; for it was his fate only to know the road of things. Therefore, he left off his question and spoke no more.
But Ornduhl, his brother, had not seen the Arc and knew nothing of what came before or what would come after. Seeing only that his brother would see them cast off into the Void, he rose in wrath. Ornduhl reached into the Void and took up the burning embers of a red-hollow light that drifted there, the light sank into his grip, the weight hanging in the emptiness. Stretching its shape he drew it into a great beam, and with this beam he smote Erde upon the heel. But when the beam struck the All Father, the light of it shattered, lighting the Void in a red light. Ever after, that light shone in the eyes of Ornduhl and men perceived it as hate, and so it was. 
Ornduhl had wounded Erde’s heel, and that wound played forever in his mind, for in it he saw a mastery of things and an ordering of his own design. And this was as it was meant to be, for Erde created not for tyranny or vanity, but only from desire, and often his designs assumed directions he had not thought.
But the assault did not yield a moment’s respite from Erde’s work upon the forge of creation, and his labors continued. Ornduhl saw the hopelessness of his attack and he thought to bide his time and learn what he might. So he hurled the broken remnants of the light into the Void, though he kept some for himself and retreated into its dark emptiness.  But there were others, lesser creatures lingering in the distance, that watched the battle unfold. And one of their number pursued the light into the Void and devoured it, and so became the Mirror of Ornduhl.
The forge of creation raged on within Erde, and he took no further heed of those around him as he continued to pull substance from his own being, shape form from his thoughts, and cast it into the Void.
OF DARKNESS
After the Arc of Time played out some measure of itself, Erde stopped his labors and thought to rest. Shutting his eyes he drifted in the empty like a man floating in the water of an infinite sea. But his mind raced, for even in sleep the All Father was ever the creator of things; and in his slumber he created the notion of dreams, and in his dreams he dreamed of things that his waking mind could not, or would not, imagine. Some were beautiful, others were not.
From his dreaming crept a darkness. Taking shape in the Void it knew no light, nor joy, but rather embodied the twisted madness of unsought moments, of all that is vile in thought, word, or deed. Its structure bore out the rudiments of the Arc of Time, and it knew only order, but it also captured the echo of Ornduhl’s rage. The rage did bind with the order of things into a merciless evil. The shape blotted the Void and was cold and black and from the darkness came a harsh chill.
The All Father rose from his slumber, chilled by the touch of darkness, and he saw the blot and marveled at it. The DARKNESS came to him as a servant to a master and thought to please him, but he saw the evil of it and felt the cold. So, he pulled warmth from the fire of his soul and set the warmth all about him and with that he drove the darkness and the cold deeper into the Void.
The others feared the Darkness for this creation was unsought, and they could not fathom his reason. So they gathered in a great host, and assailed it, driving it so far into the Great Empty that it could not see the light of creation’s forge. This was accounted the first war of the gods. Thus the Darkness lay hidden, buried in the undeep that is accounted the deepest regions of the spaceless Void, for many ages of man, until one summoned him and brought him to the world of dwarf and man.
OF THE MAELSTROM
And so uncounted lengths of the Arc of Time played out, pooling as it did in a great heap upon the edge of creation, and the All Father labored upon his forge, taking of himself and giving to an ever-growing host of creatures that began to people the Void. And then he saw that he labored without purpose and that his creations drifted in the lonely empty or stood to heel about him. He at last paused to see what next he might affect.
He looked far and wide and his gaze fell upon the Dragon where she hung in the emptiness, spinning upon herself, creating a maelstrom of chaos about her. He watched her split the fabric of the Void in her thrashings, and how those splits tore rifts, portals, and doors to other places beyond the Empty and this caused the Maelstrom. So Erde drifted to her. Spying her madness he envied it and the understanding of it grew upon him and he saw that she was filling the Void with her own madness: wild energies, and elements, forming around her. And this awoke a lust within him like never before, because as ever he loved creation. He settled upon her chaos and the word of her came to his mind, INZAA.
And lo, Erde made the world from the Maelstrom. He named it in his voice and it became the crucible of his mind. He pounded substance from the Maelstrom and set great gulfs between the fire, earth, water, air, and energy of all kinds. And these he ordered as desired so that he could draw from them at need. Life clung to his hammer and tools and spilled into the manifold realms of his imagining, bringing life to where there had been none before. And these realms were called the Firmament by scholars in later ages.
Using the Language of Creation Erde drew substance from the Firmament, casting it into shape upon the Void. And so the world came into being. It was flat, and over its edges spilled the substance of his creation to mingle with the Maelstrom of Inzaa. and the substance of creation fell upon Inzaa and she marveled at it, for she knew nothing of Erde’s presence above the Maelstrom.
Therefore, surrounding herself with the heat of fire, the rush of wind, the cold hard earth, and the liquid blanket of water, Inzaa began to form and mold. From these elements, and others whose nature passes all understanding, she configured her own world, and its pieces drifted upward to lay upon the underside of the world of Erde’s making, bound to it and a part of the whole. With it she caused the mountains to grow, the seas to pool, the skies to dash, and the warmth of the day to radiate.   Thus, there came to be two worlds in the Void, one astride the other, bound together.
Erde settled upon his world. The land was dark, with no light save the light of embers that floated in the Void, but these made a shadow of the world that drew creatures great and small. A great host of his earlier creations stole into the world. These were the Val Eahrakun. They wandered across the land, taking up refuge in caves and crevices, or riding the air, or vanishing into the depths of the water as their wants dictated. In all this many of the Val Eahrakun listened to the All Father as he spoke the Language of Creation and though none could master the language, they all learned pieces of it and the echo it carried in all they did in after ages, so that they too could mold the earth in ways beyond the design of the All Father.
Erde knew every shape and crevice of the world, but he could not see its beauty. He remembered, however, the tumult of the Dragon’s breath and the light it cast upon all around her. Too, the echo of Ornduhl’s rage came to him, made in the deeps of time when he smote Erde’s heel with the first blade, and the light that shone from it, brief and terrible.  These thoughts lingered in his mind. And even as he stood thus, with the Arc of Time flowing about him, the ground rumbled and exploded. In the great column of fire which rose above the land he saw the beauty of his creation: the rivers, the mountains, the skies. But the fire burned out and Erde grew dismayed, though not for long. The flames awoke in Erde a desire to see his creation in the light. So he set about the creation of the sun and moon.