Guest Report post Posted January 10, 2004 This is another long 'un, sorry bout that The story is basically a possible 'very beginning' bit in true Tolkein style (if anyone has read the Silmarillion they'll know what I'm on about), doing a 'this is how the world was created and why the races are the way they are' thing. ------------------------------ It began in darkness, and ended in light, which is all that is certain in the forming of the world. No-one is sure how, or when, and most importantly why we are here, and with all the dangers we face who has the time to try and answer these questions? Certainly not the warrior, nor the miner, the harvester, mage or smith. All we know of the times we live in and what went before are the stories our elders tell, and the histories we believe to be true. The old men's tales differ for every race, for every foreign island and every different village. We will never know the truth of these things, we can only guess from the common threads of each confused and conflicted tale, and it becomes yet worse for every passing day that our times remain unchronicled. This work is a history of our lands, written at a time of crisis, when the very gates of hell are open, and the man-demon Qast brings terror to this world. It is a tome recording our civilisation, collected to safeguard the knowledge of our forefathers. But most of all, it is the finest work of the six races, a testament to their glories, their failures, and their Eternal Lands. **** The Gods, and the creation of the world: It is perhaps only fitting that the earliest tales, and perhaps the most accurate, can be traced to the great forest abodes of the Elves. They tell of a great birth of life in a time beyond their reckoning, from which none now survive. Their legend tells of six Gods, as different in form as in thought, who for time without end had debated their own existence and its reason. Endless conversations, rendered formless and weightless by their lack of structure, resolved only into the agreement that their first purpose should be creation - the making of a world in which to ground their theories and test their assumptions. They began in harmony, placing the ground beneath and the sky above, giving boundaries to the perception of those they wished to inhabit it. They created the inert plant and the active animal, to provide the concepts of time both moving and still. They created sea, and sun and moon, to balance the smallness of things with the greatness of concept. And they created the races, wrought in their own image and becoming more separate as their labours split their agreements regarding creation. Hume was the first to depart from the great unity he and the others had shared. He grew tired of the trees and animals, feeling that something lacked from this green and verdant land. He began to experiment with new creations, stones and metals were crushed, mixed and heated to create new and truly immovable hybrids. Hume found after constant experiments a concept he regarded as an improvement over the vague stillness of root and branch. His race began to create buildings, and cut down the trees to fashion new more permanent things. They began to kill the animals and use their furs, and they began to eat to sustain themselves. No longer did they live and die as their god willed, but continued to live, drawing on the goodness of their god's other creations to survive yet longer. They became ever more independent of their master, yet kept their love of buildings and permanence. Dvar was the second of the Gods to follow this route, but was more careful in his experiments. His love of permanence was linked inextricably to a respect for the early creations it came from, and he worked hard to make everything worthy of their beauty. His work in metals and stones was vastly more worthy than that of Hume, and was reflected in the works of his race. Yet Dvar too eventually turned away from the early creations of tree and animal, as the intricacy and sturdiness of his work improved he became increasingly obsessed with it, and unwilling to participate in any sterile debates with the other Gods. He and his race became ever more immured in the comfort of their own work and homes, and as the race of Dwarves gained their own voice, and took to the eating of flesh, they became isolationist master craftsmen. Minos dreamt very differently from the others. He came to believe that permanence was desirable, but only in that it allowed him to watch his own tribe - his own mind - more closely. Minos found within himself the fascination that the others found in the world around them, and these were the strengths of the soul. Minos saw the trials of his race, and even placed more in front of them, to see how they reacted. He was enthralled by bravery, and shamed by cowardice. He tried hard to purge this second aspect, believing it to be the fount of the division between himself and the other gods, yet could not, and became anguished with grief over his failure. The Minotaurs, upon gaining independence from his will, seek constantly to live up to this desire of their God. They care not for beauty or the creation of things, they wish only for the honour of bravery, and the showing of strength. Elv was the most stubborn of the Gods. She and her race never took to the views of Hume and Dvar, and she instead became enamoured with the concept of life and nature in all its brevity. She gave her race long life so they might learn more of this brevity themselves, and dedicated her time to studying the first of the God's creations. As the Elves began to crave their independence, their long lives and the influence of their creator gave them a deep love of everything that lives, and they over all the other races give most thanks to their god, appreciating the beauty of the world they have been given. Satyr, like Minos, was with Centau a true believer in change, though her belief did not translate itself into such madness as his. She instead found the sounds of the world to be a far greater source of change, and cherished the beauty of music. Like Elv, she loved the changing of leaves and animals, and ever sought to complement it with beautiful sounds. Her race became wonderful musicians as a consequence, and live deep in the forests where their music, and their nature, can remain undisturbed. Centau hated all suggestion of permanence, and found the attempts of Hume and Dvar to find it incomprehensible. Instead he sought endlessly for change, believing it the only means of finding solution to the endless nothingness he had come from. Cantau roamed the world he and the other Gods had created, running endlessly and glorying in change, endless change. His race constantly moved, and were killed and birthed daily under the weight of Centau's need. They were the only race to ever truly rebel against their God, influenced by the serenity of the Elves and betraying a doubt in Centau's own mind in doing so, by beginning to eat and live for longer than he wished. Eventually, each of the races gained release from their dependence on the Gods, and went a seperate way. Yet their drives and pleasures remain the same as those of their creators, and they will always be made in those images. The Gods themselves are now gone, and the Elven tales tell us nothing of where they went. So much for the time of the Gods. There was one more God, and it disagreed from the start with the creation of the world. It argued with the other five Gods, tearing down the sky and the earth even as it came into being. It was horrified by the prospect of life, and of death, of change and permanence, and wished it all away. For an infinite time it fought the other five, destroying their thoughts and feeding their fears. In Hume it began a hatred of nature. In Dvar it encouraged his withrawal, It fed Elv's distrust of Hume and it stole away the sanity of Centaus. And as a final slight to Satyr, it created the Orc. The Orcs were it's own race, and reflected its dreadful hatred, yet in time, even some of them came to disagree with him, becoming the Orchans, a confused an unwelcome mix of human and Orc. This last, the mixing of one God's essence with another, finally turned the other Gods against their hate-filled brethren, and they punished it with fearful fury, casting it down beneath the earth to rot with its deviancies. There it remains to this day, and its domain is that of hell. It sits upon the Ebony Throne and forever plots to destroy this world. --------------------------- End --------------------------- Next: The first conflict, and the creation of the first continent. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
