History
Banishment of Adsom-Tamen
Before Recorded Time
When the creation of the world and all the splendor was finished, the landscape was covered in life of all varieties. Adsom-Tamen began to act strangely towards his creations. He struck down mountains, began despoiling waters, and destroying all life in his path. His children came to a difficult choice… allow their father to obliterate everything they’d built or remove him from the equation. They banished their father, their creator from Rhila, the only act they would ever complete in true cooperation. Changing his moniker to ‘Stagnant,’ they consider him a thing of the past, and his slight, lingering presence is a saddening thought.
Creation of the World
Before Recorded Time
In the darkness, Adsom-Tamen, the father of the gods, decided that the space was too lonely. He created the world known as Rhila, filling it with forests, lakes, seas, mountains, and plains. The world created, equally balanced, still lacked something. Adsom-Tamen realized what it was: true life, life that thought and make decisions, life that could rule the world that he just created.
So, he created his children, six in number. First, was Rodrik. He was the god of war, and in his wake Orin came. The god of pleasure and mirth could only follow one with such a grim happiness. Next, Alanna was created. And in the wake of the goddess of life, death came: Nanami. Abhirati, goddess of evil, was created fifth. Her twin was Sirus. Sirus defied his father’s wish to pick an aspect. However, this was not for the sake of rebellion, but because he never wanted to be given the power of a god.
Land, fertile and ready for the taking, was divided up among the gods. The easternmost area was claimed by Rodrik. Trawen is a harsh land, like it’s deity, mountainous and angry. Orin elected to control Balora, a land of ice and snow. He could bring merriment to the long winters, he thought. Abhirati took Morida. Jungles did not deter her; it was the centermost area and worthy of one who would control all. Alanna took the southern continent, Silice. It is a land of trees and gentle landscapes. Sirus took the only continent left: Syrc.
With life breathed into their immortal forms and their territory staked out, it was their turn to create. Each of the six new deities began molding beings into their image, imbuing them with their traits. Rodrik created the dwarves, giants, gnolls, bugbears, goblins, orcs, and other war-loving races. Orin created the satyrs, fawns, Halflings, gnomes, and other mischievous and playful races. Alanna breathed life into the elves, dryads, centaurs, weres, and other nature revering races. Nanami created the Rakb-Agume, a race of siren voiced women and men who were snake from the waist down, human like in torso and body, and adorned with great, draconic wings. Abhirati created the demons, devils, and other things that go bump in the night to serve as her creations. Sirus, not shirking in this responsibility, created the humans in image of what he wanted to be.
Goddes War, First
Year 500
Alanna, thinking it a kindness, created sanctuaries for her brothers and sisters on Silice. Because he was first born, Rodrik was given a sanctuary of his own. Enliquist, the castle held up in the sky by rays of sunlight, was his to call his own. Sirus and Orin were placed together in the Brother’s Hall, a place made for revelry and reclusiveness. Abhirati and Nanami were given the Sister’s Circle, a beautiful place of pillars and gazebos.
Abhirati viewed her sharing of the Sister’s Circle as an violation of her superiority, an insult. As the most important goddess, she believed that she should have her own sanctuary. For the transgression, she destroyed the Sister’s Circle in a haze of magics and fire, creating a small rift into the dangerous Shadow Realm.
Alanna saw this as a declaration of war. She struck out at Abhirati, and a full scale war ensued. The elder goddess was the winner, but before Abhirati could be completely destroyed she bestowed a curse upon all life on the planet.
The some elves she twisted into accursed creatures that despised the sun. The dwarves she instilled with gold lust, and the giants were struck dumb. She opened the human’s eyes, removing the wonder and instilling them with a bias to believe themselves possessed of the right to rule. The gnomes became compulsive in their studies. Other races she cursed in more subtle ways.
Regardless of the other aspects of her curse, two stood out as the most unbearable. One of those aspects, and the last to pass her lips, was the curse of the undead. All of the races faced a perversion of their gifts, but the Rakb-Agume were torn into a pale shadow of their former glory. Their wings hang useless, the flesh torn from between the fragile bones and muscles. Even worse than robbing them of their flight, she cursed their songs. Anyone who hears the dirges is doomed to die. It is unknown, however, whether they are simply the heralds or the true bringers of death.
With her curse spoken and released upon the world, she fell into obscurity for a time. Abhirati slept, and the world bore the marks of her wrath.
Goddes War, Second
Year 2100
Abhirati, who had slept for millennia, felt that the time for retribution had come. Her defeat in the First Goddess War would not be overlooked. She would not forget. Vengeance would be hers and those who had stood against her would pay. The curse that she had unleashed was not enough. The elves of Alanna’s land had not been entirely effected. Only smatterings of Alanna’s firstborn had been twisted into Abhirati’s creations, and most of those in Morida.
She opened up, again, in full scale war. The other deities issued no help, for the goddess of evil had been defeated quite easily in the first war. With Alanna’s new artifacts, no serious intervention would be necessary. Unfortunately, the other gods were wrong. They did not know about the Elixir of the Wraiths, nor where they privy to the fact that Abhirati had been awake for some time, storing and creating magics such as her own dragon, Fixu.
The battles were only a diversion. Her real intent was to sneak into Alanna’s temple, after she had thought herself the victor. Abhirati wanted the goddess slain in her chambers, not on the field. When her assassin, gifted though he was, went to complete the deed, it was not Alanna that met with the Elixir covered blade. Her Warlord, met her death in her sleep, the drought to down gods flooding through her veins. Alanna went into hiding and grieved.
With the capture and subsequent execution of her assassin,, Abhirati thought that the plan had been successful and began to conduct the war in earnest. They met with resistance, to be sure, but Abhirati’s army managed to secure the northern tip of Silice near permanently.
Abhirati sensed into a lax sense of comfort, feeling her greatest foe no longer stood in her way. The conquest of the entire continent could wait an eon if need be. There would be no one to claim it.