The First Age: The Age of Creation

And so it came to pass that the Four named their world Beuath, and divided it amongst themselves.

Garrison, the firstborn, took the land to the north, and claimed dominion over the earth. His lands he named Eupa, and they were covered in hills, mountains, and valleys.

Siv, the second eldest, took the lands to the south, and claimed dominion over the seas. She named her lands Sora, and they were plantiful with lakes and rivers that flowed to the sea.

Lillith chose the lands of the East, calling them Tyrn. Her lands were filled to the edges with trees that stretched ever onward towards the sky, and with the wind she played along their uppermost branches.

Arudain chose the lands of the west where he was born, and he called these lands Arki. A volcano had grown from the place where he first appeared, and around it grew a fierce and terrible jungle as far as the eye could see.

To separate these lands Garrison created a mountain larger than any other at the point where the four lands met, and the mountain they named Enzan. Enzan became a neutral ground, and when they met together they would do so at Enzan's peak.

The Elementals and The Calaedium

In time the four beings became lonely. Though Garrison, Siv, and Lillith shared each other's company, they longed for new things, and in his isolation Arudain's heart grew cold without companionship. All tried to make creatures like themselves out of the elements they controlled, but in the end all they created were elementals, creatures of animated earth, fire, air, and water. These creatures, though they revered their creators, were strange in form in comparison to their makers and alien in mindset. They cared only for their own elements, and to such a degree that they sough to expand their own domains and fought with those like them of differing elements. To stop this, Garrison summoned all the power he was able, and created a second world like a shadow of the one in which he dwelled. This world was nothing but earth and stone, caverns and rock, and in this realm he placed all the elementals of Earth. The others mimicked their elder's act, and soon Beuath was shadowed by the planes of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air.

The Four continued to make new beings, each time refining their process, though they could not find a method of creation that did not align their creatures in some way; as each race proved unsuited to life on Beuath's Prime, they were given their own world in which to live. Thus came to be the Demons and the Abyss, the Devils and the layers of Hell, Angels and the Heavens and Elysian Fields, Inevitables and Mechanus, and Slaad and Pandemonium. These creatures came to be collectively known as Outsiders, as they became creatures native to the worlds outside of Beuath's Prime plane.

In the end, Arudain could stand no more, and he called to his brethren from the peak of Mount Enzan. When the other three arrived he explained the idea that had come to him, and after little thought they agreed.

Together they shaped a being: Garrison retrieving raw clay from the earth for the material, CSiv adding water to soften the clay and shape it, Arudain providing heat to bake the clay and define its form, and Lillith giving it the breath of life. This being possessed elements of each, though he was no elemental or creature of any bent. This creature was curious, but cautious, and grateful to his creators, but he soon longed for others like him. Delighted that they had found the secret to true creation, the Four gave each other small amounts of their own power so they each might work to grant their first true creation as many companions as possible. These people had voices, but were as of one mind, and so had no need of voice save to raise in songs praising their creators. In time they developed a form of writing to use when details were to be remembered exactly, and the Gods were pleased.

They named this first being Arcadi, and his people they called the Calaedium.

The Calaedium praised their creators mightily, hailing them as gods, and as the Calaedium worshipped the Four found their powers increased. In turn, the Gods gave their worshippers powers to create great works. Under Arcadi's leadership the Calaedium created the Arcadian Spire, a tower of pearl that stretched into the clouds. Around this spire they built a city that stretched for miles, and in it they made many temples to their gods.

As the Calaedium's empire grew, so did the power that the Gods received from their worshippers. Soon they became greedy, and sought for ever more power, and each began to insist that worshippers hold them above the other three. This drove the Calaedium into four factions, and though Arcadi strove to stop it, the four factions went to war. To facilitate their faction's success, each God gave their followers the ability to transform into elementals for short periods of time. The Caledium city was devastated by this war, and many Caledium came to Arcadi, seeking his guidance. With Arcadi's help they captured one of each faction, and through a ritual taught to Arcadi by an outsider of undetermined order they drew the ability to transform from each of the captives and drew a little of each into themselves. So empowered, these Arcadians, as they came to be called, set themselves upon the warring Calaedium and destroyed the armies. Beaten and no faction successful, the Calaedium split into four clans and went to live in the lands of their Gods, as it is today. To the west into Arki went the Zei; to the north into Eupa went the Del; to the east into Tyrn went the Jir; and to the south into Sora went the Koi. These people never forgot their hatred towards each other and retained the ability to transform into elementals, but they soon forgot that once they were one people and the Calaedium empire was forgotten to the Clans.

The Arcadians stayed in the Arcadian Spire, the only remaining feature of the once great Calaedium Empire, and there they dwindled. When the last of the Arcadians neared his death, a small sect of the Del who had discovered the truth of the Calaedium came to the tower to try and make recompensation for their people's crimes. With his dying breath the Arcadian charged the Del with maintaining the Spire and its sacred ground so that the truth of the Calaedium would never truly be forgotten, and the Del took an oath to follow this charge until the end of time. So powerful was this oath that all four Clans were affected as if they too had taken the oath, and to this day no Calae will draw a blade in violence against another Cale while they stand on the grounds of the Arcadian Spire.

The Dragons

Saddened and humbled by the fall of the Calaedium civilization, the Four retreated to their own lands and set about their own projects. None of the Four wished to repeat a mistake like that which they had made with the Calaedium, and set about studying their own powers and making creatures of the wilderness.

It was Arudain who finally put an end to this practice, as he took a small lizard from the desert and began to shape it with his power. His intent was to make a great predator, for the Calae civilization had taken over much of the wild lands and driven many creatures to extinction and leaving more prey than the world could sustain. As he worked, Arudain's passion for his creature grew, and so did the creature's power.

When the Fire God had finally finished his creation, it was a massive beast, as long as a tree was tall, possessed of great wings that allowed it to soar through the air and both talons and teeth that could rend the flesh of any prey. Its golden scales glistened in the light of the sun as it looked about itself for the first time, and when its eyes came to rest on Arudain, it bowed in reverence to its creator.

Though the Fire God had not originally intended for his beast to have intelligence, he knew it would need the mind of a hunter in order to survive. And so he had given it a mind like that of a Calaedium, though he was quick to assure his creation that it was a greater being than any Calaedium could hope to be. The other gods took notice, and they came to look upon this creature Arudain had named Draco.

Impulsive as was her nature, Lillith stole a small bit of Draco's essence and immediately returned to her own lands to begin a creation of her own. However, she was unable to properly work the essence of Fire and her creation was a less than perfect copy. Infused with the power of wind, this creature was able to fly through the air though it had no wings, and though it had the claws and teeth of Draco it was long and sinuous like a serpent rather than powerful and leonine. Lillith named this creature Tiamat, and brought her creation to compare against Draco.

The two creatures, being the only members of their kind, begat offspring in time, and the Gods called these creatures dragons after their father. All of the Four became enraptured with these creatures, for they possessed greater intelligence than that of the Calaedium and also possessed a wisdom much greater. Though they still granted power to the Calaedium that worshiped them, the Four focused their favor on the new creations.

The dragons varied in their shape, size and abilities; those with wings flew the skies, while those without walked the land or swam the sea; some were slow and heavily armored, while others were small and quick. As the dragons multiplied, they absorbed the magic leftover in the air from the time of creation and began to harness such energy. First they began to use magic to shape the world around them such as the Calaedium had before them, then they discovered a more natural effect of absorbing such magic. The younger, newer dragons found that they were bound to a particular element and could let loose such energy with their own breath.

Draco and Tiamat began to take their offspring under their tutelage and taught them as each saw fit. Under Draco, the dragons learned honor and nobility as suited their stature as Beuath's most powerful mortal creatures; he taught them to treat the Calaedium and lower creatures with respect, but not to suffer disrespect from such creatures. Draco taught the dragons never to prey on Calaedium save for those who attacked them first, and even then to give the aggressor a chance to make amends beforehand.

But Tiamat taught a much different lesson to her students. She taught the dragons to be sure in their superiority, that they were the chosen of the Four and that all creatures were beneath them. Anything they could kill was their prey, and anything they wanted they were strong enough to take. She held the Calaedium in contempt, having divined how they had destroyed themselves, and felt that they were merely a cunning prey.

Tensions grew between the different dragons, and in time the four began to believe the dragons would suffer the same fate as the Calaedium. Seeking to avoid such a fate, Draco challenged Tiamat to a duel, seeking to avoid an open conflict. Tiamat accepted, and to avoid the devastation caused by the war of the Calaedium the Four created another Plane, one closely connected to the Prime but purely of the mind, where there was nothing that one did not create with one's own thoughts so there was nothing to destroy; this plane was called the Astral Plane, and the progenitor dragons traveled their for their duel.

The two dragons fought a battle of both physical and mental strength, a battle that raged for months on end. In the end Draco struck a blow that left Tiamat all but crippled, and the Four awarded him the victory. Draco then asked that all the dragons be bound to their own territories dictated by the elements to which they were bound. The Four granted Draco's request, binding the dragons of Earth to Eupa, the dragons of Wind to Tyrn, the dragons of the Water to Sora's lakes and seas, and the dragons of Fire to Arki. The dragons of Ice were given divided territory, allowed the mountain peaks of Eupa in the summer and the secluded caves in Enzan's foothills in the winter.

Draco left the Astral Plane then, leaving Tiamat in a stasis between life and death. All of the Four but Arudain left then as well, and the Fire God healed Tiamat. Decreeing that she would never attempt to directly take vengeance upon Draco, he gave her a place in the Abyss where she would bide her time and where she could manipulate her offspring to undermine all that Draco stood for. Arudain, though he sought to preserve Beuath from destruction, saw in Tiamat something he felt within himself, just as he felt betrayed by his own creation when Draco chose a path suited to the other Four rather than Arudain's own.

The Rise and Fall of the Elven Nation

A thousand years after the creation of the dragons, Lillith began carving a shape she thought pleasant out of the wood of a tree. This shape was similar to the Calaedium, though smaller, slighter, and with more graceful features and long pointed ears. When her carving was complete, she breathed life into this man, calling him and Elf and naming him Aellorun. To Aellorun she taught the ways of all the beasts of the forest, how to move through the trees like they did and how to find what he needed by reading the signs nature left for him. In time, Lillith created more like him, and Aellorun taught them everything she had taught him.

The elves spread throughout all the lands of Beuath, though their true home always remained the deep forests of Tyrn. As Lillith had made them from wood, like the trees and plants that they so loved the elves changed in both mind and body to adapt to the lands outside of Tyrn. Those still within Tyrn's forests remained as they had been created: fair of hair and skin, with eyes of piercing green; these elves called themselves the Grugach, or Wild Ones. Those of Sora possessed hair tinged with blue and green like the ocean waves and eyes as light as the ocean mist; they called themselves the Inheldeen, or Elves of the Moon. The elves of Eupa were tall and haughty like the mountains in which they resided, and their hair and eyes took on a golden color; these called themseves Koramiir, or High Elves. And the elves of Arki were dark of skin and hair to protect them from the sun in the open and the heat under the canopy of Arki's jungle; they had no name for themselves, but the other elves called them Drow, or Dark Ones. Aellorun wandered all of the lands, ensuring that his brethren could fend for themselves, and though his life spanned more than a millennia his time came, and he passed from the world.

In time the elves had built a civilization that rivaled that of the Calaedium, though this great empire held the study of magic above loyalty to the Four, and in this the gods felt the Elven Nation could survive. Though magic had been practiced by all sentient creatures since the creation of the Outsiders, the elves refined the use of magic into an art form, establishing the schools of magic based upon their application. It was the elves, too, that established the discipline of Wizardry, magic that was learned from years of practice and study, magic that could be learned and harnessed by those who were not born with the gift of sorcery.

It was the study of wizardry that eventually led to the undoing of the Elven Nation. A Drow wizard summoned into the Material Plane a Queen of the demons, a fiend known as Ikdai. The Queen of Deceit and Poison, she seduced the Drow by taking the form of a comely elven woman and teaching him of a new school of magic, one that came to be known as Necromancy. By toying with the energies of life and death Ikdai showed the wizard how to gain great power through necromancy, but withheld the knowledge of the cost of such power and the seductive allure to use more and more despite the cost.

In time more and more Drow fell under the influence of Ikdai, as did members of the other elven races, and in time they even began to worship her as a goddess. Though she was unable to gain the type of power from such worship that the Four gained, Ikdai bound her followers to herself in such a way that she could feed off of the energy of their nigh ever-replenishing souls and in turn grant them boosts of power when she felt the whim. Ikdai became bloated with power from her followers, and desired more and more. In time the actions of her followers were found out when they began to turn their magics on the very world itself.

Though outnumbered ten to one, Ikdai's followers drew power from their misplaced faith and their bond to Ikdai, and for over a hundred years they held off attacks by the combined might of the entire Elven Nation. In the end it was the Four who shattered the defenses of Ikdai's followers. Though they had been involved in things among the planes, the conflict between the elven factions attracted their attention and they were unanimously enraged by the audacity of Ikdai. They cursed Ikdai and her followers; Ikdai was banished eternally to the Abyss and barred from ever taking elven form again, and her followers were marked with skin of the deepest black and hair of the purest white. Arudain decreed that the sun would forever stare unforgivingly upon them, and Garrison decreed that never again would they know the freedom of the surface world. Blinded by the sun and driven by the power of the God of the Earth, Ikdai's followers fled into the dark caves beneath the earth where they remain in present time.

Because Ikdai's followers were mostly drow, that became the name of the black-skinned exiles, and the Arkian elves untainted by Ikdai's influence began calling themselves Dubhain, or Elves of the Night. Afterwards the elven races began to distrust each other, each seeing in the others the capacity for evil that had almost overcome them all. The structure of the Elven Nation began to weaken and fail, and in time it was no more. Though elven civilization survived the unity of the elves as a whole was forever destroyed; they became like the Calaedium before them: one people split into four.

The Coming of the Elder Races

Though the elven nation had fallen, the survival of elven culture as a whole had revived the Four's hope of the mortal races, and Garrison. Siv, and Arudain began to create their own subjects as Lillith had created the elves.

Garrison was the first to create a people after the Elven Nation fell, carving a people out of the mountain stone. These people were stout and sturdy, strong as the mountains and as determined as a rockslide. Garrison called these people dwarves, and they were miners of the earth and craftsmen of the greatest skill. From the stone he also made another people, slighter than the dwarves but with minds as sharp as the finest blade. Garrison called these people gnomes, and they were inventors and designers of great talent.

Siv created a race of people smaller than the elves, but of jovial natures. These people were quick and nimble, and possessed a cheer and luck that surpassed any other race. These people she called Halflings; though they tended to be lazy they were rogues and jesters of great ability, and she set the task before them to remind the other races of the need for laughter. From the foam on the seas she formed a people with upper bodies like the land races but the lower bodies of great fish. She called these people the merfolk, and gave them the entire sea in which to swim and dwell.

Arudain first created a race meant to surpass all others, calling them Humans. These people were short lived compared to the others, but they learned rapidly and were tougher than elves, stronger than halflings, and faster than dwarves. Arudain was pleased at first, but quickly rescinded his favor when the humans began to adopt the manerisms and skils of the other races as their own rather than subjugate them as he had believed they should.

Taking the strongest of the human race, Arudain changed their form and mind to one he found to be more suited to his ideals. The first of such creations were of varying shapes as the Fire God created and discarded design after design, and these creatures became known as the Goblinoids. These creatures he sent into the mountains against the dwarves to test their ability, but the while the smallest were quicker than the dwarves they were weak and easily cowed, and their bigger, brutish cousins were physically capable but easily outsmarted.

Arudain learned from his mistakes with the goblinoids; he took the best of them and made them stronger, tougher. He made their minds violent, vicious, and cruel. These he called orcs, and he sent them against the dwarves, then the elves. Both races were hard pressed to resist Arudain's creations, but eventually won thanks to the orcs' infighting. To punish his creations Arudain cursed them so that the light of the sun would shun them until the day they crushed the elves and dwarves beneath their feet.

In later days these races, along with the elves, would come to be known as the Elder Races, for they were created first and all later races were created from their original designs.