Mythology and my lame-ass attempt at it
After reading the truly epic and interesting background of nottheterritory's D&D 4E world, I realized that I really needed to expand on the background of my D&D campaign. I'd paid more attention to migration, politics and the fall of empires in my setting and hadn't really touched on the religious mythology that I think is important to make players believe in the world that their characters run around in.
The Time Before Creation
In the beginning, there were dozens of gods, many having children and all living in the Astral Sea. The Sea had pieces drawn into it from the Elemental Chaos, those pieces formed by the wills of the deities or any immortal strong enough to claim a domain of their own. The Elemental Chaos raged with primordials and their short-lived elemental minions, a constant flux of creation and destruction. The god now known as the Chained God had greater greed and deeper lust for power than even Io with none of the mitigating factors that made Io popular amongst his fellows. He found ways to escape the Astral Sea, not to the Elemental Chaos, but beyond it. His fellow gods sensed his departure and wondered that one of their own would want to leave their vast domains in the Astral Sea. Time passed, the gods mourning their lost sibling in their own ways.
And then they felt his brief return to the Astral Sea, his terror and madness streaking through the Sea, plummeting into the Elemental Chaos, a wave of destruction in his wake. The gods peered into this path, curious if their fellow deity had truly returned or if it had merely been a ploy by some briefly coherent primordial. They saw a seeping wound in the Chaos, but as time went by, this churning vortex didn’t collapse and return to the roiling elemental material of the Chaos. It remained and few of the gods could look into that wound in the fabric of the universe and not look away.
The Creation of the World and Its Siblings
The middle world, its shadow and bright sibling were formed by the chaotic primordials. The gods had seen many of the works of the primordials, who they saw as contemporaries in power, yet regarded as diminished in philosophy and intellect, since what they created, they quickly destroyed. These creations were noted by Sehanine, who often surveyed the destructive and constructive phases of the primordials cloaked in her illusions against the sight of the raging primordials. She spoke to her siblings, Io and Erathis, telling them of three great spheres, mirrors of each other, each with great potential. Erathis made her plans for their prize while Io spoke to Corellon, Nerull, Tuern, Kord, Pelor and Zehir.
Io’s greed and charisma in addition to his noble demeanour swayed his fellow deities and siblings who went to mobilize their own children as well as their angels. Under the illusions of Sehanine and the cloak of Zehir, divine armies swept onto the world and its mirrors, destroying several primordials and their minions. The forces of the twins, Bane and Gruumsh, and their father Tuern rallied along the border between the Astral Sea and Elemental Chaos, fighting against the immediate retaliation that the predictable primordials made against the gods.
The battles raged for untold time between the gods and the primordials. Corellon, Melora and Lloth rallied their forces on the orb we know as the Feywild, while Nerull spread his time and forces between the Shadowfell, bolstering Zehir and Torog’s armies. Pelor, Sehanine, Erathis, Moradin and Kord held the middle world, which became a fierce battleground, the order being imposed by these gods being a particular anathema to the primordials.
The gods created the mortal races and the flora and fauna of the worlds, influencing their development and using some of them in the front lines of their battles. Corellon created the fey creatures now known as eladrin, elves and drow and placed them in the Feywild. Moradin imbued his creations with the durability of steel and the strength of stone, thus making the first dwarves. It is unknown which god made humans, halflings and gnomes and many believe that halflings and humans come from the same stock.
During this time, Tuern was slain by a great primordial that was captured and chained in Carceri soon after. In an arrogant and reckless assault, the dragon god Io made a foray deep into the Elemental Chaos to avenge his brother. In single combat, Io was split asunder by Erek-Hus, a mighty primordial, though his two halves rose up as the gods Bahamut and Tiamat, who slew the King of Terror before he could relish his victory over the dragon god. When these new gods came to the middle world, they shook off the bloody caul of their forebear and the dragonborn rose from the bloodied earth. Many of the weakest gods were killed, while others, like Torog, found the extended battles a perfect place to consolidate their power.
The Return of Tharizdun
Just as the tide was turning in favour of the gods, their lost sibling returned, striking out from the Abyss, breaching into the Astral Sea. Some say that Gruumsh turned from his tactician roots to become the furious berserker that he is during a fearsome combat with his uncle, Tharizdun. Lloth gathered intelligence by infiltrating the Abyss, bringing back the first reports about the puckering wound in the Elemental Chaos. Many of the gods have noted that this was the beginning of Lloth’s descent into madness. Orcus invaded the Shadowfell, while the other generals of Tharizdun’s army struck at the middle world and even the Elemental Chaos. There was no strategy, only pure elemental evil at the heart of Tharizdun’s bizarre attack.
Eventually, after being lured into a trap by Sehanine, Tharizdun was held by Kord while Moradin chained him. The remaining elder gods gathered themselves together in one of Ioun’s domains, known as Shom. They created a prison for their wayward relative, all of them sickened by the war, wishing for no more death, particularly of one of their own. This prison was moved from Shom, with only the eldest of the gods knowing its location. After they banished their brother, the gods rallied and struck at the demonic hordes of the Abyss, driving Orcus from the Shadowfell and the other demons from the other planes. The primordials’ forces were divided, many becoming corrupted and fighting for the Abyss, weakening them to the point where the greatest primordials were captured or killed one by one. The war was nearly over.
The Hidden Voices of the World
Just as the final battle between the gods and primordials raged on the middle world, something unexpected happened. The spirits of the natural phenomena that the primordials created and the gods had shaped further spoke out, forcibly throwing the gods and primordials apart. The World Serpent coiled between the two groups and the Fate Weaver stepped forward, declaring that it was not foreordained that this conflict would end on the mirror worlds but in the Elemental Chaos. The world was not theirs to destroy in their pettiness; it was not their home to ravage. With that pronouncement, the primordials were sent to the Elemental Chaos and the gods to the Astral Sea, the one time that something stood against both groups and prevailed, though what effort this caused the primal spirits is unknown.
The gods, sensing victory near at hand, swept into the Elemental Chaos and captured the last of the free primordials, chaining them in unknown parts of the primordials’ home. When they came at last to the mirror worlds, the spirits were ready to negotiate. The gods (and the primordials) were to be able to influence the three realms but the world would remain an intermingling of spirit and matter. Some gods were devastated by this turn of events while others saw this new force to deal with as an opportunity.
The Molding of the Mirror Worlds
The gods influenced the world and cherished their creations. Pelor condensed a pure element into the sun and made the mirror worlds spin, creating the first measures of time. Sehanine saw Pelor’s work and created a spherical mirror that spun around each of the mirror worlds: the moon. Melora had seeded all of the mirror worlds with much of their current wildlife earlier and, aided by Kord and the spirits of wind and water, created weather. She saw these spirits as contemporaries and treated the even the meekest of spirits as her equal in intent if not in power. Bahamut and Tiamat divided their forebear’s creations between them, while Ioun, Erathis and Moradin all awakened beings to curiosity and invention.
Unbeknownst to the naïve gods of creation and valour, the god Zehir created creatures full of poison to make the world dangerous and fearful. Torog burrowed in the ground of all the mirror worlds and made vast caverns that became the Underdark, the Feydark and the Shadowdark, infesting the tunnels with blind, creeping beings and sheltering some of the Elemental Chaos’ titans in the Feydark (the future fomorians). Bane taught the newly created races that their neighbours had wealth and riches that they should possess, which Tiamat happily encouraged. Lloth also snuck into the Feywild, initially teaching the proto-elves to discriminate, then taking those most discriminated against and sealing them to her in their rebellion, birthing the drow and leading to the split of the rest into eladrin and elves.
The corpse of a primordial had been felled near what is now Nocturnus, creating a deep crater, seeping raw elemental energy. Some say that the Tranquil Sea was a vast crater created when Melora had an immense duel with the water-magma primordial, Gruth-vek. The Platinum Mountains were allegedly formed when Bahamut buried a metallic-air primordial to subdue it, while in myth his sister Tiamat unleashed her brood against an army of elementals in the Draconic Mountains. The victory of the brown dragons over their foes before the other chromatic dragons led to her giving them great power over the others until they forfeited their birthright during the end of Maru-Qet. Some claim that the devastation of much of the northern continent when Bael Turath and the dwarven homeland fell was due to cracks in the world formed during the great battles fought by Erathis and Kord to stop the greatest of the primordial assaults.
Pantheon Changes
In the intervening eons, many things have changed the world and its shapers. The god of the dead Nerull was overthrown by one of the spirits he trapped, that newly minted goddess using the appellation “the Raven Queen”. Bane and Gruumsh have a bizarre sibling rivalry over their father’s astral domain. One of Gruumsh’s random assaults on other gods resulted in Corellon blinding him in one eye. Vecna ascended to godhood after betraying Orcus and becoming the god of secrets. Asmodeus slew a god and created Baator in his infernal image. Avandra became an exarch of Sehanine and struck out on her own, being deemed the goddess of change afterwards. Melora and Erathis have come to blows over the future they see for the world, their forays into world politics influencing the rise and fall of empires. Ioun has become more distant, her role as the goddess of prophecy becoming more prominent.
The Time Before Creation
In the beginning, there were dozens of gods, many having children and all living in the Astral Sea. The Sea had pieces drawn into it from the Elemental Chaos, those pieces formed by the wills of the deities or any immortal strong enough to claim a domain of their own. The Elemental Chaos raged with primordials and their short-lived elemental minions, a constant flux of creation and destruction. The god now known as the Chained God had greater greed and deeper lust for power than even Io with none of the mitigating factors that made Io popular amongst his fellows. He found ways to escape the Astral Sea, not to the Elemental Chaos, but beyond it. His fellow gods sensed his departure and wondered that one of their own would want to leave their vast domains in the Astral Sea. Time passed, the gods mourning their lost sibling in their own ways.
And then they felt his brief return to the Astral Sea, his terror and madness streaking through the Sea, plummeting into the Elemental Chaos, a wave of destruction in his wake. The gods peered into this path, curious if their fellow deity had truly returned or if it had merely been a ploy by some briefly coherent primordial. They saw a seeping wound in the Chaos, but as time went by, this churning vortex didn’t collapse and return to the roiling elemental material of the Chaos. It remained and few of the gods could look into that wound in the fabric of the universe and not look away.
The Creation of the World and Its Siblings
The middle world, its shadow and bright sibling were formed by the chaotic primordials. The gods had seen many of the works of the primordials, who they saw as contemporaries in power, yet regarded as diminished in philosophy and intellect, since what they created, they quickly destroyed. These creations were noted by Sehanine, who often surveyed the destructive and constructive phases of the primordials cloaked in her illusions against the sight of the raging primordials. She spoke to her siblings, Io and Erathis, telling them of three great spheres, mirrors of each other, each with great potential. Erathis made her plans for their prize while Io spoke to Corellon, Nerull, Tuern, Kord, Pelor and Zehir.
Io’s greed and charisma in addition to his noble demeanour swayed his fellow deities and siblings who went to mobilize their own children as well as their angels. Under the illusions of Sehanine and the cloak of Zehir, divine armies swept onto the world and its mirrors, destroying several primordials and their minions. The forces of the twins, Bane and Gruumsh, and their father Tuern rallied along the border between the Astral Sea and Elemental Chaos, fighting against the immediate retaliation that the predictable primordials made against the gods.
The battles raged for untold time between the gods and the primordials. Corellon, Melora and Lloth rallied their forces on the orb we know as the Feywild, while Nerull spread his time and forces between the Shadowfell, bolstering Zehir and Torog’s armies. Pelor, Sehanine, Erathis, Moradin and Kord held the middle world, which became a fierce battleground, the order being imposed by these gods being a particular anathema to the primordials.
The gods created the mortal races and the flora and fauna of the worlds, influencing their development and using some of them in the front lines of their battles. Corellon created the fey creatures now known as eladrin, elves and drow and placed them in the Feywild. Moradin imbued his creations with the durability of steel and the strength of stone, thus making the first dwarves. It is unknown which god made humans, halflings and gnomes and many believe that halflings and humans come from the same stock.
During this time, Tuern was slain by a great primordial that was captured and chained in Carceri soon after. In an arrogant and reckless assault, the dragon god Io made a foray deep into the Elemental Chaos to avenge his brother. In single combat, Io was split asunder by Erek-Hus, a mighty primordial, though his two halves rose up as the gods Bahamut and Tiamat, who slew the King of Terror before he could relish his victory over the dragon god. When these new gods came to the middle world, they shook off the bloody caul of their forebear and the dragonborn rose from the bloodied earth. Many of the weakest gods were killed, while others, like Torog, found the extended battles a perfect place to consolidate their power.
The Return of Tharizdun
Just as the tide was turning in favour of the gods, their lost sibling returned, striking out from the Abyss, breaching into the Astral Sea. Some say that Gruumsh turned from his tactician roots to become the furious berserker that he is during a fearsome combat with his uncle, Tharizdun. Lloth gathered intelligence by infiltrating the Abyss, bringing back the first reports about the puckering wound in the Elemental Chaos. Many of the gods have noted that this was the beginning of Lloth’s descent into madness. Orcus invaded the Shadowfell, while the other generals of Tharizdun’s army struck at the middle world and even the Elemental Chaos. There was no strategy, only pure elemental evil at the heart of Tharizdun’s bizarre attack.
Eventually, after being lured into a trap by Sehanine, Tharizdun was held by Kord while Moradin chained him. The remaining elder gods gathered themselves together in one of Ioun’s domains, known as Shom. They created a prison for their wayward relative, all of them sickened by the war, wishing for no more death, particularly of one of their own. This prison was moved from Shom, with only the eldest of the gods knowing its location. After they banished their brother, the gods rallied and struck at the demonic hordes of the Abyss, driving Orcus from the Shadowfell and the other demons from the other planes. The primordials’ forces were divided, many becoming corrupted and fighting for the Abyss, weakening them to the point where the greatest primordials were captured or killed one by one. The war was nearly over.
The Hidden Voices of the World
Just as the final battle between the gods and primordials raged on the middle world, something unexpected happened. The spirits of the natural phenomena that the primordials created and the gods had shaped further spoke out, forcibly throwing the gods and primordials apart. The World Serpent coiled between the two groups and the Fate Weaver stepped forward, declaring that it was not foreordained that this conflict would end on the mirror worlds but in the Elemental Chaos. The world was not theirs to destroy in their pettiness; it was not their home to ravage. With that pronouncement, the primordials were sent to the Elemental Chaos and the gods to the Astral Sea, the one time that something stood against both groups and prevailed, though what effort this caused the primal spirits is unknown.
The gods, sensing victory near at hand, swept into the Elemental Chaos and captured the last of the free primordials, chaining them in unknown parts of the primordials’ home. When they came at last to the mirror worlds, the spirits were ready to negotiate. The gods (and the primordials) were to be able to influence the three realms but the world would remain an intermingling of spirit and matter. Some gods were devastated by this turn of events while others saw this new force to deal with as an opportunity.
The Molding of the Mirror Worlds
The gods influenced the world and cherished their creations. Pelor condensed a pure element into the sun and made the mirror worlds spin, creating the first measures of time. Sehanine saw Pelor’s work and created a spherical mirror that spun around each of the mirror worlds: the moon. Melora had seeded all of the mirror worlds with much of their current wildlife earlier and, aided by Kord and the spirits of wind and water, created weather. She saw these spirits as contemporaries and treated the even the meekest of spirits as her equal in intent if not in power. Bahamut and Tiamat divided their forebear’s creations between them, while Ioun, Erathis and Moradin all awakened beings to curiosity and invention.
Unbeknownst to the naïve gods of creation and valour, the god Zehir created creatures full of poison to make the world dangerous and fearful. Torog burrowed in the ground of all the mirror worlds and made vast caverns that became the Underdark, the Feydark and the Shadowdark, infesting the tunnels with blind, creeping beings and sheltering some of the Elemental Chaos’ titans in the Feydark (the future fomorians). Bane taught the newly created races that their neighbours had wealth and riches that they should possess, which Tiamat happily encouraged. Lloth also snuck into the Feywild, initially teaching the proto-elves to discriminate, then taking those most discriminated against and sealing them to her in their rebellion, birthing the drow and leading to the split of the rest into eladrin and elves.
The corpse of a primordial had been felled near what is now Nocturnus, creating a deep crater, seeping raw elemental energy. Some say that the Tranquil Sea was a vast crater created when Melora had an immense duel with the water-magma primordial, Gruth-vek. The Platinum Mountains were allegedly formed when Bahamut buried a metallic-air primordial to subdue it, while in myth his sister Tiamat unleashed her brood against an army of elementals in the Draconic Mountains. The victory of the brown dragons over their foes before the other chromatic dragons led to her giving them great power over the others until they forfeited their birthright during the end of Maru-Qet. Some claim that the devastation of much of the northern continent when Bael Turath and the dwarven homeland fell was due to cracks in the world formed during the great battles fought by Erathis and Kord to stop the greatest of the primordial assaults.
Pantheon Changes
In the intervening eons, many things have changed the world and its shapers. The god of the dead Nerull was overthrown by one of the spirits he trapped, that newly minted goddess using the appellation “the Raven Queen”. Bane and Gruumsh have a bizarre sibling rivalry over their father’s astral domain. One of Gruumsh’s random assaults on other gods resulted in Corellon blinding him in one eye. Vecna ascended to godhood after betraying Orcus and becoming the god of secrets. Asmodeus slew a god and created Baator in his infernal image. Avandra became an exarch of Sehanine and struck out on her own, being deemed the goddess of change afterwards. Melora and Erathis have come to blows over the future they see for the world, their forays into world politics influencing the rise and fall of empires. Ioun has become more distant, her role as the goddess of prophecy becoming more prominent.