History – Creation of Andara the Second World

This world was old, dead, and forgotten. For ages it lay still, its final peoples dormant and sleeping a dreamless sleep of oblivion. But the world itself remembered and after eons its memories were made manifest. The Chronosi awoke. No one knows if they have always been or never were before, but they awoke. They are four in number: The Silent Lady, The Laughing Maid, The Lightning Lord, and the Stone King. They are immense, powerful, and alien. Together they looked over the earth and mourned for what was, and decided between them what would be. The world began anew.

First they rekindled the sun, and the four moons were visible once more. Deep in the bowels of the earth the Stone King ignited Caulderon, the Lava Sea, and the mountains awoke. The Lightning Lord blew and the wind moved. Clouds appeared and the Sun spun through the void – and there was day, and there was night. And weather matched his moods. The Silent Lady watched and did not move. Her sister, the Laughing Maid, danced and sang. Where her feet struck sprang springs. Where her gown dragged ran creeks and streams. Where she passed was earth, good fertile soil. Where her voice fell grew grass, trees, and all that grows up from the soil.  The Silent Lady walked into the sea, down into the darkest depths, and was still.

The Laughing Maid paused in her dancing and saw that she was alone. The Lightning Lord was high above, leaping through clouds. The Stone King was deep below, crafting fire and moving stone. The Silent Lady was deeper still, cold and silent. The Laughing Maid reached down, grabbed handfuls of soil, and made the beasts of the fields so that she would not be alone. She made birds in the sky, fish in the waters, and those that dig so that the other Chronosi would not forget her. And when her creations had lived their part in her great dance, to the soil they returned.

So it came to be that the Firstborn appeared. The Skyborn were woven of air, the Stoneborn crafted from stone, The Earthborn and Woodborn from the Laughing Maid’s dancing. And they loved, and they built, and they lived. And then they returned to that which they were made of. But in the awakening of the Firstborn, so too did the Tainted Ones appear, and fought, and killed, and made war upon the Firstborn. And in the greatest war, the Kindred War, a mighty magic was unleashed. So mighty that it shook even the Silent Lady on her cold throne of darkness. And the Awakened woke from their eons old slumber.

The Awakened were from the First World, those final beings long at rest. The world they woke into was no longer their own, and weight of the long ages asleep bore down heavy on their mind. Most were consumed with madness. All rose and fought against the Firstborn and Tainted Ones alike. The mightiest sought out the Chronosi themselves, and attempted to destroy those that had changed the world. The Chronosi destroyed them utterly, and only a few survived to lick their wounds in the dark places of the world. Other Awakened sought to subjugate the Firstborn and rebuild their long past empires. Some Awakened tried to teach and learn from the new world and its peoples. With their aid the Firstborn drove back the Tainted Ones and turned their attention on the Giantkind, the imperial Awakened.

The Giants were severely out numbered. In desperation their warlocks tapped into the very nature of the world, the primal force that gave existence to the Chronosi, and used it to warp common beasts of the field into new creatures for the Giant armies. Nature however, does not appreciate her plans and designs being changed. Much to the Giants chagrin, the new creatures, the Beastfolk, were not the mindless automations intended but instead had free will and individuality. They turned on their creators and the Giants were crushed, their peoples scattered and their lore and culture lost.

For a time there was relative peace. Then the Shard Peoples arrived. They came through different means, but all spoke of a cataclysmic event that affected multiple worlds.  Each claimed to be a remnant, a shard from their shattered worlds, and each arrived here seeking solace.

First, beyond the Sands of Night at the edge of the world, from across the void in great arks came humans and orcs. They crossed the seas and settled. Then from a vast rift in reality came the fey, who ghosted into the wild places and were hidden.

And thus came the world to be.