Long before man and beast and earth and sky,
In a time before time,
Voden Ai drifted semiconscious in a ceaseless void.
Deaf and blind and mute, he would have been driven mad
For not Norinthia.
A great plain, featureless and grey and endless.
And she was beautiful to Voden Ai,
The cure to his cosmological confusion.
But Norinthia was far off from Voden Ai
And he longed to be her with desperation and hopeless sadness.
Great tears began to fall from Voden Ai as he pined for Norinthia,
Whose great and powerful surface remained empty and silent.
But his tears pooled on Norinthia and formed Xolous,
The Astral Sea.
Then, Voden Ai willed himself towards Norinthia.
He created the stars in heaven to pull himself nearer
And the space between them to move through.
At their union burst forth the Recaniah,
Massive and mystical,
A land of life and wonder
Adrift in Xolous, the Heavenly Tears,
the Astral Sea.
The pair fell into a great slumber after the euphoria of their coupling
And on the Recaniah, their children were born,
The Imperial Kings, noble and proud.
Voden Ai’s ordering of the realm gave birth to Aendir and Tianasa,
The Twins of Thought.
Norinthia’s great sighs of ecstasy formed Eivi,
The Breath of Life.
Aibin, born of firelight, made his temple in the heavens
And dwelt there in the day,
Brightening the sky.
Kryndor, King of the Rock, had his place in the depths of the realm,
Under the mountains and the hills.
The Kings numbered three more,
not born into existence from the land or its creation,
But as offspring of the Kings themselves.
Aendir the Logician, who stewarded the ordering of the realm,
Known for his great knowledge and understanding,
Was approached by Kryndor, King of the Rock, with a quandary.
Two servants had been given a precious gem by Kryndor,
Diamonds of insurmountable beauty.
The first took his to his home and fashioned a pickaxe from it,
Using its hardness and fierce durability to craft a mighty tool.
The second, however, hid his under the earth and made an altar there
To worship the power and the beauty of the deep.
Some time later, Kryndor returned to his servants and asked to see his diamonds.
The first presented his pickaxe, withered and worn,
But then brought forth ten diamonds, larger and finer and mined with the first.
The second laid his diamond before Kryndor
And it shined brighter than all the others, clear and crisp and delightful.
Kryndor was pleased with each of his servants,
But did not know who to reward over the other.
For wise counsel, he sought out his brother, Aendir.
The Logician was bewildered.
For some time, he pondered but could not determine which servant was deserving of favor,
If the ramifications of risk outweigh the promise of patience.
Driven mad by the question, Aendir plucked out his own eyes,
And fashioned a daughter from them to answer his question.
Illium the Judge was born and said to her father,
“Why not reward the man who brought abundance to his master?
For his labor provides the means to create more beauty,
Whereas beauty hidden away loses its definition.”
Aendir was pleased, as was Kryndor,
And Illium found her place amongst the Kings as their counsel and noble Judge,
And alongside her father, who she cares for in his blindness.
The Brothers Black, the Lords of Death, were Estoncilus and Deltros,
Children of Tianasa, Sister of Thought, Queen of Creativity and Emotion,
Who often got lost wandering the vast expanse of her mind.
Once, as she roamed, she drew to an unfamiliar land,
A dark place which drew on her most imaginative fears.
She encountered a stranger there, who overpowered and forced themself upon her.
Ravaged and ruined, she returned and soon discovered she was with child,
Who was born and became Deltros the Scorned,
Always hated by his mother for his father’s crimes.
Estoncilus, The Wayward King, Brother of Deltros,
Was the God of Destiny, misunderstood in his ways.
‘Tis true all paths lead to death,
And so destiny became death to the commonfolk
And they thought the Wayward King cruel
And evil.
They were mistaken.
For Estoncilus was not born of hate,
But of peace and purity,
Of warmth,
Of innocence.
After the stranger,
Who fathered Deltros in his wickedness,
Tianasa entered an inconsolable sorrow,
An impenetrable isolation within her mind.
For many years, she mourned,
From summer to spring,
And the land grew dreary and dark in her absence.
Fearing for his sister, Aendir sent his daughter,
Illium the Judge, to counsel her.Illium drew near to Tianasa,
And the Judge became filled with sorrow.
So terrible was her grief that she returned to her father,
Unable to bear such tremendous despair.
But Tianasa sensed her presence
And it was soothing to her tattered mind.
So like her brother, her twin,
Yet younger,
Softer, more graceful and kind.
No less strong and equally just, but of a different aura.
And she felt the immense and immovable bond between Illium and her father,
An inescapable and unconditional covenant,
The everlasting love of parent and child.
In her great sadness, she began to sing.
A mournful melody of love and creation,
An ode to beauty and light in a land gone astray.
Her song was heard in the heavens and under the hills,
And blended with the wind in the trees
And the buzzing of the bees in perfect union.
As she sang, a child was conceived in her womb,
And in time, a son was born to her,
Who she called Estoncilus, the Helper and the Healer,
The Wise and Wayward King of Destiny.
And thus, the Imperial Kings were born.
Voden Ai, He Who Loves,
Slumbering in perfect bliss alongside his great love, Norinthia,
The Twins of Thought, Aendir and Tianasa,
And their children, Illium, Deltros, and Estoncilus,
The Lords of the Earth, Aibin, Kryndor, and Xolous,
And the Recaniah, on whose body they all dwelt.
The Imperial Kings then bore children,
Who were called Imperions.
With the birth of the Recaniah came the Drinn,
The Princes Beneath the Trees, a powerful and wise race of men,
Ordered by nature as rulers and kings.
And the Recaniah himself birthed another race, The Tistari,
A small and spiny people of compassion and community.
Aibin took Eivi as his wife
And theirs were the Daughters of Light,
The Ve Henna, radiant and beautiful,
With hair and skin of gold.
Aibin, too, created the Flaming Men,
The Veldenren,
Beings of pure and imperishable fire,
To contest the Despin Vo,
Men of the Mountains,
Who dwelt with Kryndor in his halls of the deep.
Deltros, wicked of heart,
Stole away one of the Ve Henna
And forced himself upon her,
As his father had his mother.
Their offspring became the Veldenskalor,
Those Who Feast on Blood,
And their way was wickedness
And treachery.
As Voden Ai slept,
He dreamt a last race into creation.
The Veldenlaak, Those Who Slumber,
Wisest of the Imperions, but frailest of body,
Who sleep through much of their lives,
Yet in their wakefulness,
Higher than even the Kings.
The Imperions were prosperous and fruitful
And built flourishing civilizations on the Recaniah.
Yet they were young nations,
Prideful and ambitious,
And their interests began to conflict with one another.
The Imperial Kings, once unified and harmonious,
Grew covetous and filled with envy
And war soon broke out between them.
From months to years to decades,
Generations of Imperions shed each others’ blood for their Kings,
Until they began to question
And deny the orders of the masters.
In time, refusal became revolution
And war was waged once more,
This time, between Imperions and the Kings themselves.
Enraged, the Imperial Kings laid waste to their former subjects’ cities.
Though as death and devastation reigned,
The Imperions, wise and strong, held fast against the divine threat.
Defeated, the Kings stole Voden Ai’s body from where he slept
And fled the Recaniah
To create a new people in a new land;
The humans of Morthos.
The Imperions at first rejoiced.
But soon, without the power of the Imperial Kings,
The land began to wither and die.
Generation after generation, many starved and more died of disease until
Their population had greatly diminished
And the ancient bloodlines were greatly diluted.
In desperation, the last Imperions left the Recaniah
And sailed into the Astral Sea,
Guided only by the spirit of survival,
And Estoncilus, who paved their path to Morthos
Unnoticed.
Anthony Bringaze 