Friday, March 2, 2018

Dead Skies - New Setting Origins

When I make an origin story, I really like to figure out, what kind of feuds may exist, and why.  I also like to figure out where the cosmic battlelines are drawn.  In many settings, from Middle Earth to Faerun, there are cosmic factions who transcend reason and keep at each other’s throats fro millenia.  In this idea, I am setting the stage for mortal society that looks to the Gods (read Titans) to settle their differences.  These mortals rally behind their Godly leaders, and go on quests to settle blood oaths.  Magic works differently and the people will be able to truly see how the gods have made their mark on the world, and how by leaving it for the mortals to use is a truly new thing that forces mortals to decide for themselves.

The Titans descended upon the planet.  The Demon Lords, The Celestials, The Stargone and the Lost Ones.  The Titans then fought for the planet.  The Demon Lords laid siege to the castles of the Celestials, angelic armies astride pegasi battling bat winged dragon knights.  The Lost Ones retreated from the conflicts, hiding themselves away in dark pits, where their writhing masses replicated and created unique and mind boggling offspring. The Stargone went about filling the world with fantastical beasts of their own imagination, and making the world beautiful like them. 

The Wars of the Titans are long and vast, and can explain the longstanding conflicts of the mortal races today, and in fact how many of the mortal races came into being. 
The first race to be born were the giants, and the dragonborn.  In a duel between Harkor the Dragon, and Ivan the Great, the ground shook.  Ivan’s giant bow launched massive arrows that struck Harkor, causing the massive fiend’s scales to fall to the ground, where they rose as dragonborn, dragons, and kobolds.  Harkor sent seven massive spears of energy to strike Ivan, and his sizzling blood erupted across the ground, where it struck seven places.  Each drop of blood sired a giant, a giant akin to the kind of spear that struck Ivan.  This battle ended in a stalemate, as the two Titans promised a truce to protect their creations. 

Another fatal combat was the battle between the Lost One Goarius, a hundred armed and 50 eyed terror that slunk through the ground like a pit of snakes, before he was hunted by a Celestial, the angelic archer Beiyyord.  The monstrous Goarius was lured by Beiyyord into a massive valley, where Beiyyord then fired at him mercilessly.  Goarius would not be defeated so easily, and ripped Beiyyord’s wings off with his many arms, and split himself into 50 pieces, the terrifying Beholders who shied away from the outside world, all inheriting the paranoia that Goarius so rightly earned in his last moments.  From the angelic archers wounds poured fresh blood, and knowing that he hadn’t long, he made a deal with a passing Stargone, who promised to use his body and blood to create something beautiful.  The Stargone’s name was Jynna, and she crafted the elven race from Beiyyord’s body. 

The Mighty Four armed Demon Lord Farin had just begun to construct himself a fiery castle atop a mountain, when Ivan led a troop of Giants to attack the mighty devil.  The demon would not be put out of his hard earned fort so easily, and he led a troop of batwinged horrors into the fray.  Ivan once again was wounded, this time his arm cracked and was severed thanks to the demon’s mighty greataxe and warhammer.  This arm, and bone fell into a boiling lake of metal, and from it small figures rose, Dwarves who took up arms to aid the devil who had brought them freedom from Ivan’s body.  Farin then left his children his mountain keep, and they became his blacksmiths. 

One of the final combats resulted in the terrible Orcs, and the even more destructive race of Humanity.  This battle was between Zorof the mightiest of the angelic knights and the betrayer of celestials Vinalin.  This battle, between Dark angel and Celestial Knight raged on for months, as the two warriors dueled with weapons of light, shadow and the world was caught in a never ending cycle of rapid and blinding light, and dark unthinkable darkness.  The battle was won by Vinalin, and she forced him to craft from the blood soaked mud around them small figures.  When he had completed the task she slayed him, and his essence waas suffused into the figures, creating mankind.  She then took a small number off these new mortals and fed them on Zorof’s flesh, causing them to grow strong and brutal creating the Orcs.

Now that mortals had been created, the Titans used them for their own gain.  Leading armies of mortals into battle to slay their enemies, they fell by the thousands, and the few that remained, were warriors who could match even the Titans.  These warriors decided that they would not let the Titans rule them, and they worked together, seeing past race to become better than the Titans.  They defended their small communities, until even the Titans could see that their children would surpass them if forced to.  So the Titans bequeathed the world to their children, leaving them the secrets of their power, and left for their own realms.  Some Titans remained, living among the mortals as either enemy or friend.  But the mortals of this realm would have to figure out their future on their own.  For better or for worse.  This is the world of Dead Skies, and the Titans will return one day, so you and your mortal friends better enjoy your lives and your world, before that fateful day.

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