A Brief Legend of Everything

The Title really says it all. This is a brief legend of how my (still developing) fantasy world came to be. Touches on many of the key points of the world, but only just.

Before there was anything; before humanity, before the Continent, before the planet, before time and space themselves; there was a single, solitary being: The Creator. Despite what you may have been made to believe, it took the Creator many, many tries to get our universe correct. The creation of a universe is infinitely complex, from building time and space, to setting into motion events whose effects will not be felt for millennia, to devising the laws of the nature that would eventually grow.

            The Creator slaved over his universe for eternity, before finally destroying it, utterly and completely, to start again from scratch. This was His way for an eternity of eternities, until he created the universe in which we, today, live. This time would be different. For this time, he would have help. And so the Creator built the first Sentinels, and with them the Schools of Magic, although not how we know either of them today.

            Eleven Sentinels, then referred to as the Heralds of the Creator, held dominion over the eleven Schools of Magic: The Elemental Schools of Fire, Ice, Terra, and Air; The Balance Schools of Shadow, Light, Life, and Death; and what would come to be known as the Lost Schools of Energy, Time, and Space. The Sentinels, or rather the Heralds, themselves, were built to resemble massive, winged lizards with abilities and appearances befitting their individual realms of dominion. These were the first dragons, from which all others were born or descended.

            At first, the Heralds did their work admirably; oversaw their realms to the best of their abilities; kept peace and solved problems where they arose. In time, however, a number of the Heralds grew envious, jealous, resentful, of the Creator and the power He held. The Heralds became divided; those for the Creator and those against him. In the defense of the Creator, the former created the Kentaran race, torsos of men fused with the bodies of animals, while the latter created the Lupin, a race of massive, fearsome wolfmen to help them defeat the Creator.

            And so war waged. For a century. For two. Three. All the while the Creator merely studied his creations, his creations’ creations, and then their creations in turn. At a point, the Creator was forced to intervene. The Heralds and their armies had made the world into an eternal battlefield. At a point, the Creator realized that this conflict must come to an end and, for all His power, He saw no natural end in sight.

This universe, however, He did not wish to destroy, for, over the eons of its existence, despite the wars waged and the lives lost and the travesties committed, He had grown fond of it. Instead, he ripped the magic of the Heralds from their draconic forms, an event which later came to be known as the Shatter, and cast the scaled husks into a new dimension, the Burning Hells, created solely to hold the draconic vessels of the formal Heralds and their most devoted followers. This single action would reverberate around the world for eons, for it created the Sentinels as we know them today: the divine good of the universe; roaming sentient powers capable of holding complete dominion over certain aspects of the world, though not without a host to wield them; and the Ancient Ones: the divine evil, the first dragons, cast into the Burning Hells to rot for all eternity.

In addition to this, the Creator built the Continent for his Heralds’ creations. To the Kentarans, he gave lush jungles and bountiful oceans in the south, while sealing the Lupin race in the frigid north by raising a nigh unpassable range of mountains, not as punishment, but because he knew that they could survive, thrive even, in the harsh climate. And, as a middle point between the two still-volatile races, He created the Ki’Lumin and human races, to be led by those named Arcane, to be gifted affinities for every School of Magic.

In the millennia since, the world has prospered and decayed and prospered again more times than one can count. In that time, the Ancient Ones tried once to escape their chains. Although ultimately failing, they left another irreversible mark on this world, among which resulted in the creation of the Glass Fields of Lo Ki’Lumin.

In more recent centuries, the Sentinels, as well as the Schools of Energy, Time and Space, disappeared from the world without a trace, although magic still persists on the Continent, in the lives of its inhabitants as well as in nature.

To end this tale, I will leave you with a mystery that has haunted the Continent’s scholars for time immemorial. No one, not even I, your trusty, all-knowing, nonexistent narrator, knows the whereabouts of the Creator. So far as anyone knows, there has been not a single piece of a clue of a sign of His continued existence since the Shatter. Perhaps His actions finally made the end of him. Perhaps he watches over us still, remaining utterly impartial. Or, perhaps, he merely wishes to be left alone…

Author's Note

I plan to post these little tidbits periodically so if you're interested keep an eye out. As always. all constructive criticism, comments, questions, concerns, are greatly appreciated. Also, the idea behind writing this was, in addition to just to help me build out my world further, to get others curious about the world, so be sure to let me know if there's anything you'd like my to expand on and maybe even give its own story. And most importantly, thanks for reading, all!