The Age of Divinity
No mortal dates. No reliable calendar. Only myth, fragment, and divine echo.
Before the silence, the gods walked the world.
There were Twelve, not born, not made, but present, as though they had always been and simply chose to act. Together they shaped Aethermourne: its continents and seas, its skies and depths, the bones of the earth and the breath of the wind. Creation was a shared labour, and for an age beyond counting, The Twelve maintained their work in concert.
The Twelve and Their Domains
The gods were not abstract forces. They were entities, vast, alien, and present. Mortals lived in their shadows, built temples at their feet, and sometimes spoke with them face to face. The young civilizations of humans, elves, dwarves, and a dozen other ancestries grew under divine stewardship, guided and at times ruled by avatars that walked among them.
The Empyrean Accord
To govern their interactions and prevent divine conflict from scouring the mortal world, the Twelve established the Empyrean Accord, a compact of divine law, unwritten but absolute. It defined the boundaries of each god’s domain and forbade the theft or consumption of another’s essence. For uncounted millennia, it held.
The Aetheric Web
Nethys, Goddess of Magic, wove the Aetheric Web, a continent-spanning network of ley lines that channelled raw magical energy through the world like blood through veins. Every spell, every enchantment, every whisper of arcane power drew from the Web. It was her masterwork, and it bound the world’s magic into an ordered system.
The Loom of Fate
Orenthas, God of Time, maintained the Loom of Fate, a metaphysical construct beyond mortal comprehension, said to weave the destiny of all living things. Orenthas alone could read the Loom’s patterns. He spoke rarely, but when he did, his words were prophecy.
The Seeds of War
The Accord did not fail all at once. It was eroded.
Kaevroth, God of War, grew restless within his domain. War alone was not enough, he hungered for dominion itself. In secret, he whispered to Vorrhyn, God of Chaos, whose nature chafed against any compact, and to Serith, Goddess of Shadow, who had always resented the light the other gods cast. Together, they formed the Triumvirate of Ruin, an alliance hidden behind millennia of smiles and silence.
The first violation was quiet. Kaevroth consumed a fragment of Thalvor’s divine fire, not enough to weaken the Forge-God noticeably, but enough to prove it could be done. The Empyrean Accord was broken, and the other gods did not yet know.
By the time they understood, it was too late.
Next: The Age of Ash