The Creation Myth
This is an ancient and magical world, whose history is only known from the perspective of those whose sages yet live to tell of it.
What is known is this: In the beginning, the world was young and vibrant, ruled by the Primals, chaotic forces of nature too powerful to imagine. From these first titans were birthed the elementals, creatures far beyond the simple fragmented spirits of today who bear the name. The children of titans were nameless, faceless entities, primordial forces of deific power. They were the First Ones.
The First Ones brought order to the world. They gave it shape, form, and meaning. When their world was complete, they brought forth children to live upon it, to continue the evolution of life. These were the Dragons, born of air and sea; they were truly colossal beings compared to the fading remains of their race that still walk and fly.
The dragons were made of the world, and lived to protect and preserve it. This responsibility gave them the privilege to tame it and call it their own.
But not all of the First Ones agreed on this point. There were those whose nature rebelled against the peace and stillness the new age of order had wrought. They conspired in the darkness to create a new race, one who would wrest from the dragons the unworthy power they wielded. This new race, born of earth and fire, were the Giants.
The dragons were mighty beyond all but their predecessors, but they did not have the cunning of the giants. The new race built weapons, formed armies, and dwelt in mountain fortresses the dragons could not easily penetrate.
The two races battled for eons, and the world suffered for it. Both laid claim to all that saw the light of day, and all the earth beneath; neither would suffer the other to live.
And here’s where accounts differ somewhat.
The prevailing view is this: that the Goddess, an as-yet nameless entity distinguished by her love of all live, her intolerance of any death or destruction, willed into being a new race, one who would reclaim the purpose of the dragons, who would renew the evolution of life. This race...was the Elves.
They were so small, they evaded the notice of the colossal beings who clashed above them. What they lacked in stature, they made up for a hundredfold in spirit. Their gift was magic; their wills could rearrange the earth and the sky in the same manner that the dragons’ and giants’ mighty limbs could.
The elves warred, defeating the mightiest of both dragon and giant, putting them out of the misery into which they had needlessly thrust themselves. Both races were forever diminished by their conflict, though not destroyed.
The dragons were wise; they saw the advantage of the elves. They diminished their might, but empowered their spirits, and mastered the magic of fire. They learned language and took names, and even, in time, came to work occasionally in peace with the elves.
The giants were too proud ever to evolve, so their makers forged a new race from them. They whittled down their forms, like sculptors, leaving the cunning, the proud hearts, and the affinity for stone and earth. This new race was the Dwarves.
A new age dawned, an age of elven majesty. In their enlightenment, they brought knowledge and nature’s blessing to all who accepted peace with them. Those who foolishly warred with them were rebuffed. The dwarves, in their pride, could not accept elven wisdom, and waged war after futile war.
In time, there came a new race. This race was not born of earth or sky, but from the sea. They came in great ships, from another world, with their strange ways and strange looks. They resembled elves and dwarves but were neither. This new race was the race of Man.
Conflict was inevitable. The three races warred, and stirred even the interests of dragons and giants. Each war was more brutal than the last. As had gone with the dragons and giants before, so now, it seemed, it would happen again.
Until the four Wise Ones met to declare a truce. They saw that war was futile, and an aberration in the sight of the Goddess. They decided to build a city, a foundation for a sustained peace between their people.
It was built upon a holy elven site, Min’tallath, a place said to be sacred to the goddess Mayath. It is at the heart of the Moroeth, or Morrowood, an alpine forest in a frozen land.
The foundation and walls were built of stone, by the greatest dwarven masons, to withstand the mightiest of assaults, and the ravages of the ages.
The dragons called forth the Sacred Flame, an ever-burning fire in the core of the earth, to keep the city warm, and to symbolize the need for limitless patience, wariness, and resolve in keeping the city and its dream alive.
The Men named it Oathkeep. The other races honor the name, but most elves still refer to it as Min’tallath, as if to say that the site’s significance to the elves precedes, and will ultimately succeed the city, and thus its importance supercedes the city’s own. Typical.
Dwarvish View of History
The above account is not the gospel, even among all elves.
Dwarves disagree on their makers. They don’t mind that their gods are seen as warlike or cunning; they simply refute that their makers were somehow a minority, a splinter faction from the main group. In their histories, the giants were a very intentional project of the gods, an improvement upon their previous work.
The giants’ flaw was their pride. They were too great, too big, and their heads were too full of rocks and hot air. They failed to defeat the dragons, not out of inferiority, but out of hubris.
The dwarves were the natural evolution, a better version of giants. Each giant became many dwarves. Each dwarf had powers and responsibilities, and he carried them out for the good of the whole. The pieces of the whole acted in concert, none bigger than the others; even the King was only a servant of his people, and he carried the greatest burdens of any.
Where giants had pride, dwarves have humility. They know their place, and they take pride only in their service to the clan. Only the clan as a whole can have the pride of a giant, because they works they can do rival that of giants.
In their history, elves were presumptuous and arrogant, starting wars over foolish matters of superiority. Dwarves can stomach insults to their size, their wit, even their odor; no self-respecting dwarf would kill over an insult. But the elves pushed too far, demanding to be considered superior in all ways, as if they owned all the world, and gave graciously the parts they did not want to the dwarves who acknowledged it.
Dwarves are stout and humble folk. It is not like a dwarf to brag of his accomplishments. On the contrary; a compliment to a dwarf or his kin is always diminished or rejected, for it is too great an honor. A dwarf will always elevate others over himself.
Where some are confused on this matter is the immense pride, sometimes vastly exceeding reasonable limits, in the accomplishments of his clan, and the great ones who came before him. Within dwarven society, it is always acceptable to laud the accomplishments of others; when a dwarf is talking to other races, this can sound like bragging about dwarves.
Thus, an argument with a dwarf will often involve lengthy accounts of the unreasonable heroics of that dwarf’s ancestor, and the might of his or her clan. This sounds, rightly, like oafish bragging, and has been the cause of more than one diplomatic incident.
The Dragons’ Account
Dragons see the world very differently. They have a special relationship with their gods. They are the same gods all other races worship, but they have very different names and personalities. In their history, they are often harmonious with their gods one moment and adversarial the next. Few can decipher the greater order in their tales.
They do not disagree with the elven account of history, for the most part, but they claim that very much is left out. Asking a dragon what that might entail, and usually they will just get a far-off look in their eye and wander off.
Their chief points of contention, what few they are willing to voice, is that all the gods were united in their various plans, whether to create the dragons or the giants, or in the meaning or intent of their creations.
They speak often of mysterious too great for the other races to comprehend, that they are not ready for such information.
This is, of course, very infuriating to most non-dragons.
The Giants Who Remain
Few giants yet live, and they are not truly worthy of the name. Still, among their ranks, there are those considered “greater” and “lesser”; the latter are mere brutes, but the former are cultured and wise. They live in fortresses atop mountains and clouds, as their great ancestors once built, and speak of a very different history.
In their account, there were two worlds. All gods were once one, but some fell prey to their power and became base creatures. They devolved into dragons; mighty beasts with no real intelligence.
While, in the world of the wise gods, were of course the Giants hail from, all was prosperous and peaceful, there were those who realized that, to truly espouse their principles, they must go forth, risking life and limb, to bring order and peace to the other world.
And so they did. They walked across the Great Sea, as their stature permitted, bearing hammers of war and tablets of wisdom.
They did battle with the dragons, to beat them into submission long enough to attempt to bring wisdom upon them. It would not be easy or swift, but they were patient.
So great was their intent, so noble their sacrifice, that they persevered, despite knowing that victory would cost them everything. The fury of the dragons drained their might, diminishing them, and causing some to lose their minds and forget the wisdom of their gods.
In the end, they were successful; the dragons of today are the wisest of creatures, and the giants consider them their equals. Of course, elves, dwarves, and men rank somewhere beneath that high mark.
In their history, elves, men, and even dwarves are all outsiders. All came from elsewhere, so long ago that they forgot, and made up histories which placed their origin in this world.
Giants, like dragons, are an ancient and fading race. Their words are generally treated the respect and wariness of an elder, his head filled with a lifetime of wisdom, but addled with the ravages of age.