The Tree of All's page

The Nursery had been established. Long had the world lain in relative peace, after the terrors unleashed during its forging.

Yet not all were satisfied, and after the advent of the Titans, the Nursery could never truly be called "whole" again - too much bloodshed, hatred, and malice had befallen the world and the Five Peoples. Even in peace, even in acceptance, some few could and would never accept the Fourth and Fifth people.

Beyond that, there were even true monsters that the Shadow Titans and their followers had created. Vile things that lurked in the depths, able to twist the minds and hearts of all but the First People, and sowed filth and corruption in their wake, seamlessly blending among the populations of the Second, Third, and Fourth. These Predators blended and sowed corruption, reveled in chaos and terror and death, and stole and ate the children and mates of these people.

Effectively, these "Predators" are gestalt <insert hag here> and doppleganger, with the shadow, fiendish, and amphibeous templates with the light blindness weakness. Additionally, any may well have one of the ogrekin, mana wasted mutant, mutant creature, or mutant goblin templates; regardless of whether or not they have one of those templates, they all retain one of the drawbacks from the first three (in addition to any template they might take) randomly assigned, and one oracle curse of their choice. They retain a hag's ability to create and join covens, and any of them might gain the haunted one template at any time. Left un-discussed here, they were created by the servants of the shadow titans for the purpose of allowing fiendish spirits to possess them. Now that fiends are banished... other things can. Though biologically "female", they are hideous and deformed, incapable of siring life on their own. The rituals that transform their daughters into them make them vaguely akin to Lovecraftian Deep One mythos-like things. They are not, however, Lovecraftian, despite the deep-seated potential for such "weird horror" stories, if needed.

Because of these horrors, and because of the distrust and strife created between the Second and Third peoples and the Fourth and Fifth peoples, and because of their own distrust and wariness, a new "Hidden Grove" of the First Peoples gathered and held a great Moot in secret. This "Hidden Grove" was of like-minded people who had come to enlightenment enough to believe for evil had infected the nursery, and they did not believe it could be contained. It was spurred by the appearance of two new kinds of people.

First, in some few, the Second and Fourth people came to one another, and fell in love, and blended their lines. The seedless unions produced a new people. These were called the "darfellan" or "terrible secret". These new children terrified both the Second and the Fourth people - many were frightened by the sudden differences, curious elements both dissimilar and like their parents. When several had been slain by groups of neighbors believing the Shadow had returned, and their parents destroyed for engaging in "conspiracy", several of the First People gathered all those of the Second and Fourth who were lovers, and their children, and guided them to a remote location, secreted away from the worlds.

Second, and around the same time, it was discovered that the Predators were creating daughters with the first three people. These daughters were innocent, but, when discovered, were terrifying, and were very susceptible to the power of the Predators. They were killed rapidly and quickly by their own parents and neighbors when discovered. The bhuta of many spread rapidly, making them even more unpopular. These "Changelings" were seen as another attempt by the Shadow Titans to destroy and sunder the Five Peoples, and cause chaos and strife and death. They were rejected and hated.

It was for both of these reasons that the Hidden Grove of the First People held their Moot, and quietly undertook steps to claim all of the Darfellan and their parents, to claim all of the daughters of the Predators, place all of these in remote locations and hidden places for their protection; and to hunt the Predators before their daughters could be claimed and transformed. Though very successful, the Hidden Grove could not find all the Darfellans, Changelings, or Predators. Further, their hidden places were becoming ever-more-endangered of discovery and attack; as the populations slowly grew, they could not imprison either the Changelings or Darfellans. Tensions grew and, though the Hidden Grove was mighty, and more often than not successful, they were fewer than the Predators, who began to become organized in response to the Hidden Grove's successful hunts.

It was with the loss of a great Barrier Island filled with Darfellans and Changelings - the largest, most integrated, and most successful colony - by organized Predators striking back to claim their daughters, that the Hidden Grove came to a decision. Contacting some few of the darker elements of the Fourth People (but not those who were entirely corrupt or devoted to the shadow titans) who still maintained the paths to Shadow, they gathered all those whom they had defended from all of their secret places, and ushered them out of the Nursery altogether, placing those they brought away in stasis with the aid of the Fourth People's magic and alchemy.

Gaining the assistance of a purified Titan and her entire host of devoted petitioners who sought more redemption, the Hidden Grove, and an enormous and powerful mercenary faction of Fourth People (the faction was named Aelfar, or "dark guardians") carefully stole through the shadow realms; thus was the Exodus born.

The Exodus' journey was a hard and long, and many of the Hidden Grove and the Aelfar fell to the horrors of the darkness... but at last, they arrived at a place where Shadow and Chaos intersected and their borders thinned. With the help of the Hidden Grove, the Titan opened a portal, and the Exodus entered the realms of impossibility. There, the First Artist itself, having watched permissively during its children's decisions, gave his guidance and blessing to the Exodus, creating a great seed from the chaos there... but explaining that there was no victory over the evil they fought without sacrifice, and that they lacked the same power as the Tree of All. The Tree of All was willing to do this for them, but would also allow them to create their own world, if they so chose... despite the cost.

The Exodus held a moot to determine their course. In the end, it was decided that the Titan, her company, and the Hidden Grove understood and agreed to the sacrifice, deciding to do what had never been done before: make a world of their own, without the direct hand of the Tree of All. Some few of the Aelfar would remain behind to guard those they'd come so far to protect and nurture. The First Artist, seeing all the struggles that would come, but also understanding the science, agreed.

All the remaining members of the Hidden Grove produced as many seeds as they could (a small number, to be sure), and combined their power with that of the Titan, while most of the Aelfar did the same, pouring themselves, their life force, and their spirits into creating a new world - the Studio.

With the creation of the Studio, the last of Exodus - those Changelings and Darfellan (and their parents) in stasis, and the remaining members of Aelfar, and the seeds of the Treants - entered, and became the first People of the new world. Aelfar oversaw the tending and growth of those who first woke...

Unfortunately, due to alchemy and magic, woke with few, if any memories of who they had been, or where they had come from. With intent to keep them safe, the last members of the Aelfar kept the truth from them, writing the truths down and sealing them away, in case they were needed in the future, but to prevent the foolish from seeking wickedness in the present.

The last of the Aelfar bred with the few remaining Second and Fourth people - here called Nixies and Drow - and the many (and quick-breeding) Changelings and Darfellan. In so doing, these races and peoples effectively disappeared from the world, blending to become the Phaollk.

Note: it may be questioned why, precisely, the Phaollk arose instead of more Darfellan and Changelings. This was a matter of great and serious debate among the few Aelfar drow that persisted the longest. The shortest and most comprehensible answer they could come up with is that something about the nature of this new world, combined with second-generation Changeling traits, and lingering side-effects from the long alchemical-magical stasis - perhaps even with strange effects from the chaos beyond - did not permit the same sort of blending. Instead, the children of Changelings from these mixed pairings became either Changelings, or the Phaollk. Certainly, the Phaollk were weaker than their Drow forebears. In the end, it is a mystery to those in the world. A very select few know the truth: the theories of the Aelfar were almost correct; in those first, wild days, the damage done by chaos and long storage alchemy and magic would have made the Aelfar and Changelings entirely infertile, and the Aelfar would have no descendants at all, so the remnant of spirits of the sacred dead - those petitioners who had traveled with their Titan master - sacrificed even their vestigal existence to permit the continuation of the life force of the Aelfar

The Aelfar and their Phaollk descendants tended the seeds of the Hidden Grove of the First Folk - here called Treants - and carefully brought up the children of their allies who'd sacrificed all, and growing with them into prosperity and grace.

And so the world became: the Phaollk lived among their Treant "brethren" among the lands and forests, the Darfellan spread to and through the waterways, and the Changelings moved between them as the mediators and traders of the world.

Changelings are always "naturally" biologically female. However, they not only have the ability to change their forms (and thus physical gender) at will, they may also mate with either Phaollk or Darfellan of either gender. Daughters born by Changelings' partners are Changelings 50% of the time. All other children are entirely dependent upon the shape the Changeling was in when she mated with the other. If she was in the racial form of her mate, the child will be the same race as the mate. If she was in her natural form, or something akin to it, the child will be a Changeling. Changelings can take "male" forms, and thus can mate with their own kind. Otherwise, it seems, there is no child. Changelings generally control their fertility with fair accuracy (they cannot make themselves pregnant just by willing it, but they can make themselves fertile and ovulate on-command, or sterile at will, though they will still go through a period if female, fertile, then not fertile), and no longer seem to make hybrids. Whatever quirk of their original genetics prevented racial stability has seemed to have been bred out by now.

With their ancient secrets sealed away, and their descendants and allies' descendants well-established and free from immediate racial threat, and the mission of saving the Changelings and Darfellan accomplished, the Aelfar were, generally, content to fade away.

Though well-made, the Studio was not as perfectly crafted as the Nursery, and so with the fading of the Aelfar came a great frozen age, where the races abandoned many of their old habitats and were separated and scattered. But it was good - for the secrets of the Exodus and Aelfar were buried under ice and snow.

Of course, as is the way of secrets, that which is hidden cannot be forever. Some of the ancient information, resources, and outposts hidden by the long-lost Aelfar were eventually found.

After many years - even centuries - during the time when the ice was receding, a group of exploratory Changelings - an ever-adaptable, curious, and creative people - discovered some of the frozen ancient secrets, buried under the deep ice and snow in the frozen north. Though much was irreparably lost or ruined, they discovered enough to learn an appreciation for digging, and from there, metal, stone, and other advanced building materials, and a process called a "Research Process" - a formalized and systematic approach to experimentation - by which new knowledge was gained and solidified.

What's more, ancient texts referred to "the Five Races" in "Ages before Time Began" and the purpose of these races: to guard aspects of reality from evil.

The Changelings who discovered this, and their allies - large community of industrious and hardy Phaollk who lived nearby in frozen southern regions - not only built off of the discoveries made, but freely shared them with the world.

This changed everything.

The explosion of knowledge and technology arising from applying the Method was intense and profound. Quickly new resources were discovered - elements and substances long deemed worthless suddenly became invaluable, and various reactions and processes long ignored suddenly found immense utility.

Devices were crafted capable of far outperforming even the mightiest of beasts, made impossible tasks trivial, and made the unimaginable the everyday.

Lines of steel and wood charged with electrical current crossed the world, as steam and smoke pushed enormous wagons of metal across the slowly thawing world. Cities were built of stone grown from the world around it and reinforced with living wooden supports, lines of metal wrapped in arcane substances carrying lightning - and thus power and information - across the world faster than the eye could blink. Fire was replaced with control over the air itself, and seemingly limitless resources were gently nudged forth from the unexplored depths of the earth. Disparate peoples - those who'd been separated for so long, they no longer knew there were others - were connected, and reached, and became known to all.

Civilization was expanded. Civilization was established. Civilization was Revolutionized.

The revolution was not embraced with open arms by all. Most of the treants, long the guardians of the green and plants with whom they shared such kinship, found the revolution horrid and foresaw great trouble and limited resources being stripped to nothing in a mad and greedy rush. A number of Phaollk sided with their long-standing "brethren" and the Phaollk society - never monolithic to begin with - was further fractured along ideological lines - some advocating the "slow path" to truth, others the "fast track" to it, and other still some balance between the two.

The Darfellan people, despite being scattered and varied, mostly responded in the same way: limited interest to disinterest. While some few embraced the new ways, the majority simply accepted that, much like the tide, it would come when it would, and neither rushing nor resisting would work well. To this day the Darfellan are found to be relatively laid back in their attitude toward the Technological and Methodical Revolution, and are often slow to accept new things, but putting forth little resistance (if any) when they do. This attitude was (and remains) aided by the fact that few of the revolutions are specifically tailored to aquatic environments they call home. Nonetheless, a few of the Darfellan split along the lines of the Phaollk - some becoming avowed devotees, and some becoming staunch opponents.

The Changelings were, perhaps, the most divided in their responses. According to their nature, they blended into many different societies - it was impossible to categorize how a given Changeling might respond. It was this individuality and personalized response that, ironically, gave Changelings their poor reputation among the rest of the races, despite the rest of the races most often desiring their services and allegiance. Though untrue, Changeling loyalty was considered as adaptable as their form, and they have had suspicious glances cast their way ever since.

War, strife, and division began to plague the Peoples - some had been separated for so long, they found it unnatural to be together with others, while others found it impossible to remain apart.

The Ideology had caused knowledge and power and unity to flourish, but also fractured and drove apart. Families were rent. Love was lost. Blood was shed.

Though none can say what the true first bloody conflict was, it is popularized that it occurred on the exotic South East Coast. Legend holds, that what started as an argument over the rights of Treant farmers, Darfellan hunters, and Phaollk miners, with Changeling negotiators (contracted to mediate peace and represent the various parties) turned into a minor physical scuffle between the Darfellan and Phaollk. When (at the behest of the Changelings) the Treants got involved, the scuffle turned into a brawl. When all but one of the Changelings quietly slipped away, the brawl turned into an all-out battle. The only death, legend holds, was a Changeling... but each party accused the other. With no mediators, the lines were drawn, and war was met (and the Changelings, according to conspiracy theorists, were behind the whole thing).

While this is generally accepted as a fable, none can argue that some of the earliest and most shocking violence of the whole Revolutionary War did, in fact, start in the South East, among the exotic fields, hills, rivers, beaches, waves, swamps, and trees there - a perfect cluster of things to fight over.

Regardless of where it started, it quickly spread. The world was too connected and too intimately tied together for it to be merely a local problem. Though disorganized, and highly dispersed, that it was a War in all but Formal Declaration is undeniable.

It was during this that, regardless of the ideological divide, true nations began to emerge, definitive governmental divides between neighbors consisting of groups of cities and regions - once independent city-states and largely unaffiliated individual settlers - gathering together to produce a single, organized front.

The Revolutionary War lasted for over three centuries. During this time of conflict, in unknown places, the idea of the Processional began. A vaguely religious set of tenets, affirming faith that the Process would lead to Perfection and Truth, the Processional quickly took hold of those who were pro-Revolutionary in thought and idea, becoming a mantra and ideology to cling to.

Similarly, during this time, the religious conceit of Tyrraatism - the concept that the world was a living, breathing thing, made of the bodies, souls, and spirits of all who've gone before, and thus deserving of worship and honor - became a kind of mantra for the anti-Revolutionary groups.

Several other important religious congregations emerged during this time - notably the Cyclical (where cycles happen continuously, focusing on reincarnation; it is, itself, divided into plethoras of competing sub-religions arguing over the "true" Reincarate Order), Finitism (a destructive philosophy devoted to "the end" of everything, with an end-goal of "peace"), Naturalan (an extremist form of Tyrraatism, in which only those "natural" things are permitted), Transformism (the Optimist/Pessimist janniform philosophy of the inevitability of altering the world to match your ideals, including the body, soul, and spirit), Traumatism (the belief that only through Trauma can enlightenment be reached), and Xenosticism (really more of a vast collective of conflicting beliefs relating to alien and often un-provable creatures and thoughts) - but none achieved as massive a support as the Processional or Tyrraatism, and many of those hold either the Processional or Tyrraatism (or, in a few rare cases, both) as over-arching or addendum religious or philosophical conceits.

Of course, soon a new religious discovery would be made - a discovery that would cause tension and strife, unification, and chaos. A discovery that would end the war, but resolve none of the tension that caused it.

What was discovered was a Voice, called the One, unlike any seen in the world before, and more ancient than any could imagine.

In the Revolution, and even throughout the world, magic was just as methodically researched via the Method as much as anything else, and in the city now called Founder, it was researched along side the ancient texts, themselves poured over for every last scrap and clue, seemingly almost oblivious to the world-wide destruction caused by the initial discoveries and cultural and social push.

It was in this exhaustive Learning that it was discovered that there was something beyond reality: information, and, perhaps, clues to the origin of everything. The information was sought with the power of some of the greatest casters and learned sages the world over. Together, spells were researched and developed, successfully, ultimately pooling resources and power and generating the ability to Contact... something.

When Contact was, at last, made, what was heard was a - no the - Voice, a power so ancient and unfathomable that it was referred to only as the One.

Onism - the first active religion to serve a singular godlike entity beyond Tyrraatist's reverence of the world itself - was founded, and worship of the One, the Machinist, the Order, was taken up.

The One, the Voice, the Architect, the Machinist, or the Order: a godlike entity and a metal-element bio-mechanical Primordial who melded with a redeemed Titan, who's primary interests are control, information, order, perfection, and process (and many various meanings thereof). The size of an enormous planet, but far more complex, within the One reside the axiomites (their Gestalt Godmind technically a superior of the One, though the One outranks all of the axiomites and all other residents together otherwise), the formians (creations of the One), and the Inevitables (the militant hand of the One). The One also is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the preponderance of Aeons. The One arose significantly after the Tree of All, and is, hypothetically, a devoted foe, however its foreknowledge, understanding, and enlightenment is such that it understands the futility and ultimate failure of any sort of extended conflict with the Tree of All; as a result, they effectively have a truce of non-interference. For its own part, the First Artist not only does not hate the One, but greatly respects it and (mostly) trusts its judgement for the care and maintenance of an ordered reality amidst the chaos, as the Architect is correct (if dispassionate) in most of its judgments; instead the Tree of All hopes to (subtly) assist it on its path to Perfection and mastering the secrets of the Seven-fold Enlightenment, at which point they will both be as One, and the One's name will (effectively) become even more accurate.

Contact with The One once again revolutionized the world. Though contact was not wide-spread, and much of it confusing and nearly incomprehensible, and most of their origins remained undetermined secrets, many inhabitants of Studio embraced the new religion nonetheless, and, in so-doing, learned much of themselves and their world, and even managed to open seals to allow the servants of the One to enter it. Believing the Architect's servants to be the missing Fifth race, they had sought the permission - which was granted - to return that which was thought "lost". Unfortunately, as the Machinist had warned (though the inhabitants of Studio had not understood), the servants were unable to function properly, or even maintain cohesion, merely collapsing to base parts upon their entrance.

When this occurred, the devoted few, descendants of those who'd originally made the first contact, began a concerted effort to put the pieces back together again, seeing the loss of such as a puzzle to be solved by the Process, hoping to gain insight into Perfection through doing so.

What they got instead, was a Modron. With no true understanding of what or why the creatures existed or functioned, and only a most rudimentary understanding of how creatures functioned in general, when the Onists who sought to bring the One's followers back by restoring their parts, they simply came to the wrong (if entirely logical) conclusions. Placing parts of one creature within another, filling the gaps with parts of a third, and putting the parts they did have in the wrong order - but in ways they all fit together - the Onists accidentally built a new creature.

When the first creature returned to life, it was hailed as a miracle of the Process and the One. When it turned out to be confused, ignorant, and uncertain - lacking any sort of divine insight or purpose - it was supposed that they simply had to make more of them. By the time a sufficient number had been "restored" (really "created") and no divine insight was forthcoming, the Onists hit a crisis of faith.

A number of Onists fell away from the faith, leaving the failed experiments, the garbled messages, and the wasted lives in the worthless Project, and spread their rejection of Onism and the Processional to many of their fellow faithful as they left the North across the world.

But others became convinced that this was only another step in the test, and these ardent devotees vowed to aid the Modrons to recover their purpose - the Modrons, they explained, were the Fifth Race, the final Guardians of the world, sent by the One itself! With solid proof of their faith made real - and with the Modron ability to begin self-replicating through repetition of the process taught them by the Onists - many former disbelievers and even ardent anti-Processionals came to view their previous disbelief as mistaken.

Onism rose sharply in a number of circles once on the fence or even opposed to the idea... as did Finitism in a number of communities on all sides, finding the broken, confused Modrons as the ultimate "proof" that, while the One exists, it was malevolent and spiteful.

Meanwhile, the Modrons struggled to find their place in a world that alternately views them as miracles-made-real and a source of hope and honor, the ultimate proof that there was no purpose, or evidence that reality is meaningless and the One is ultimately malevolent.

With the influx of religious and social confusion and many switching sides, the war - at least the majority of instances of it - effectively ended, causing a simmering peace of resentment, confusion, and distrust spread across a world in doubt and turmoil.

Once there was only anarchy.

Chaos. Madness. Infinite variation. Randomness. Chance. Death.

This is the place once known as Limbo (alternatively), or the Maelstrom, Kythri, or Elemental Chaos.

There was naught but constantly emerging and presented potential, but, as the truly random is want, any potential that emerged and presented was continuously run up against (and collapsed from the pressure of) all other emerged and presenting potentials.

This is the rule of chaos without bounds.

From the infinities of chance, at a point in time that may as well be arbitrary, and before time truly started, the elements of potential gave rise to a something that had always arisen yet had simply sunk back to the depths from whence it came, swallowed in the moment of brevity, until now: order, solidity, calm, focus.

There was a place where the four elements had, in their own way, stabilized, for a time. A massive region of fire and positive energy was separated from a region of earth and water with twin fields of ether (that is akash, or void) and air between them.

It is from here that mighty being, the World Tree, first came into being. The earth was warmed by the fire, enriched by the water, and fed by the air. Reaching forth to touch the aether, the World Tree, First Wood (the very first of the Three New Elements), came into being.

He rose and stretched forth, emerging from his roots deep within the earth, breathing the air into itself, and drinking deeply of the water.

Life.

But stable is not enough within Chaos, and the whims of fate were struck once again, even within order. And so, the tree was blessed with a Soul, with a Mind, with Self-determination and the essence of Movement, and the ability to Learn and Grow and enact Change.

The tree began exploring its refuge, learning of the air, the earth, the water... and the fire. Exploring, touching, and coming to know each of these - from the earth he ate, the water he drank, the air he breathed, and the fire he warmed, and the ether a protection against excess fire - he grew wise and became. With his explorations, soon the World Tree learned that its place of birth was small - a refuge of order and life against the chaos all around him. He named his place of refuge: Garden, the place where life is nurtured.

The Tree of All pushed forth from his cocoon and experience the turmoil of reality beyond his birthplace. It was disorienting, destructive, and nearly overwhelming, but then the World Tree learned how to exert its will over the madness, and create calm and stability within.

The First Art was created, and the Tree of All became the First Creator.

There were many struggles for the Great Tree - the rise of the Primordials, the establishment of the other two New Elements (Blood and Metal), the Conflict with Nether (and the rise of the shedim or jinn and the mizzikin of those by way of qlippoth), and the organization (or discovery - it's unclear) of the Three Great Expanses, and the full Establishment of the Nursery - on his path to Enlightenment.

At the end of each, he discovered a new Secret and a new Truth, until he had achieved All. It is then that he became the World Tree and became the one who is responsible for All Creation.

The Seven Secrets of Enlightenment

• Sahasrara (Crown): Time/Space/Balance/Gravity/Cosmic/Universal/All-Elemental
  
• Ajna (Third Eye): Nether/Darkness/Shadow/Death/Poison/Black Magic
  
• Vishuddhi (Throat): Aether/Light/Life/Lightning/Electricity/Energy/Magnetism
  
• Anahata (Heart): Air/Wind/Magic/Sound/Music
  
• Manipura (Navel): Fire/Heat/Flame
  
• Svadhisthana (Sacral): Water/Ice/Snow/Steam/Fog/Mist
  
• Muladhara (Root): Earth/Rock/Nature/Soil/Metal/Wood

When the Nursery was crafted, laboriously and precisely, the First Artist ensured that it held all the traits that give birth to Life - a distant Fire separated by twin shells of Ether and Air, and a firm Earth nurtured by Water.

Having learned many lessons, and grown vast, the One Who Grows birthed within itself the First Seeds. Within these beautiful extensions of himself, he crafted the potential for great truths, and hold the seven components needed to achieve a version of his own enlightenment.

And so the First Seeds were planted in the Nursery. Time was permitted, and reality progressed, and the First People were born, and the First Grove established.

Understanding loneliness and purposelessness all too well, the First Artist gave the First Grove to each other, and gave them the First Task, which was tending and nurturing all of the plants and the lesser creatures all around them, introduced slowly in order to allow them to learn and understand.

Very quickly, however, the mizzikim learned of the Nursery and, filled with hatred and jealousy, caused mischief against the First Grove for the sake of the Tree of All. From the influence of these storms and mischief and imbalance, the First Grove found itself quickly overwhelmed. Though he cleansed the Nursery of these first mizzikin - sealing all of their shedim into a small crystalline growth, the jinn into brass taken from the ground, and casting their resulting qlippoths (now devoid of any knowledge of the Nursery) back into the chaos - The Tree of All understood that it was only a matter of time before others found and infested the world again. Thus, to the First Grove, he gave them a singular gift: the ability to reproduce, as he had done. This would allow them to slowly grow with the world, and encourage and protect it, no matter how large things grew.

The first shedim and jinn who had been captured were naturally angry and frustrated and bored - even more so as they had been mizzikin. The First Tree, in his wisdom, understood that they could not be contained forever, and should they be released even worse things might come; however, he did not hate them, and had a gift both for both the sealed shedim and jinn, and also for the First Grove. Though the Water had long nourished the land, and the Air had long given Breath, the great bodies thereof needed a protector as well. Although First People could enter water and moved through the, they were not born to either, and could not reach the great depths. Thus, the First Maker gave the crystals of shedim and brazen urns of jinn to the First Grove and gave them the task of discovering and understanding how to develop a guardians for the waves and wind.

Though it took some time, the First Grove eventually established the idea of using the element of Blood in the establishment of the new races, mixing Blood with Water and placing the the jinn urns - balanced along the seven keys to Enlightenment - within it to create the Second People and the First Tribe. At first somewhat resentful, the Second People quickly became enthralled with their new existence. As the First Grove had absorbed wisdom from the Tree of All, they understood that, as the world grew, so, too, would the need for more defenders; thus, they enabled the Second People to create more of themselves, though, to ensure they desired to do so (instead of refraining from spite), they made it desirable. Though they loved their new friends, however, the First Grove also understood the volatility of these, and left them a weakness to metal, as a reminder and a fail-safe. For friends and allies, and to help focus their purpose, the Tree of All created gifts, they were given many small creatures and new plants, the better to have things to protect.

The shedim were slightly trickier, as the more fragile of the two, and First People found it necessary to discover how to allow movement even through the Deep Air. To that end, they studied the Air and learned its properties, and the World Tree created new creatures that nested within the upper reaches of the First People and that used the Air as a method of travel. The First Grove were able to imitate these ideas, and, together, replicating their achievements of reproduction and enlightenment within this race as well, created the Third People temporary presupposition, probably slightly weakened and the First Flock.

At last, the three people were established, and the First People believed that all of Creation, every part of the Nursery was fully protected.

They were wrong.

Even as the three races continued their growth and expansion, something else was approaching the Nursery.

When the Tree of All had removed the qlippoth from the mizzikin, leaving only the shedim and jinn, he wanted to teach his Children as he had learned - through experience. And so he left it up to them to determine how to cast the qlippoth back into the chaos (a feat beyond their ability at the time, but not beyond their comprehension). And so, the First Grove considered in a great Moot, and chose to send them by the Shadow, that Great Expanse that, though sometimes filled with Nether, is also a Swift Path and a way to move quickly and easily.

The Tree of All looked an knew that Terrible Things would derive from this, but knew as well that leaving the qlippoth would result in naught but the obliteration of Nursery, and knew that the Three Peoples and the Nursery would survive the return of the Terrible Things, and be able to turn Good Things out instead.

And so he listened to his Children and cast the qlippoth through the Shadow toward the Chaos, where they sank into the depths below and intersected a grand well of Nether, and the spawning stone. This mix of nether, spawning stone, qlippoth, shadow, and malice created a source of evil and power.

It is here that some few of the most violent and destructive primordials - foes of the World Tree, all - first discovered the empty and cast-off qlippoth, and these few learned how to divide themselves and insert themselves into many of the qlippoth, becoming the obyrith.

Because time has little meaning in chaos, these obyrith used the qlippoth learned of the Nursery and of the things the Tree of All did and, in their fury and jealousy and perversity, sought to do all the First Artist had even more beyond him.

To this end, their first act was learn the power of banishment and sealing to be able to send others "away" and seal themselves deeply, but because their imitation was too thorough yet poorly made, they learned only how to banish themselves, taking darkness with them, and sealing themselves inside a brazen crystal. Unable to go anywhere but "away" they imitated the World Tree's creation of Nursery, though seeking to learn quickly how to undo all he'd made, they made time different and rapid in theirs.

The obyriths created a world of horror, and lived, grew, died, and consumed that world, passing from early to ancient to nullification all in time unlike that found in the Nursery. The Ancients became Ancient beyond comprehension, until Time itself no longer held important meaning, and madness became All.

This "place" is the source of: slaadi, the (mindless?) qlippoths, obyriths, and all of abberations. xoriat or far realm - themselves layered portions of the general obyrith 'multiverse'. Though each of these are different, the region that makes up this 'section' of the chaos is vast indeed - think "solar system" rather than "planet", within a "galaxy" for a sense of scale. Just make everything larger.

Though sealed away for "all eternity" after eternity passes, there was nothing else but to be free. And it is here that the proteans, ancient by most standards, opened the doors beyond reality to find something both far older and far younger - a realm of madness that was anathema even to anarchy.

Though the gates were closed, and the escapees warred against by the proteans, the Seal had been breached and some things slipped through in both directions. The obyriths began to crawl from the depths of their evil, and the Abyss was truly born.

The Three Peoples lived and prospered for a time.

It is then that the obyriths began to seep into the world. Having learned from the qlippoth that the Tree of All would act if they were too forward, the obyriths slithered into the world into the hidden and dark places, inhabiting the world in secret. Following the path of shadow, they found that they could not easily inhabit the air or the water or the surface - the defenders of reality were present - but deep below the surface, deeper even than the roots reached, was darkness. There, though the qlippoth they wore were still banished, they made contact. Using the nixie's curiosity, they drew their first future-converts into the deep holes of the world and into darkness. The vile things done in those depths cannot be truly spoken of, but the results are that the nixies were possessed by malevolance of the kind they hadn't known since before their race existed. Using this corruption, they used their power to draw the other race who'd left their qlippoth behind: the raptorans. There, in the darkness, the obyriths scaled the nixies and cut their webbing, removed the feathers and wings from raptorans, and injected their shadows and nether into the resulting creatures, forcibly breeding them in terrible ways, and, through violence and death, creating the Fourth Race, the first race that no longer produced by Seeds.

This new race worshiped their obyrith lords - for what else could they do? And deep below the Earth, realms of wicked debauchery reigned and were created. This corrupted, afflicted people had an affect upon their masters, however. Within their worship and reverence, the obyriths found themselves... influenced. What's more, with each death - for these creatures and their forebears tormented by the obyriths were the first Race in the Nursery to ever die (though simple plants and animals often did) - the lingering essence of these beings slowly fled through the Shadow and back to their masters, who experimented with and consumed them in debauchery similar to their worshipers. Many, however, fell through the cracks, often becoming fodder for many of the qlippoth lurking in the darkness. The qlippoth who consumed the souls eventually ruptured into larvae to became the first demons. Within these depths and wickedness, the first demon lords arose from the obyriths and who consumed the souls. The last souls - those who remained undevoured - were slowly absorbed into the Abyss itself (to become the first oozes*), escaped to the chaos to be absorbed and reborn in elemental seeds (to become the first kobolds "dragons"), or returned through the shadow (to become the first undead). A very few even escaped back into the world, becoming the first bhut.

* In this setting, all oozes have the half-fiend, anarchic, alchemically quickened, alchemically invisible, quickling, and alacritous templates. By default, these age and die off often enough of their own accord as a result. The common ones are effectively summoned/conjured by alchemical-magical experiments which they inhabit. This ooze does as well, and is composed of a swarm of itself; it is the ultimate fate of oozes in the Abyss. A few go on to become this (with the same templates as above), and the oldest are actively mythic. Note: this is terrifying. Thank you.

The madness of the obyriths followed them, however, and infested some of these their servants. Those dedicate to such maddened demon lords... remembered their history and, tapping into the madness in realms beyond the obyriths' sought out and created abominations (who, themselves, would go on to make more). Influenced by the terrible new demon lords, these servants eventually experimented on themselves, eventually creating the Fifth Race.

It is around this time that the obyriths and demon lords began overreaching.

Flushed and maddened with success, insanity, and power, the obyriths and demon lords began leading their Fourth and Fifth people to enact raids and despoil the Nursery. Though the First, Second, and Third people opposed them, the Fourth and Fifth people did things that were unknown to the First Three: kill their fellow People. To complicate matters, the obyrith slowly began to corrupt segments of the Second People, drawing them away from reverence and into wickedness. Many of those killed did not travel into the darkness, but had nowhere to go to, becoming the bhut as those who'd fled the Abyss had.

In the end, the obyriths and demon lords attempted to open gates into the world, which was when the Tree of All stepped in to stop them. Creating a Divine Seal, he forced all obyriths out, even of the Shadow, and banned the demon lords from ever entering... but, due to their transformation, the World Tree discovered they had the "right" to access the Shadow, and did not fully ban them from that place. Those that remained in the Shadow eventually changed once again, the demon lords becoming the mighty titans, the demons becoming the demondands and xacarba.

By this time, the divide between the obyriths and demon lords had become sharp - the obyriths finding the demon lords revolting. The qlippoth, too, loathed what the demons were and had become, and the two were divided and engaging in mutual slaughter. The proteans, jinn, shedim, and primordials, too, waged war against these monstrosities, disgusted by their awfulness, each finding a perversion that was too much to bear in such creatures. Even the mizzikin were unwilling to ally with such vile creatures, though they found a place for themselves by agreeing to seal the Abyss. A compact was created between all these disparate people, and the mizzikin became the jailors and torturers of the Abyssal forces, invading Shadow and creating a "lid" to "seal" away the Abyss.

The greatest of these mizzikin went by the name Mara, though later they divided under another named Angra Mainyu when many migrated to the Shadow to oppose the titanic fiends there.

The mizzikin under Mara are, in fact, the origin of the devils (and asuras) and kytons, and Hell is reinterpreted here as a "lid" on the Abyss, used to seal away the malevolence there in constant destruction and warfare. The kytons, then, become the chain and shadow devils.

During the assault on the Nursery, many of the People were Sacrificed to the Demon Lords and Titans. So many were given to certain Titans that they, too, still consuming the souls of the dead, had begun to change, taking on the qualities of those sacrificed to and consumed by them. These Titans were overcome with a curious sensation: guilt. In time, they began to act in ways unthinkable prior: they began to help the living and guide the First Three People, and even elements of the Fourth and Fifth People to peace. As the portals were being prepared to open, and before the Tree of All had yet acted, they gathered their followers, their power, and their essence and assaulted their former fellows, disrupting the rituals.

In this way, these Titans found redemption and freedom from the wickedness of their origin. Though far too anarchic to have achieved true Enlightenment, they became staunch allies of the Tree of All, and were blessed by him, and permitted to exit the shadow and enter astral sea, taking their followers with them. There, they acted to create the Lattice of Heaven, that is Elysium, and enjoyed unbridled freedom.

After all things had settled down, the bhut of the dead were restless and stuck, and so the Tree of All gave them a choice - either find a place in one of the Three Great Expanses, go to the Chaos, become new Guardians of the World, or become Guardians of the Many Worlds. Those that chose the first became the first petitioners that were not demonic. Those that chose the second became Shae or Nihiloi or Psychopomps Shadow, Hypnalis or Jyoti or Xill Ether, or Valkyrie (who would later choose Einherji) or Couatl or Kirin Astral; Chaos Beasts or various kinds of elemental creatures Chaos; or Aeons guardian of any world or Kami guardian of Nursery only.

At the end of the war, there was much bitterness and hatred between the Races for the war. And yet, the First People knew of the sacrifices certain segments of the Fourth and Fifth people, and helped the Second (those who were not corrupt) and Third people see these as allies. Though they were afraid, the Third and Fourth people who embraced the Nursery were welcomed as True People among the First Three, establishing new civilization and life in various places to help guard the world from its threats.

And so the Nursery was purified once again, the ordering of the realms was established, and the Tree of All saw his People through to survival.