The Founding of the City: Uncountable eons ago, the otherworldly Fade, beings born of Light (Radia) that journey through the Dark (Occlusion), found the plane where Hyraeatan would be built at the literal center of infinity. They built their temples and homes and delved deep into the mysteries of the cosmos.
At some point, fellow travelers of the Dark came and the Fade sung voiceless songs into the Bright Lands, the primordial home of the fey, who also journeyed to the fledgeling city. Eventually, explorers from across the planes followed suit, using the planar roads known as the Lattice. The presence of so many souls tied to the Radia caused the Occlusion to swell in power. Eventually, the darkness burst forth in a cataclysmic event known as the Primordial Shadowtide. It swept through the city, killing most of the inhabitants and leaving monstrous beings of empty darkness behind that sought to snuff out the light of those that remained.
In the aftermath, those few left behind were able to discern that the plane itself craved balance and that imbalance was what led to the Primordial Shadowtide. Calls were made to those who souls were shrouded in the Dark: fiends, practitioners of black magic, shadow dancers, and others. Balance must be maintained if the few surviving Fade were to remain within the burgeoning city of Hyraeatan.
The Circle of Six Arrive: A group of five planar explorers from a nondescript material plane made the journey to Hyraeatan. The first was the feyblooded elf princess Hyandil, who had once been to the city before in years past during her travels. Next were the vampiric twins Aphos and Aphora, who were as different as night and day, yet bound by their thirst for knowledge. Fourth was a mountain of a man named Ceradon whose search for a worthy foe brought him all over the multiverse. And last was the cold, analytical warlock Duxandus. The group encountered an old acquaintance of Hyandil's as they walked the Lattice, a druid who is remembered in history only as 'The Daughter of Ash'.
After they reached the city, the scholar-adventurers set to work attempting to unravel the mysteries of Hyraeatan. Hyandil and the Daughter of Ash studied the power of the Radia and discovered the secrets of extending one's life, the transferring of power to others, and even the power to create life itself. Aphos and Duxandus studied the power of the Occlusion and found a way to not only calm the darkness's rage, but to draw immense power from it. Aphora and Ceradon studied the motes of each type of energy, learning how to internalize or expel energy.
Emboldened by their successes, the Circle of Six called for other sages and scholars from across the planes. Despite their precautions, the Radia waxed too powerful and the Occlusion lashed out, disintegrating a large portion of the city and leaving only a deep chasm behind. It was only due to the efforts of Aphos and Duxandus that another Shadowtide did not sweep over the city.
The Rise of Parity: The Fade, not eager to have a repeat of the Primordial Shadowtide that nearly annihilated their people, met with the Circle of Six and demanded they organize their beliefs and seek a balance within the city.
Aphos and Duxandus created hordes of undead that would draw in the darkness and hold it back until a resolution could be found. As more of the living dead melted away into liquid darkness and the collective wills of the undying combined into metaphysical energy, the deep chasm not long blasted into the side of the city began to be filled with liquid darkness and eventually formed what is now know as the Sea of Shadow.
Eventually, the Fade's Church of Parity and the Six came to a resolution. The Six organized their followers and formed fourteen groups, known as Parities. Seven were devoted to the Light and Seven to the Dark. This calmed the raging energies of the plane. In this time, the Icetombs were fashioned for the dead, the crack planar explorers known as the Aethernauts were founded, massive voidships were made that flew along the energies of the Lattice, and a myriad of other leaps in progress.
The Pursuit of Immortality and Aphora's Death:Despite the life-extending magics discovered by Hyandil and the Daughter of Ash, the Six feared that they would never have enough time to discover all the secrets of Hyraeatan within their lifetimes.
Ceradon and his House of Heights began working on a process that slowly instilled a subject with the energies of the plane that would confer immortality after centuries of bathing within pure Source energy. To this end, he and his followers patiently constructed the Locus of Eternity.
Duxandus finished his research into an ancient form of lichdom from a frozen world that held the tomb of an ancient god of death. His work bore the corrupted fruit of the Ice Lich transformation and he performed it without hesitation.
Aphos, already immortal as a vampire, sought to consolidate his power by drinking the blood of the First Vampire, Kalovol. Through savagery and guile, he accomplished his goal and then assumed control over his victim's entire lineage of vampires.
Hyandil drew upon the magic of the Bright Lands and fully transformed herself into a fey, splitting her mortality off into a new creature.
The Daughter of Ash rediscovered the secret of the Phoenix Flame, an ancient power that allowed a being to consume themselves it's fire and be reborn. She made an oath to abstain from it until the last possible moment out of principle.
Aphora desired something more than just eternal life. She desired to shed her undead curse and obtain true immortality as a goddess merged with the Radia itself. She worked tirelessly to create a modified version of Ceradon's Locus of Eternity and enlisted both her Steamwalker acolytes and sages from across the planes. Nearly a decade later, she completed her work and the Locus of Pyres was created. She performed the ritual against the protests of her then-lover Ceradon and, just as it seemed her apotheosis was to occur, the energies of the device consumed her. Her death cry shattered every window within the city and a second Shadowtide rolled across the city, even more powerful than the Primordial Shadowtide eons ago.
War of the Runeweb and the Rise of the Wardens: Decades after Aphora's death, the remainder of the Six noticed a sharp decline in the Radia's power. It was discovered that runed spiderwebs and arachnid horrors were funneling the energy of the Radia through the Plane of Nightmares into the Void itself at the behest of the Veryx.
The Parity Council, headed by leaders from each of the fourteen Parities, formed a militia known as the Wardens and struck against the Veryx and their slaves. The war raged across planes for months and both sides suffered innumerable casualties. The Wardens eventually fought their way into the heart of the Runeweb's power and a young bard from the Descendants of Dream wove some of the Words of Creation into what is now known as the Song of the Dreamer. The Song severed many Veryx and their servants from the Runeweb's hivemind. Those severed from the Runeweb joined forces with the Wardens and gave Hyraeatan the second wind it needed. The war came to a close over the course of the next year.
In the years that followed, large contingents of Inevitables were summoned to keep the peace and, through their presence, oscillate the energies of the Radia and Occlusion.
The Grand Consumption: The vampire-led Parity known as the Sanguine Sovereignty lashed out at the Church of Parity. In less than two days, every Fade within the city was either slaughtered or turned into a vampire serving the Sanguine Sovereignty. Most of the priests of the Church of Parity returned to their duties, newly risen as vampires. In the time that would come, the old faith of the Church of Parity and the Cult of Aphos would blend into one. While Aphos claimed innocence in the matter, dark rumors insinuated that Aphos has planned the entire bloodbath as a way to consolidate his power at the expense of those within the city. The Daughter of Ash and her Ashborn seethed at what they viewed as a betrayal, but kept their criticisms from turning into outright violence. The Radia has stayed stable and has not suffered any massive fluctuations of power in all the years since, leading some to withdraw their criticisms against the Sanguine Sovereignty and Aphos.
The Wonder Wars: The Inevitable-spawned beings known as the Judges continued to harness the power of the Radia and began to bend it towards their research into Wild Magic and it's effects on the multiverse. Their research bore fruit and the crystal orbs of radiant power known as the Orbs of Wonder were created. The power of the Orbs was such that the fundamental laws of reality could be reshaped and remolded through the application of willpower filtered through the artifacts.
Unsurprisingly, this drew the eye of darker powers in the multiverse. The Dark Choir took notice of the power and the kyton overlords marshalled their armies to sack the city of Hyraeatan in an effort to reclaim the Orbs.
During the course of the war, many Judges were captured by the Kyton Demagogue Axajja and were tortured and twisted into Judrai and Judow, tormented creatures composed of parts from Judges, humanoids, and select parts from the kytons themselves. It was the Dark Choir's hope that these creatures would be effective saboteurs.
A few Orbs were captured by the kyton forces in the Crown's District. The power of the Orbs, when used by the Occlusion-aligned kytons, fractured time and space within the district, damage which has persisted in all the eons since.
Eventually, a Steamwalker mage went on a suicide mission into the Shadow Realm of Cognos and fused two Orbs of Wonder into an arcane bomb which leveled one of the Black Cities and wiped Axajja's entire army from the multiverse. This brazen act shattered the Dark Alliance of the Demagogues and the kytons pulled their remaining forces from the city.
The remaining Judges secreted the Orbs to various remote planes across the multiverse in an effort to restore balance to Hyraeatan. Shortly after, the kyton's twisted creations, the Judrai and Judow, were accepted back into the city and served as the counterbalance to the Judges.
Lightbringer Exodus: At the close of the Wonder Wars, Hyandil's son was cursed with vampirism and was slain soon after. His death enraged the Blossoming Queen, who confronted Aphos in the Parity Hall. When he calmly declared his innocence, Hyandil struck him and cracked his golden mask. When he smiled and claimed his innocence again, Hyandil had to be restrained and calmed by Ceradon. She agreed to let justice be brought as a result of a trial. When the verdict came back claiming Aphos' innocence, she left the city and took her Lightbringers Parity with her.
She planned for this to imbalance the plane and cause the Radia to surge and destroy Aphos, but a group of planar crusaders known as the Eternal Dawning fortuitously arrived at the last moment and took the Lightbringers' place as a Parity. The Daestari who belonged to the Eternal Dawning soon took up residence in what would be known as the Tower of Jewels.
The Moongate Wars: The Eternal Dawning worked tirelessly to fill the position of their Lightbringer predecessors. One of the most difficult tasks was manning and monitoring the ancient Latticeways. In the years that it took them to begin their duty, the Hive-Priests of Nyarlathotep had infiltrated the City of Seven Seraphs in an attempt to use the Occlusion to steal the shadow reflection of the Prime Material world of Hanar, which was essential to their master's plans.
Soon, another war broke out in Hyraeatan as the forces of the Crawling Chaos swarmed through broken Void Gates and Latticeways. The House of Heights called upon their valkyrie and Aesir allies and an army of glowing celestial heroes joined the fray and brought fulminous ruin to many of the mi-go battalions under the Black Pharaoh's command.
The Descendents of Dream sought aid in the realms of Dream and Nightmare and, oddly, entire fields of a previously-unknown race known Rhyzala grew in the streets, maturing in a matter of moments, stating that they had come from the future and that the Blooming was soon to occur. They returned just as the last forces of Nyarlothep were routed.
The Sarrosian Infiltration:The Radia's energies eventually drew the eye of the Eyes of Sarros, a group of humanoids with mirror-like skin who ruled from a realm of mirrors known as the Broken Map. The creatures, who spontaneously learn and mimic those around them, infiltrated the city at the behest of the Lords of the Mirror World.
Over time, their psychological mimicry of the citizens of Hyraeatan started to ingrain itself into their psyches and they came to care for the city they were infiltrating. they eventually revealed themselves to the Hands of Onus, betraying their masters in the name of the city they had come to belong to. The Parity Council passed resolution to grant the creature's amnesty and citizenship, an act that was met with mixed reception by the populace.
The Lightbringer Incursion: Hyandil never forgot, nor forgave, Aphos for the corruption and death of her son and the Parity Council for what she viewed as an abortion of justice. Over the years, her rage built until she could stand it no more. The Blossoming Queen returned at the head of an army of fey, behemoths, and monstrous beings known as the Tane, intent on bringing the city low and seeing Aphos burnt to ash.
The Eternal Dawning's jeweled angels were the first into battle against the fey armies, led by the Ruby Lady and the Sapphire Lady. Hyandil's army and the forces of the Seilenos Prince Maelwyn tore through many of the defenders. Duxandus took note of the threat and raised all of the city's dead in an attempt to stop the onslaught, but the dead were cut down just like the living.
In the end, the official story is that the the Parity Council managed to turn Maelwyn against Hyandil and the fey armies retreated after her defeat. Some say that the confrontation was more emotional and that Hyandil was begged by a grandchild of many generations that she never knew she had to spare the city that he loved and that she left voluntarily.
Current Time: The city has just now managed to recover from the Lightbringer's attack some seven years later. Although the city bears scars from the conflict, life has returned to normal.
