Sublimely Innocent
Everything has a history; a birth and a life, even a story. To tell the story of Gianyn we will need to go back to the beginning, before the gods, before magic, all the way back to when man began, alone. On an insignificant planet in a lonely part of the galaxy, here thrived a race of men, not the race of today but one as primitive as you would expect to find at creation.
The Northern super continent is where they were born, evolved and endured. They hunted and gathered with nature providing plentifully what was needed to out breed death. Within increasing populations, they acquired the fundamentals of human nature, self-awareness and self-preservation. They separated into tribes that eventually reached all the corners of the land and filled the spaces in-between.
They defined the world around them with superstition and mythos, explaining what they had no means of understanding by a continuous battle between the spirits of the world and the ancestors of those who came before them. Nature was the consequence of this mighty campaign with the land a direct reflection of the victor. Regardless of devotion, the burying of the dead served the same purpose, returning the body for the nourishment of the cause. Life was the test, designed to make them stronger, eliminating the weak.
Separation inspires diversity, which culls stagnation. Necessity begets greed, which drives conflict. Resources diminished as their consumption increased under the weight of swelling populations.
With a dying people, in a solitary existence, on a single piece of dirt, a new epoch of man began. In a single spark of imagination, in a thought a belief began to manifest. The heavens swirled and the essence coalesced; a god was born. The disease that ravaged his followers was defeated in time by the divine enhancement of the body’s naturally developing defenses and faith credited him solely with the miracle.
Collision of Egos
With all things, including gods, there must be an original; Galru was the first. His presence grew and he learned, strengthened and matured into the shepherd his flock contrived him to be. A principal celestial event occurred, a correlation between mentality and divinity that established an interaction possible through dreams that lead to divine interference. Prayer would build the bridge between the heavens and the earth denoting the existence of god; humanity would never be the same.
As the countless generations passed, other gods were created in the image and ideologies of their followers. The wings of jealousy brought an all-encompassing war between deities and the men that venerated them. Through the millennia’s, ingenuity and creativity gave man the means to murder, enslave, and annoy themselves in pursuit and exoneration of idealized supremacies.
This ethereal link enabled the transference of consciousness, giving rise to the Avatar. The gods were born, fought and died, eradicating their followers in the chaos. Galru watched as the others annihilated one anther gaining strength and power at the expense of man. In the revelation of man’s eventual extinction, Galru enlisted in the war. In his final selfish impetus, at the intermediate point in the divine corridor, he severed the connection behind him and the backlash sent a shockwave that destabilized the heavens, dispersing their holy consciousness. Perfection is a myth, even a god has flaws; Galru’s miscalculation changed the world forever.
A Bold Cruel World
In the attempt to end the war and rid the world of the lesser gods, the bridge he built he would tear down to reign solely over man the way he was conceived. He gambled the result would justify the means and rode the descending wave to his kingdom like a falling star. Impacting Neuma with all the turbulent magnificence of an astral collision, he rained down in fire, brimstone and manite.
His consciousness shattered, distributed amongst the ejection debris as Neuma splintered. The islands sped away from the crater with a volcanic violence that brightened the sky under an ever-increasing canopy of dust collecting in the atmosphere. The cataclysm perforated the membrane of the plane of heaven and its essence permeated drizzling down, saturating the world. This quintessence was altered by the world and in turn would alter the world to its core.
Man was nearly extinct, small clusters of survivors were isolated among the two surviving continents and fifty-four main island chains in their desperate plights of survival. Between half a million to just over a million square miles, the major islands with the infusion of mana gave man the best chance to subsist. With stimulated evolution running rampant, it took over a millennia to pacify the tumultuous surface creating extraordinary species of animal and fauna: amending humanity in the process.
Infection Magi
At the onset of puberty, an advanced progression of a complex organ gave man, in limited numbers, the ability to affect this mana in a fundamental way. The first employers would classify as sages, with the simplest of influence. As with everything before the severance, their potential would grow and double with each passing century.
As the capacity for manipulation escalated, specialization began to manifest. Regulated largely by environment over time, disciplines evolved lessening scope but magnifying command.
The races of man following the aftermath brought about more aggression and less tolerance. Continuous war and strife were commonplace as fear, subjugation and oppression impelled them forward to ensure each their continued existence.
The End Begins Again
Along a progressing series of events, time distorts a cause and personalities alter issues. A kingdom is carved out of grief and revenge, which forces an elusion. With the death of the head, the body falls limp lacking cohesion. Engrossing mistrust condemns the many for the actions of a few and an empire rises from the ashes of its predecessor; the dawn brings A’miir A’moor.
Prevarication guides a populace that evolves the society and the god. Supremacy represses the diverse creating an ultimate hierarchy. Exposure and discovery instigates flight. Contrast establishes a second domain vying for fortitude. A division of territory parallels the rivals drawing in a third segregate in an attempt to subdue the crusade. A world enveloping War treads upon the doorstep of humanity, sweeping aside the gifted and the mundane in its wake.
War of Order
Order of Devotion endeavors a fusion under a single doctrine and pious existence accountable to the one.
Order of Nature contrives a harmony of diversity and subsets of man accountable to the sovereignty.
Order of Mind inspires to contain all below an umbrella of unified equality accountable to the all and sundry.
Echoes of Origin
The world was divided into two major landmasses: Ginthramyn in the north and its counterpart, opposite and south of the equator. Each was as different as the miles that separated them. The southern super continent of Neuma was unknown until late in the fourth epoch when technology allowed the children of the future to revisit the lands of the fathers.