Danu's Fall.

While on the Material the first cultures began to form, with the great empires and ancient civilizations of prehistory rising and falling in their disparate terrains, a similar change was occurring in the land of FaeReie. The time had, after untold years, at last come for the Lords of FaeReie to surrender their thrones to their heirs. Though Cernunnos, his heir stolen by Ahriman’s temptations and Xaos’s morphic touch, had yet to select a successor, his three counterpart Queens each had prepared and raised a daughter to see to their throne as their time came to an end.

But something happened that changed the intented outcome of this change of power. The exact details are a closely-guarded secret, even all these eons later, but what is known is that Danu, minstrel queen of the third Court, had turned her eyes to the World’s Shadow. None know if she was collaborating with the banished enemies of the Lost Court or seeking to extend the hand of forgiveness and redemption; however, the other courts were fearful of the risks inherent in whatever action she took. Once more, FaeReie went to war - and this time, without the aid of Echidna’s monsters or Ahriman’s hordes, the victory was far swifter and far more decisive. The three other courts descended upon Danu and her people - the Tuatha Dé Danann - and routed them in an overwhelming defeat.

The price to be paid for this defeat, whether Danu’s intents were benevolent or hostile, was nothing less than banishment, just as the Lost Court before them had been cast out. Many of the Tuatha, seeing their imminent departure, chose to defect to the other courts, begging succor and pledging eternal subservience to their new Queen or King in an attempt to escape the dreaded sentence of exile. However, the vast majority remained loyal to their lady, and departed with her. Mighty magic, the last true power of Danu and her people in FaeReie, was used to pull their ancient home - the eternal forest of Sentara - through the gate by which they were forced to depart.

Sentara and its people emerged on the continent of Stormwind, filling a vast coastal plain on the continent’s eastern shore with the sudden arrival of the entire woods; despite the great forest’s size, however, its new finite boundaries made it immensely tiny compared to the endless forest they had once called home. A vast city was immediately built, called Abartach after one of the Tuatha’s heroes, from which Danu would rule her people from her new throne. For a short time in the life of the Fae, they lived peacefully, believing that in exile they could continue on at least in a shadow of what had come before.

It was not to be. Time took its toll on the Tuatha, and as the centuries passed, they began to change. They began to weaken, their strength and magic sapped away by the mortality of the Material. They began to age, and to die. And their children were born weak, small, and powerless, and while in the eyes of other mortal races even these diminished creatures lived impossibly long, in the view of the once-immortal Tuatha their lives were painfully short. Slowly but surely, all but the mightiest and greatest of the Tuatha, and all newborns, became something else: a race of fey-tinted creatures more mortal than majestic, who the Tuatha deemed as Elves.

Now a race in cultural and existential decline, the Tuatha and their Elven offspring turned to new goals - to establish, secure, and strengthen themselves among the other mortal races of their new reality. Meanwhile the dread secret of the cause of their departure remained hidden away, secured only by Danu and her closest confidants, unknown and unknowable to even the newborn Elves, much less any from beyond Sentara’s borders. The fallen queen became a recluse, never leaving Abartach, to the point where only a few short Elven generations later her very existence was considered something of a myth, and even the most stalwart Elf had to consider within himself if she still lived at all, or whether the few and dwindling remaining true Tuatha clung to the memory of a ghost, the last shred of their old lives gone to the winds of mortality.

Schism.

As with all things, it was only a matter of time until peace came to an end.

None knows how long this primeval proto-world remained in its potentially-infinite stasis. It may have happened swiftly, or generations upon generations could have lived, died, and been reborn before at last the calm was broken. Kingdoms could have risen and fallen, wars come and gone, triumphs and glories crested and ebbed, or it could have been the space of a heartbeat, here and gone in the blink of an eye.

But at some point, after life had come and existence had been established, came the next threat: boredom.

Two of the Aspects began to express a disdain for the world they had created. Ahriman and Xaos, tired of their art already, bid their sisters to wipe the slate clean and let them begin anew. Arete and Braghain immediately refused, the former unwilling to see so many lives obliterated for the sake of their entertainment, the latter horrified by the idea of their craftsmanship being dissolved back into the dust and darkness from which it had been formed. Fighting once more rose amidst the Aspects, and for the first time in unmeasured eternity, those who were once unified - first as One entity, then as one in Purpose - were now opposed, Good against Evil, Order against Chaos. Mazuda attempted what she could to keep the peace, but as the discourse and confrontations grew fiercer, the other four drew only further apart, not closer together. Seeing she could do nothing to end their battles, she withdrew, leaving her four siblings to their fighting.

The Avatars, uncertain as to the nature of the conflict nor their place in it, flocked to The Ancient of Days. To them she issued a proclamation: they would remain neutral, showing no open allegiance to any of the four disparate causes that she feared would soon tear Finiens apart in their bickering. They would see to their Creation, and to it alone, and to Mazuda only would they be accountable; should the other Aspects have issue with their actions, they were to see it brought to her, not to command the Avatars under her hand. The four Elementals, Ireshkigal, and Zshagothotha continued their assigned duties, remaining uninvolved in the conflicts, and for a time, life went on.

But such was not to be forever. While the others either did not notice in their infighting or did not care, Ahriman saw the act of his sister in claiming all the Avatars under her own sway, and rebelled. He stretched his will and his hands to the skies above and the earth below, called forth the elements they had once forged with, and crafted himself a new Avatar of his own, a furious, destructive thing, an incarnation of Wrath whose name has been blotted from the ages, and imbued it with his own power. He then delved deep into the earth, beyond the Seal, and approached the imprisoned Nidhoggar, to whom he offered such power as bounty in exchange for aiding his plans of destruction and vengeance against Mazuda. The hungry serpent eagerly agreed, and was imbued with the might of Gluttony, and given his first task - to reach out to the Life they had created and draw them to darkness.

Both this Wrathful horror and the Gluttonous serpent found eager purchase for their temptations in the mind of the great warrior lord, Balor. At their subtle urgings, the great king waged war on all around, until at last he struck against his fellow lord and ladies, seeking to seize all five thrones for his own. They, at Ahriman’s behest, attempted to touch the minds of his generals as well, and tainted all but one - his daughter and heir, Feada.

Finding no purchase in the one target he had sought from the beginning, Ahriman turned his attentions instead to the other Courts. Calling upon the aid of his then-ally Xaos, he seduced the heir of the hunter’s Court, Echidna, and tempted her to betray her father Cernunnos; in exchange for power unfathomable, she agreed to lead an army against her own Court, seize the throne for herself, and fight alongside Balor and his armies to destroy the other Courts and subdue the world. At Xaos’s touch, she was transformed, taking on the form of a great serpent-woman; she was then given to Ahriman’s Wrathful warlord as bride, and the army she had been promised given as a brood of her own birthing as Echidna became the Mother of Monsters.

Despite this, however, victory was not theirs to have. The other Courts fought back fiercely, battling their fellows under Balor’s command and the newly-bred monstrosities of Echidna with equal vigor, their Queens and King and Heirs leading the charges against enemy forces with the ferocity of all the indomitable wilds. So fierce was the battle, so relentless the strife, that when at last the winning blow was struck - a spear to the heart, a blade to the flesh, an arrow to the eye, and a spell to the soul - the backlash of Balor’s fall shook the entire world of Finiens….

… and sundered it.

Balor and his Court - including, perhaps unintentionally, his daughter Feada, who had desired no strife with her fellow Courts - were cast away into a world of bleak shadows and empty echoes, a world defined by all the things dreamed but without substance, all that was ever wished for but could never be. A world of the lost and forgotten, a shadow of things that would never come, they found themselves endlessly taunted by images of the great kingdoms they would have forged had they triumphed, only to find them so much smoke and ash. This shadow of the world was now their conquest and their prison, and try as they might, the six - The Nether King himself, his very name cleaved away from him with that final blow, plus his four generals and his now-imprisoned heir, locked away by her father and his troops for fear of another betrayal - could find no escape.

Victory bloomed anew for the other four Courts, however, but likewise they were severed from the world they had known; their prison, however, was of much greater grandeur, and perhaps not a prison at all. After the battle, they found themselves in a world vibrant with life, filled with endless wonders alien and beautiful and terrible. A world of infinite potential, unbound by rule or law, spiraled out from their triumph - a victory touched by the fickle whim of Xaos, who had withdrawn his support for his brother at the last second, allowing the Courts to seize victory at the price of his sway on the world they had just won. This wonderland had taken its toll on them as well, and its inhabitants felt themselves change as the years rolled on - severed from Ireshkigal’s call, death and life blended into a persistent immortality, where the very world itself returned them anew if slain, often in different shapes and forms just as much as unchanged entirely. As the eons turned, they forgot their lives before the war, their connections to their creators, and all but the infinite mystery of their new home. Deeming themselves the Fae, they called their realm FaeReie, and the four surviving Courts claimed their new demesnes within the infinitude of endless possibilities. Their betrayer kin, deemed The Lost Court, were largely forgotten, spoken of only in hushed whispers with loathing and fear.

As for Finiens itself, it was left largely uninhabited, with only a few sparse pockets of surviving creatures left on its surface. The Aspects were forced, to Xaos’s glee and Ahriman’s grudging acceptance of a partial victory, to begin anew, leaving these echo-worlds to their own devices and focusing their full attention on this new central, anchor world of the Material. New creatures to populate it were formed, both by the hands of the Aspects and by the womb of Echidna, who - despite fleeing to the safety of Mazuda’s shadow to escape the dangers of that final battle - retained her partnership with the Wrathful monstrosity, and continued to give birth to all unimaginable creatures of horror and power and unfathomable beauty and strangeness, greatest among them Zmejgorynych, Father of All Dragons.

It was not only Finiens itself that was damaged by the aftermaths of this conflict. The very borders of its tiny universe had cracked, crumpled, and split, opening miniscule, distant gaps to the myriad realities beyond its borders. As the sphere of starlight and shadow hurtled its way through an infinity of realities, with its walls now opened to them from those other existences things began to flow into this strange comet of a universe that hurtled along and through and past their borders.

And here they found resonance in the conflicts between the Aspects. Celestial entities of all shapes and ranks - angels, archons, azata, sephiroth, agathion, and more - presented themselves to Arete, pledging their services to the Excellence of Virtue in her war against Evil. The eternal clockwork and perfect calculus of the inevitables and axiomites resonated with Braghain, forming a living bastion of gears and numbers to stem the flow of madness, the Unchanging Infinity at its banner and helm. Devils, demons, kytons, daemons, asura, divs, yugoloths, and innumerable other fiendish evils cavorted and schemed and tempted and betrayed in the brimstone depths before the eyes of Ahriman, and the Malign Seed was pleased and ecstatic with their vileness. The endless songs of proteans and slaadi and the restless battlecries of the valkyries reached the ears of Xaos, and the Ever-Shifter swept himself into the chorus, maestro and performer all at once. And the inexplicable amorality of the aeons and the dutiful dirges of the psychopomps found court before Mazuda, and the Ancient of Days divided them in her service, sending the former to see to the operation of the universe unseen and placed the latter under Ireshkigal’s wings, to see to the process of souls in this new reality.

And souls, indeed, did it all revolve around. For these new servants, soldiers, and seekers demanded souls be delivered as due, as price for their services and loyalties and cooperation. No more would the Matron of the Tombs merely return a soul to life once more after each death; rather, only those so destined for such a rebirth would be given that fate, while others would depart to realms unknown, in which they would in due time join the infinite numbers of the extraplanar throngs.

The First-Forged.

Assured that no further malice lurked in the concealing dark, the Aspects returned their attentions to their work. The Five were pleased with the creation of their new warden of earth, and decreed that more such servants should be crafted, to see to the proper formation of the world and the oversight of life as it was made. They called up water from the depths below, flame from the stars afar, and wind from the air above, and gave them form and purpose. Satisfied with their work, the Aspects turned to the more daunting task of populating the world.

It was, at first, a simple task. Their four wardens provided the raw materials in varying amounts, and the Aspects shaped them into whatever they felt suited the purpose for which they had been made. Soon the world was rife with creatures of all sorts, flora, fauna, and all things beyond and between. But something was lacking. These creations were, in some way, incomplete.

Arete was the first to suggest the missing link: these creatures, impressive in many ways as they may be, and wonderful creations each in their own way, were naught but beasts and foliage, life and breath but no thought, instinct without will, purpose without conscience. They lacked the spark of mind to be anything more. They could craft from stone and sea, sky and star, but these things were energy and matter without thought themselves, and from them nothing could be made that had will. Even their wardens were mere automatons, acting by command of their makers; they possessed no thoughts of their own.

To form will, Arete suggested they must give of something with will. This proved satisfactory to her brothers and sisters, and all five provided a lock of their own hair for the purpose of the experiment. Zshagothotha, watching from above, offered its own assistance, and the locks were given to it, and from the formless a new life - the first Soul - was given form, bound together by the eldritch energy of the Seeker. Thus was forged the first true Child of the Aspects, the first Soul, the first Avatar - Ireshkigal, First-Holder and Last-Taker.

Pleased with the work, the Aspects immediately set Ireshkigal to the duty of creating souls to fill new life, and managing the flow thereof. Though proud of their creations, the Aspects were not so foolish as to believe their world would hold them all forever; thus to Ireshkigal was also given the task of culling those whose time had expired, and returning the seized souls to the proper place in the cycle. A Soul would be incarnated, born, live its life, age, die, and be returned to the beginning of the process, born anew.

Now that there were Souls, there could be proper Life. The Aspects’ first action was to have Ireshkigal give Souls to their four wardens, so that they could better fulfill their roles. Thus did Chthon, Aegir, Kenna, and Venta come to be, next of the Avatars to take their place under their creators. And with the aid of these new Five and the watching Zshagothotha from the darkened skies, the Aspects began the work of crafting intelligent life.

Their work was art, creation in a thousand, a million, a billion brilliant forms, life without limitations, without restrictions, unlimited potential given form. And, in time, leaders arose among these, prominent powers who united those beneath them through inspiration, charisma, force, or enthusiasm. The disparate life forms began to gravitate towards leaders who espoused their likeness or their ideologies, and in time distinct affiliations or “Courts” were formed.

Miranda, giver of life, healer and maker, mother of many.
Cernunnos, hunter of beasts, leader of warriors, master of monsters.
Danu, speaker of great words, whose songs could mend wounds and break the hearts of Avatars.
Ophelia, weigher of lives, wise judge of all she saw, sparer of innocents and executioner of the guilty.
And Balor, warlord and conqueror, fearless and fearsome, he of the burning eye.

The Aspects were so impressed by their leadership and capabilities that each gave a gift to one of these leaders, lengthening their lives so they could continue to lead their people without fear of death or decay.

Arete gave to Miranda her Mercy, that life would be born and raised with kindness.
Braghain gave to Ophelia her Practicality, that judgement would be passed without sway by emotion or lie.
Ahriman gave to Balor his Malice, that his prowess in battle would not be blunted by sorrow or fear.
Xaos gave to Cernunnos his Cunning, to be unpredictable and ever-changing, an untraceable predator.
And Mazuda gave to Danu her Inspiration, the word of the muse, that her talents would never flee.

The five were then instructed to each select one of their children, who would share their gift and serve as their heir; for these kings and queens would not reign forever, but in time their successor would claim their place. And in time they too would be succeeded by offspring of their choice. And so the cycle would continue.

Miranda chose Titania. Cernunnos chose Echidna. Danu chose Amaerellae. Ophelia chose Maedhbh. And Balor chose Feada.