ALLANSIA LORE: The Monomyth

  THE MONOMYTH

Note: This myth is one of the most enduring creation myths in Allansian history. It was pieced together from fragments found in Arkhosian ruins, and in turn it is believed this information was transcribed from oral traditions dating back to as yet unknown cultures. It is however one of several hundred creation myths recorded by this prestigous department.
It is also worth noting that in some of the more gnostic wizard towers of Xistomagistos there can be found shrines to "E'ell" and "Vanmut", which could well be remnants of an ancient form of creator worship.

-Vallanger the Blue and Grey, Scholar of Salamonis.

Published by the History Dept., Salamonis 2467 AC.

In the beginning there was the void, and within the void were two prime spirits; El and Vanu, each with distinct powers that began to grow within the infinite nothing of void. El would dance across the void, her divine imagination weaving shapes and matter that grew, collapsed and changed form. She was the mother of chaos, of change and mutability. She invented fire, cold and the very elemental substance of things. Vanu instead would brood and think on her own mind, dreaming up concepts and shaping the very core of thought. She was the mother of permanence, of progress and order. At first, the creations of El and Vanu did not meet, as the Void was a vast place. However, as El and Vanu's work continued, they began to meet and mingle. In one great moment, the matter of El and the thought of Vanu collided, and created worlds and permanent substance. Notions of time and linearity melted together with shifting forms, and created the passage of time, history and causality.

In this clash of power, the Prime Material Plane was created, and the many worlds that make it up, all characterised by both elemental matter, and linear time and causal laws. In this violent act, El and Vanu were destroyed. El was shattered into hundreds of entities, each as chaotic and furious as their mother. These powerful beings were too be known as the Primordial Gods, creatures of pure chaos and change. Vanu's myriad ideas all split away from each other, becoming individual personalities in themselves. These entities would be known as the Supernal Gods.

As the Primordials lashed in out in fury at what they considered to be the alien bondage of time, the supernals despised their directionless creativity and lack of rational intelligence. For an age both sides lived in tense peace, each nullifying the creative endeavours of the other. There was one Supernal who became frustrated by this, and his name is now lost. This God travelled to the edge of the void, far beyond the universe of El and Vanu, and reached into the what is known as the Far Realm, a space beyond spaces that troubled not any of creation is this age. With a fragment of this alien terror, he returned and plunged it deep into the Elemental Chaos, hoping to poison and destroy it. The plan did not work, and as a result of his folly, the God created the Abyss, and brought evil into the elementals. For his crimes he was cast into the Abyss and would be known forever as the Chained God. Primordials quickly succombed, and became what is known as the Demons. Some still live now; Demogorgon, Orcus, Lloth and the myriad Nephilim of legend amoung their number.

With evil thought in the minds of the Primordials, a war broke out, a cataclysmic conflict that is known as the Dawn War. Both Primordials and Supernals were slaughtered in vast numbers, but eventually the Supernals triumphed and cast the Primordials into bondage within the Elemental Chaos. The Supernal Gods now ruled uncontested over the Prime Material Plane, and shaped it in their image. The mirror planes of the Shadowfel and the Feywild were created to fuel their creation. Elves, Humans, giants and other creatures of the world were made, and governed. The Supernal Gods ruled over them as great lords. This began what is known as the Mythic Age.

But the varied personalities of Vanu would not hold in peace. The Supernals went to war with each other. Corellon fought Gruumsh, blood was spilt in gallons between Kord and Bane, and Asmodeus turned on his master in a dark lust for power. However, a new power had grown amidst the Dawn War. The Prime Material Plane itself, watching the conflict between Primordial and Supernal for millenia, had grown a mind of its own. This consciousness would be known as the Primal Spirits. Angered by the violence the Gods brought upon the world, it cast them from its surface, exiling the Gods to the Astral Sea – the vast ocean made from the disparate body of Vanu. Forever more, the Supernal Gods could only watch and influence the Prime by proxy. The races of world gained free will, choosing their patrons from not just the Supernals who made them, but from the Elemental Chaos, the Far Realm and even the Abyss. Thus ended the Mythic Age, and began the many different ages of the Mortal Epoch.