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Description
Once, there were four Gods. One was a being of absolute creation and they called him Life. Another was a being of immutable fate; they named him Deathbringer. A third was a king of order and law and so they crowned him Vanguard. The final god was a summoner of chaos and anarchy and they gave him the name Harbinger. These primordial Gods had no form, no body. They existed beyond, before and without, long before time and light and sound; long before the world They moved through motionless space as consciousnesses. Eventually, after countless ageless eons had passed, these four came together and brought forth the first true life of the vast Hollow, formless consciousnesses to float with them.

These budding beings though so much like their creators were also so incomparably disparate. Unlike their creators, complacent in the simple existence of their Children, these Children were curious with no way to satiate their ever-growing desires. They could not content themselves with flitting their way endlessly through blank, timeless space with only the company of themselves and their brothers and fathers. They begged the Gods to fill the space, to create substantiality in nothingness similar to how the Gods once created their own Children.

The creation began small: a fleck, a seed, a tiny speck of dirt amidst an endless, roiling ocean. Steadily, it grew, forming a simple mass out of the dark, incongruous to the rest of the infinite oblivion that stretched from all corners of creation. The Children, comparatively simple beings, felt nothing but awe for the indomitable and incredible feat their fathers had performed. The Gods themselves did not understand how something so bleak could summarily fascinate their offspring. Summoning themselves, the Gods shaped the mass into a more suitable and enviable form; what was once nearly as black and formless as the hollow space around it took on shape and color as speck become soil and water. Mountains formed and rivers flowed. Forests sprung up amid powerful gusts. Flowers bloomed and fiery volcanoes burst from the cracking crust. Rolling hills unfurled as great swamps percolated upward. Storms brewed and wildfires raged. The latent power that suffused the once-dead atmosphere had been pressed by the Gods until it conceded itself into a form that could truly be called awe-inspiring.

Unbelieving, the Children observed this new world, rapt, incapable of constraining their excitement and curiosity. Slowly, one of the Children reached out to the world with shapeless, fingerless hands, wanting nothing more than to touch, to grasp the mysteries of this newborn place. As he held this pristine creation, it changed him; from out of the formless ether he solidified, gaining shape and form and, with it, knowledge and power. A single fleeting touch of this untrodden land had changed him, granting definition to his form and answers to his ceaselessly questioning curiosity. Unbidden, the transformed Child's brethren rushed in to grope at this marvelous world to see and grasp for themselves the wondrous secrets before them. Each, in turn, morphed into a form that fit their desires and curiosity. The Gods watched, amused, as their Children came to understand the world.

Utilizing their new found bodies, the Children began to tread upon the holy ground that had transformed them. Their fathers watched, silently, as the Children inspected every minute detail of the astonishing world before them. Every stone and every leaf, every stream and every grain of sand fell under their all-encompassing scrutiny. Soon, they beckoned to the Gods to join them, but They could not; though the world the Gods had made was, indeed, wonderful, so too was it fragile. For the Gods themselves to tread upon the land it would be crushed and maimed, the beauty Their children held so dear trampled upon and destroyed utterly. Instead, the Gods taught Their Children to harness that same power, to twist and form creation out of the bleakness of the vast void. In so doing, the Gods named their Children Lords of this new world.

Pulling threads from the Infinite Tapestry their fathers had begun to weave, the transcendent Lords began to form simple-but-strange things to unleash unto the world, slowly building to more and more complex creations and ultimately culminating into the first true life- another generation of children crafted after their creator. Soon enough, other beings were formed, modeled after those that created them. Unfortunately, though wise on their own, the Lords simply did not have the wisdom of their fathers, the Gods, and so their creations were seemingly incomplete. These children were often vicious and uncomposed, lashing out at each other. In anger and fear, the Lords struck down many of their own creations, erasing the vile beasts that had raged upon the surface of their once-proud land. Scars had formed upon the world, deep and sometimes ethereal scars that the Lords began to painstakingly repair in preparation of something new; though they had failed before, they would not be dissuaded from this path of creation.

Again they reached out, twisting at the bleak heart of the unused vast expanse of the plane beyond their world, the Hollow Lands that stretched on and on. From this effort, the First Men were formed and they were named the Zzetrastre, the zetrasir. These men from the stone, the fire, the wind, the water and the storm with all the strength of these forces and, in each, a Shard of the Infinite Expanse was placed. A Shard that was the same as that which resided in all things, including their creators, the Lords. Shards that extended lines between all things, lines that formed the Tapestry of the Gods. These favored creations held all the curiosity of the Lords and all the ferocity and cruelty of the the dark beasts that came before them. They spread out through the lands and revered their Lords.

The Gods, though distant, were not forgotten. They, too, were worshiped by the zetrasir through the Lords. Peace reigned as the Lords tended to the needs of men and in return were tended to by men. Though once, Themselves, contented, one God split from his brothers, disgusted by the state of their Children and the gift They had bestowed upon them. Deathbringer despised the way the Lords had abused their power and hated the continuous blossoming of men; life was too long and death not sweet enough for His taste. Abandoning the other Gods, Deathbringer condemned the world in its current state. Regardless of His rage, His brother, Life, barred Him from entrance into the world and so all His wrath amounted to nothing.

Whispering through the void, Deathbringer pulled some of the Lords to his side, obeisance to their father winning out over love for their creations. Turning their backs on the peace and passivity of the past, the very world was split asunder as lines were drawn for war. In opposition to His brother, Life sought to preserve the peace that ruled as the remaining Lords flocked to His side. The two remaining Gods, Vanguard and Harbinger, withdrew, refusing to take sides so that they may instead watch events unfold.

Dark and contorted promises of power, promises of a life beyond the simple destruction the God Deathbringer desired lured many of the zetrasir away. Discarding their humanity and taking inside themselves pieces of the flesh of their terrible Lords, these men twisted and changed. They become the Lost tribe of men, shapechangers and demons of terrible might granted the gift of Flesh to transform the threads through their own flesh and blood. Though they were few they were also strong, strong enough to challenge their brethren who remained with the God named Life.

The remaining zetrasir were divided amongst their Lords, one race becoming seven. The great gift that was given them, the Shards, too, were divvied between them. Each new tribe was granted a new gift by their patron Lord so that power could given equally. In truth, the Lords feared further insurrection and so to avoid losing more from their children, the Lords ensured that such great strength could not again be taken. Men of scales who followed elder children were granted the Breath to take in and refine the threads of the world. Men of the dark and steel were granted the Forge to shape and instill the threads in arms. Men of stone were granted the Mind to influence and strengthen the threads through emotion. Pale men of grace and porcelain were granted the Soul to commune with and draw threads from the dead. Painted men were granted the gift of Image to conjure the thread through pictures and runes. Strange, median men were given the Voice to command the thread through the words of the Lords themselves. The final race, men who retained the name zetrasir were given the gift of Twine, to intuitively and innately manipulate the threads of mana.

Terrible battles tore at the world, marking it with gashes and scars even more horrendous and infected than those that preceded the Gods' devastating war. Black blood gushed up from the aberrant wounds that slashed across the land, the stone and soil roiling and trembling as it transformed to little more than diseased flesh. Pain and strife took its toll on both sides, an eternal stalemate forcing both sides to a bloodied stand-still.

Years passed, the immortality of the tribes falling to the mortal wounds of battle. The Lost tribe, strong and all-but-immune to death, began to crumble before their own ferocity and vice. The flesh they had taken from their Lords festered and consumed them, changing them from dark, transcendent men to raving, mindless beasts. More and more fell to this fate, the Lost men lost even to themselves. The few who retained their minds tore from themselves the tainted gifts given to them and fled from their fell Lords. They plead with the God Life who, in his mercy, decreed that they be spared and welcomed back. Still, bad blood was held between the once-warring tribes and their returned traitorous brethren who, themselves, could never be rid of the dark blood held inside them. Their twisted gift of Flesh became Blood, their true power torn from them as they had torn away the demon inside themselves.

The treacherous Lords were condemned by those who remained and were locked away by man and Lord for their terrible crimes. Deathbringer fumed and raged and, in order to appease him, the God Life had the remaining Lords revoke the immortal life of the world. All things now had a life to spend and lose simply and a soul to be claimed by oblivion. Though Deathbringer was not simply contented he was satiated briefly. Still, such was not enough for Life and, in order to quell His brother's endless wrath, he imprisoned Himself and His brothers in eternal slumber.

With their number reduced and their fathers gone, the Lords were distraught. Though they wished to protect their creations, the Lords could not; instead, they pushed the world to a more righteous state and buried the monstrous abominations of the Lost tribe that remained. Their once-monumentous power reduced to all-but-nothing, the Lords retreated from the world they had so treasured. Not, although, before birthing one final gift- a final race of men to guard the secrets left behind, men almost as monstrous as the beasts they fought. The gift given these outcasts was Sense, the ability to use the five senses to detect the threads of the world.

The Gods and Lords gone, the tribes of men were left woefully alone. Their darkness would eventually creep up again and no tribe would go unscathed for long.

Description
Once, there were four Gods. One was a being of absolute creation and they called him Life. Another was a being of immutable fate; they named him Deathbringer. A third was a king of order and law and so they crowned him Vanguard. The final god was a summoner of chaos and anarchy and they gave him the name Harbinger. These primordial Gods had no form, no body. They existed beyond, before and without, long before time and light and sound; long before the world They moved through motionless space as consciousnesses. Eventually, after countless ageless eons had passed, these four came together and brought forth the first true life of the vast Hollow, formless consciousnesses to float with them.

These budding beings though so much like their creators were also so incomparably disparate. Unlike their creators, complacent in the simple existence of their Children, these Children were curious with no way to satiate their ever-growing desires. They could not content themselves with flitting their way endlessly through blank, timeless space with only the company of themselves and their brothers and fathers. They begged the Gods to fill the space, to create substantiality in nothingness similar to how the Gods once created their own Children.

The creation began small: a fleck, a seed, a tiny speck of dirt amidst an endless, roiling ocean. Steadily, it grew, forming a simple mass out of the dark, incongruous to the rest of the infinite oblivion that stretched from all corners of creation. The Children, comparatively simple beings, felt nothing but awe for the indomitable and incredible feat their fathers had performed. The Gods themselves did not understand how something so bleak could summarily fascinate their offspring. Summoning themselves, the Gods shaped the mass into a more suitable and enviable form; what was once nearly as black and formless as the hollow space around it took on shape and color as speck become soil and water. Mountains formed and rivers flowed. Forests sprung up amid powerful gusts. Flowers bloomed and fiery volcanoes burst from the cracking crust. Rolling hills unfurled as great swamps percolated upward. Storms brewed and wildfires raged. The latent power that suffused the once-dead atmosphere had been pressed by the Gods until it conceded itself into a form that could truly be called awe-inspiring.

Unbelieving, the Children observed this new world, rapt, incapable of constraining their excitement and curiosity. Slowly, one of the Children reached out to the world with shapeless, fingerless hands, wanting nothing more than to touch, to grasp the mysteries of this newborn place. As he held this pristine creation, it changed him; from out of the formless ether he solidified, gaining shape and form and, with it, knowledge and power. A single fleeting touch of this untrodden land had changed him, granting definition to his form and answers to his ceaselessly questioning curiosity. Unbidden, the transformed Child's brethren rushed in to grope at this marvelous world to see and grasp for themselves the wondrous secrets before them. Each, in turn, morphed into a form that fit their desires and curiosity. The Gods watched, amused, as their Children came to understand the world.

Utilizing their new found bodies, the Children began to tread upon the holy ground that had transformed them. Their fathers watched, silently, as the Children inspected every minute detail of the astonishing world before them. Every stone and every leaf, every stream and every grain of sand fell under their all-encompassing scrutiny. Soon, they beckoned to the Gods to join them, but They could not; though the world the Gods had made was, indeed, wonderful, so too was it fragile. For the Gods themselves to tread upon the land it would be crushed and maimed, the beauty Their children held so dear trampled upon and destroyed utterly. Instead, the Gods taught Their Children to harness that same power, to twist and form creation out of the bleakness of the vast void. In so doing, the Gods named their Children Lords of this new world.

Pulling threads from the Infinite Tapestry their fathers had begun to weave, the transcendent Lords began to form simple-but-strange things to unleash unto the world, slowly building to more and more complex creations and ultimately culminating into the first true life- another generation of children crafted after their creator. Soon enough, other beings were formed, modeled after those that created them. Unfortunately, though wise on their own, the Lords simply did not have the wisdom of their fathers, the Gods, and so their creations were seemingly incomplete. These children were often vicious and uncomposed, lashing out at each other. In anger and fear, the Lords struck down many of their own creations, erasing the vile beasts that had raged upon the surface of their once-proud land. Scars had formed upon the world, deep and sometimes ethereal scars that the Lords began to painstakingly repair in preparation of something new; though they had failed before, they would not be dissuaded from this path of creation.

Again they reached out, twisting at the bleak heart of the unused vast expanse of the plane beyond their world, the Hollow Lands that stretched on and on. From this effort, the First Men were formed and they were named the Zzetrastre, the zetrasir. These men from the stone, the fire, the wind, the water and the storm with all the strength of these forces and, in each, a Shard of the Infinite Expanse was placed. A Shard that was the same as that which resided in all things, including their creators, the Lords. Shards that extended lines between all things, lines that formed the Tapestry of the Gods. These favored creations held all the curiosity of the Lords and all the ferocity and cruelty of the the dark beasts that came before them. They spread out through the lands and revered their Lords.

The Gods, though distant, were not forgotten. They, too, were worshiped by the zetrasir through the Lords. Peace reigned as the Lords tended to the needs of men and in return were tended to by men. Though once, Themselves, contented, one God split from his brothers, disgusted by the state of their Children and the gift They had bestowed upon them. Deathbringer despised the way the Lords had abused their power and hated the continuous blossoming of men; life was too long and death not sweet enough for His taste. Abandoning the other Gods, Deathbringer condemned the world in its current state. Regardless of His rage, His brother, Life, barred Him from entrance into the world and so all His wrath amounted to nothing.

Whispering through the void, Deathbringer pulled some of the Lords to his side, obeisance to their father winning out over love for their creations. Turning their backs on the peace and passivity of the past, the very world was split asunder as lines were drawn for war. In opposition to His brother, Life sought to preserve the peace that ruled as the remaining Lords flocked to His side. The two remaining Gods, Vanguard and Harbinger, withdrew, refusing to take sides so that they may instead watch events unfold.

Dark and contorted promises of power, promises of a life beyond the simple destruction the God Deathbringer desired lured many of the zetrasir away. Discarding their humanity and taking inside themselves pieces of the flesh of their terrible Lords, these men twisted and changed. They become the Lost tribe of men, shapechangers and demons of terrible might granted the gift of Flesh to transform the threads through their own flesh and blood. Though they were few they were also strong, strong enough to challenge their brethren who remained with the God named Life.

The remaining zetrasir were divided amongst their Lords, one race becoming seven. The great gift that was given them, the Shards, too, were divvied between them. Each new tribe was granted a new gift by their patron Lord so that power could given equally. In truth, the Lords feared further insurrection and so to avoid losing more from their children, the Lords ensured that such great strength could not again be taken. Men of scales who followed elder children were granted the Breath to take in and refine the threads of the world. Men of the dark and steel were granted the Forge to shape and instill the threads in arms. Men of stone were granted the Mind to influence and strengthen the threads through emotion. Pale men of grace and porcelain were granted the Soul to commune with and draw threads from the dead. Painted men were granted the gift of Image to conjure the thread through pictures and runes. Strange, median men were given the Voice to command the thread through the words of the Lords themselves. The final race, men who retained the name zetrasir were given the gift of Twine, to intuitively and innately manipulate the threads of mana.

Terrible battles tore at the world, marking it with gashes and scars even more horrendous and infected than those that preceded the Gods' devastating war. Black blood gushed up from the aberrant wounds that slashed across the land, the stone and soil roiling and trembling as it transformed to little more than diseased flesh. Pain and strife took its toll on both sides, an eternal stalemate forcing both sides to a bloodied stand-still.

Years passed, the immortality of the tribes falling to the mortal wounds of battle. The Lost tribe, strong and all-but-immune to death, began to crumble before their own ferocity and vice. The flesh they had taken from their Lords festered and consumed them, changing them from dark, transcendent men to raving, mindless beasts. More and more fell to this fate, the Lost men lost even to themselves. The few who retained their minds tore from themselves the tainted gifts given to them and fled from their fell Lords. They plead with the God Life who, in his mercy, decreed that they be spared and welcomed back. Still, bad blood was held between the once-warring tribes and their returned traitorous brethren who, themselves, could never be rid of the dark blood held inside them. Their twisted gift of Flesh became Blood, their true power torn from them as they had torn away the demon inside themselves.

The treacherous Lords were condemned by those who remained and were locked away by man and Lord for their terrible crimes. Deathbringer fumed and raged and, in order to appease him, the God Life had the remaining Lords revoke the immortal life of the world. All things now had a life to spend and lose simply and a soul to be claimed by oblivion. Though Deathbringer was not simply contented he was satiated briefly. Still, such was not enough for Life and, in order to quell His brother's endless wrath, he imprisoned Himself and His brothers in eternal slumber.

With their number reduced and their fathers gone, the Lords were distraught. Though they wished to protect their creations, the Lords could not; instead, they pushed the world to a more righteous state and buried the monstrous abominations of the Lost tribe that remained. Their once-monumentous power reduced to all-but-nothing, the Lords retreated from the world they had so treasured. Not, although, before birthing one final gift- a final race of men to guard the secrets left behind, men almost as monstrous as the beasts they fought. The gift given these outcasts was Sense, the ability to use the five senses to detect the threads of the world.

The Gods and Lords gone, the tribes of men were left woefully alone. Their darkness would eventually creep up again and no tribe would go unscathed for long.