Re: CF: the begining of crossfire

[Gorlin <gorlin@freibier.htu.tuwien.ac.at>]

I had some sparetime today so I sat down and wrote a small history, such
as a priest (in this case a priest of Gaea) would tell about the creation
of the world and mythological history. The area covered IS mythology - no
actual cities, kingdoms, or else is being mentioned. A more exact history
of the recently past (kings, realms, wars, magic, glorious quests or
artifacts) still misses, also such a history should be developed on its
own. Another thing: This text is written from the view of a believer of
Gaea - the "creation stories" of other religions/races/etc would almost
certainly differ...

Have fun reading - and if I made any typos/grammatical errors/other
mistakes in the storyline please tell me. I just hope I haven't left out
anything important :)

Gorlin

 In the beginning the land was barren. No life yet moved upon the large
continents and islands that lay empty between the seas. In the seas,
nothing moved as well. The world itself held its breath while the Creator
rested. Then, a spirit from outside, serving the Most High, entered the
world, and she saw a place yet empty of life. So she began to create
grass to cover the face of the earth, and trees and other plants. Other
spirits from outside watched, and agreed that Gaea had wrought wonders
upon the devoid place. Since she was by far stronger than the others,
those lesser spirits asked her for leave to join in her work. Gaea
accepted their offer, and so the spirits of the Elements of Fire,
Air, Water and Earth began their work as Gaea's servants. It can be
assumed, that outside the world, the Creator watched and approved.

 In time, the elemental spirits came before Gaea, and beseeched her to
help them create beings able to move of their own free will, living among
the plant world. And Gaea saw that without animals, the green world would
still miss a vital element, so she in turn went before the Creator. What
happened between them noone knows, but soon afterwards living beings began
to populate the land. Fish swam in the seas and rivers, birds flew their
first flights through the air, and other species moved on the land. The
cycle of Nature seemed complete, and Gaea was content.

 Already, however, other spirits had noticed what Gaea had done. Dark were
they, and they treasured still the image of the empty world. To them, a
place devoid of life seemed far better, far more perfect, and so they
entered the world to return the world to its past. Sicknesses and
poison began to spread among the animals, that threatened to extinguish
entire species - yeah, indeed several of them might have died during that
time, of which we have next to no information. Bones in the ground seem to
indict that there were large animals which do not exist anymore, and
sadly, we may not meet them evermore. In anger, Gaea named these dark
spirits the Devourers, since they were those who devoured all life, and
she and her Elemental allies fought them back, and tried to heal what they
could.

 In that time it also happened, that a great many of the creatures the
Fire Elementals had helped to make were betoken of great madness, and
started to rampage among the other beings. In time Gaea and her allies
found out the truth, that one of the greatest Elementals of Fire, Ruggili,
had turned against them, perhaps on order of the Devourers. Yet, Ruggili
now served neither Devourers nor Gaea, instead he sought to increase his
own power, and spread madness and chaos upon the world, and he became
mightier than any other Elemental in existence.

 The other Elemental beings came to Gaea, and spoke, "With both renegade
Ruggili and the Dark Ones to fight, we need others to assist us. Some of
the beings we created are already strong enough to do their part, such as
the unicorn or the sphinx. The strongest of them, however, the dragons,
have switched their support to Ruggili. We need allies, or this world will
become either a place of eternal fire or one of darkness." Gaea was
clearly troubled by this, and again left the world to commune with the
Creator. Shortly afterwards, new, more intelligent races emerged on the
world, among them the dwarves, elves, trolls, goblins, humans, halflings,
lizardman, any many others, and they joined the fight on the side of Gaea
and the Elementals.

 During this time, which we now call the Second Age, cultures grew and
were destroyed, races rose to prominence and disappeared again, mighty
magics were found and forgotten. Ruggili#s followers were beaten back at
great cost, and the forces of Gaea could again concentrate on the fight
against the Devourers. The fight went on for a long time, but it seemed
that the Nature Goddess was able to reform the world into a place of Life.
The mortal races assisting her had become weary of the fight, however, and
spoke to her thus: "The fight has clearly been won, the death spirits and
the Fire God are in retreat. We wish to fight no more, but to settle down
in peace. Though we still respect you and always will, we can give you our
support no longer." Gaea accepted in silence, even though she knew that
this meant that the war would not have a definite ending. Neither the
Devourers nor Ruggili would be defeated be her alone.

 The Devourers and Ruggili watched the retreat of the mortals, the
Devourers planning to attack and destroy them now that Gaea was not near,
and then to use their own dead spirits against the Nature Goddess. Ruggili
instead bided his time, sending down dragons to burn mortal cities and
Devourer strongholds both. The Elementals serving Gaea assisted the
mortals still, and gave some protection to them so that the Devourers
would not destroy them. During this, Third, Age, the mortals segregated
according to their nature. The dwarves moved into the mountains, and with
the help of Earth Elementals began their first kingdoms underneath the
face of the earth. The elves moved into large woods, the lizardmen into
swamps. Wars broke out between some of the races, none however anywhere in
that measure as the Great War of the Second Age.

 In the Third Age it also happened, that spirits from the outside, who had
been content to watch until that time, took pity on some of those races.
The goblins, orcs, trolls and giants began to serve a being called Gnarg,
who had promised to raise and protect them. He helped them build up
protection against the many poisons which still plagued the lands, and in
time they began to use poison as a weapon against their enemies. Their
most hated enemies were the dwarves and the elves, who each had been
stronger than them before the coming of Gnarg. Now, stronger than ever
before, they attacked them and sought to utterly destroy them. First they
moved against the elves. They burned down forests and elven cities, until
the being Lythander came to guide the elves and to oppose Gnarg. He sent
confusion to the goblin races, and cursed them to utter stupidity. this
curse is still active even now, there are fewer orcs or goblins who
possess high intuition, intellect or magical affinity then in any other
of the mortal races. During the time the curse was first spoken it was
much worse. The orcs fell down muttering insanely, the giants and trolls
clubbed each other senseless, and the goblins jumped down high cliffs to
escaped the voices in their head. The goblin attack faltered, and all the
goblin races and giantkind returned - after a few accidents and wrong
turns - to their homes. They also immediately stopped their plans to
attack the dwarves. 

 The dwarves, however, had other problems. The dragons also claimed the
mountains, and the followers of Ruggili sought out the dwarven cities and
the treasures they offered. The pitiful cries of the dwarves, and the many
deaths among dwarvenkind, roused the spirit being Mostrai, who entered the
world and came to the dwarves. He showed them how to create magical
weapons which might wound even the greatest of dragons, and he also helped
them to withstand the dragons' fire. As was Gnarg to the orcs and goblins,
and as was Lythander to the elves, Mostrai became god to the dwarves,
protected them as they worshipped him for it.

 The most numerous of the mortal races had no god of their own, and they
despaired, seeing that others had gods of great power to call upon for
assistance. In their fear of being destroyed, in their anger for being
left out, and their hatred for those who left them alone, they cried out
for help. And in the darkness, someone heard them. Far away, in another
dimension most probably, dwelt beings of great power. Endless torment was
their desire, hatred, fear and anger the ways to their dark hearts, and
fire their most potent weapon. When the humans had cried long enough, the
doorway was opened, and the demon host went through. The demon lord Gorokh
led those who entered the world, and he offered the humans many riches and
great power in exchange for their worship and for sacrifice. many humans
fell, and began to serve the powers of darkness. Others sought redemption,
and a pure spirit called Valriel came to their aid. Others again returned
to the worship of Gaea, hoping that the forces of Life would protect them,
a few humans even went to the goblin, elven and dwarven gods for help.

 As the human worship began to spread out among all the gods and beings of
power who had entered the world, a small group of them who wished not for
the blessings of Nature but the power of the elements as weapons spake to
one of the Elemental Lords following Gaea. And as Ruggili long ago, Sorig
left Gaea's path and accepted the mortal's worship, teaching them the way
of lightning and thunder in return. Other small sects began to emerge, and
then the one things noone had foreseen happened. Some humans began to
worship the powers of Death, who until then never had living followers.
Those poor deranged people believed that in death they would be truly
free, and the Devourers gladly accepted their help. When those humans
died, the most mighty of the Undead were finally created - those who
joined the Devourers of their own free will: the vampires, the spectres
and the liche.

 Ans so the world lies before us today, turmoil and chaos has spread among
the many gods who have entered the world. The fights are numerous, but at
least we can be called lucky that no single faction has power as great as
during the Second Age - for another Great War would probably destroy the
world itself. In the First Age only the spirit being existed, in the
Second Age we mortals served the forces of Life to survive, in the Third
Age we left them and began to worship other Gods. This then is the Fourth
Age, in which we hope the ceaseless fighting and wars will finally end,
and we will be allowed to live in peace. But whose peace will it be, which
gods, which peples will lead and which will follow?

Khalis,
Grand Hierophant,
Servant of Gaea