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Quelmar's Prehistory is an unimaginably long era, and the very first days of Quelmar are likely never going to be accurately accounted, but various religions have passed their own versions of the Quelmar Creation Story through the millenia, some of which can be found below.
The Primordial Ancients Story[edit | edit source]
Many believe the gods arrived at Quelmar first, creating the realm as their feuding grounds for the many prehistoric arguments they needed to settle. But the truly enlightened know that before the gods arrived, the chaos of nothingness was percolated with rivers.
These rivers cooled and soothed the chaos, controlling it, as the chaos was the precursor to fire, and even today all fires wish to turn the realm back into a chaotic womb of nothingness. It was the rivers that drew the attention of the gods, rivers that showed them the chaos could be tamed. So it was that the gods arrived at Quelmar and bore the sky and the ground.
Before wheat, before sea, before sun and moon, Quelmar stood immortal as sky, ground, river, and chaos. Perfect in every way, the virgin ground ran across the horizon smoothly like a glass bowl. But even the ground, creation of the gods, could keep back the chaos forever. In time, the chaos burned across the ground, creating great vales of stone and canyons of expanse. Where the chaos flooded, the river chased, filling the holes and valleys of the ground. Thus the oceans were created. Rivers multiplied and covered the ground, protecting it from the burning chaos.
The sky, an ever present observer of the war below, would open up to invite those who could stop the disfiguring landscapes, and so the life came to quell the marred landscape, filling it with creatures and families, who fled from the chaos, and traversed the ground to settle on waterfronts realm wide.
One day, the gods would meet the new life on the realm, teaching them how to survive on such disfigured terrain. They were taught how to walk, and how to climb. They were taught how to swim and how to breathe. But eventually the life of the marred and quelled terrain asked for more. The gods taught them how to survive the coldness of harsh winters, how to build structures of clay and brick, and eventually how to channel the magics of the universe with their minds and hands. Eventually ground was covered with blemishes of life now, and the gods smiled as the creatures ruined the realm, covering it with the seed of all civilization.
To fight back against the creatures, those ancients of the primordial origin manifested themselves and challenged the gods. From the ground came Grumbar, proud and strong. From the rivers came Istishia, the purifier and protector. From the chaos came Kossuth, the flaming beacon of destruction. Finally, from the sky, the neutral observer of the war below bore Akadi, who remained aloof and unattached.
The primordial lords could not fight back against the overwhelming number of creatures who dotted the realm, but they had learned from watching the gods that the creatures were quick to turn on each other. To escalate their war on the masses, the primordial lords seduced creatures of the realm with artifacts of great power, said to let the creatures channel the elements like a true god.
From the fires of the realm, there was born a deadly diadem of fire, the Crown of Empyrosis was said to give its wearer the power to bring back the burning chaos and purify what has now become disfigured.
From the waters, there was born a wand of immense power, the Wand of the Spout is said to give its caster the abilities of Istishia, filling or emptying an ocean with the flick of a wrist.
From the ground, a great staff grew and formed, the Staff of the Marsh could let creatures command the earth under their feet, healing and puncturing the terrain to their hearts' content.
Finally, the goddess of the air gave the realm an orb of unimaginable abilities, not tired from the constant battles of the realm, Akadi was perhaps the most powerful of the primordial lords. When holding the Orb of Gales, a creature could spin vortices of air powerful enough to extinguish fires, part seas, and move continents.
These weapons were the only chance the Primoridal Lords had at taking the realm back from the gods and their creatures, but as the soon found out, the hearts of men are not so quickly won.
