This is the prologue to a story that I have been slowly in the process of writing for several years; it has gone through various phases of revision, and has yielded many spin-offs and smaller tales within the larger work. Originally, it was meant as a historical backdrop for a fictitious world that I designed for a role-playing game, wherein players could interact with their characters within its realms; it has since then developed into a much larger conception, which has resulted in its growing breadth, and the addition of numerous myths and legends told seperately, which are yet all somehow interrelated. I will be posting some of these stories in the near future; so, if you enjoy this entry, please check my page for related posts hereafter. Please bear with my use of non-standard characters among my myriad names of characters and places; I know they can be somewhat confusing, but they are meant to guide the reader in their correct verbal pronunciation, in order to provide the sense of linguistic consistency, according to the realms' set of fictional languages, which my naming schemes are designed to represent; I hope it is not too distracting. Thanks!

Before all things, there was One: He that Is - the All-Father, whom of myth the wise of the Kel’ Drakkhar, call “Ëmôn” (All-Living [one]), Wellspring of what is, and Keeper of all that is not, beautiful above any other and before all supremely wise and powerful, perfect in all his forms. With majesty and splendor he sat among all those who loved him, whom he had created, upon whose fair faces shown brilliant the glory of the one who made them, whose justice is infallible and whose grace is beyond measure.

Those peoples of eternal and unblemished inheritance communed with their beloved maker for countless ages in incorruptible harmony, until the most magnificent among the Holy Ones – the people of the All-Father – rebelled against their Sovereign King, desiring such power for himself, proud in his beauty and might. Infinitely evil he became in his defiant jealousy and rage, banished forever from the high places to ceaseless darkness, save the torturous fires of the realm infernal to which he fell from the heavens. A host of foul dissidents of glory followed in the wake of the great civil war he invoked, becoming fiends of malicious will, corrupted irrevocably by their wicked scheming hearts, bent on insurrection and ultimate destruction of all who took pleasure in the very life of which they were stripped, stricken down from their thrones of light to prisons of death and rot.

Devious mischief and foulness these nether-beasts spread amongst the riches of the living realms, stretching a baneful shadow over the fruitful peoples of The One, whom they desperately hated and resented. Ever growing in their spite, the thwarted miscreants of the abyssal wastelands found their only pleasure in murdering the creations of their former master, drowning them in the molten pits of the flaming underworld and casting them into the unending blackened bowels of the deep – a deaf and sightless void of imperishable loneliness, yielding its denizens only the hopeless beat of their own lifeless hearts – a chamber of boundless misery and despair.

Though the vile demons rejoiced in this breeding ground of triumphant hate, the detestable morass served only to increase their malevolence, their thirst for decadence ever unquenched. The more powerful among the dark hierarchies thus sought a greater means of inflicting their pitiless torment. New planes they discovered unto which they thrust their malign dominion, creating a vast myriad of new dimensions into which worlds were formed and imprisoned beneath the unrelenting tyranny of these now Lords of fell governance. Corrupt and twisted were the creatures that inhabited these lands, bound to iniquity by their own fallen nature, multiplying their pathetic existence, already gripped of spite.

While the filth of the Fallen Ones’ rule soaked like a poison the fabric of the many realms of their domain, the All-Father allowed the subjects of his Divine Lineage – the Holy Ones of the Great Dynasty – to scatter about the many planes according to their own will, to govern with grace and justice, extending his power as by loyal servitude.

These powerful avatars of wisdom went forth empowered by the might of their maker, creating worlds vast and beautiful, filled with music mellifluous and stately art, perfect and lovely to behold. Many were the works of the unsurpassed Holy Ones, each unique to its master's character, yielding an unfathomable array of wondrous variety.

Craftmakers of nature, artisans of the peoples in their multitudes of gifts and beauteous forms and hues, wizards of magical play, jesters and bards of revelry, life-wells of the forest and river valleys, and lords and matrons of life and death governed the endless places in the name of the Great Forbear...

The now gods and goddesses fashioned a singular legacy: new lineages, each after the line of its maker – races imperfect, however, endowed with diminished power, granted though life abundant as had they, and free will to govern themselves and their lands as they found befitting.

Many of the new divine regents stayed aloft of their worlds, receiving homage, but not as by demand of their free peoples. Some realms thus became corrupt and the names of their lords were forgotten, passing out of knowledge, into legend and fairytale. Other peoples elevated themselves beyond mortality, casting their creators aside and seizing godly power and immortality beyond the confines of their homelands.

Some of the blessed Holy Ones grew drunk with power and denied their subjects freedom of will, becoming jealous pawns to self-glory and limitless greed, believing themselves mighty as their Forefather.

Thus shattered the once-perfect masterpiece into countless fragments of forsaken power among the innumerable bloodlines and kingdoms of the hosts of the many realms, ushering forth their seeds of chaos.

In all their strife among the long ages of the gods and their glories and treasures, a certain few did convene and agree that a safe-haven must be made – a place of order to divide the celestial from the infernal, and to protect the bestowment of immortality, to preserve balance among the realms.

A sanctuary would be built up – an immortal domain, to host the gods and their avatars and minions apart from the turmoil of the infinite places that now ruptured the delicate fabric of the cosmos. The principality of Mordalia (“Land of Death”) was thus crafted, though its gates were named thus only by the first legion to besiege it in the distant past. Among the many peoples of the mortal realms it is known by many names, as was the All-Father’s sacred haven named variously “Heaven”, “Valhalla”, and such.

It was after many wars among gods and flesh seeking to gain entrance into, and dominion over, the dwelling of the immortals, that the Keepers thereof issued a governing decree. Hence was created the mortal key to the blessed gates of Mordalia, and cast down upon the mortal world of Ândôrae, to be kept by guardians celestial and infernal, far from the grasp of those who scheme from within the gates to seize upon it. Thereafter begins the history of Ândôrae, realm of the godly wars to come.