Creation, Clash, and Descent

Creation
At the very beginning, there was nothingness. There was only darkness that stretched out indefinitely. However, it was not completely empty. Two entities occupied this endless space, each of them as old and ageless as the other. One of these deities called itself the God of Light. This deity craved warmth and companionship, and to ease its loneliness, it created the planet of Elbrion and infested it with all sorts of various creatures. One of these creatures were dragons, which the God of Light picked as its favourites. It made them into the things it desired most: friendly, approachable and trusting companions, that could live forever and would require nothing to sustain their lives. The deity fell in love with its own creation, and came to the conclusion that it never wanted to be apart from its beloved dragons. After making sure that all was well, that its creations would live eternally and never question the God's need for warmth, it exited the divine realm in which it had resided up until that point.

To keep itself in the mortal realm, the God had to lock away most of its powers and knowledge, instead inhabiting a dragon-like vessel and coming to live among the common folk. Those would become accessible if the vessel was damaged, meaning: if the deity got extremely emotional or was on the brink of death, its divine part would take over.

But a dragon's body could not possibly handle that much power, and accessing the full knowledge and power of a god would simply destroy it. The God of Light did not know this. It inhabited a female vessel, descended and was immediately accepted. For a while, all was good.

However, there was another entity that roamed the divine realm, and that entity called itself the God of Darkness. This deity admired the God of Light from afar, never attempting to make contact. It saw what the God of Light had done, and it too wanted to abandon the divine realm and live its life among the dragons—but it was driven by curiosity and intrigue instead of loneliness. The deity knew that it would one day grow bored of living among the dragons and decided to give them a "gift" before joining them.

It made them mortal, thus enabling itself to someday abandon its vessel and return to the divine realm. The God of Darkness sealed away most of its powers and knowledge, inhabited a male vessel and descended.

Both of the gods were accepted by the mortals, and lived their lives peacefully for a while. However, it just so happened that the God of Light and the God of Darkness' vessels met—and fell in love. Soon enough, something new was created as a product of their relationship: an egg. Seeing as this was something none of the dragons had seen before, being creations of the first generation, they started worshipping the couple.

In the midst of those friendly and kind dragons was another friendly and kind dragon—a pack leader, one that was so quick to bond and forgive that he fell in love with the God of Light when he first saw her. The God of Darkness did not take that well, and as soon as it found out that the mortal was trying to get closer to his mate, he got very, very angry.

Because it was a god, the God of Darkness was able to access some of its previous power due to the extreme anger that it felt at the time. Instead of killing the dragon, it chose to make him suffer. The god turned his flesh and blood into a deadly substance, which would harm anybody who got close to him. However, this poison could not kill him, and to ensure that he may never escape his punishment, the God of Darkness made it so that the dragon would simply become alive again whenever killed. He is now known as the First Verris King.

The God of Darkness returned to his mate. He did not tell her of the curse he had put onto his rival, and instead chose not to mention it. But eventually, she did find out—because after a while, the cursed dragon was able to find her and told her about what had happened to him. She was furious.

So furious, in fact, that she declared war on her mate. Some of their followers took her side, and the others chose to fight on the side of the God of Darkness instead. The two armies clashed in a valley that is now known as the Valley of Death. The battle went on for ten days and ten nights, and by the time the sun had risen on the last day, every single follower was dead. The gods, slowly and unknowingly using their divine powers, had kept fighting until their own vessels had collapsed.

They both reclaimed their divine forms immediately after that. The gods, as soon as they realized that they were both in love with each other, became infuriated with each other. What they felt for each other was not nothing but hatred. The God of Light finally realized what the God of Darkness had done to its creations, and being unable to turn the dragons back to immortals, it fled back to the divine realm. The God of Darkness, however, ignored the emotions of the God of Light and instead chose to focus on the destruction the two of them had caused. Overcome with sadness and grief, and not being able to bring the dead back to life, it gave them two more gifts: a mind, to use reason and never to be blinded by love and rage like it had been, and a soul, so that the dead may still watch over their loved ones.

It then ascended, taking the souls of the dead with it, and scattered their eyes—one remained on the night sky, taking the shape of a star, and the other one returned to Elbrion, becoming a shiny drop in the sea. Then, it returned to its respective realm, deciding to never interact with the God of Light in any way again.

When the dragons gained reason, they could understand the gifts that the gods had given them, and named them the God of Life and the God of Death, worshipping both of them as the ultimate creators, and yet still grieving for the ones they lost due to their rage.

The Clash
The gods had also left something else behind: their child, who inhabited a female vessel and was raised by the mortals themselves, not knowing about her heritage or powers. She grew up among the mortals, falling in love with life itself just like her "mother" had. Her foster mother eventually told her about who she really was and what she was capable of, but instead of taking her own life and gaining her own powers and divine form, the child chose to remain among the mortals, who had raised her as one of their own, and to whom she was incredibly grateful. She refused to access her powers in fear of harming others. She died a peaceful, natural death—but chose to remain among mortals even then. The young god regained its divine form, and inhabiting vessel after vessel, it became known as the God of the People. It was able to roam the lands as it pleased, and in time saw the destruction its parents had left behind. The god, feeling guilty about the sins of its ancestors, exclaimed that it will ascend and get their dead loved ones back, because they were still deeply missed, and it made its mission to find the other two gods and face them, making them pay for the damage they had caused.

It had eventually found both of its "parents" and confronted them, calling them out, saying that they should return the creatures that they had taken. The god expected to be taken seriously, but was met with laughter and mockery, its "parents" telling it that what is dead cannot come back because it becomes one with the universe. The two gods addressed their offspring as the God of Time, and that's what it became known as later on.

However, the young god was not prepared for how the other two would react when faced with each other again—and they engaged in combat, the younger god getting caught in the crossfire. Not wanting to disappoint its beloved mortals, it fought too, and that battle became known as the Clash. As the gods battled, they became injured, because only another god can harm a god. From combined pieces of their cosmic weaving[1] emerged the new gods: six of them, each in pairs that consisted of an elder, nameless, "active" god and a younger, "passive" god. [2]

These are known as sibling gods, and they are:

•Mother of the Woods and Relles, created from the combined cosmic weaving of the God of Life and the God of Death. The elder, active, nameless god had picked a name for herself but kept it a secret, and instead chose to be known as Mother of the Woods. Her younger sibling is the passive god Relles.

•Crimson and Oedis, created from the combined cosmic weaving of the God of Death and the God of Time. The elder, active, nameless god had picked a name for herself but kept it a secret, and instead chose to be known as Crimson. Her younger sibling is the passive god Oedis.

•Seyvyora and Bennsen, created from the combined cosmic weaving of the God of Life and the God of Time. The elder, active, nameless god had picked a name for herself but kept it a secret, and instead chose to be known as Seyvyora. Her younger sibling is the passive god, Bennsen.

Each of the new gods refused to pick a side, and they descended into the mortal realm. They are, however, too weak to ever return to the divine realm, so they are forever trapped among the mortals and became known as the Minor gods, while the Gods of Life, Death and Time became known as the Major gods.

The Major gods eventually got tired of battling each other because they understood that they are all evenly matched, and that there could never be a winner. They stopped fighting, and decided to offer the new god a place among the Major gods. It refused, growing to hate the other two gods because of how they see and treat the mortals and descended back into the mortal realm. The God of Time was too ashamed to face its beloved mortals, seeing as it failed to keep its promise, and instead of creating itself a vessel, it had found out that it was able to change its shape at will, because it was a being of pure energy.

From then on it wanders among the mortals, its shape forever changing, and longing for life it is too ashamed to reach for, still interacting with the mortals, but staying unrecognized. As its attempt at retribution, it created the elements and assigned one to each dragon, but with slight differences so that there may be many diverse races, each different from one another, and each beautiful in its own eyes.

The Descent
For a long while after the God of Time had hid among the mortals, everything was going fine. The dragons' culture and cities thrived, there was plenty of food and no wars—but the God of Life was still lonely. It kept thinking about how to ease its loneliness, and knowing that it could not turn to the God of Death, it chose to abandon the divine realm once again and inhabit a mortal vessel. Up until then, the God of Life was the one who made the crops grow and enabled the young to be born. It was the one who gave them life, and once it descended, there was nobody else who could do its job. The God of Death could only watch as the crops failed to grow and every egg turned out to be devoid of life. It could only watch as the world it fell in love with slowly withered, and it couldn't do a thing to stop it.

The only way to restore balance, to bring life back into the now dying world, was to bring the God of Life back. And to do so, its vessel needed to be destroyed—a task which was nearly impossible, seeing as the god looked and acted like every other dragon. Not even the god knew it was a god, and the only one who might be able to track it, the God of Death, could not leave the divine realm because that would mean that the God of Life cannot be killed. If the God of Death were to descend, nothing could die because it is the entity that takes life away from creatures and returns it to the universe.

That leaves the God of Time and the Minor gods. The God of Time might be capable of fighting the vessel and the god that would take over once God of Life's vessel is destroyed, but is it able to detect the presence of the God of Life? After getting in contact with the God of Death, they realized that it is not—because the only way to track the god would be to track its cosmic weaving, which the God of Time cannot detect, being born of the gods which were, at the time, mortals.

But the minor gods are not the same as the God of Time: they are not physical beings and cannot be tracked down—with the exception of the Mother of the Woods, the only minor god that possesses a physical vessel. The minor gods can detect cosmic weaving because that's what they are made of, being similar to the God of Time in that regard. The God of Time tracked down the Mother of the Woods and explained the situation. She agreed to help and assisted the God of Time in finding the rest of the minor gods. Together, they came up with a plan of defeating the God of Life.

Seeing as they needed all the help that they could get, the minor gods would find themselves suitable vessels. They are not powerful enough to create vessels themselves, and so they must find a mortal they are compatible with and force their soul into the mortal's body. The creature that is created when a minor god shares a physical body with a mortal is called a Godborn, and the Godborn are tasked to assist the God of Time in finding and defeating the God of Life. The God of Time often helps in picking out the suitable vessels.

At a single time, there are six Godborn: one for each minor god. They all group together due to being able to sense each other's presences, and then they track down the God of Life, fighting it and destroying its mortal vessel. The God of Time will be able to sense the presence of the God of Life as soon as it is back in its divine form, and will track it down and hopefully overpower it if it had not been travelling with the Godborn already.

After the God of Life has been found and overpowered, it is carried back to the divine realm and imprisoned by the God of Death and the God of Time, who combine their powers in order to chain the God of Life to the divine realm. However, the god cannot be imprisoned forever, and sometimes it breaks free of its bindings. The entire process is then repeated, the new Godborn are selected and the God of Life is tracked down again. It's a race in which there is no option other than winning—if the Godborn do not track the god in time, the world will be beyond restoring, and they will be faced with death, not only their own but the death of their entire world.

Footnotes:
[1] Basically, it's what their divine bodies are made of—pure energy, but it is concentrated at a different part of each god. The God of Life has its in its hair, the God of Death's weaving is contained in its wings, and the God of Time's whole body is made of it.

[2] Active gods can impact the mortal word in a more "real" way—for example, Crimson is the goddess of fortune, fire and wars, and will often communicate with mortals directly if she so desires—she impacts the mortal's luck, toying with it as she sees fit, while her brother Oedis will only observe, representing rage, blood thirst and aggressiveness, and being able to increase them in certain mortals.