Cosmologies

Many legends abound in the worlds of Aurius about how the plane of existence came into being, though most have a clear theme of there being opposites that became inextricably bound together. These are referred to mononymously throughout all cultures as the light and the dark, otherwise known as presence and absence, stasis or change. This is notably a feature derived again from The Elder Scrolls, where such beings are without agency or consciousness and are only primarily primordial forces.

The Arethara, as descendants of the Cephareth, believe in the initial emergence of Caelarkhe, who emerged first as a primordial and paradoxically inclined agent of stasis that yet managed to influence all forms of life throughout the mortal plane and beyond. Upon the force's inception, there was a stability to the world, and spirits could come to know themselves along the polarities of Caelarkhe and the being's absence. Thus was born the Sorya, who had become bound to Caelarkhe's light and stasis, thus producing an eternal sustenance, and the Novya, who existed in exception to Caelarkhe but yet could only come to be because they knew that they were not like Caelarkhe. Then, the process of Auroris would begin, as the Novya, who were beings of chaos and change, causally affected the Sorya who nonetheless managed to remain perfectly intact and eternal in their being. This action caused the Sorya to bleed, and from the ethereal blood came perfect soul and vitality, and it then mingled with the diametrically positioned void to create the Aurya, who could further incarnate into the place in which the blood first became diluted so that new sources of power and being could emerge. The first of the Aurya to become were the ancestors of the Arethara and all elven peoples, the Cephareth, and they incarnated into the forms that were most reminiscent of the Sorya and their great being. The Cephareth retained the gifts of the light, having crystallized into existence simply by the token of their trapping of the Soryi blood within them and their being. This event is referred to as Auroris, the binding bloodshed, and is found in greater detail here.

The Neiara, as a culturally distinct offshoot from the original Cephareth, also believe in the initial emergence of Caelarkhe as a primordial principle by which beings could come to recognize themselves from, in addition to the Sorya whose emergence was facilitated by the force. It is believed by the Neiara that from the singularity of Caelarkhe was born multiplicity, where Caelarkhe was able to naturally exclude those elements from his essence and allow for the flow of the void to take hold. Thus, the Neiara worship aspects of the twin divinities of both the light and the dark, such that Caelarkhe is perceived to have emerged as a later being than the previous Aya. This evolution of thought emerges from a cultural and philosophical devaluation of the purity of Caelarkhe and his abilities and omnipotence, where the force is conteseted as the first entity to lay affection to the world of the Aya of before. Thus, while the Neiara believe in the process of Auroris as the Arethara do, they also believe that there was an entity which rivaled the powers of Caelarkhe, and that this entity may have existed even prior to Caelarkhe, the celestial principle that brought about the cloven duality of the worlds of Aurius.