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.

Elven cosmologies necessarily invoke the process of Auroris where the Sorya were made to bleed by the Novya and which brought about the creation of the worlds of Aurius. It is also believed that the Cephareth were the incarnations of Soryi blood that had retained all of the gifts of Caelarhke, being divine and magical beings capable of practicing magic. This history was recorded by the Cephareth to be passed down among their people, thereby enabling the knowledge to be known by their descendants.

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, and is found in greater detail here.

The Neiara, as a culturally distinct offshoot from the original Cephareth, also believed 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 contested 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. Thus, the Neiara contested Caelarkhe as the alpha of the void, and instead directed their sense of purity towards other sources, though lacking a unification in terms of thought and thus, freeing them from the strictures professed by the Arethara.

The humans of Caskaris necessarily derive their cosmological beliefs from the proto-humans, the Neraics and the Ayanics, those ancestors whose essential cultural features and thought were circumstantially contrasted by way of a propensity towards the spirit, as the Neraics would possess, and the physical, as the Ayanics would possess. Thus, there is a wide range of beliefs among the Caskaric humans, and it is without agreement that their descendants exist amongst each other.

The Iluayanic peoples, who were described as such by the Ayoskovic Potentate, believed notably in the existence of Harmena, who breathed life and soul into the first of those that could be called human so that they might know consciousness and awareness. From this goddess of life and soul came all aspects of mortal existence, and notably, the Vaniel were born as aspects of the natural world. Then, the Vaniel were regarded as gods to be worshipped, and from them came the very structure and foundation of the mortal world of Caskaris. These aspects were furthermore seen as totems by the animistic ancestors of the Iluayans, and they were thus worshipped as envoys of the gods of the natural world, the Vaniel. The Vaniel were later contrasted by the druids with the Aesyth, beings who were of a heavenly nature whose powers did not belong to that of the natural world.

The druidic peoples who descended from the Neraics believed that the world began first with an unknowable, ineffable being who encompassed all aspects of existence and creation within itself. This being is referred to as aion_teleos, the broadest of the immortal Aions, whose true name is not freely shared by the druids to any others. Then, from the being of pure essence and soul, there came to be two sexually dimorphic consciousnesses, referred to as the Euras, who were differentiated between them by the role in which they brought about existence and perfection. These differentiating consciousnesses of Aion Teleos's were called by the druids Izabela and Aurideon, and they were female and male respectively. Izabela, the feminine identity of Aion Teleos, contained within herself a potentiality that could become anything, while Aurideon, conversely, was the actualized principle of the ineffable, who contained the perfection and principled nature of the heavens. Aurideon could not reproduce without Izabela, though Izabela could reproduce though imperfectly through emanation. Thus, when Aurideon no longer wished to create divine offspring that were of a perfection, Izabela's essence overflowed, the potentiality no longer being able to be contained and constrained by actuality. From this action was born the Ovum of Light, and all of creation would come to be from it. When Izabela overflowed, an aspect of herself emerged among the mortal plane, and this aspect was called Harmena, and it was she that was identified as the consciousness of the ovum, being a daughter cell that was yet identical to her mother.

The potentate of Ayoskova believe that from the Vaniel were born the gods of the four seasons, whose essences became united in Aryela such that Lyosithar came into being. Similarly to their Ayanic ancestors, they believed that animals and other natural beings of the world were aspects of gods, and that the gods of the four seasons, who represent the four physical elements that were produced by those who achieved the perfection of the mortal world, were to be regarded as more supreme beings than the less perfect Vaniel. These Vaniel nonetheless had birthed the four Ayoskovic elements from which came the seasons, creating a pendulum that alternated in extremes between summer and winter. Before the Vaniel, however, there was Harmena, and it was from her boundless fertility and life that the preceding Vaniel could emerge from and take after in their aspects of being. It is thought that Harmena descended from a distant nebula to provide shape among the chaos, birthing the gods that were the Vaniel so that they could act as agents and points of stability among the first incarnation of the structure of the mortal plane. The Vaniel, then, were the initial elements, and, being subordinate to the infinite Harmena, were finite, thereby causing them to assimilate into the world in their binding to it such that they could no longer identify themselves. The gods of the four seasons are thus regarded as a more penultimate aspect of being than these of the Vaniel, who were able to identify themselves despite their progenitors not being able to themselves.