Pantheons of Aurius, and Associated Cosmologies

Cosmologies of the Various Peoples

In the elven tradition, their people are thought to have descended from the Cephareth, beings who had perfectly incarnated into the world before the darkness had become prevalent and when the light was abundant and numerous as its designs would come to be known throughout the seven worlds of creation. The Cephareth were thought to have preserved the divinity of the light amongst themselves as they had consciously brought themselves into existence through a superior gift in magic and sorcery than the other, undifferentiated beings of creation, and with this source of light that contained all ideas within it being referred to as Caelarkhe, the celestial principle. The force is said to have supplied an order to the ancient world that enabled for other life forms to exist in tandem with it, thereby gifting the Cephareth with consciousness in the times in which the celestial principle was abundant. Caelarkhe is thought to have been defined by the forms in which it could not be, and not the shapes in which it could become, thereby being unable to further incarnate itself into another form of existence, a trait which was not inherited by the Cephareth. Thus, the Cephareth believe themselves to be the fully realized forms of Caelarkhe, and not the agents of stasis which are unified with the being.

The elven peoples acknowledge the beings of the cosmos in three classes: the Aurya, who are bound to the mortal plane though possessing a consciousness as a result of their mixing between the light and the dark, the Sorya, who are the forms and ideas which reside in a state of perpetual stasis in Avaerus, and the Novya, who are adherents of the chaos who inhabit within the void of primal absence. The Cephareth believed themselves to be the pinnacle of the Auryi beings, who had established themselves and their world in a state where Caelarkhe's influence was evident, thereby preserving much of the force's power. Though the Cephareth see themselves as being bound to Aurius, they use this binding as their own form of stasis, thereby allowing them to preserve the essence of Caelarkhe throughout it.

Eventually, however, the Cephareth found that the powers of the light were waning, and instead united within the central world of the seven worlds of creation in order to found Arethayn, a place which notably preserved the golden light of the Arethi Era within itself as a result of its bindings. Arethayn would thus become the famed homeland of the elves, where their people would flourish as a result of their own potent magic.

Though Arethayn proved to be impenetrable against the impending darkness of chaos, there came to be a syzygy of twins who belonged to the nature of selflessness, and, looking upon the worlds of mortality which existed alongside their own, sought to eliminate the darkness from these lands. Thus, the twins ventured outward, seeking to purge the darkness from these worlds of mortality. One of them, identified by the elven name of Luminexia, used her great powers of sorcery to banish the demonic forces which plagued the soul of the dying worlds, and the other, identified as Marcosia, used his great ability of battle magic to directly combat these forces as they emerged from the earth.

After many centuries of combat with the armies of darkness which had invaded the mortal lands as they were led by the most primal incarnate of death, it was found that the presence of the darkness had been mitigated, and thus, they sought to return to the world which they had called home. The Cephareth granted them entry, though the twins could not perceive the world as they once did; the light of the world was blinding, and they could not observe the vastness of the divine shapes which were contained within. Thus, they found that they had inherited the curse of darkness, and had brought it within the golden lights of the elven homeland.

The Cephareth, upon realizing that they had lost their immortality, cursed the twins, casting them out back into the world of mortality that they had protected, and it was found that the twins faced the plight of death and disease as all mortals of the world did. The Cephareth, though losing their immortality, began to adhere to even stricter protocols than they had before in an attempt to reestablish the presence of Caelarkhe throughout their world, as previously.

The godlike beings who found themselves facing death, knowing that they would soon pass into the world which they had engineered from the pure energies of Avaerus, put in place the caste system which instilled a certain purity, and passed their crowns to the worthy of their descendants so that they might rule in their forefathers' stead. Then, the Arethi Era had come to a close, and it was no longer an immortal world of strict paradise as it once was. One of the kings of the Cepareth, however, managed to retain the presence of Caelarkhe within him, and soon, he was granted the title of Araray, the king of the elven peoples who represented their very own immortality. Thus, Araray began his rule over Arethayn, and sought to preserve the essence of Caelarkhe wherever it could be found.

This formed the basis of elven theology, where the Cephareth, who were godlike beings, would eventually pass away, and their descendants being their successors of the world. However, it was not long before other groups of elven peoples emerged; the Neiara were one such, who had a specific distaste for the caste system which marginalized them, and another were those who worshipped aspects of the natural world, called the Ayenara, the nomadic people of the sky, the Silvara, the wild people who inhabited the dense jungles, and the Undara, the undulating people who inhabited within the waves. The rulers of these elements of the natural world are Arosylph, who rules the sky, Terravis, who rules the earth, and Aecora, who rules the ocean. They each had become the god-ancestor whose essence had been inherited by their people, with the Neiara instead turning to philosophy as they rejected the ways of their ancestors.

The Neiara, eventually, would become more and more evolved over the ages, in time becoming two distinct races of elves: the Mirara and the Vaathara. The Vaathara pledged themselves before the Novyi gods of the Valdaen, while the Mirara turned to themselves as the ultimate form of divinity, thus founding the council referred to as the Aeteri. Regardless, they had each turned away from the Cephareth as they no longer felt blessed by them as those who stayed in Arethayn had. Accordingly, the inhabitants of Arethayn are called the Arethara, and they were the elder people who traced their genealogy back to the penultimate Cephareth.

The Arethara worship the Elefyr, a group of elves who had achieved the purity laid out by the Cephareth and thereby allowed themselves to achieve a level of apotheosis. Meanwhile, the Silvara maintained the worship of Terrara, an icon of the Cephareth, but extended their gaze to a more realized group of beings of all Novya, Aurya and Sorya that were thought to bear some association with the earth. The Undara, then, were known for their acknowledgement of the water spirits, indicating a different group of worshipped spirits that still were not exclusively those of Aurius. Finally, the Ayenara worship beings of the sky, who inhabit within the turbulent wind and are most free, yet are not all directly related to the winds of Aurius.

The mannish races of Aurius are thought to descend from two main groups of humans who had found themselves in the worlds of chaos, though they had never mingled prior to the founding of Rorekova. The traits that they nonetheless share as humans consist of a frailty of mortality that is simply more lacking in the elven peoples, and it is without magic that they exist. Though these traits may be evident, the most defining feature of their disparate people is the position of their ancestors in the times before Aurius had become fully incarnated through the interactions between the light and the dark. Specifically, both groups of proto-humans were forced to incarnate into mortal forms by the darkness, and as a result, they posses less divinity than the elven peoples who descend from the Cephareth. Though this may be the case, it is common within their legends for sources of divinity to bless them with power or otherwise, and it is because of this alignment to their gods and lack of self-exaltation that their existence is made meaningful and present. Worship is conducted more so among men than elves, where other sources of divinity are recognized than would be evidenced by the elven reverence for ancestor spirits.

The two ancestral groups of proto-humans do not have a name, and it is without this identity that they exist to humans. Accordingly, they are acknowledged as more abstract entities, spoken of only in mythological word throughout their descendants. However, both groups would eventually face some sort of calamity, either instigated or allowed by the divine, which would punish them and bring an end to the sacrilege promoted by the evil of these ancestors. Thus, the survivors of calamity are thought of as blessed, being as they continued to exist by the grace of the gods in an era which was wrought with a certain destruction. This era happened variously and with disparity among the two groups, with one believing that divinity itself had punished them, and the other that the darkness had supplanted itself among them. Accordingly, this led to two disparate viewpoints on the nature of both the light and the dark, and further differentiated them from each other in regards to culture and belief. The survivors of both groups, however, regarded the punishment as necessary and a holy act, supporting their distinct perceptions of the light and the dark.

The two main peoples which share a certain amount of physical features among Caskaris are the Iluayans and the Varayans, thought to have belonged to and surrounded a northern stronghold of light which worshipped beings they called the Daevas, meaning nobility. Among this race of proto-humans, the Daevas were acknowledged as divinities, who had earlier descended from the heavens to further supply some order to the world. They were notably invoked within their rituals, and thus, worship of them proliferated as they had proven their power and use to these humans. Notably, however, there were some of these humans that could not perceive the Daevas, and thus found themselves worshipping spirits who inhabited the worlds of mortality. This blindness would come to spread throughout the east, thereby supplanting a chaos there that the Daevas could not penetrate into. This schism would lead to the identifier of the Neraics, those conscious who resided within the Daevas' grace, and the Ayanics, who were of the body, both of which being the ancestors of the Iluayans and Varayans.

The Ayanics were tribal and primitive, lacking the worship of more advanced beings and instead, their worship was predicated by the phenomena of animism. Thus, they relied on totems to acknowledge their gods, found within the animals which inhabited the mortal plane. In these ancient times, Viora was acknowledged as a powerful goddess whose aspect inhabited within the earth and allowed for the proliferation of forest in their land through her power. Lirela was also acknowledged, and it was through her that the springs could exist which indubitably granted life to the earth through her very blood of freshwater. The worship of Vindaric, the king of sky and air, found itself sanctioned by their people as well, thought to have given them their very breath and allowed for the seeds of fertility to propagate themselves into the world.

The Neraics who worshipped the Daevas, however, did not preserve their records of the names of these gods and goddesses save for a few. Eventually, the Garden of Runaral, which they inhabited in a state of freedom from the chaos, would fall as the darkness had nonetheless managed to corrupt the divine space, which would signal a subtle transition of the rule of the Daevas to those beings referred to retroactively as the Archons. These rulers were corrupt, however, and are thought to be like likenesses of the Daevas who had found themselves physically incarnated into powerful beings, though becoming corrupt in the process. The Archons had inherited the curse of darkness, thereby spreading it throughout the world of the Garden of Runaral. Thus, the Neraics gradually and fully migrated from the western lands of fertility and fruitfulness to inhabit alongside the Ayanics, thereby allowing a mix of cultural philosophy and the exchange of ideas. From this exchange, the reverence for the two twin forces of light and dark could be acknowledged, as they existed in exclusion and opposition to one another and yet, mixing within the mortal plane. This would allow for the vast interplay between those gods and goddesses to be had, where previously developed Ayanic deities could be given new aspects as were experienced by the Neraics. Notably, however, among the philosophical descendants of the Neraics who had not been blinded by the darkness, the worship of Aion Teleos had become commonplace, though being persecuted by the Ayoskovic Potentate as a result of the potentate's imperialistic nature. Thus, the Iluyanic pantheon is largely dominated by the decrees of the potentate, while the Varayans, who inhabit the north of Caskaris, are removed from these occurrences, and thus, have their own, unique pantheon, influenced also by the duality of light and dark.

The people of modern Ethrekas believe themselves to descend from the Ethetian peoples, who had earlier been chosen by Solara and allowed to continue existing with her providence. It is this act that altered their bodily compositions, enabling a soul or divine spark to be observed within them. It is thought by these descendants that that the goddess of the sun, Solara, had birthed the world in the beginning times, and was the divine creatrix that had given the world of mortality its soul to be plentiful throughout it. Her essential life force could then be found there, and she observed that some were more perfect and congenial to her, retaining some aspect of their divine mother that others still were lacking in. Among these beings were the Ethetia and what would become their gods, the Elohad, who had been gifted with both ascension and consecration by the token of possessing her divine spark and their previous semblance to the life given by the heavens. Thus, the Ethetia began to acknowledge Solara as the divine mother of the cosmos, and it was through her that the gift of life was given.

Prior to being blessed by Solara with their own divine spark, the Ethetia lived alongside the Makhetia, who were prone to vice and sin, thereby causing their penultimate punishment through the event of the Great Scorching, which resulted in their loss of life and existence among the mortal plane. The Makhetia themselves possessed idols and worshipped beings that instead had allied themselves with the powers of darkness, an act which Solara admonished and brought to a swift end. It was in this act of punishment and descent into the world of mortals that she had found that the Ethetia were more perfect and congenial to her essential being, and thus, before she ascended once more, she left the gods that would become known as the Elohad her gifts, allowing them to ascend as she did into the immortal plane. This would spell the end of an era among the continent of Ethrekas, and notably allow for the beings of mortality to follow suit with Solara and ascend as she did, given that her path into the heavens was laid out before her and by the Elohad.

The Kataletia, who are the imperial people of Grecyda and who descend from the Ethetia who were earlier repulsed from their ancestral homeland of the jungles of Tradarda by the unification of the Vaathara, reinstated worship of the Elohad, though this was not without centuries of development and reeducation by the government of the Grecydan Empire. Previously, those who would become the Kataletia were still tribal, and there were many gods and goddesses that had yet to merge into a whole pantheon. Notably, the Teletia of southeastern Grecyda worshipped the jinn, fire spirits that were born from the Great Scorching, while the people of the west, the Vespetia, acknowledged firstly Nirafa, the goddess of the sands, before adopting worship of other female idols who were not prone to neglect. Then, the Najetia of the settlement of Yvafa built the Tower of Najana, where they could observe the transcendent stars and other astronomical bodies more readily. The Eretia, however, are descendants of the Ethetia who were subjugated by the Vaathara by effect of their staying in Tradarda, and they possess a reverence for the divinities and power of their elven overlords and ancestors, worshipping them as gods capable of great acts of magic and manipulation of the elements.