The Eden Creation Myth
Posted: March 17, 2010 Filed under: Campaigns, Fluff/Inspiration, RPG, Spirits Of Eden 4 Comments »All Adelians agree upon one outstanding creation story and its underlying metaphysical details. While minor interpretations may disagree, and among the many religions the role of a certain deity or another may be detailed above others, the actors and major events are the same across all versions of the narrative.
The Creation Story
Before the World of Eden, the planet and its surroundings were ruled by a magocratic theocracy centered on the worship of evil, aberrant Gods. These aberrations demanded sacrifice in exchange for incredible power. The Ancient People neutered the processes of their world via magic and took them by puppet’s strings. There were no rains except those they wanted, no tides they did not call to being, no plant growth they did not directly nurture. They were controllers of a dead planet reanimated at their whim. They lived in bliss upon a rotten husk that never molested them, feeding monsters which gave them prosperity.
Their power and majesty did not last. Eventually the magic that they used saturated the world and triggered a death throes now known as the Last Cataclysm. The seas rose to swallow the land, the continents were sucked into magmatic flows, the sky broke off from on high and even the void of space, once an astral sea of many shining stars, shattered and became swallowed by the Crawling Chaos which reached forth to feast upon the now vulnerable world. After the Cataclysm, precious little survived. What was left was a dazed remnant of people with minds forever scarred walking upon a ruined landscape.
The reawakened world quickly brought to bear its long-sleeping processes of survival. Slowly but surely it created new life out of the magic still permeating its surface. The Spirits were the first inhabitants exclusively of the new world. Later, as if by a speed-up natural growth, other animals and peoples resurfaced, but the Spirits came first. Without them there would be no new world to inhabit. The Spirits embodied the controlling magic of the Ancient People, and they reshaped the continents, refertilized the lands, harmonized the tides, and anchored the skies anew. Now that these powers flowed among them, the mortals would never again be the despoiling gods they once were. The continent of Adel formed.
At first the Spirits were mostly homogenous magical beings of little form. But as they developed alongside the nascent mortal races, they began to take different shapes. In truth, the mortals never completely gave up their control of the ancient magic. Unwittingly, they were still shaping and controlling it just by feeling and thinking, as children growing in a new world. But it was no longer the humans and elves, crushed as they were by the cataclysm, but instead the imaginations, feelings, fears and sins of the Iomadi, Athirua and other species both on Adel and its surrounding islands who’s minds shaped the Spirits. As mortals grew more cognizant of themselves and their surroundings, their will slowly gave the Spirits a measure freedom from their duty.
However, one more tumult would occur before the creation of Eden could be called complete.
The Spirits grew individual as mortals were. They were no longer just antibodies of a wounded world. They were creatures, transcendental beings, gods upon an Earth, with minds and emotions. Of them, Nine became central, the Nine that had contact with the Mortals and most embodied those special selves that defined “humanity.” But those nine were challenged. A hundredfold creatures known as the Ashura, and their four chosen gods known as the Devas, challenged the Nine for possession of the new world. The Nine, knowing that their power came from the Mortals, sought instead to give the world up to them, so they might all thrive equally. Even the most Evil of the Nine deities knew that they needed the Mortals.
The Ashura, Spirits closest to mortal mind and vice, cared not for this. For the Ashura, the throne of the world was theirs. The Ashura who were almost like grunt workers throughout the process, now claimed the creation. The Devas from among them were just as powerful as the Nine, but the friction did not end there. Alongside the Devas, a third faction of spirit deities rose, known as the Scourges. These five made the process of revival much more dangerous for everyone. The Scourges were Spirits that embodied some of the most powerful and important processes in Eden and boasted some of the greatest of the ancient magic. Kuannei, the Scourge of Night, trapped in misery from her strange position among the Spirits, attempted to murder Ravindra, the Spirit of Day and Sun. The other Scourges each attempted to destroy, for one reason or another, one of the Nine.
Yet despite these odds, the Nine persevered. By joining together for the first and last time, enemies, friends and creatures of indifference, the Nine defeated the Devas, fended off the Scourges and banished the Ashura to their own world, since they so wanted one. Opening the darkness, the Nine cast the Ashura into Septinum, a world of wastes and caverns, of broken remnants of worlds past and life struggling to thrive. The Scourges were each sealed in a method fitting to them, so that they could continue to serve their purposes without wreaking undue havoc. Some were perhaps more deserving of punishment than others.
Perhaps it is a testament to the Ashura’s near-mortal mindset that the current generations of them have no recollection of this. And perhaps it is for the best that they believe themselves to have always been masters of Septinum and nothing else.
Since then, the world carried on with mortal history. The Spirit’s History, aside from that which they shared with mortals, was then over. The World was made, and they were free. The Nine separated once again, each wishing for the most worship so that they might have the greatest influence upon the mortal mind. The Devas of the Ashura were gone, but their powers circulated amongst the devils, and every so often an Ashura noble might be born with a fragment of that terrible power. The Scourges sleep until the day they might perhaps be unleashed by someone foolish enough to disrupt them.
Principal Actors
There are five groups of Spirits most involved in the creation story. So-called “Natural Spirits,” small deities of things like water and wind, including creatures common today like the Muikara and Apekar, are the largest group of Spirits involved in the creation and still extant in as large a host. They represented the numerous small cogs in the vast metaphysical machine of the world’s natural processes, powering such things as evolution, the water cycle, the erosion of rocks.
The Legion of the Ashura, semi-mortal spirits somewhat resembling the old humanity, are said to have been the grunt workers of creation who performed direct labor. From them rose four Devas representing the things that Mortals feared most. The Ashura exist to this day in Septinum, though time and exposure to Septinum has made them more and more like Spirits and less like the mortals they once greatly resemble. Whether this is a fall from grace or a rise to power is in the eye of the beholder. The Devas in some form, despite their defeat, still exist in ancestors who inherit some amount of their power.
Those Spirits who in their despair, greed or folly brought to Spirits the Sin of abject murder are known as the Scourges of Eden. Each of them represented something terribly important to the world that taxed the Spirit’s mind far too much. Perhaps no one should have to be responsible for things like the Day-Night cycle, the Ground cycle, the Water cycle, Volcanism and Magic. Those Spirits that were born to oversee such things eventually became mad, and attempted to destroy some of the Nine that were closest to mankind. These Spirits are a faction only in relation to their actions. They would destroy each other just as easily as they would destroy anyone else if they could. They are broken things, their great power too terribly contrasted with their great helplessness at wielding said power, and the injustice of their position all conspired against them.
To this day the Scourges exist trapped in their duties forever, kept sleeping so that they might remain Sane. Should they ever be released, the Nine would be helpless to stop them anew. Centuries of sleep doesn’t make these beings weaker. It just makes them better rested and infinitely more wrathful when they reawaken. Only a Mortal’s actions can release a Scourge, directly or not, and only a Mortal’s actions can put a Scourge back to sleep – or perhaps, if a miracle occurred, heal the Scourge’s scars.
The most illustrious group are the Nine Greater Spirit Powers. These are the Spirits closest to the mortals, upon whom the lore and legends of the races of eden focus most on. They believe it was by the divine influence of the Nine that Mortals grew to have the minds and souls they have now. Without a Spirit to validate the concept, there would be no concept. Those concepts most important to everything a Mortal is – both positive and negative – are the Nine.
The Nine Greater Spirit Powers
Arcline: The Greater Spirit of Community, Compassion, Mortality and in some instances, Sacrifice, Arcline is said to have given unto the mortals the ability to join together in families and villages, allowing them new prosperity.
Inunkuru: The Greater Spirit of Vanity, Deceit, Knowledge and sometimes Tyranny, Inunkuru is said to have given unto the mortals the drive, ambition and competition that produces truly outstanding individuals.
Rashine: The Greater Spirit of Freedom, Water and Intellect, Rashine is said to have given unto the mortals the drive to self-rule and to examine the world around them.
Ravindra: The Greater Spirit of Justice, Fire and Courage, Ravindra is said to have given unto the mortals their sense of valor, and their ability to give up their best interests for the benefit of others.
Kaehma: The Greater Spirit of Disease, Death, and Sloth, Kaehma is said to have given unto the mortals the ability to be free of their mortal shell once their time is up, passing their essence on to others.
Koyki: The Greater Spirit of Wrath, Strength and Violence, Koyki is said to have given unto the mortals the ability to defend themselves and to stand unyielding for what they believe in.
Orvial: The Greater Spirit of Beauty, Individualism and Art, Orvial is said to have given unto the mortals the ability to differ from one another and to utilize their imaginations to the utmost.
Trudgar: The Greater Spirit of Law, Tradition and Honor, Trudgar is said to have given unto the mortals their codes of law and their sense of how to judge and build a person’s character.
Paikar: The Greater Spirit of Nature, Fertility and Agriculture, Paikar is said to have given unto mortals the ability to live off the land and to make more of themselves and prosper.
The Four Devas of the Ashura
Shansha, the Magnitude: The Deva of the Earth who represented Earthquakes.
Yamna, the Rising: The Deva of the Water who represented Tidal Waves.
Raksha, the Miasma: The Deva of the Air who represented Plagues.
Indshra, the Falling: The Deva of Fire who represented Lighting Storms.
The Five Scourges of Eden
Kuannei: The Scourge of Eden who’s former duty was to oversee the Day-Night cycle.
Cheita: The Scourge of Eden who’s former duty was to oversee the Ground Cycle (erosion, continental drift and so on).
Sophia: The Scourge of Eden who’s former duty was to oversee the Essence process (by which magic energy circulated).
Repun: The Scourge of Eden who’s former duty was to oversee the Water Cycle.
Suvus: The Scourge of Eden who’s former duty was to oversee Volcanic activity in Eden.
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I can’t help but think that an epic worldchanging quest in Eden (something you’ve voiced your opposition of in the past) would center around the destruction/mercykilling of the Scourges to allow the now living planet to take up their old duties.
Like most important Spirits, you shouldn’t “kill” the Scourges. But that’s up to the person running the campaign. Me, I would probably emphasize trying to right the Scourge’s despair and helplessness. Once released they may become like the Nine, rather than being “invisible gods.” Eden would not change much.
If you were a real bastard, you could twist it around and have them erase the concept entirely if they kill the Scourge. Killed Repun? No more Rain. World ends. (Again.)
“Me, I would probably emphasize trying to right the Scourge’s despair and helplessness.”
How would you go about this if the very thing that drives them insane and homicidal is the power and responsibility that was inbuilt? Would there be a possibility to separate them from said power, transferring it to something else that can handle it? Or maybe diluting it by giving them lesser spirits in their control that they can spread this job out to? Or is there another method perhaps that would fit the background better?
It could be any of that or something else. That’s why it’s referred to as a “miraculous” occurrence. Miracles don’t have to be explained. A lot of Eden’s lore comes from people trying to make sense of things after the fact, and though it’s as accurate as they will ever get, it could also be wrong. At the moment it happens, no explanation is necessary. The musings on why it happened could make for a good epilogue.
In fact, you should let the players try to explain to themselves why it happened. Come up with some ambiguous way for them to gain an upper hand and defeat the scourge (macguffin collect-a-thon, finding a certain spirit, going to a certain holy site, etc). Then you as a DM measure how they succeeded and how they conducted themselves, and what they did after the battle. Then have something miraculous happen and let the PCs decide why. Their explanations will be as good (if not better) as yours.
Once I write more about each Scourge’s story and personality and why they fell (this is a simplified version of the events – yes, ‘going crazy’ is a part of it but there’s other factors) you’ll have some idea. Kuannei can be more reasoned with than can Suvus, for example. They all have different personalities, just like the character of the ground cycle is different from that of the water cycle.