To provide a concise and straight forward history of the planet would be a luxury. It is not really possible. We arrive late in the story of this globe. The rises and falls have been multitudinous and far reaching. It is not clear if humankind started here or was transported here. Did we start out in caves or savannas or just end up back there at multiple points as magic and technology and mother nature each did their part in resurfacing the slate.
It is clear that some strange technologies predate this era. Dark and twisted magics as well. It is written that a few thousand years ago there was quite a dark time, of which not much is known. In the centuries that followed civilizations were brought back to the fore and several empires were raised, waged wars, found peace, traded and learned from one another and continued that rhyme of history like so much music played on crown points, sword tip, and coffin lid.
There were angels and demons of some repute. Many well believed and palpable bestowing miracle and curse. In the past two centuries they have been cast aside, renamed “the old gods,” and removed from vulgar circulation in all but the vestiges and undercurrents of society, replaced by the gods turned flesh: The Pentagra.
The first of the new gods was a flash in the pan. A brief, and brightly burning falling star of a many faceted soul. Aprazhury they were called and they rose from the ashes of an intense fire in the far kingdom of Ordrar in the east. He is dead now.
His followers today tell of a tortured and fractured soul. A being from another plane, splintered into five parts all greater than the original whole. There was the walking man, Aprazhury, who arrived naked and alone, impossibly bronze skinned and speaking a strange smokey tongue.
The Book of the New God puts it to verse as such:
He walked from the ash and cinder and stepped onto the surface of the pond at Lunk Doc and did not sink as he knew not the properties of water and his will would not have it. Any that challenged him he set to right with a force that saw them break or become his enamored confidant with only a hair’s breadth to separate the two. In days he learned the Ordrarian language, The history of Lunk Doc, the pitch and yaw of the stars in heaven. He devoured the library at Imon-kirk as one takes the roasted flesh of beast from its bone with teeth alone and the juices thereof dripped and left a trail that could be followed…
Aprazhury was unsure of exactly who he was, although he had an inkling. He was but one aspect of a being that was making use of our world as a shortcut of some sort. He was a shadow of that being. Perhaps a scientist or wizard, a young god. Some experiment or spell had passed his soul through the prism of Haucumgalium and in that instant left behind splintered fragments of itself. Not enough to be missed in its own realm, but massively powerful on Nizour.
His legend grew quickly, people flocked to him for guidance and protection. He was mildly aloof but not unkind. He made no aspirations to usurp power, but power came to him. The King, seeing Aprazhury as a threat and object of jealousy sought to have him arrested, and while the young deity would not oppose the king openly his followers were incensed and the kingdom was toppled.
A small cadre of loyal guards spirited away the young prince of Ordrar to a mountain home above the plains of Hoon. Aprazhury cared not for revenge or petty difference. He wanted for nothing but the knowledge of his origins and how to get home, but no scroll or arithmetic could crack the veil of the planes.
After a handful of years new mysteries began to arise. In the nearby hamlet of Lillit a dog was born. From birth, its paws betrayed the massive beast it would grow to be but even they did not pen the poem. At two years of age it stood a head taller than the largest man in the village. People began to come from miles around to pay respects and see the creature for themselves. It had strange wisdom in its eyes though it could not speak a word. By the end of its third year, when Aprazhury decided he could no longer avoid seeing it for himself and took the trip to Lillit, it stood as tall as the second balcony of the Inn.
Aprazhury and the hound he would rename Omen were never again separated from this day to their death. They immediately saw each other for what they were: two aspects of the same being. And too, they knew their numbers, and that they were but two parts of five.
A third aspect was discovered by the members of a sect that worshiped Aprazhury as a god. In their prayers, study, and prostrations they communed with a voice on the wind. A greater entity than Aprazhury. Less human by far having no body, no earthly desire. The name it took was Oliveth and while it was bodiless the tomes describe its voice as:
Inhuman and beautiful. Awful in its presence and feminine to the human ear but tinged like setting rays of the sun filtered and wetted by drops of rain.
Oliveth is still worshiped to this day as mother of the new gods. Her power is thin and disconnected but when she is stirred, great magics she may yet bring forth.
The innocence of the young gods were their undoing. None save perhaps Oliveth who only spoke in song, poem, and riddle ever considered that the remaining two aspects might not share the same kinship with humanity, love of knowledge, and will to see the world continue in its beautiful dance of order and chaos.
In the Year of the Golden Duck by Ordrar reckoning The Burned Man emerged from the desert. His pale and naked flesh was baked blue by the sun, cracking and flaking as he walked. He seemed born of pain and both hatted and relished it. He swayed the simple folk of the provinces to his side by force, torture, promise or eternal pain and eternal reward. The royal guard of the prince Anthirk saw this as an opportunity to return the child to the throne. They made dark pacts with the burned man and he agreed to lend forces to the cause but would not challenge Aprazhury openly.
What happened next is as legendary as it is tragic and disheartening, for as any child can tell you this was all a trap. The burned man was and is the first Anathema and the fourth embodiment of the new god. A near immortal avatar being, much like Aprazhury, set on the destruction of all order and sworn to the whim of the final form the Primal Eldritch Chaos, The Discordant Singularity.
Aprazhury rode on the back of Omen along with a host of his strongest followers. They met the prince on the fields of Urstur and when blood was done being spilled Aprazhury had prevailed, but the host that the young prince Anthirk had lead was a puny and human shadow of the true force of the burned man:
They rose up from the South and seemed to grow taller as the sun grew low. Men of shadow, emboldened by the dark. They rode at speed and slew all in their path. The prince, his men-at-arms, The priests of Ordrar, The Army of the New God, all fell to this onslaught. The god hound Omen was pulled down and spread wide of the grounds, and the world was fed his blood. When none remained but Aprazhury the shadows laid low and slowed with the weight of the moonless sky and The Burned Man beat him until he had no strength to resist and ate him alive while he breathed shallow without the will to curse.
In the decades that followed new gods have been born. Each has five forms matching poor Aprazhury. Each form knows the building blocks of its sororal family but not their minds. Often the brothers and sisters work together towards the same purpose, but they are not of one mind or beholden to one another. Each has their own part to play:
The Vast are the ghostly and ubiquitous embodiment of the core identity of a faith. This powerful and broad entity is emotion, concept, and creed in pure form unadulterated by psyche and consciousness. These are the entities that grant holy spells and miracles. They whisper on the wind but never walk the soil of Nizour.
The Avatars are the walking, thinking, and crusading body on earth of the Vast. They are usually but not always committed to some combination of goals of the particular vast of which they are siblings.
The Titans are immense animal forms of the Vast. Intelligent races of Nizour have built vast and moving cities on the backs of the Titans. Most (but again not all) Titans are ruled or lead by their corresponding Avatar. The Titans and Avatars provide protection from the Anathema and their hordes.
The Anathema are the antithesis of the Avatar. A walking, breathing, embodiment of the darkest energies. They thirst for chaos, pain, darkness, and decay. Many Anathema lead the hordes and legions of chaos.
The fifth and final form of each god family have all merged into a single and unflinching chaos. The Discordant Singularity screams with a million voices and belches forth eldritch evil upon the land. The Hordes fill the lowlands of Nizour and threaten to wipe humanity and its laws from the globe.
Haucumgalium 