First there was nothing, then a spark; from void to one, the Creator split light from shadow like dawn cleaving dusk.
He weighed the heavy against the light, etched paths and laws like riverbeds in clay, forged matter on the anvil of silence, and shaped life— the Primordial Nine Races.
—Genesis
It didn’t begin so simply. Mortals—those Primordial Nine Races—were called the Creator’s youngest children for a reason, a name spoken with reverence, not whim.
After heaven and earth were parted like sky from soil, the Creator’s first making stirred.
The earliest primordial beings were born like comets breaking night, bright and terrible.
They were strong and wise; no language could hold their perfection, like trying to bottle the sea with both hands.
But the Creator saw it at once: the primal beings were too great, and the newborn world was too small, a jar too tight for mountains.
So He spoke with them, calm as winter rain, asking them to sleep.
Sleep until the world grew wide enough to cradle them.
“Sky-Warden” Polizia chose to drift across the endless firmament, a lone gull riding the blue.
“Boundary Wraith” Yakumo chose to sleep quietly on a nameless island, like mist clinging to pine.
“Sky-Bearer” Beowulf chose to wait beneath the earth, a pillar sunk in bedrock.
The Creator agreed, and they slept one by one, like stars winking out.
No one yet saw the Ocean of Darkness, nor felt its stain seeping like ink.
Then the Creator made the first mortal race—humans.
They were weak, short-lived, their spirits fragile, like reeds in wind.
So He gave humans the plains, richest and widest, a golden table spread beneath open sky.
Upon that pattern He strengthened the body, quickened breeding like spring grass, and sharpened battle instinct like a knife’s edge.
Thus He made the second race—Beastfolk—and gave them the mountains, stone backs against storms.
Next, seeing the wide sea unruled, He kept the human frame and added the water’s gene, a skin for pressure and a soul that resisted magic’s pull like a ship holds keel.
He made the third race—Merfolk—and gave them the waters, kingdoms under blue glass.
He judged the underworld too perilous for humans.
So He lowered the shape, packed muscle and bone denser than Beastfolk, like iron in oak.
He made the fourth race—Dwarves—and gave them the deep, halls chiseled in night.
Human range was too narrow for the boundless forests.
So He lightened the body, made their limbs swift as deer, their souls skim magic like dragonflies on ponds.
He made the fifth race—Elves—and gave them the forests, cathedrals of leaf and light.
By then, the Creator had sensed the Ocean of Darkness, the world’s shadowed shore.
He armed His children not just to thrive, but to stand against black tide.
Thus the Elves’ affinity for magic rose like a moon over the first four races, and all who came after were tuned first to the currents of power.
Yet He had not guessed that darkness was no stray remnant, but a storm equal to light—vast for vast, tide for tide.
After the Elves, He judged them too brittle, like glass flutes in a gale.
He stripped away their extreme agility and the frailty it demanded, and poured life into them like sunlight into stone.
He rooted their lives in the glow of sun and moon, drew strength from the earth’s weight, set the elements as shield and sword.
A new race rose, near-immortal in survival, sky-rending in battle—later called the Lunarfolk.
But the Lunarfolk were too strong, the first made purely as “warriors,” like blades forged without balance.
Their fertility waned to almost nothing, and their gifts burned too bright to control; in battle, their flaws showed like cracks under frost.
Worst of all, their minds could not bear their own might; their spirits were less stable than human hearts in storm.
They were too few to claim a land; no territory was given, only moonlit solitude.
The Creator was all-knowing and all-powerful, yes—yet His work was ex nihilo, not an edit of existing laws.
Imperfection in creation was natural, like knots in living wood.
Learning from the Lunarfolk, He forged more races meant for war.
Aerian—bred for group battle, a flock that moves like one wave.
Their obedience and sacrifice ran deep; their view was broad as horizon; their feelings quiet, never steering the helm.
He gave them wings to fly free and magic beyond Elves, and set them as a main bulwark against the Ocean of Darkness.
Dragonkind—bred for single combat, a storm in one body.
He rewove life’s factors and chose “vastness” as their road; they too bore wings.
Their temper ran hot and brave, perfect for solo charges, the other main bulwark against that black sea.
Satisfied, He gave Aerian and Dragonkind the peaks and the cloudfields—lands where thunder walks and eagles write poems.
Still wary, He made a life extreme in one direction, a shape that could unshape—Starborne.
When change struck, the Starborne could retune themselves, kindle some factors, dim others, fitting the moment like water finds a vessel.
In spirit they were a wall with no door, firm beyond answer.
Simply put, He gave the Starborne a sliver of His own authority, like a spark cupped from the sun.
At last the Creator felt the world settle, like a lake after wind.
He exhaled and let leisure in.
He attended the Sorcerer Emperor’s coronation, silk and sigils under high lamps.
He spoke with sages about how the races might evolve, and with philosophers about the strengths and lacks of their spirits.
That was the gentlest season of the golden age.
Tearless days slipped by like petals on a slow stream, and everyone believed this world could go on forever.
Yet the Creator kept thinking, the mind a loom.
Could there be a species with the primordial beings’ might, the Starborne’s steadfast spirit, the Beastfolk’s compact build, the Elves’ art, the Dwarves’ fine craft, and humans’ sky-running imagination?
He kept thinking and kept drafting, like a mason fitting stone.
Ten thousand years passed by ten thousand, discussions with countless sages like constellations across nights.
The Sorcerer Emperor searched the source, fingers in the root of magic.
At last, He found the answer He sought—only…
