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Genesis
A thesis by Moban-uul, undergraduate at Syvaahn Theological Academy
With materials by Antinial the Elder, wizard of Thell, speaker at Syvaahn Theological Academy.


All of our recent history has revolved around our relations with the races of Humans and Dwarves who occupy our ancestral lands. But as all Elves know, there was a time when we did not have these companions. A time when the entire eastern land was ruled by Elven kings, and only the vile Goblins existed to challenge our purity.

Even generations just now passed on could recall the arrival of the most recent settlers, the wild men who sailed across the poles to settle the Northland Kingdom. Before that, the surly Dwarves who fell from the sky in floating ships, sailing on a sea of hot air. And farther still into the mists of time, the Human refugees from the ruined nation of Yer-ks, on the far side of the world.

Before any of them, there were only the Elves. A long period of our history leading up to the Yer-ks settlers details nothing but the reconstruction of our vast, ruined lands, the very same lands now settled by these impure commoners from afar. And before that were the wars. The endless wars with our ancient Goblin enemies.

All of prehistory consists of the wars, and the long periods of reconstruction between them. This is where the records become thin, what with us having lost so many of our great libraries in the last great war before the colonists came. From what we can reconstruct, it seems that for many millenia, the Goblins would grow militant and unite under a single banner, to rage across the plains and pillage our forests here in the east. Meanwhile, our quest for purity would grow ever stronger, and we would erect massive defenses against the barbaric Goblins to save our beautiful cities and pure ways of life.

Then the wars would end, all of our numbers decimated and only the strongest still alive, and for centuries more we would rebuild our lands while the Goblins repopulated their empire to the west. Some of our scholars are frightened because, if there truely is a pattern to the great wars of the past, then the period of reconstruction is almost over, and another great war is sure to come soon.

But this is all history, freely available to anyone in the Academy's vast library. The topic of this paper is theology.

I have discovered, in the dimmest of prehistorical records, texts which speak of the first great war, and of more than that - of our very creation. I appologise to in advance to all those whose sensibilites I may offend, for what I am about to say goes against not only the accepted beliefs of all our people, but those of every race known to us.

These texts speak of a god who came to our world from another realm and crafted a great land on the far side of the world, but failed in his efforts and, despondent, came to rest over the wild lands which once grew here. He created us and the Goblins, and ruled over the wars and periods of reconstruction to further a cause too great for our mortal minds to grasp. And then, abruptly, only a few thousand years ago... he left us.

Initially I dismissed these findings as the ravings of a primitive madman who knew not the true love of nature that guides us in our quest for perfection. But upon hearing a lecture by Antinial the Elder in the Academy's main hall last month, I came upon a revelation. He too had discovered an ancient text from his people's past, buried beneath the ruined Old Temple in Thell.

The text which Antinial had found spoke of a god named "Wyrd", who awoke from the "One Dream" and, in a great battle with the goddess "Nyx", created the lands from which our Human and Dwarven companions have come, on the far side of the world. Wyrd won the battle, but Nyx created a troll-like race of stone giants, who ruled over Wyrd's lands for millenia. Every attempt at civilization Wyrd created was soon crushed by these might beasts called "Trow", and eventually the despondant deity simply stopped trying.

This discovery shed new light on mine. I contacted Antinial, and for the past month we have been constructing the background for this thesis. We put forward the following theory:

There exist three realms of existance - a higher realm known as the One Dream, our realm, and a lower realm now inhabited by a race of Dark Gods. Long ago, say Antinial's records, our world was ruled by these Dark Gods, before Wyrd arrived from the One Dream and banished them to their nether-realm. The Gods of War worshipped by the Goblins may have been some of these, as they survived for a period into our early history before their banishment.

Wyrd and Nyx fought, for reasons perhaps incomprehensible to us, during the creation of the far lands of the Humans and Dwarves. The Trow were placed in Wyrd's lands, and all further attempts to create life there were subsequently crushed. Despondant at his loss, Wyrd came to our lands, and created both us Elves, and the vile Goblins with whom we have forever been at war. Perhaps our own trolls and even the giant tree-creatures rumored to live in the deepest forests are the creations of Nyx, considering their resemblance to her mighty Trow.

But the banished Dark Gods returned to our world every thousand years, and over the millenia weakened the Trow to such a point that Wyrd's creations stood a chance of survival. So he left us to our own ways, and created the younger races of Humans and Dwarves and their kin, creatures spoken of in Antinial's records called Oghres and fir'Bolg, on his own lands far from here.

In those lands arose the great nation of Yer-ks, from whom our human fellows have come. They became sailors of such might that the goddess Nyx felt threatened that they would encroach on her own lands to the east of ours, which the old human records call the Faraway. So they had her Trow summon the magics of the Dark Gods, which had been used against them in a great battle of centuries past, to drown their kingdom and all its people. Only the seamen who found their way here remain of that once great nation.

Later still, the Dwarves conquered the mysteries of flight, and some of their early sky-sailors were carried here by the trade winds. They have since been stranded, and so decided to make our lands their home. After them came another wave of humans, neighbors of the Yer-ks who inherited their sailing ways. These men traversed the polar seas to settle the Northland Kingdom.

As for what has become of these gods, we have not yet found a conclusive answer. Nyx is spoken of rarely in Antinial's lost texts, and never in my own. Some texts record that her and Wyrd's link to the One Dream was shattered, leaving them all but powerless in our realm. Presumably the Dark Gods still circle our world, raining terror on the human lands far from here. Perhaps the Great Wandering Star, seen hovering along our horizon every thousand years, has some relation to them. Perhaps it is the reasons that humans here now worship the stars, seeking hope that their gods may still reside in the pure light of the night and someday see fit to return them home.

But chances are slim that any of us shall ever know the answers to these questions. For Antinial and I, it is enough that the questions have been raised, and will continue to drive debate in this great school for centuries to come. For those whose sensabilities I have offended, please note that, even if these incredible tales somehow prove true, it cannot possibly detract from the pure beauty of nature which we have forever adored. Whether created by Earth or God, the essential purity of them remains, and can never be taken away.