The Creation Myth of Rega
Listen well, oh curious child. I have a tale of the beginning. At the start, there was nothingness, or so it seemed. An empty void, vast and silent. But it was not truly empty. It held the potential for all things. And eventually, one of those things became actual, and awakened. And even then, it was not alone.
Saevios woke in darkness and cold, alone in the void. He gazed deep into the gloom, and saw nothing, save vague shapes in the distance. He spoke, but no one heard. He moved, but there was no where to move to. He became frustrated. Then He became angry. In his wrath, he Shouted, and slammed his hands together. Sparks flew from his hands where they met, and a crack and a rumbling sound split the silent dark. And that was the first lightning, and the first thunder.
The lightning revealed other shapes. First, the shape of the sky, encompassing and calm. Then the shape of the earth, supportive and strong. And the shape of the waters, encircling, energetic. The thunder stirred them, split them from the formless void, and Caela was awakened. And Tellus was awakened. And Marea was awakened. And that was the formation of the four fundaments.
But they were not alone. For all his loneliness, Saevios had not perceived something else, awakened even before himself, the great dragon, Chaos and Hunger incarnate herself: Invidia. And she was ill pleased at the noise and light, having been wont to swim and slither through the silent dark, feeding on whatever began to form before it could start to think. None knows how many creatures and nascent gods died this way, devoured in the dark before the first crack of thunder changed everything.
She hated the sound and the fury, the brightness and motion, the very life of these new beings. She hated herself for not being like them, bright and beautiful. She breathed spite, and drank envy.
And so she struck, scattering the three new beings on her way to the source of sound. But Saevios was quick as lightning, with all the might of a raging storm, and met her charge with his own. He grappled her by her serpentine neck, and struck, and strove. She bit at him, and clawed, and tore. She stung him, over and over, with a tail like that of a scorpion. But Saevios the Strong was indomitable. Her claws got little purchase on his flesh, her teeth drew little blood, her sting was but an irritant, no matter how mightily she ripped and chewed. At last, long last, he squeezed closed his heavy hands upon her wings, and stripped them from her. Stunned, she stayed in stillness...as he grasped again her long tail, and her snakelike throat, and pulled...and she, the first thing to know itself, was torn asunder, and knew herself no more. Her blood scattered across all the void, and across Caela, and across Tellus, and across Marea, and where it came to rest, abominations would spawn forever thence forth. The greatest part of her corpse, Saevios slung far into the deepest reaches of the dark, where it came to rest in that place of Chaos and horror we now call the Abyss. And for a time, she was no more thought of, or known.
Free, now, to act, the four fundaments in concert began to create. Saevios and Caela mated, and made a mighty storm, of her air and his winds, to wrap around the flesh of Tellus, as a shield to keep the monsters of the deeper dark at bay. Tellus and Marea mated, and made life. Of Saevios and Caela were born Solis, the sun, who watches the day and guards the underworld at night, and Ignia, whose fire inspires the makers. Of Tellus and Marea were born Lunos, the moon, who guards the night and guides one through the mysteries of life, and Vulpos, who heralds change, and brings messages, and teaches wisdom. And so were born the True Gods, from the Chaos of the beginning. And so began, then, the first age, as time began with the passage of Sun and Moon.
To wield and ward the winds of the wall of storm, Saevios and Caela made more children, the Winds, each to their direction and season, each to their many responsibilities. And on the world, on Tellus' very flesh and Marea's waters, Tellus and Marea crafted elven folk, of every kind and kindred, to husband and preserve the life therein. Amongst them, the once noble elves of the swamp, the elves of the sea, the elves of the forest, the elves of the mountain valleys. And thereafter, Ignia made the dwarves, to aid her in crafting tools for gods and mortals. And they filled the hills and mountain hollows.
But Invidia, while dead, was not gone. From the wreckage of her skull rose her wrath and hatred, her envy and despair, the incarnation of decay, Entropy given strict form and proper function. Interitus was all her power and evil...but disciplined, and thoughtful. And so, almost as soon as he was born, he crafted from his mother's bones and rotting flesh and the worms and maggots within, Metus, fear itself and death unending, rot and dismay and nightmare made manifest. And he made also, from Invidia's hunger and wrath and mindless mayhem, from her teeth and her blood, Rixa, slaughter and blood and madness and murder.
Meanwhile, Saevios and Caela crafted humanity, and seeded the world with it, hither and yon, in their own image, to create and love and protect, as expressions of existence itself, as near unto children of the gods. Thinking the world a bit boring and bland, Lunos and Vulpos, in their enigmatic wisdom, crafted then the halfling people, to sow and to reap, to laugh and to hide, to trick and steal and amuse...but also to maintain and support, to give heart, to bring luck.
But all was not well. Interitus and Metus and Rixa, guided by the intellect of Interitus, born from the brain of Invidia, sent emissaries into the world, through the medium of the their mother's blood. And monsters were born from that blood, both whole and in part. And where a natural creature might sup of the blood, they became corrupt, and evil. So rose the goblin, and the glut, and the gnoll, and many another evil creeping thing. But worst of all, the elves of the swamp, to whom an emissary came, in serpent form, and spake to them of power, and of true immortality, and of godhood, and of greatness. And they were deceived, and turned their worship to Interitus and his children, and drank deep of the blood of Invidia, and were changed. And thus rose the serpentfolk, foremost servants of Interitus on the world...save only the dragons.
It came to pass that there were mighty and terrible battles in the earth, between the faithful of the fundaments and their children, and the corrupted things that Interitus caused to be. And the gods strove greatly 'gainst one another, and Tellus himself groaned in grief and agony. It was then that Interitus crafted the dragons, of many colors, of corrupted elements and mixed mortal kinds: to be a scourge on all mortals, in all places, ravenous and cruel, to be living siege engines of destruction and death. And it was then that Saevios followed suit. With the aid of Ignia, he caused his own dragons to be, dragons of metal, of pure element, to defend and guide mortals, to fight the draconic brood of Interitus, the earthly spawn of Invidia.
All this was too much for the world, and the great bright gods worked mighty spells to deny the world to Interitus and his spawn, and the walls were built higher and stronger. And the gods swore they would fight on the earth no more, lest they slay Tellus himself in their struggles.
And so ended the first age, as the gods withdrew, and left the world to mortal hands. For the most part.
The Myth recited, on Spotify. https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ofgodsandgamemasters/episodes/Of-Gods-and-Gamemasters-Season-1-Legends-of-Rega-episode-1--Introduction-and-Creation-e1nbrbl
