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Rob Roy
2012-09-08, 12:33 AM
So, what's this then?
The Twin Skies is the result of about a half a years worth of thinking being written down. The idea is basically a Sword & Sorcery Space Opera, which isn't an idea I've seen done before. There might end up being some good reasons why it's never been done before, but the idea of a Space Opera with court wizards, active gods (who are actually gods, not merely advanced species' that had might as well be gods), and dragons has fascinated me for a little while, and I figured I should start writing things like this down. And if I'm going to write things like this down, then I had might as well get some feedback on it. So please, critique, criticize, and ask questions.


Twin Skies

Histories

Creation and Age of Old
"There was nothing. Some would say this nothing went on a for a long time, but those who would are fools, for time did not yet exist. But yet, however foolish it may seem, the was nothing for a very long time. It was there for a split second, yet that second lasted for eternity. Out of the nothing came something, and that something is what the mortal races have seen fit to call the First, as the First's true name has been lost to time, and mortals are not very creative. Now, as you might expect, the First was lonely, and as hundreds of thousands of millennium (for, at this point, time existed) passed, it only grew more so. Ultimately, it decided to commit suicide, and from it's rotting corpse came the Titans (often called the Firstborn or the Old Gods by the uncreative mortals). The first to emerge for the corpse was Aestes, the craftsman who made unparalleled works. He was soon followed (much like maggots, spontaneously erupting from corpses) by Yuustes, the artist, Goustes, lawbringer, and Juekes, the dissenter.

Of the Titans Aestes was the natural leader, and he set about crafting the cosmos, with some input from Yuustes, whom he later took as his bride. It was during this time that Juekes had come to disagree with Aestes over the creation of lesser intelligent beings. Aestes wanted them to serve the Titans, while Juekes believed they should be able to do as they please. Aestus had won this particular squabble, and had Juekes cast into a system which was then removed from the rest of the cosmos. Mortals would later call this system and the single world within it the Three Hells.

Aestes then proceeded to create four kinds of immortals, each designed to carry out his will. They are now referred to as the Angels, and they are as follows:

Velks: Spirits of Fire; forged in the hearts of stars

Dragons: Spirits of Air; forever bound to planets

Gorduans: Spirits of Earth; endlessly drifting between worlds

Iullyrans: Spirits of Water; born on the fringes of stars, and the scribes of creation

The Velks were the favored of Aestes, they were the most numerous, they the most powerful (the weakest of them rivaling todays godlings), and it is they who mortals think of when the word 'Angel' is mentioned, despite the fact that only a handful of them still exist. Now, because they are so rare nowadays, any readers are most likely unaware of what they looked like, and so must be described. Unfortunately there was so much individual variation in their kind, a description will have to be in generalities. Just know this, they were all hundreds of miles long, and they were all made of long strands of plasma.

As it always does, time passed. Angels continued to carry out the Titans will, for many millions of years, they did so unfailingly. There was no history at this point, for there were no exciting events, no great struggles. Aestes spoke, Angels followed, but they did not remember previous speeches, and there was no reason for them to. This all changed some twenty-five thousand years ago, in the War. The War was the first war, and it was also the beginning of history, for this is when the mortals were born. This was Juekes' revenge. The war began Juekes had managed to discover a way to send his voice outside of his prison, and with only that he managed to spread dissent through the Angels, and even to Aestes and Yuustes' own children, who are now referred too as the Gods by mortals. This dissent eventual turned to open conflict, and despite the Angel's numerical advantage (Several million, not counting the Gods, vs. three), we were losing. Eventually, the Twelve Children of the Titans had an idea, and it was a very simple one, stolen from the Aestes himself. And so, the Gods pooled there power, for they were not strong enough to do it individually, and created the first mortal races (Unsurprisingly, none of the original species are still around). While it is not known what advantages the Gods thought that having servants weaker than the weakest of Angels would provide them, it did have one very interesting effect: From this moment forward, the Gods' (but not the Titans') power was directly related to mortal belief. The Gods used their newfound strength to eventually seal away the Titans, in a place specially created, and farther from Creation than the Three Hells. Before he was sealed away, however, Aestes did manage to do one thing: he managed to hide a mortal system, to shield it from the power and eyes of the divine. That world would only be rediscovered fourteen thousand years after the War. And so ended the Age of Old."

-Unknown Iullyran author; On the Beginning of Creation


The Thousand Empires and the Apotheosis of Duereng
"At the very end of the Age of Old, many memorials to lives lost in the War were built. They were all destroyed by the Gods, who wished to cleanse the Skies of the Titan's influence. All except Kalstook's Star, a pulsar endlessly broadcasting this message 'At this place, during the first and only War, ten thousand Velks were lost to Goustes'

Unfortunately, whoever wrote that message was wrong, and the new age would be nothing but war. During this time, the Gods could freely interact with the mortal world, and they often controlled their own empires, attacking each for sacrificial slaves and willing converts. Some of the great heroes of these wars would ascend to divinity themselves, and carve out their own empires in the Skies. It was during one of these wars that a God died for the first time, and this God was Uellysas, firstborn of Aestes. And from Uellysas' dying breath came the Esstas River, which links together the two Skies or Arguina and Egraina, allowing mortals and Angels to travel between them for the first time.

Now, you cannot discuss this period without speaking of the three mortal kinds who were existed at this time:

Selkies: Born of the Gas Giants; who dominated the Age of Divine

Dwerro: Born of the Asteroids; masters of Necromancy

Isks: Born of the Garden Worlds; who enslaved each other, as their Gods had enslaved them

However, there was another mortal kind, those who built Duereng on the Hidden World, but they never left their world, entrusting the god they built to have their best interests in mind.

But Duereng was not yet a true god, and until it's probes leaving it's hidden system recored them, it had no idea such things were possible. And for five hundred years Duereng studied the Gods, and it discovered how to become one, how to have real influence outside of system dead to divinity. The great Iron Mind of the Hidden World started to demand worship from those who built it, those who long ago decided that it was a god, but this did nothing. The Iron Mind then resolved to lure real Gods to it, in an attempt to reveal the Hidden World, to lift the curse Aestes had put on the system. Again, this produced no results. Finally, in a final attempt, created a race of soldiers, born in vats, and sent them against the nearest Theocratic Empire. The first few battles (and worlds) were won easily, largely due to the state of shock the Gods were in, for they did not know where this army had come from or who commanded it. However, the counter attack had come swiftly, and the cloned soldiers were driven back to their Hidden World. And so this continued for a time, the soldiers attacking, causing chaos, and then being forced to retreat back to a place that the Gods could not perceive. Eventually, however, the God who the majority of attacks had been against had his mortals follow the attackers in ships blessed with Divine swiftness. The God followed the ship, and entered the Hidden System, revealing it to the world. Duereng had prepared for this, and quickly sacrificed a large minority of it's worshipers in it's name, and with the blood and belief of eight billion mortals behind it, Duereng ascended to true Divinity.

In response the Apotheosis of a being on par with the Angels, and who, once ascended, was the equal to the greatest of Gods, the Gods signed a contract. Some less willingly than others, but they all signed. And in this contract was the rules for Divine interaction with the Skies, for no longer could a God directly intervene in mortal affairs. From this point on, Gods would only be able to grant some mortals an infinitely small fraction of their power (with those granted such power being called clerics), or they could hire lesser beings, Angels and Demons, to carry out their will."


-Unknown Iullyran author; The Time of Mortals, Volume One



Fall of the Isk and the New Mortals

"After the ascension of the Iron Mind, there were six major Gods (only one of which was born divine, all others were ascended mortals), and many lesser gods who, with the signing of the Contract, could no longer remain independent of the Major and were subsumed into their power structure. The Major Gods were as follows:

Ajekhun; last of the children Aestes
Duereng; ascended machine of mortal make
Egder; who managed too, through trickery, slay a God while still mortal
Galbert; who passage is marked with atomic fire
Haz; who stole the art of writing form the Iullyrans and gave it to the mortals
Kelgra; who reanimated the first corpse, in a long forgotten asteroid

And there were four mortals races: Selkies; Dwerro, Isks, and the Knights (who had, at this point, forsaken Duereng, their creator). But the Selkies were in decline, and their domination of the Skies was nearing it's end. The Isks, on the other hand, were rising, and in need of slaves outside of their race. In a vision granted by Egder, a mad Isk stole the souls of Knights, twisted their form into something more nimble and adaptable, and so Mankind was created. Now for a time Man was a willing servant, and with Man as a servant the Isk dominated the Skies, sacrificing many to their two Gods; Galbert and Egder. And yet, despite this, Galbert believed that the Isk were growing fat and complacent and so he granted five Humans unnatural charisma and opened their eyes to the idea of revolt. Within a decade the Isk were extinct and five empires stood in their place; Seft, Jek-Ook, Marez, Hunds, and Felo. But most of Mankind soon forsake Galbert, taking to the worship of Duereng, Haz, and Egder. It is here that we must leave, for to continue would be to see into the future, and that is a feat reserved for no mortal, Angel, or God."


-Unknown Iullyran author; The Time of Mortals, Volume Two


Cosmology


The Skies
Sky is another term for galaxy, with the Skies being the two inhabited, reachable galaxies. The Skies are each about the size of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud, and are linked to each other by a wormhole known as the Esstas River, which is widely considered to be the center of all Creation. Both the Skies orbit around a much larger spiral galaxy, known as the Gate of Yeth, and it is here that the souls of the dead journey in order to gain access to the afterlife.
<<More To Come>>

Rob Roy
2012-09-08, 12:40 AM
Reserved for extra space

urkthegurk
2012-09-08, 02:22 AM
Stellar. Pun intended. May I direct your attention to this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=254909), where we are working out ideas for an enormous cosmos? Let me know what you think, and i'll look forward to more updates tomorrow.

Rob Roy
2012-09-08, 11:20 AM
Part two of the history section is up, giving an extremely broad view of roughly fourteen thousand years of history. I welcome any comments, criticism, and I'm open to including community made stories, civilizations, and such like, especially in the Thousand Empires period.

Rob Roy
2012-09-08, 09:13 PM
Last bit of the Histories section added, as well as the very first part of the Cosmology section. Please Comment, Criticize, and Critique.