A Spark in the Wind

Appendix E: Myths of the Old Ones

Amongst most elven religions, there exists the notion of beings far greater and powerful than one can possibly fathom – forces of nature in the shape of living beings, who laid foundation to the many aspects of the universe.

The elves of Qualior referred to them as Our Ancestors, the wood-elves of Mundus call them Gods, whilst the high-elves of Alímar call them the Old Ones. And though these days these beings are not worshipped any more, they still remain an essential part to the world's cosmic-history.

Unlike the religions and faiths of mankind though, elven religions aren't a static set of beliefs and gods. For the qualis, religion is a way of making sense of the world around them.

As such, elven religions are a fusion of philosophy, cosmology and science, certain aspects of it changing every moment with recent discoveries to accommodate facts and logic. In the matters of science and cosmology, the high-elves have the upper hand, with their society greatly promoting the study of physics and mathematics.

The wood-elves on the other hand tend to focus mostly on earthly matters like establishing a relationship with nature, although their contribution to biology and chemistry can't be denied either, especially in the case of the sand-elves.

In this section, we'll be dealing with the creation myth, some of the more popular gods, some general philosophical concepts, and the ways arcane and chaos energies work.

Since the laws of physics of this world are almost entirely similar to the one humans live in, we'll omit the unnecessary parts, as well as skip some concepts that humans haven't yet fully understood (like Dark Energy), since that'll require a lot of pretext.

(i)

OF KAAL AND MORTHAUR AND THE MYTHS OF CREATION

No point in drawing out long introductions, this section concerns the cosmology and creation myths of the elves of Mundus. Though my research still remains incomplete, I'll write down what I have learned about these peoples, leaving out the parts I don't know about.

There is Kaal, the Great Ouroboros, within whom the cycles of time exist. He is Omnipresent and Everlasting; there was no time when He did not exist, for He is Time Itself. And within His mouth lay a venom called Morthaur: the personification of Chaos, the characteristic of Kaal.

And within Morthaur's body, ever-changing and chaotic, there sometimes rise small bubbles of order that are soon popped, and by 'soon' I mean in several trillion trillion years.

One of such mere bubbles is our universe: Alcyone, formed from the abode of Morthaur when a primal seed erupted out of the seas of chaos called Isa, from whom by the power of desire and intense heat the universe took shape, for those who would come within it this was the beginning of time.

The first beings to awaken in this new world, formed by the accumulation of gaseous nebulae, were the Alcyur, whom we may refer to as gods. The first came several hundred million years after the beginning, and many others followed, and the universe was lit up by beings of light and heat and seminal energies.

Of these Alcyur, a spare few far more powerful than others stood out; whom we now call the Lidraal – the titans, who took the mantle of rulers of this world, owing to their superior intelligence and wisdom.

But this was not to last, though what happened then is unknown. Sages call it the First Heavenly War, though nobody knows if it was really a war or not, nor did we know why it happened, nor who took part in it. All we know is by the end of it, the Alcyur now ruled over the universe, whilst the Lidraal were no more.