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The History of Ymra

Ymra is not a planet, but a magical world, created in the shape of a disk floating in chaotic space.

Eons ago, the universe of Ymra was a formless chaos, made up of the furious random activity of countless disembodied wills that had sprung up spontaneously in the fertile void.

Gradually, over an immeasurable span of time, a portion of this vast population of disembodied wills began to cluster together, with those more compatible drifting together, and into opposition with those most complementary. They sorted themselves by their impulses into the beginnings of a structure.

Those that were driven by the impulse to create conceived of a grand project, to be undertaken by all, in which they would manifest a world that reflected all their wills working together in harmony. Those who consumed and destroyed were delighted by the prospect of something grander and more ordered to devour and corrupt.

And so, a great alignment of the wills brought into being the disk world that would come to be known as Ymra. It was situated at the center of the cooperating wills, the beings that, as they manifested their wills into physical reality, would come to be known as the Shining Ones. Just as the working of their wills created the disk of Ymra, the manifestation of their individual natures created the eternal forces that permeated and ruled Ymra: Birth and Death, Fire and Ice, Order and Chaos.

The great wills that had brought Ymra into being were now its gods, manifested in the new physical reality they had created as shining physical forms who radiated their pure natures, giving shape and character to all the elements of their world. The blending of these natures, and their conflicts, quickly gave rise to a world of such beauty and complexity as even the Shining Ones had never foreseen. They carved four great rivers, quartering the world into four great continents, and they floated the world on a great ocean. Four clusters of Shining Ones infused themselves into the continents and took dominion. The continents accordingly became the lands of Birth and Spring, of Death and Autumn, of Ice and Winter, of Fire and Summer..

The Creators took dominion of the heavens above the disk; the Devourers took dominion of the shadows below it.

Together, the Shining Ones fashioned an island at the center of creation, from which the four great rivers flowed. Here they built their great palace, Goresthannon, the Crystalline Tower.

One avatar of Fire, who loved the Creators for the beauty and order of their vision, swore that he would travel a regular path from Birth to Death, over and over, at a regular interval, keeping watch on all of creation until the end of time, shining forth his brilliant fires, but never consuming the world that was made. He became known as the Sun, and he built two magical palaces, one beyond the edge of the world in the domain of Birth, which he called the Gates of Dawn, and one beyond the world in the domain of Death, which he called the Gates of Dusk. His regular journey from east to west came to be known as Day, and the magical dream into which he slipped at the end of each day, to awaken in his castle in the East, came to be known as Night.

One avatar of Ice, who loved the Sun, swore to emulate him. She loved Chaos, but she loved the Sun more, and so, although she could not give up her changing nature, she swore to regulate it in honor of him, and to follow him each day, becoming a light in his sleep. Every night she travels across the sky, shedding on the world a little of the light that she has captured from him. Her nature is changeable, and she so loves the Sun that she cannot stay always away from him, but sometimes accompanies him for a little while in the Day. She came to be known as the Moon, and she is welcomed in the palaces of Dawn and Dusk.

Thus the world remained for long ages, but not forever. Change is a part of the essential nature of the universe, and although there are those Shining Ones who are Unchanging, they had bound themselves together in their great project with those whose essential nature is to change. In the fullness of time, even the great balance they had struck had to change.

After many eons, the Great Order cracked, and the Shining Ones began to leave their Crystalline Palace and the tasks that bound them to the world. Some went into the world itself, granting themselves new lives as spirits or creatures within it. Some sacrificed themselves, spinning apart into thousands of new spirits, born out of the shattered bodies of the Shining. Some retreated into deep places below the world, or high places above it, according to their natures. Some flew into the outermost dark, perhaps to create other worlds in infinity.

The departed Shining Ones left an echo of themselves and traces of their power at Goresthannon. In order to keep Ymra safe from their own awesome power, they made the Crystalline Tower forbidden to the lesser beings that inhabited their world, and they left their children, the Dragons, to guard and protect the world.

The great dragons were territorial, according to the nature the Shining Ones had given them. Bound to protect their lands, the dragons were possessive, and each clan of them fortified their dominions, changing the shape and structure of the lands in small ways. They all watched Goresthannon carefully, lest any being think to set foot there and usurp the remnants of the Shining Ones' power for himself.

Under the protection of the great dragons, the natural world flourished. The countless shards of the Shining Ones who had flown into the world animated it and gave rise to a profusion of new spirits and living things. Some of these creatures were mortal, and some of those grew into peoples in their own right—mortal peoples: Men, Dwarves, Gnomes, Giants, Orcs, and Beasts of all kinds.

As these new peoples, both men and beasts, spread into the world, they found that it was already inhabited by Others—immortal children of the departed Shining Ones: the Fair Folk. The Faeries, too, had flourished under the protection and guidance of the great dragons, and when, after eons, the great dragons found themselves growing weary and longing to depart, as the Shining Ones had before them, they bequeathed their stewardship of the world to the Faeries. Thus came the second Great Change, and thus began the Age of the Elves.

The Dragons, according to their nature, were bound tightly to the lands they had been created to protect. Thus it was that, when the time came for them to depart, they went not into the outer darkness, but deep into the land itself. Burrowing into the earth, the dragons pulled it over themselves, raising up great chains of mountains, and changing the shapes of the four great continents.

In these newly-shaped lands, the Faeries flourished, raising up magical cities and spreading over all of Ymra. They gathered according to their natures into clans made up of like spirits, and gathered clans into Courts. Each Court drew its power and its nature from the land of its birth, and each land reflected its Faeries, just as each Court of the Fair Folk reflected the nature of the land.

In time, one Court grew more powerful than all the rest. Drawing its power from the Sea and from the coastal lands, the Seafaring Court was able to spread its culture, its magic, and its cities more widely than any other. Soon, they were everywhere, with harbors and cities, and spectacular towers, some of them rivaling even Goresthannon for their majesty.

The Seafaring Court grew proud and cold. It looked on what it had achieved and said to itself, 'what is there that we cannot do?' In its pride, it made a fatal mistake. Its greatest warriors and sorcerers convinced themselves that they had risen to rival the glory of the ancient Shining Ones—were their cities not the equal of Goresthannon? And so they sent expeditions to claim the ancient Crystalline Tower for their own greater glory, and to take possession of whatever echoes the Shining Ones might have left of their great powers.

But when the Elvish sorcerers trespassed on Goresthannon, and touched the wells of power remaining there, the great dragons felt it in their sleep, and saw it in their dreams. The Dragons were not gone, but only sleeping below the earth, and when they awoke they were angry. They looked on what the Seafaring Court had done and they said, "we shall bring a Change that will humble their pride." Fashioning weapons out of mountains, the Dragons rained them down on the greatest cities of the Seafaring Court, smashing its glory and humbling it forever. The continents were shattered into pieces in a great Cataclysm.

Not only were the continents shattered, but the power of all the Courts of Faerie was shaken. Humbled and awed, the Courts withdrew into their places of greatest power in fear of the judgment of the dragons.

Into this gap flowed the vigorous mortal races. With their shorter lives and memories, their adaptable natures, and their fierce appetites, they were driven to explore the many lands that opened up as the Faeries withdrew into the trees and the soil and the mountains. Thus, the time after the Third Great Change has come to be called the Age of Men.

The Faeries have not withdrawn from the world. Unlike the Dragons and the Shining Ones before them, the Fair Folk did not grow weary of the world and decide to depart. Their power was shattered at its height, and against their will. With their long lives and memories, the Fair Folk remember what it was to be supreme in the world, and the remnants of the cold, proud Seafaring Court remember it with particular poignancy. Fairies remain everywhere in Ymra, some of them still brooding over the Cataclysm and the blow it delivered to their pride.

Ymra remains a world of magic and legend. This is called the Age of Men, but it's too soon still to know whether Men are up to the challenge of ruling it. Perhaps they are the heirs of the last great Change; or perhaps Ymra is not done Changing yet.