Godswar

The Godswar is the nigh-mythical beginning of known history on Dancing Spheres. There was a time before the Godswar, where the Foreclaimers, Gods, and Dragons all walked the spheres. But records of it no longer exist, and the powerful artifacts of that time are jealously horded by powerful individuals and creatures. What is know is that back in the time before, the Precursor Gods set the Dancing Spheres into motion and populated them with the Foreclaimers. Their mortal servants, the First Dragons, had command over the elemental forces and shaped the Spheres to the Gods' will. Together they created the Golden Paths that connected each sphere to each other sphere.

However conflict began between the gods. No mortal knows how it started but they were called to do war on each other. Factions of Gods, Dragons, and even powerful mortals rose and fell, allied and betrated. Mortals were reshaped to aid their gods in the war. Reshaping the Foreclaimers the factions created the Dragonblooded, Hobgoblins, Humans, and others to aid their god's campaigns. Terrible beasts were created whole cloth to battle opponents' terrible beasts.

The war was terrible, the great centers of learning and trade were destroyed. As were many Golden Paths that connected the Spheres. Mortals were scattered the the distant corners of the Spheres. In the higher planes the war was terrible as well. Divine domains were being destroyed as gods engaged in single combat between themselves. Thus the great Maelstrom in the Astral Sea was created, cutting off the Dancing Spheres from the rest of the multiverse.

And just as the war had started, it ended without warning. The Precursor Gods and the First Dragons disappeared, leaving only the remaining mortals to pick up the pieces. Mortals huddled into citadel cities ruled by the surviving generals of the Godswar, the immortal Dragon Tyrants. Powerful Dragonblooded Sorcerers, the Dragon Tyrants were the only ones who could wield magic, passed that power to their descendants who could never grow as powerful as their forebearers.

The Golden Path network where every Sphere was connected to every other Sphere was in tatters. Where there had been 120 Golden Paths, only 16 remained.

Cut off from each other, cast out into the Spheres that suffered under the weight of the Godswar Curses, Mortals had to rebuild alone.