Nithe, the Shadow in the Void

In the beginning...

  In the beginning there was only essence, the will of all things that have been or will be manifested in two divine beings. Daure, a being of joy, freedom, and benevolence; and Nithe, a being of sorrow, tyranny, and malice. Daure tried for uncountable millennia to bring her vision of the new world, filled with light, peace, and beauty into existence, only to be met time and time again by it's destruction at the hands of Nithe. It seemed that every time she molded the world, he somehow snuck into the heart of her creation and destroyed it.

  Upon realizing that she would never be able to overcome Nithe's destructive power she devised a plan. In her final attempt at creation, she used her own essence to shield her creation from Nithe's desructive rage, taking the brunt of his assualt. In the wake of the attack, Daure was shattered and her creation with her; shattered but not destroyed. In the same way that the world she created fractured into parts of it's whole, so did her essence, creating a new pantheon of divinity and the gods and goddesses that would build and protect the new world. The five strongest fragments of Daure's divinty became The Five Divines, with the smaller fragments becoming their immortal angelic servants.

The Five Divines

  The first fragment of the shattered creator to regain its divinity was Duraminthra, The Divine Artisan, who took the broken fragments of the world and forged them into the land we walk upon. To safeguard her work she made the Dwarves to live under the land and protect it.

  The next fragment was Verdantis, The Great Artist, who painted the forests, seas, and skies onto the world. With the Dwarves living underground, he created the Elves to walk above ground and admire his work.

  The third fragment, Agrista, The Bountiful Mother, took much longer to gain her divinity; but her power and desire for creation was the most potent of the five. She was not content with the few mortals that lived upon their great creation and went to work to populate the world. She created humans in great numbers and sprinkled them across the entire realm. She created creatures that swim so they may fish, beasts that walk so they may hunt, and taught the humans how to cultivate so they may farm. Pleased with her creation she made many more and taught them all to live in harmory together.

  The fourth fragment to gain its divinity was Vallorian, the Eternal Sentinel, who looked upon the thriving world and realized that the beautiful creations of the divinity before him were unprepared to stand against Nithe's innevitable return. He descended from the skies and gave the mortals their most important gift yet, the gift of valor. He worked with the mortals and taught them to fight so that they may stand against Nithe together with the divine.

  The fifth, and final, fragment to join the divines in the aether was Rhapsody, the Wandering Minstrel. Thye looked upon all the works of the divines before them and realized that all the work was done. With no work left to do they gave the mortals the most precious thing they could offer; the gift of free will. Rhapsody taught the mortals music, laughter, and how to bend the energies of the world to their desires with magic.

  As time went on the mortals flourished and the divines grew content with their creations, but Nithe once again came to destroy what Daure had created. This time however, Nithe could not stand against the combined might of the five divines and their creations, and was defeated. Time and time again Nithe rose from the void to attempt to destroy the world, and time and time again he was deafeated and forced to retreat back to the dark places to nurse his wounds.

  After enough failed attempts Nithe realized that he could never defeat the five and their creations on his own, so in an act of desperation he turned the same power that shattered Daure onto himself. Nithe's cowardice and greed prevented him from fully letting go of his essence however, and though he shattered much of his divinity, he kept enough to retain his form. The forces of darkness became ruled by six instead of five, and the smallest fragments mutated and transformed to become the fiends that stalk the darkness.

 

The Six Banes

  Nithe, the Shadow in the Void, is a being of pure darkness. Driven only by the desire to see his beloved darkness free from the tarnish of light. He works in the shadowy places of the world to undermind and destroy all that the light has created; his mere existence is a bane to all of creation, thus his fragments do not get the honor of being called divines, but rather banes.   The strongest of his sparks was formed from Nithe's malice, and took the form of Ravagor, the Cataclysm. He used his powers to turn the beauty of the sky, the sea, and the earth into great weapons in the form of tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters. He seeks to spread chaos, destruction, and death to every corner of the world until nothing is left but dust.

  The second spark of Nithe was formed from his hatred in the form of Venethrax, the Blight. Venethrax realized that random acts of destruction are not enough to bring about the demise of the new world and so instead created silent killers such as disease and poison and spread them throughout the animals and plants of the world. He constantly works to pervert and corrupt the creations of the five divines to bring about their slow destruction.

  Third to break free was Lilithia, the Siren, born from Nithe's jealousy. They saw that the mortals hearts were pure but malleable so set to work filling them with greed, envy, and lust. Once the mortals were overcome by their passions, Lilithia could easily manipulate them into destroying their communities from the inside out.

  The next divinity was Voragor, the Warlord, born from Nithe's fear, who saw the work of the guardian and became obsessed with it. It was the valor of the mortals that caused them to defeat Nithe over and over again, and it was their valor that the warlord twisted. He used the seeds of manipulation planted by Lilithia to convince the mortals to use their valorous gift on one another to satisfy their greed and jealousy, and in so doing he brought war to the mortal peoples. Over time his fear of the mortals valor turned into pride at what he had done for war truely was the most gruesome thing the mortals had ever seen.

  The last of the divine fragments to break from the great evil was Vorak, the Oppressor, who was born from Nithe's resentment. She knew that nothing the other divines did would bring about ultimate destruction as long as the mortals possessed what made them special, their free will. She plotted and schemed for what felt like an eternity before she finally thought of a way to break to mortals of their will; and she brought the world slavery. She slithered into the minds of the mortals and convinced them that the spoils of war shouldn't end with just gold and land, but should include the very people of the land as well.

  The six were weaker than the fragments of Daure, but they were also more numerous, and with their numbers they returned to the surface to finish their destrucion. The six banes were still too weak, even with their numbers, to stand against the Five and their angels, but by using subterfuge and mortal agents they were able to establish a foothold in the new world. Their agents still use this foothold to bring pain and misery to the people of the world. Though the eleven divines are immortal and unchanging, they are multifaceted, and many know them by other names. It is important to learn the ways of the divine so that you might recognize their work, whatever form it takes.