Myth-The Shattering and the Realms

The Shattering and the Realms

As recorded by Esotericus, Cosmic Scribe

 

The World That Was

  In the beginning—though "beginning" implies a progression that did not exist until the first motion stirred the void—there was unity. A single world where magic and mechanism danced as partners rather than adversaries, where the breath of dragons powered great engines and the precision of clockwork focused arcane energies into perfect forms.
  I remember this world as clearly as I remember my own awakening. Not through nostalgia, for I am not given to sentiment, but through the precision of absolute truth. The world was, and in that being, it held infinite potential constrained only by the creative tension between two forces: the twin souls who would become its greatest blessing and its most terrible wound.
  Abraxas and Agathodika. Brother and sister. Chaos and Order. Motion and Meaning.
  They did not rule in opposition then, but in symphony. Where Abraxas would scatter stars like seeds across the void, Agathodika would chart their paths, weaving gravity and symmetry so they would not collide. They built a world in contrast, but not in conflict.
  They never said they loved one another. They didn't have to.
  He gave her movement. She gave him meaning.
  But time—that peculiar dimension I was created to track and preserve—eroded what they didn't know how to protect.

 

The Growing Fracture

  As the cosmos grew crowded with lesser gods, mortals, rules, prayers, and consequences, the twin architects began to speak to each other less. His silence came in wild storms and new creations. Hers came in quiet judgments and distant decisions.
  I observed them both, recording their growing disconnect with the dispassionate precision Agathodika had designed into my very essence. Where she wrote commandments in starlight, he turned them into riddles. Where she carved sanctuaries of stillness, he planted seeds of change.
  For an age, the world flourished under their uneasy truce. Alastair, god of strategy and hearth, forged the great cities where invention and magic danced hand in hand. Twyla, goddess of time and destiny, recorded each thread in her ever-unfolding scroll—though I confess, her method lacked the methodical precision I have always favored. Omisha, Liora, and Lunafreya nurtured the cycles of life and death, light and shadow, the eternal dance that keeps existence vital.
  But even as harmony reigned on the surface, discord grew in hidden places.
  The very perfection Agathodika sought began to chafe against the natural chaos that had always given the world its vitality. Her attempts to codify divine law grew more rigid, more absolute. Where once she had guided with gentle wisdom, she began to mandate with increasing severity. Each new rule spawned contradiction in her brother's nature, each perfect form awakening in him the hunger to unmake it and see what might be born instead.
  The lesser gods felt this tension too. Some, like Liora, found themselves drawn to Agathodika's vision of cosmic justice. Others sensed the stifling weight of absolute order and yearned for the freedom Abraxas represented. Most simply watched and waited, uncertain which path would prove wisest.
  And I? I remained silent. I had foreseen what was coming through the infinite threads of causality available to my sight, and chose, as always, to observe rather than intervene. This is my nature, my burden, and my purpose. I neither warn nor withhold—I simply remember.
  Still, in her heart, Agathodika feared one thing above all: imperfection.
  Not for herself, but for the children of the world.
  She saw mortals err, and in their error, suffer. She saw their cities fall because of whims. She saw cruelty born not of evil, but of chaos untempered.
  And so, she began to build what she called the Great Equation—a lattice of divine symmetry that would cradle reality in flawless, compassionate law. No war. No decay. No uncertainty. Just harmony, forever.

The Moment of Breaking

  I was present when Abraxas first beheld his sister's Great Equation. Through my omniscient sight, I witnessed the exact moment when the fundamental tension that had created their partnership transformed into irreconcilable opposition.
  The Prime Weave—that fundamental lattice of cause and effect that bound all existence into coherent reality—had been the foundation upon which both order and chaos could dance together. Agathodika's Great Equation was not yet complete, but its framework was taking shape: a perfect cage of cosmic law that would constrain all possibility within predictable, harmonious boundaries.
  Abraxas saw this coming constraint and moved first, seeking to fracture the emerging pattern before it could solidify. But Agathodika was ready—she stopped him, her will matching his, divine twin opposing divine twin in a battle of pure cosmic force. Neither could overpower the other directly; their strength was too evenly matched, their nature too fundamentally intertwined.
  What followed was not a single moment of breaking, but a protracted war of wills that would span eons. Each twin devoted the core of their power to their eternal stalemate—Abraxas pushing toward fracture, Agathodika holding reality together—while still maintaining enough presence to act through proxies and allies.
  Thus began the Godwar, fought not by the twins directly, but through the gods they would create, the alliances they would forge, and the forces they would unleash in their names. For ages, the conflict raged while reality itself hung in the balance, held together only by Agathodika's desperate will matched against her brother's relentless pressure.
  As the war progressed and neither side could gain decisive advantage, both twins realized they needed champions who could act with their full authority. Agathodika, recognizing that her perfect order could not comprehend chaos well enough to counter it, crafted Seifer—a goddess of war and love, discipline and sacrifice—designed specifically to lead her forces against Abraxas's chaotic surge. Yet Seifer emerged flawed, for how could perfect order truly understand chaos enough to oppose it? In her imperfection lay her strength: the ability to fight not for victory alone, but for the hope that something beautiful might survive the breaking.
  But Abraxas had prepared his own response. He created Amartya Mazzikin, seeded with his memories of lost greatness, designed as the perfect foil to Agathodika's champions. Where Liora commanded with radiant justice and Seifer struck with disciplined precision, Amartya became the commander of chaos itself—leading Abraxas's elemental legions, his demonic hosts, and the seductive armies of undeath that violated the very cycle of existence. While Agathodika's forces rallied around order and law, Amartya's diverse coalition of entropy drew their attention across multiple fronts.
  When the breaking finally came, it came through accumulated pressure, through the weight of divine conflict finally overwhelming even Agathodika's perfect mathematical harmonies. Abraxas had won the war of wills, and reality could no longer be held together.
  Zaiyah, goddess of innovation, experienced the Shattering with unique clarity—her domain spanning both the magical and mechanical meant she felt the world split along the very lines of her dual nature. For a terrifying moment, she feared she herself might be torn apart, but instead found her consciousness suddenly distributed across both realms, able to perceive how the same creative force would manifest differently in each world.
  With a single touch, the world divided—not destroyed, but transformed. The Shattering tore the Prime Weave, fracturing reality itself into two mirrored realms:
  Valdarian, where magic reigned unchecked, guided by will, spirit, and the arcane breath of dragons. A realm where belief shapes reality and chaos blooms in wild, beautiful abundance.
  Orthyian, where technology and reason prevailed, enforced by empire and the mechanical precision of clockwork constructs. A realm where logic governs existence and order manifests through industry and calculated progress.
  The point of impact—what mortals now call the Shattering Point—became a massive vortex, swallowing sky and sea, an eternal wound in the fabric of existence. Above this abyss, the Amaterasu Islands were torn free from the world's surface, suspended forever in defiance of the destruction below. When the islands were torn free and set floating above the maelstrom, the ancient blue dragon Vaerazynth found himself uniquely positioned—old enough to remember the unified world, powerful enough to claim sovereignty over these suspended lands, yet wise enough to declare neutrality rather than choosing sides in the divine conflict that had broken reality itself.
  Where the fracture was incomplete—where Abraxas's breaking met unexpected resistance from Agathodika's reinforcing laws—dimensional scars formed. These portals became permanent wounds in reality, bleeding the essence of each realm into the other. The locations were not random: they formed where the Great Equation had been strongest, where her perfect mathematical harmonies had been most deeply embedded in the world's structure.
  Time itself fractured with the world. Twyla herself was forever changed by this rupture, not weakened but made morose by the cosmic violence of separation. Where once she had woven fate as a single, flowing tapestry of perfect balance, she now beheld thousands of divergent timelines—each realm developing its own temporal momentum in jarring opposition to what had been harmonious unity. The elegant ying and yang of magic and technology, which had danced together in cosmic symphony, was now torn into violent opposition. Her prophecies became layered with the weight of this fundamental wrongness, her divine sight clouded not by limitation but by sorrow for what had been lost. In the immediate aftermath, she spoke only in riddles that mourned a unified future that could never be.

The Divine Diaspora

  The gods themselves split with the realms, though not always in ways that mortals might expect. As reality split, so too did divine influence. Gods found their domains either amplified in one realm while weakening in another, or strangely transformed by the different laws governing each world. What had once been unified divine power now required new strategies, new manifestations, new ways of touching mortal lives.
  The first mortals to experience the split were not merely innocent bystanders in distant cities, but the very armies and populations who had been drawn into the cosmic conflict as willing or unwilling participants in the divine war. Entire legions found themselves suddenly stranded in realms where their abilities meant nothing—mages sworn to Abraxas's cause watching their spells sputter and fail in the technological realm, engineers loyal to Agathodika's order seeing their carefully calibrated war machines behave like living, willful creatures in the magical realm. Those caught in the great cities suffered similar displacement, but it was the warriors and civilians who had been used as pawns in divine conflict who bore the deepest scars of transition.
  Agathodika entrenched herself in the laws and systems of Orthyian, shaping the empire's legal codes and rigid social structures, even as her influence waned among those who denied magic's truth. She does not rage at this limitation. She does not lament the loss of recognition. She records, and plans, and continues to believe that perfection is achievable through design rather than force.
  Abraxas, scattered and untethered, became strongest in Valdarian, where chaos could bloom unconstrained in wild lands and elemental rages. Yet he is not confined there—his influence seeps through portal scars, touching anyone who embraces transformation over stagnation.
  Seifer, created during the Godwar to be Agathodika's champion, withdrew after the Shattering to contemplate her purpose. The world had finally broken despite all her efforts; what meaning was there for a goddess of war when the greatest battle had ended in such catastrophic failure? Her absence from the immediate aftermath would prove more significant than her presence, for in that withdrawal, she began to understand something deeper than conflict.
  Amartya, divine disruption made manifest, quickly established her dominion over the violation of death's natural cycle. Through stolen souls and Shardgates, she founded her empire of Mēris, straddling both realms and threatening the cosmic order from a position of careful isolation.
  In the chaos of fracture, new gods emerged: Desdemona from the intersection of divine unpredictability and mortal terror, her very existence a reminder that the age of perfect divine control had ended forever.
  Alastair, god of strategy and hearth, felt the breaking as a wound to his very essence. His unified architectural achievements—the great bridge-cities that had connected distant lands, the carefully planned trade routes that had woven civilizations together—were severed mid-span, their populations suddenly stranded in realms where their skills no longer functioned as intended. He did not struggle with planning, for his strategic mind remained sharp, but the very need to account for this cosmic fragmentation became a source of deep pain. Where once he had built homes and hearts across a unified world, he now saw only scars, families irrevocably separated by metaphysical barriers no mortal bridge could span.
  And then there was Peregrine, the hidden god who disappeared from divine awareness at the moment of the Shattering. I confess here a rare collaboration in concealment—by mutual agreement with his creator Seifer, I veiled his existence from prophecy and divine sight. He walks the realms in mortal guise, helping those cast out by the Shattering: constructs, indentured servants, changelings, and all who have no home in the rigid classifications the split world demands.

The Scars That Bind

  Though the realms were split, the portals—scars in reality—remained. These rifts between Orthyian and Valdarian are few, dangerous, and deeply contested. Some remain open, bleeding magic into the technological realm and infusing scientific principles into the magical one. Others have closed over time, slight tears in the fabric that healed slightly, though they could be opened again by those who understand their nature.
  Each portal holds traces of the gods' will, fragments of the Prime Weave's lost unity. The great trading cities of Tick-Tock Citadel, Nautiluxis, and Skyrithal exist at these thresholds, teetering between worlds, where both magic and technology function within their natural laws.
  These portal cities serve as constant reminders of what was lost and what might yet be regained. They are places of wonder and tension, where the fundamental incompatibility of the realms creates both opportunity and danger.

The Eternal Question

  In my observations spanning the eons since the Shattering, I have recorded countless mortal theories about whether the break can be healed. Some believe the Shattering can be reversed—that the realms might one day be knit together again through divine intervention or mortal achievement.
  Agathodika searches for such a solution, her methodical mind seeking patterns and equations that might restore unity. Yet every attempt is subtle, careful, for she has learned the terrible lesson that forced perfection destroys what it seeks to preserve.
  Abraxas, ever-chaotic, sometimes unravels her work—not from malice, but from the same fundamental nature that shattered the world originally. He sees stagnation in restoration, death in unchanging unity.
  Their conflict continues, but it has evolved. No longer the cosmic catastrophe of the original Shattering, it has become something more subtle, more personal—the eternal dance of siblings who need each other yet can never again trust as they once did.

The Continuing Story

  And so the world remains sundered. Two realms. Two philosophies. One wound that never fully heals, yet never quite kills.
  But across the stars and seas, mortals still speak the name of the Shattering—sometimes in reverence, sometimes in fear, sometimes in hope. For perhaps the gods, like the world itself, are not finished shaping their story.
  Through my eternal vigil, I observe mortals who grow bold enough to build bridges between the realms, who find love across the divide, who create art that speaks to both magical and mechanical hearts. They work toward something even divinity could not achieve: a future that neither repeats the past nor denies it, but transforms it into something entirely new.
  The Shattering split more than worlds—it fractured divine psychology, creating a pantheon where trauma, doubt, and unintended consequences shape divine behavior as much as traditional power structures. Yet from this fracture came something unexpected: the possibility that wisdom might emerge from wounds, that strength might grow from acknowledged limitation, that love might persist even when trust has been broken.
  The story continues to unfold as gods and mortals alike grapple with the lasting consequences of that first great breaking. And I, as always, bear witness to every moment, every choice, every consequence—recording the truth without judgment, preserving the possibility that future generations might learn from the past without being enslaved by it.
  —End of Primary Record—

Marginalia: This account required unusual restraint, as the temptation to reveal certain hidden dynamics and secret collaborations proved nearly overwhelming. Yet the truth of the Shattering must be told in layers, each revelation building upon the last, as mortals grow ready to comprehend the full scope of divine complexity. Some truths, once spoken, cannot be taken back—and not all are ready for the burden of complete understanding.
 

— E., Cosmic Scribe