The Circle of Nine & the World of Old

No divine hand crafted Aerith. The entire universe that Aerith calls home was crafted by a guild of supremely powerful arcane magic users from an alternate reality that were once known as The Circle of Nine in an attempt to escape a holy war brought on by the Gods that now predominantly control Aerith. This universe is a living experiment in creation that almost worked perfectly. Flawed as it may be, it has flourished in the wake of cataclysm, war and unending turmoil. The pantheons of Aerith took control of this fledgling universe shortly after the destruction of what we will simply refer to as – the world of old.   Nothing is known of the world of old by Aerith’s people – nothing. However, the conflict of the Gods is as old and as timeless as they themselves are. Their struggles against one another are recounted in the myths and legends of Aerith’s peoples and woven into the dogma of the individual faiths, philosophies and religions.   The various pantheons have been at war with each other for countless eons. Their conflict choked and destroyed the world of old eventually erupting into a global holy campaign, a war to end all wars. Their fighting had grown so bitter that neither side cared what the cost of victory would be. The very universe itself was ripping apart at the seams with savage battle. Legions of zealous followers marched to their deaths, some performed soul ravaging atrocities. The slaughter and chaos was unimaginable.   With total annihilation seemingly unavoidable, the Circle of Nine enacted their plan to craft a world to call home. Each of these supremely gifted and powerful magi, used their unique talents to rip open a rift in the fabric of the multiverse. It was this very act that was the spark of creation, the “Big Bang” that created the universe that became Aerith. The last of the wizards was called Entaris. He was a master of the strange, dangerous form of magic called Chronomancy. It was Entaris that started the flow of time in this new universe and it was he alone who knew that the speed of time was vastly accelerated in this new world, relative to the pace in the world of old. What would be days to the Circle of Nine proved to be millennia in Aerith.   Entaris did this in the hopes that the living beings that were to be smuggled away from the dying world of old would have time enough to cultivate a new home without any further outside interference. However, not even Entaris, with his mastery over time itself could have foreseen what this act of creation had brought about and what it would mean to the beings who now called it home.   On Aerith, billions of years would come and go while the Circle of Nine carried out the final stages of their plan, preparing for the final confrontation between the Gods that were on the brink of destroying the world of old. As a final confrontation between the White Knight Derenthen and his nemesis the Night Emperor Malkaviss drew near. Their battle was fierce, but in the end Malkaviss was slain, although not before deforming Derenthen by severing one of his wings. The demi-god Deveren, brother of Derenthen’s wife Kalina had been felled as well, tainted and corrupted by the dark god Lazzill. Both sides had sustained terrible losses, power waned and the world itself began to die. It was then that Malkaviss’ son Nardule, the child-like demon god discovered the portal used by the Circle of Nine. What was discovered on the other side was nothing short of extraordinary.