The Testimony of Skizzerdrix, Grimwarden of the Spine. Regarding the Immortal Age.

How does one describe the beginning to one living in the present? I suppose I should start with the time before time began.

Long ago we were travelers, explorers, vagabonds, the Grimwardens of old. Our vast flock of what you would call dragons sailed between the stars on massive wings, exploring the worlds that we stumbled across, learning from their inhabitants, and moving on to the next discovery. Some worshiped us as gods, and I would be remiss to admit that for a time many of my kin fancied themselves divine, until we chanced upon your creators.

The space between worlds is a dark and silent abyss, as we traveled between the distant points of light we saw a dull grey mass that seemed dimly to reflect and draw in the fading light from far off stars. Our curiosity consumed us, and as we drew closer the mass congealed into a face familiar to my eyes. The face of a massive dragon.

It spoke to each of us at once, within our minds. I couldn’t tell you if it was our language, only that I understood the words with perfect clarity, as though it were speaking only to me. It had no name, no expression, it sat within the dark void of space regarding us with a childlike curiosity as we regarded it the same.

Time passes quickly for our kind. Hours turned into days as we spoke with the entity, it asked us what we were, it questioned where we had been. Each answer we provided spawned two questions, and so the days passed into what must have been years.

We told it stories of the worlds we had visited, the creatures, plants and all the facets of life we could recall. It asked us to reform the experience in our minds, to visualize these worlds in clarity, which we each did according to our ancient memories.

There was a brief moment of nothingness, like a painter that sits before a blank canvas to set about his task. And as we focused our thoughts the mass began to change, as if an ant hill had erupted from within. Forms split off until there were countless beings floating before us, some resembled geometric shapes, others creatures we had recalled. Two began to expand and in a flash of brilliance became Aireot and Vellarious, the twin stars of your world.

We stared in astonishment as the remaining entities set about impossible tasks. One stretched a pointed talon outward and spewed forth a network of honeycombed crystal, upon which another cast rock and earth. Before our eyes they worked in unison and created a world from our memories as if they had done it a thousand times before.

Mountains sprang from the earth. Lakes, rivers and oceans filled. Clouds began to boil in the skies and wind tumbled across the virgin land. A thousand species of plants took root, rain became snow, land baked by sunlight cracked, and the world we had named Draconspire began to turn within the heavens as it slowly danced around the suns.

When the world was formed and set in motion, a single entity we had named Velmori descended to the surface. As it walked, creatures sprung from its steps, the first of the elves. We had encountered this race countless times before, on several worlds, each was unique to the planet it called home. Elves as a whole are seeded throughout the cosmos, adapted to the lands in which they are found, and these were no different. The elves of Draconspire, as they were created, took on traits drawn from the land around them.

As time passed, other entities descended to the face of Draconspire, each creating a new life until a myriad of creatures from our memories populated the world. And as they created, the entities took forms, sometimes reflecting the life they had made, others becoming more primal to mirror the forces or elements they had crafted. It was a true symphony to behold, and for the first time in an age I wept to witness beauty.

I distinctly remember, while all of creation unfolded before my weary eyes, one entity stood apart. It regarded the web that was being spun for what seemed like an eternity. Then, in an instant, it sprouted a thousand tentacles. With alacrity it crafted its own world, a smaller version of what was created before. However the landscape, flora and fauna, were of which we had never seen. It populated its small world with bizarre and alien creatures, a perverse reflection of what we had described with our thoughts. This moon, which it called Rytol, was set to circle Draconspire. 

By this time my kin had made a home of your planet, we had never stayed at a single place for so long, but why not settle here? It was a world birthed from our own memories, both joyous and sad. When I looked to the mountains in the east I remembered the distant world where my son was born, I could hear and smell the same sea that I swam when I was a wyrmling. The curious creators watched as we explored and spoke with the life that they had spawned. We did our best to teach them language, math, the basics of engineering and agriculture. They took to it like a drackfly to honey and set about creating civilizations.

Our infusion of knowledge and our interaction with the budding races woke desire, love and hate, laws and rebellion. All the cornerstones of true spirit and life. Things we could not have shown the creators but that fuel the hearts of living things.

This, as it turns out, was an error of colossal consequence. A sin that marks a Grimwarden’s soul to this day.

As a signal fire lit upon a tower guides ships to harbor in the darkest of nights, our teachings caught the eye of beings from across the cosmos. Entities of pure power, the Five as you have come to call them, descended upon Draconspire. Gods of limitless power, masters of law and chaos, good and evil, and at their head the being known as Sardack. God of balance.

The Five looked upon the face of Draconspire and regarded the creators as a parent would its disobedient son. Sardack declared in a voice that shook the heavens that the domain of emotion and souls that had free will were his and the Five’s to command, that Draconspire and Rytol were no longer the creator’s concern. The creators, beings of primal energy, would not give up their masterpiece willingly, and so a battle ensued in the heavens that shaped the very sky.

How long the war lasted I cannot say, how does one describe the battle of gods to mortal ears? The power released as the two forces collided caused nations to sink, forests to topple and Rytol to shatter. The creator that crafted Rytol was known to us as Mockardis, and as his moon began to shatter he ferried over his most beloved creations, the creatures you now call abberations.

As the dust and fragments of Rytol settled into the World Belt, that can be seen today, it was clear that the creators were no match for the Five. Most of them were destroyed, banished to their home plane of Meratol which became a vast prison. However a few escaped, hidden within the fabric of the planes to plot their revenge. In short and violent order the creators became a Shattered Pantheon, and the Five took the mantle of the divine that most living beings worship to this day out of fear or reverence.

As for me, and the Grimwardens of old, the burden of our guilt and the sorrow of the destruction that we witnessed hung like a yoke around our necks. We took to our dens and slumbered throughout the eons, and dreamed of an earlier day.

-      Transcribed this 1st Midspan of Three Wars, 2308 CM, by Loft E. Kinsworth.