Story of the Five Gods

In the begin­ning, the world was void and with­out form. It was des­o­late and undis­cov­ered.  And then one day, there were five gods who came into the world. Through their con­nec­tion and their har­mo­ny with­in what we now call Mag­ic, they gave the world life. Each god brought some­thing unique to the world, each had their own influ­ence, but it was their con­nec­tion that brought peace and pros­per­i­ty. The five gods occu­pied five dis­tinc­tive points of the world which formed a pen­ta­cle, a sym­bol of per­fect Har­mo­ny. It was believed that the gods came from a place called Egi­non, some refer to the place as heav­en in the com­mon tongue. It is believed that if your soul was pure, this is the after­life you would go to. There was Gen­nir, the god of mag­ic, who was the cen­ter­piece of the pen­ta­cle. She great­ly influ­enced the use of mag­ic in the world. Gen­nir cre­at­ed fairies, also known as Fae or Faerûn in the ancient tongue.  Since the world was not with­out evil, a byprod­uct of Gennir’s cre­ation, Khronnes were born into the world. They would be users of dark mag­ic and cre­ators of unholy spells. Dres­da was the god of des­tiny whose influ­ence and guid­ance to those who were to live great and noble lives would give birth to man. Or sim­ply called humans in the com­mon tongue. Of all the cre­ations and races, men were des­tined to do great things, some leg­endary that would help shape the world. Dres­da was there to help guide them in their noble acts that would main­tain peace and pros­per­i­ty in the world.

Cimis was the god of wis­dom. He guid­ed the wis­est of all races in the world. They would be called elves and because of the guid­ance they received through the wis­dom of Cimis they would also live five to ten times longer than that of any oth­er race. In order to main­tain peace and pros­per­i­ty through­out the world, wis­dom was one of the cor­ner­stones. Elves and even Half Elves would become one of the noblest races in Ann­mar. For with­out them the world would sure­ly descend into chaos. Eras was the god of tran­quil­i­ty and love. If there was ever a god that influ­enced and guid­ed a peace­ful exis­tence, then it was Eras. Her influ­ence gave birth to gnomes and halflings, sim­ple folk who yearned for peace­ful lives and non-adven­tures. They were con­tent in their own home­land and found plea­sure in sim­ple things. What they yearned for most was good com­pa­ny and loved all things as long as it gave them tran­quil­i­ty. Eras was the sec­ond most pow­er­ful god; for tran­quil­i­ty and love is a pow­er­ful force. Liv­ing that kind of peace­ful exis­tence can lead to pow­er­ful magic.

Anion, the final god among them.  He was the god of war and destruc­tion. Bru­tal and hot-tem­pered at times, Anion was seen as a nec­es­sary evil to help bal­ance the oth­er influ­ences of the gods. While Anion lived to rage war, most often, it was only done out of neces­si­ty.  How­ev­er, his influ­ence would also give birth to war­like crea­tures and stub­born folk like the dwarves who nev­er turned down a fight or a war they could join in. But Anion also had a lot of influ­ence over man and was con­stant­ly at odds with Dres­da. Their uni­ty of oppo­sites brought a com­mon bal­ance to the world and through their con­nec­tion added a pow­er­ful har­mo­ny with the rest of the gods.  Wis­dom, des­tiny, mag­ic, war and destruc­tion, and tran­quil­i­ty and love are seen as the most pow­er­ful ele­ments to main­tain peace and pros­per­i­ty. For thou­sands of years that’s what these gods did for the races they helped cre­ate. The world grew plen­ti­ful because of the influ­ence of the five gods.  There were many lan­guages through­out the land; many ancient dialects. But in the com­mon tongue, the world the five gods cre­at­ed became known as Annmar.

Over thou­sands of years the world grew and became civ­i­lized. The pop­u­la­tion among the races grew expo­nen­tial­ly. Advance­ments in tech­nol­o­gy and bet­ter every­day liv­ing increased peace and pros­per­i­ty. The five gods were wor­shipped and respect­ed as pil­grim­ages were made often to their shrines in the var­i­ous places through­out Ann­mar.  There was a har­mo­nious con­nec­tion between all races, war was unheard of. Every­thing that the gods want­ed through cre­ation was achieved. It was a Utopia. How­ev­er, it was not meant to last. A dark­ness found its way into Ann­mar. It was a sim­ple thing called jeal­ousy as referred to in the com­mon tongue.  It was the jeal­ousy of one god. After many years when the world grew into the per­fect civ­i­liza­tion, Anion grew jeal­ous that oth­er races wor­shipped the oth­er gods. He want­ed all to wor­ship Him and only him. And through his jeal­ousy and influ­ence, war would come the world of Ann­mar. It start­ed with the Dwarves who want­ed more land and gold, they thought Man had too much land and gold while man thought Dwarves had too much.

War start­ed with small skir­mish­es between dwarves and man over small par­tials of land that they both thought to be rich in min­er­als, espe­cial­ly gold. It also start­ed with a war between Anion and Dres­da, and their influ­ence over the races they cre­at­ed. Even­tu­al­ly Anion killed Dres­da and exert­ed his influ­ence over man. Thus began the war of the five gods. It also brought war between the races of Ann­mar. The har­mo­ny that once exist­ed between them fad­ed away into the dark­ness that had crept into the world.  One by one, Anion warred with each of the gods. After Dres­da had died, Anion turned his atten­tion to Gen­nir, the god of mag­ic. The bat­tle between them was fierce, but Anion killed Gen­nir and rid the world from the influ­ence of mag­ic.  After she died, the world dove fur­ther into dark­ness. Mag­ic had been the light and it showed the peo­ple that all things were pos­si­ble, but with­out light, there could only be dark­ness and despair.

Cimis, the god of wis­dom, and Eras, the god of tran­quil­i­ty and love, joined togeth­er to fight Anion, but he had grown too strong. With two of the gods dead by his hands, his pow­er and influ­ence over the world great­ly increased. He was the most pow­er­ful god in Ann­mar, now, and so it would take two gods joined togeth­er to defeat him. Their bat­tle would extend from one end of the world to the next. In a stun­ning and severe blow, Anion killed Cimis, but dur­ing the bat­tle, he was severe­ly weak­ened. This allowed Eras to gain the upper hand and even­tu­al­ly kill Anion at The Shrine of Nydar. It was a holy place for the gods. Leg­end has it, it was the birth­place of mag­ic. With only one god left, the har­mo­nious con­nec­tion that had pro­pelled the world into peace and pros­per­i­ty was sev­ered. The world had become rav­aged by war between the inhab­i­tants of Ann­mar. Eras tried to use her pow­er to influ­ence more tran­quil­i­ty and love, but with­out the con­nec­tion between all the gods, it had fad­ed too quick­ly from the world. There wasn’t any­thing she could do for Ann­mar.  It would take the pow­er of the five gods to bring peace back into Annmar.

Eras should have been looked at as a sav­ior by those in Ann­mar. She should have been wor­shipped, but it was not so. Mankind, along with Ora­cles of Erin­ni­ty, had lost faith in the gods.  For if any one of them could rise up and exert com­plete con­trol over the world, and cause such destruc­tion, then why did any of the races need the god’s at all. They formed a plan and with the com­bined forces of all the races in Ann­mar, lured Eras to the shrine of Nydar for an audi­ence and to pay respect the last god of Ann­mar. Led by the mil­i­tant King Argas and the sworn Broth­er­hood that guard­ed the Ora­cles of Erin­ni­ty, in one swift moment, while stand­ing by the altar at the Shrine of Nydar, they took turns stab­bing Eras. She had been weak­ened in her bat­tle with Anion and wasn’t strong enough to fend them off. She was not pow­er­ful enough to stop them and so Eras died upon the altar.  This caused a cat­a­clysmic event through­out the world. Ann­mar opened up and oceans swal­lowed part of the land, thus sep­a­rat­ing five parts of the world from one anoth­er. What was once con­nect­ed was now divid­ed.  And when the land opened up it swal­lowed thou­sands of inhab­i­tants from all races of Ann­mar. The shock­waves from the event could be felt through­out every cor­ner of the world. Overnight the world of Ann­mar was reshaped. Vil­lages and king­doms were washed away only to form new ones. At least half of the pop­u­la­tion died from the event.

The pow­er of the gods was gone from the world.  The light that had shone bright through­out Ann­mar dis­ap­peared and all that remained in the haze that sur­round­ed Ann­mar was dark­ness.  Now, light could only be seen in cer­tain parts of Ann­mar. It was in the places where good still remained. Places where one could still feel peace, but they were small and hard to find. Over mul­ti­ple Gen­er­a­tions, nobody seemed to believe that the gods had ever been real or that there was once mag­ic in the world. All knowl­edge of these things just became sto­ries. They became myth and with them came the Dark Ages in Ann­mar. It was a time with­out belief. It was a time with­out knowl­edge. It was a time where fear gave way to sus­pi­cion. What few king­doms remained with­in Ann­mar did not inter­act with each oth­er unless it was absolute­ly nec­es­sary. When they did, it was usu­al­ly brought on by war. After the last god, there was noth­ing, but destruc­tion and despair led by jeal­ousy and pet­ty greed. For this is what ruled Ann­mar at the begin­ning of the First Age. The war of the five gods had destroyed the utopia that Ann­mar once was and per­haps could nev­er be again. The world was cre­at­ed by the five gods.  Their war reshaped the world and plunged it into dark­ness. But the sto­ry of the five gods would not end with their deaths. It lives on through their descen­dants and what they gave the world of Ann­mar. The sto­ry con­tin­ues with­in the Ann­mar Chron­i­cles and at the start of the First Age.

 

 

*** Start­ing in the First Age, names will have two “n’s” in the spelling as a sym­bol to the last two gods who bat­tled in the War of the Five Gods.  The dou­ble n’s rep­re­sent the dual­i­ty of good and evil in the last two gods of Ann­mar.  Pen­nta­cle is spelled with two n’s in the Ann­mar Chronicles.