Other Tales: In The Beginning

on February 5, 2009 in Other Tales


Then Came Man
A Khersian Account of Creation

In the beginning, there was Chaos.

And in that Chaos there was the Star Drake, and He sought within the Chaos and found within it a sphere of Order that had emerged; the world. He saw upon the world, the creatures of Chaos breeding and multiplying and striving to break apart its skin and pull it back into Chaos.

So He flew around the world, encircling it inside a crystalline shell, and inside that shell He placed a crystal egg, one of five He had brought. From that first egg sprang the dragons of every size and color, dragons of sea and sky and land, and they were given dominion over the world, to cleanse it of the creations of Chaos.

When the world was cleansed and the dragons’ influence was waning, the Star Drake placed two more eggs within the shell. From the larger of them came the great god, Khersis Dei, and from the smaller came the other gods.

And some of them created lesser gods, and together they filled the barren world with plants and animals of every kind, and they created races in imitation of themselves, and Khersis Dei watched. And there were elves in the forests, and dwarves in the mountains, and many other races according to their nature. And the Orderly world grew Chaotic again, with so many peoples acting upon it and none of them in concert or harmony with each other.

So Khersis Dei created Man, who could climb the mountains and conquer the forests and cross the deserts and the seas and fill every corner of the world and bring friendship and understanding to all.

But among the other gods there were those who were jealous of Khersis Dei and who opposed his divine will, and they created monstrous beasts and filled them with a hatred for Man and a lust for his flesh, that he would struggle to survive wherever he went and would never know a moment’s peace and the world would remain divided and fraught with Chaos.

And thus the world remains full of evil things who would destroy peace and wipe out the race of Man, but they cannot, for Man was formed in the image of Khersis Dei and would always overcome.

But the worst of Man’s enemies were the demons, who were formed in the image of Man. They dwelt in the forests and the mountains and they haunted the deserts and the oceans, they went wherever Man went and they undid his works and they slew his children and they bedeviled him without relief, but they could not destroy him, though Man’s suffering was great.

But the Star Drake had left the last two crystal eggs with Khersis Dei, and he saw man’s suffering and he placed the fourth egg upon the world, from which arose a champion to drive the demons from the world just as the dragons had once cleansed it. This champion was Khersis, incarnated into the mortal world, and he did battle with the demons and slew many of their number.

But the jealous gods intervened, and insisted that he not slay all of them lest it give any god the license to erase another’s creations. So, he took the remaining demons and bound them up in a place of suffering from which they could not easily escape, a plane of evil suited to their dark hearts. To make certain that their imprisonment was eternal, he forged a lock that could only be opened by Men, so that no demon could return to the world without Man’s permission.

Thus it was that Man finally knew relief from the scourge of demons. But the ways of evil are subtle and Man is mortal and fallible, and so it will sometimes come to pass that a demon will makes its escape and gain purchase on the plane of the world once more, but the power of Khersis Dei and his incarnate avatar will stand between them and Mankind forevermore.

Thus it has been promised, and thus it shall remain, until the time when the fifth egg opens and Everlasting Order is brought to the world.


Outsiders And Old Ones
A Goblin Account

In the beginning, there were the Old Ones, gods of powers so primal they encompassed within them creation and destruction in a single act, and there were giants in the world at that time, and they did contend with the Old Ones in mighty battle until they were vanquished and forced to retreat up a [the gobol word here translates variously as “stalk” or “trunk”] into another realm, yielding this one to its true masters.

But the giants had one more trick to play. The last one to leave the world heaved a sack over his shoulder, and from the sack’s mouth poured a stream of dragons who burnt the [stalk/trunk] and scorched the land, evaporating slime pools and burning fungi and forcing the Old Ones into hiding, where they slept and waited for the plague of dragonkind to expire.

While the Old Ones slept, other beings from Outside happened upon their world and in the absence of its true masters they claimed it for themselves. They covered it over with a shell to block out the realms Outside, and they set in that shell a multitude of lights, greater and smaller, and they covered the world with life according to their designs.

In time, some of the Old Ones stirred enough to sense what was happening, and they were not well-pleased. Their world had been changed. Its atmosphere had become as poison to them. Its seas were unwholesome. Its inhabitants lacked in sustenance. The lights in its new sky often grew to painful brightness. Some of the Old Ones retreated further beneath the world and placed themselves deeper into hibernation, but some of them awoke and roused themselves to action.

From the Formless came oozes and jellies and slimes, preserved in caverns deep beneath the surface, protected from dragon-wrath and dreaming of an age long ago when no creature with bones had moved across the surface of the world. And the Formless took a rock slime and shaped it in mockery of the Outsiders, with legs and arms and heads and gave it a mind that could think and a voice that could talk.

From the Claw That Corrupts came dire beasts, versions of the usurping animals made large and hungry and strong. And the Claw That Corrupts took some beasts and gave them forms like the Outsider’s children, that they could walk among them at need and spread sickness and destruction.

From the Bleak Voice came ghouls and wraiths and revenants, that the dead would rise and purge the living. And the Bleak Voice whispered to those of the Outsider’s children and taught them the secrets of death, that they might hasten their own journey towards it.

And from the Caller Beyond came we, to do the bidding of those who sleep… and they sleep on, until the day the greatest of them awakens to wipe the world clean.


Giants In The Earth
An Ogre Account

In the beginning, there were giants.

Towering titans who strode across the world and made it theirs, and they fought and they fucked and they loved and they lived and they killed and they died, and they challenged the dragons, the only other things that lived upon the world in those days, and they brought them to heel or they drove them out or they killed them.

They hurled thunder and rock and fire, and they carved mountains and cut river beds and they shaped every inch of the world until it was to their liking, and then they tore it down and they made it again. They cut the world like a diamond, carving and chipping until it would be flawless, and they reduced it from a thousand times its current size to a hundred, and then ten, and they would not stop until it was perfected.

But there was a corruption buried in the world that the giants knew not, imprisoned in chambers deep beneath its surface, and when the giants had carved deep enough into the world’s skin they broke free and they covered every inch of the giants’ perfect world like a plague of boils.

The giants were mighty, and with their dragon servants they fought at the corruption and they beat it back unto the very point of oblivion. Though the battle raged fiercely, the giants persevered and were victorious in the end.

But the world they had carved with such care was no more, befouled and burned and smashed and corroded, and it had been so diminished by the struggle that there was not enough left of it to begin carving anew, and so few had the giants’ casualties been that there was not space enough upon its surface for them to live in comfort.

So with a heavy heart, the giants left, ascending to a higher world where they took up other pursuits, though they never completely renounced their claim on the world that had been theirs.

And when the gods who called the world theirs decided to people it with their own children made in their own images, the giants saw a challenge that could not go unanswered, and the greatest of them got together and they formed their own children to seed across the world. They would tower over the other races as the giants towered over all, and they would be strong and mighty, but they would be small enough that they could carve and work their will upon the world and not destroy it.

Thus there were ogres, whose destiny it is to claim dominion over this world, and in doing so become the giants who will shape the face of the next one.


Here There Were
A Dragon Account

In the beginning, there were dragons.

And it was good.


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9 Responses to “Other Tales: In The Beginning”

  1. Kavoir says:

    The Dragons acount sounds the most right. I appreciate their literature.

    Current score: 11
  2. pedestrian says:

    Wisdom is encompassing the most knowledge within the fewest words.

    Current score: 3
    • The Chosen One says:

      Brevity is […] wit.

      Current score: 4
  3. Tuukka says:

    Now that i think about it: If demons need bits of humans to survive how can they live in different dimension? Sleeping beneath the earth theory sounds most likely in this light.

    Current score: 0
  4. zeel says:

    So it would seem it went like this:

    There were dragons.
    Giants arrive and fight the dragons.
    Giants carved the world and released the old ones.
    The old ones defeat them or spoil the world. (The victor is undetermined really)
    Giants release the dragons as a final fuck you to the old ones and leave.
    The Stare Drake arrives, encloses the world in a shell, and releases the gods.
    The gods make people
    The giants make ogres
    Khersis dei creates man
    The old ones wake and make goblins, undead, and other weird stuff.
    Some gods get jealous, create demons (and such)
    Khersis comes and kills loads of demons, then locks them away.

    Interesting history. . .

    Current score: 9
  5. nobody says:

    Humans sre made to foster peaceful co-existence and understanding between all races.

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
    Funny.

    Current score: 12
  6. Jechtael says:

    I like the parallels and differences between these stories.

    I wonder, though… in the goblins’ creation myth, did the plant on which the giants fled perhaps have leguminous fruit?

    Current score: 0
    • Majikkani_Hand says:

      My thinking is that it’s a nod either/both to the Beanstalk or to the Yggdrasil.

      Current score: 2
  7. Lara says:

    And the Formless took a rock slime and shaped it in mockery of the Outsiders, with legs and arms and heads and gave it a mind that could think and a voice that could talk.
    —-
    I assume this is trolls?

    Current score: 0