Prologue: A Legend of Five

As told by the Sarik of Issi:

In the time before time, so the legend goes, all that is was as nothing, and in the all-encompassing void nought existed but two omnipotent entities, as small as the smallest atom and large as the greatest galaxy. For in that time there was no space, no size, just the endless conflict between two beings of power so great that compared to them, all our gods are as nothing. And between them lay the miniscule dot of something that would one day become the entire fabric of reality.

For eons they strove, each equally powerful and completely opposed, with no thought but the lust for power, and between them lay the very stuff of life. But their minds were so great that they could not comprehend what was to come, and their thoughts focused solely on the destruction of their opponent. But this was a struggle that would have no winner, for without the one, the other would cease to have a purpose, for it was their purpose which formed their existence. Thus they strove, omnipotent and single minded, for millennia upon millennia.

None know how long they struggled, for truly they struggled before time had any meaning, but what we do know is this: at one time, their struggle brought them to the substance of life, and the contact with their immense power made it begin to move, and slowly it expanded, pushing the struggling entities aside with something they had never encountered before - matter. And as it grew and time began, the entities knew fear, for this was beyond all their experience.

From this very stuff that would form the universe came another entity, as great as they who strove and yet opposed in purpose. Iss, he is called, and his hands moulded the growing universe, shaping it to his purposes. As the universe expanded, so too did he, for indeed some say he is the consciousness of the universe itself, and behind him he left myriads of planets teeming with life, and with each he left children whom he instructed to care for his creation. For Iss is the Creator god, and all that exists are his children.

Erathis was one of the earliest of his children, and many eons have passed since he whom is our creator walked among us, and the void that is the struggling gods ever encroaches upon his creation. But to protect us from the destruction that they wouldst inflict, he created five children from the very substance of Erathis their mother, charging them to protect their mother and her offspring as the emissaries of their father. Five they were in number, and five they remain, and to each was given a domain that they might protect and nourish it.

To Yahet, the eldest, was gifted the sky, in his control falling all things that fly and the very substance of weather, and his twin sister Hikaya was gifted the waters of Erathis, that she might nourish the world. Lyssa was charged to protect and clothe her mother, overseeing all plants and animals that populate her soils while giving fertility and plenty, while Korat her husband governed death and rebirth, for without death there is no life. And to Shya, his youngest daughter, was gifted art, music and magic, that she might bring his children joy and unite the Gods in one aim against the struggling entities.

The Gods were wise, and in their wisdom they knew that their physical presence was ever a beacon to the entities that they opposed, thus they decided that the only way the child of Iss might be safe was in their absence from her soils, observing but nevermore touching. But they would not leave their mother unprotected, and from her very soil they created the creatures that would protect her in their stead. Humans, they named them, and these they took as their own, to educate and protect.

In order to help these children, however, Shya set aside an ancient magic that could only be invoked in times of great need, a magic that would give the humans powers e'en over their own gods. In the time that chaos fell upon the land of Erathis, and darkness seemed unavoidable, five humans would emerge from the far corners of the globe, each gifted with the powers of an element to protect their mother. A god would guide each of these children in the use of their powers, but eventually they would hold the future in their hands, for the Gods had gifted them their own power, and could not stand against them.

For though united they would be a weapon capable of great good, able to defend their home from the ravages of the struggling entities, if turned to evil they would be capable of destroying the world that created them, and the world would revert to the nothingness that came before time.

In the hands of these five would rest the fate of their world, and towards this end left the Gods instructions as to how they might be victorious. But over the millennia humanity divided into insular communities while magic and religion were scorned by the Elysian's, the largest group. The instructions of the Gods were lost through war and desolation, and all except the most devoted scholars forgot the legend of the struggling Gods and those who would defeat them. And all the Gods could do was watch as the void approached ever closer a world now oblivious of its danger, and chaos fell upon Erathis.