Rise of a Race of Hydrus and the Tulani Desert

Sit with me, child, and let me tell you the story of Erzuk and Yulana, and how the lands were formed...

Long ago, long after the gods have spun the threads of time and space, and crafted the sun, the moons, the stars, and the planet, but before all the precious lands that lay before us were complete, these gods have strived to create beauty where their fingers touched, bring life with their very breath. They shaped the lands like clay in their hands, forming the mountains, the valleys, the plateaus, and everything inbetween. The elementals strived to create the forests, the ocean, and the winds, under the gods' orders.

One day, the gods, wishing to inspire one another to better their planet and make a home worthy of the life they would plant, held a competition. Whoever could make the most beautiful lands where life could thrive would become the nature god of the area they created, capable of manipulating the weather and lands to aid their people. The gods set to work, some not doing it with the prize in mind but because they wished only to create the best for their people, while others were eager for the power such a prize could bring.

One such god was named Erzuk. Fiesty and prideful, he took every opportunity to mock the others' creations, bragging to others, "I bet I could make a grander piece of work than you!". He chose a large, vast land, a large canvas for the the art he would make. He stood proudly over it, prepared to use his powers to carve his vision onto the land...

Ah, but no inspiration came! For all his mockery of others, he could not think of what to create. When the others questioned him, he snapped, "A genius like myself requires time to think of something great! But soon, you'll see!"

The others hoped that soon meant tomorrow. Tomorrow came, though, and only a few large trees were planted. Hardly a valley or river was carved into the lands, no mountain hollowed to make caverns to rest in. "Wait longer!" Erzuk said, stomping his feet on the ground and puffing his cheeks up in anger. "Have you no patience?" The next day came. Only a few more trees, and a small stone carving of himself. The next day came. Nothing new. And the next day came, and so did the next, and the so did the others. His progress was slow, his changes made with hardly any rhyme or reason. Any offers to help were shot down, for he was brilliant, and the brilliant has no need for aid, especially from those who made works lesser than his!

By the month of Ursa, when the sun bore down on all relentlessly, all he had managed to do was make a few patches of trees, a few small hill, and a mountain carved in his likeness. Hardly a river or lake was to be seen to give relief to those living in these lands, hardly suitable for even a god. Erzuk's fellow gods were not impressed or even amused that so much time was wasted.

Erzuk did not take the critism well, once again puffing up his cheeks and stomping his feet. "If you think you could do better than me," he huffed, "then YOU try it!"

And so they did, although at every turn, Erzuk scoffed at their works and broke their concentration when he tried to direct them on what to do. At every turn, he yelled and snapped and spat at the gods who tried to better his work. And at every turn, the gods found their work altered by him: where their trees were planted, he tore them down and moved them far, far away; where large lakes were made, they turned back and saw that it was only a mere fraction of how large it was. Annoyed at the spiteful changes the god made, his fellow gods soon abandoned their attempts to make it better. Why try to better something when one will find a way to sabotage your efforts?

Well, one goddess did not give up. Yulana was the youngest goddess at the time, and she had made small, yet colorful lands that caught the attention of elder gods. She did not want to give up on the lands Erzuk wished to shape in his image. She approached him and asked, "What IS your grand vision of this land? Tell me, and I shall make it so."

"As if you could make it as I imagine it to be!" he said, turning his nose up at the younger god. "Great work takes time, anyway! I don't need your aid!"

"But you have taken so long, and the others are worried. You turn away help, and whatever help you get, you wish to control. I want to help you shape this land as you see fit. Nothing more, nothing less."

He thought and thought and thought on this. He did not wish for any help, but if it could help his grand vision out there, perhaps she could be of use. That, and he could merely claim he did all the work, then gain the power for himself! This idea pleased Erzuk, and so he relented and said, "Fine, but you have to do everything I tell you to do, okay?"

And so she did. Under his supervision, Yulana crafted forests and jungles, lush with trees and colorful plants. She carefully placed lakes and created rivers, planted grass and flowers where she stepped, carved out caverns and so much more, all under Erzuk's orders. The elementals worked night and day to make Erzuk's vision come to life. It took until the month of Corvus for his dream to see fruition, the land lush with life as the sun greeted them with gentle rays behind the clouds.

The other gods looked down on this grand, beautiful land and were impressed. The eldest god came down and asked, "Who made this? It is far grander than any other places I have seen, and I have seen quite a few made these past few months!"

Before Yulana could speak, Erzuk jumped up and said with a puffed up chest, "I did! I created this great land and made it better than all of the others gods' lands combined! Surely that makes me worthy of being the winner and getting those nature god powers!"

While Yulana was sad that he was taking the credit for it, she did not speak up. She was only glad that this place was made suitable for life, and was as beautiful as she could make it. Her efforts will live on, whether or not she was credited for the work. And so Erzuk was crowned the winner and given his powers, while she left to help improve other lands.

And that would have been that, but Erzuk showed that he used his powers with about as much rhyme and reason as he did when he created what little he did when shaping his lands. When he thought the lands were too dry, he flooded the area with a deluge of rain, washing away saplings and animals. He would then correct it with a drought beyond compare. When something was unsightly, he struck it down with lightning, and when life did not do what he demanded it, he forced them to, one way or another.

All saw that life suffered under Erzuk's care, and so the gods intervened and said to him, "Stop! You are not helping them! You do too much in trying to provide rain and fair weather, and keep intervening when they do something you do not like! There is only so much you can intervene before you do harm, and you have passed such a point long ago!"

 "But this is MY land!" he snapped back. "I created it, and so why shouldn't I make them do as I say?!"

 "Life is not meant to have us gods intervene as often as you," said one god. "How can it grow when we interfere whenever it makes mistakes? You are being irresponsible with your power, so please, relax and let life take its course."

 "The life on this land is supposed to be following my grand vision, though! You all are wrong in saying that I shouldn't rule over them and make sure they do things how I wish!"

 The gods struggled to convince him not to have such an iron grip on the lives of so many, but he listened to none of it. He only became angrier and angrier, until flames sprouted from his hair and the tips of his ears, his body red with rage.  His anger boiled and bubbled, his powers leaking out and creating a drought throughout the entire land. Trees and plants withered away to dust. Lakes and rivers turned into a mere trickle of water, a mere puddle. Dirt became sand carried easily by dry, dry winds. The grand lands his fellow goddess made in his vision were no more, and all that remained was a land of endless sands, where hardly any life could survive.

Finally, when the transformation was done, Erzuk said, "Fine! If you think you can do a better job than I, then take my powers and my land! I wash my hands of this, and of those who can't appreciate my greatness!"

The gods stripped away his nature powers in light of what had done, and tried hard to restore the great lands from before. However, no matter how hard they tried, their creations turned to dust, unable to bear the dry conditions. Some questioned why they bothered to argue with him at all if this would have been the result. But no god could have forseen this, could they?

Again, Yulana stepped in, and she saw the devastation wrought upon such lands. She saw what the gods tried to create, only to see them fade away in the sun's harsh light. All they had managed to make were giant, winged monsters that preyed on those who died, and lizards who basked in the sun during the day and burrowed underground in the cold depths of the night. While her heart felt sorrow, she knew that mourning what was lost was useless for now. She saw what needed to be done, then set to work.

Under the harsh day and the cold nights, she toiled to create plants that retained water during the day, create oaisises where she could, and life that could withstand the heat and cold. Human life, too, she tried to make with mud and dirt the other gods provided, only to see them burn and collapse, great sand wyrms claiming what little life remained. The pale skinned people the gods made on other continents were unable to withstand the conditions.

So instead, using the sands of the desert, she created people in her own vision: people with dark skin like hers, able to withstand such heat, and with pale white hair like her own. She saw for herself that her people survived well, no longer getting the burns from the sun that the pale ones did, able to hunt down what animals they should to survive in this landscape. And so, she named this race the N'zaryans.

And as she saw life thrive, in spite of such harsh conditions, Yulana smiled, and watched much like a parent watches their children. Even now, she watches, even as her people are not just in the desert, but in the forests and jungles and even ordinary grasslands, living off the land... and with it.