In which Zach tries to write up a setting. Edited for better

In the beginning, the world existed free from elements and magic, a blasted wasteland where none could survive save for a race of lizards that lived underneath the earth and the demon-like Fellhand who cared for them, neither of whom could survive above the surface on their own. That all changed one day when the Dragon Goddess of Aethyr descended upon the planet, with her natural control over the elements and magic and her god-like power she brought life to the surface, spreading wind, earth, fire, and water and all that comes as a consequence of those elements. She created the forests, the volcanoes, the deserts, the wilds, and all that existed. When she was done she then looked upon the world she had brought life to and watched with curiousity as the Fellhand and the lizards exited their underground homes and gazed in wonder at the world above for the first time. The sheer magic brought about by the goddess imbued the Fellhand with magical and elemental powers, the lizards became awakened and imbued with magic and became the predecessors to the race we now know as the Kobolds. As she gazed upon these beings, inspiration overtook her as she began to create new creatures in their image as well as the image of creatures she had seen upon other worlds. She created Birds, fish, all vast numbers of animals and beasts that now inhabit this world and...when all was said and done she created her greatest creation, the first humans. The Humans, Fellhand, and Kobolds revered her as a goddess and in turn she gave them blessings, taught them how to survive on their world and in time came to truly love her creations and vassals as her children. Over time however as they spread across the planet and their numbers multiplied she realized she could no longer care for all of her children so...she gave birth to the four elemental dragons, each carrying an aspect of her own divine essence.

The Dragon of Eternal Fire, Nildrath. A warrior dragon who saw honor and protecting the weak as the greatest things one could aspire to created two races based on his ideals. He created the Orks, a hardy race who were given a unique evolutionary trait, allowing them to adapt to any environment based entirely on the food they ate within a few hundred years and were gifted warriors in the art of combat who became known as master gourmands and chefs due to their unique food-based abilities. He then created the Beastmen, warriors of unending cunning who became known as tacticians and masters in the art of commanding armies and battles and had a strict code of honor and ethics who became quite adept at creating tactical boardgames and were the pioneers of chess on their world.

The Dragon of Stalwart Earth, Brundrum. A stalwart mind who saw the importance of expanding technical knowledge and using the earth for your needs as well as the art of crafting. He created Dwarves, masters of the hammer and forge with a love and affinity for making ale and all manner of goods who spread their knowledge world-wide and the Goblins who became masters of technology and technical things as well as having a green thumb for farming in almost any conditions. Although holding a friendly rivalry together the Dwarves and Goblins spread society, technology, agriculture, and various other things to the world around them.

The Dragon of Endless Skies, Brannocrass. A cunning and wily mind who saw the importance of Law and those that defy it as well as living off the land and the bare necessities, they considered organized government and the inquisitive minds that would keep it in check as well as the knowledge of hunting and living on one's own the most important of all. They created the Brighteyes, A race of Owl-like humanoid beings with inquisitive minds that sought to learn of the world around them, going out into the world and cataloging all they saw so they could spread that knowledge to all those around them. They also created the Shadowkind, a race of crow-like beings who soon became quite enamored with the gems and other such things discovered and used by the dwarves and goblins, creating a life-long allyship between the 3 races. They're known for their peerless hunting and marksman skills, living off the land and at one with nature, making them quite friendly with the dryads. They too of course spread this knowledge to their fellow races, they also became well known for their robin-hood like demeanor and their lack of patience for corruption, especially the corrupt rich.

The Dragon of the Ever-shifting Tides, Jeodiss, she considered the pursuit of knowledge, learning, and mastery of the world, the veil, the arts, culture, theater, and the pursuit of creative endeavors above all else to be important. She created the elves, masters of the arts and speech, capable of creating the most beautiful works of art, plays, and various other things and wooing even the most stone-hearted individuals, they became known for their impeccable speechcraft, mercantilism, and knowledge of money and how to make it as well as their impeccable looks of course. She created the dryads, masters of the veil and magic who were at one with nature and magic itself, they studied the endless trees from which magic can change and morph and founded many of the schools of magic as we know them today.

With the knowledge of theirs combined, 5 kingdoms were formed. The Kingdom of Fire, a warrior nation that fought for glory and honor and for a fair fight and to protect the weak. The Kingdom of Earth, a bastion of innovation and technology that was revered by many. The Kingdom of Air, the home of travelers and pluckish rogues who ventured all across the lands, The Kingdom of Water, a realm of magic and the arts open to all who wished to learn of it's secrets and finally the kingdom of Aethyr, home of the church of the Dragon Goddess and a cultural melting pot of all races and creeds, working together to make their world a better place.

Together, these 5 kingdoms lived in relative harmony, people were happy and things seemed perfect but...that wouldn't last for much longer for you see, the eldritch enemies of the Dragon Goddess, long-forgotten and ancient horrors that sought to corrupt and madden any race they could get their hands on saw this beautiful world and looked towards the families of the 4 rulers of each kingdom. They were all human, trusted by their colleagues and comrades and advised by councils with representatives of all races. They knew the adults were near incorruptible and wouldn't serve their needs...so they turned their eyes to their heirs, the children who would one day inherit the roles of their parents. They corrupted them, came to them in their dreams, and slowly but surely warped their hearts to their own desires and wills with promises of gold, power, and strength beyond imagining. For years this went on until the day the heirs inherited the royal crowns. All seemed fine for a while but then the council-members of non-human races began to vanish, winding up being found dead in some ditch and slowly replaced by humans of ill-repute, criminals and warlords and all manner of bad people that had either been exiled or imprisoned in the past. The other races, even the humans themselves, sat baffled as they watch the 4 kingdoms slowly become corrupted from within and many of them could do nothing except watch what they had spent so long building begin to crumble.

It finally all came to a head when a dark sorcerer from a forgotten and likely nearly extinct race came from the heavens and showed himself to the 4 now corrupt rulers. He promised them endless power, immortality, and wealth beyond imagining in return for their unquestioning loyalty. They took the deal and he taught them the first great sin that was committed on this world. He gave them power and with that power they took down and sealed the great elemental dragons into 4 blades of power. After that many of the humans and races left the kingdoms, as if some arcane and unknown knowledge was telling them to leave, to get to safety. The ones who didn't make it were the ones who ended up being stopped by the armies when the leaders learned of their exodus. Many were trapped in their kingdoms but many more escaped. The non-human races left in the kingdoms were killed, experimented on, or otherwise turned into slaves or put into living zoos and circuses to be poked and prodded by a gawking audience, many of the humans were killed if they would not fall in line and those that did...well over the years they soon did not question the rule of their tyrants.

The last to fall was the Aethyr kingdom, when the armies of the four led by their rulers and the Dark Sorcerer crashed against their walls. Those who weren't outright killed were taken and enslaved, tortured, or experimented on depending on who captured them, some faced far worse fates if they were non-human. None could stand before the rulers, the sorcerer, or their armies and the dark eldritch powers they commanded, massive beasts of tentacles and fangs that were not of this world seeming to move across their ranks and devour any innocents in sight and it was not long before the only man standing between them and their goal was the head priest, the very first human created by the Goddess, her favored and most trusted confidant. Despite the strength within the priest he was cast down and killed, speared through by the powers of the 4 twisted elements the rulers now carried. After this, the Dragon Goddess herself descended from the heavens, rage and vengeance filled her heart as she sought to destroy these interlopers and their corrupt kin. She might have won and scoured these foul beings from the earth, had it not been for the Dark Sorcerer who, calling upon the power of his gods, froze the goddess in place as the 4 rulers advanced upon her and struck her down. In her dying cries all she could do was take the 4 blades, purify them, and then shatter her own essence and soul and scatter both her essence and the blades all across the world to protect them and initiate a desperate back up plan.

To the Sorcerer however, this mattered not. He fused with the goddess's broken body, eyes and fangs erupting from the corpse as he became a corrupt and vastly powerful amalgamation of the goddess's own natural power and the sorcerer's dark power. The Dark Gods granted him deityhood and he in turn granted the 4 rulers what he promised, immortality, power, wealth, and strength beyond their wildest imaginations. Like the goddess before him, he gave birth to four entities, pillars which followed the commands of the rulers and watched over the now conquered kingdoms, massive slabs of flesh and eyes which reported everything they saw to the rulers and the Corrupt One himself. He spread his corruptive influence across the land, creating countless evils and monsters that now eternally haunt this land.

The Fire kingdom was corrupted into a land where might makes right and only the strong survive, the weak bullied into submission and the only ones able to avoid this being the ones strong enough to fight back, gladatorial slave battles being the norm. the Earth Kingdom became a world of cybernetics, augmentations taken to their logical extreme as the ruler saw flesh as being weak, their people are nothing more than soulless automatons doing their jobs without a single question. The Air kingdom became akin to a cesspit of hungry rats, everyone stole from one another and no one trusted anyone as the shadowy ruler puppeteered the kingdom from behind the scenes. The Water kingdom became the capital of debauchery and profane magic, the very laws of reality defiled and rewritten to serve the disgusting desires of those who lived there.

What happened to the essence of the Goddess you ask? Well the two largest pieces of her soul came to the first two races of this land, Kobolds and Fellhand. Exceptional individuals, of which there were many, were chosen by the pieces of the soul and two new sub-races were formed that day. The Kobolds chosen by the soul became the Dragonborn, stalwart half-dragon warriors and defenders who sought out corruption and darkness wherever it lied in the name of the goddess, each dragonborn having a shard of her power within themselves from birth. The Fellhand chosen became Arch-Devils, the true rulers of their kind with magical power that exceeded all other races who unlike the kobolds, sought to free the world of evil in their own ways, as their race was one that had a very "Live as you will" Type of mindset.

The other shards gave birth to a multitude of other sub-races, Ogres, Dark Elves, Knolls, Bear-kin, and various other races to name a few. The Orks had also spread out and created the warrior tribes of the desert who looked the most like their ancestors, the porcine orks of the forest, the mer-like orcs of the ocean, the stone-skinned orks of the mountains, alongside other subraces born from the original races. Humans on the outside of these kingdoms escaped and formed their own kingdoms far away from the four, forging alliances and treaties with the other races. Despite this the kingdoms frequently orchestrated raids which gave non-human and human races across the world fear and dread for what might happen to them and their families. The Humans in the kingdoms...live the cruelest and worst lives imaginable yet know no better because many of them were born into these cruel and evil kingdoms.

Even now, the rest of the shards as well as the 4 swords await in the most remote corners of the world, awaiting the day they're discovered and maybe one day with the power of the shards and the dragons within the 4 swords, the true dragon goddess can be revived once more and her power used to oust the evil from this world and in turn destroy the influence of the dark gods who have corrupted it.