What is known for certain about the first age, the age of the inert is that, at some point during its twilight, four cardinal tendencies existed.  forces which today, we scholars decree, are called the primarch forces.

Though we cannot know the exact nature of these primarch forces in prior history, and while it is certain that they were perhaps tangible and physical in stages of our universe’s history, today they are much more subtle. Now, these are not deities, these are not beings, they have no size, shape, or any physical qualities that may be detected by any modern methods. They are metaphysical tendencies and yearnings of our universal structure, and we know that they exist thanks to the many deities, phenomena, and subordinate forces which exist as derivatives of these four. Most importantly, we have the three (and possibly four) children of these primarch forces, the primarch gods, direct testaments and descendants of these progenitors who loudly claimed to be the direct inheritors of the primarch’s legacy. The adventures and histories of these chief deities will be discussed later.

Foremost, there existed Locus prime, she who guarantees space, who decrees that the universe be given a height, length, and width.

Then there existed Tempus prime, they who designate a fourth dimension of time, and guarantee that all time must press onward into the future.

Then there existed Chaos prime, who insured that entropy be the prevailing state of things; anything distinct is neutralized under Chaos’ preference. The only state which is tolerable to Chaos prime is nonexistence.

Chaos, by far, was the most assertive and dominating of these primarch forces, the only one to take initiative in boldly deciding that there would be one thing in the universe: nothing. Thanks to chaos, nothing is the base state of the universe.

It is not to any of the above forces that we owe our prodigal, indescribably complex universe to. Indeed, under their custody, the universe is briefly and brutishly described, for there is nothing in it. Nea, it is the pygmy Nyxus who, at some point or another, gained consciousness, and decided to become the antagonist of Chaos. It is ontologically certain that Nyxus has been, is, and will forever be the adversary of chaos, his exact opposite, and it is incumbent upon this pygmy to be all things which Chaos is not.

Most curiously, Nyxus is a paradox of himself (this is explained by some scholars as a consequence of Chaos’ insistence that it be completely separate from Nyxus, therefore Nyxus desires to completely subsume Chaos), because Nyxus plainly seeks what the elders once called Taxikaos, that expression of chaos which is ordered so sublimely as to create order. This is because Chaos is, as mentioned earlier, the only primarch force with impetus. The ability to do anything may only be derived from Chaos, the great doer, and Nyxus, the weakest of the primarch forces, has relied on Chaos or one of his derivatives in every turn for Nyxus’ own ends.

The first instance of this, the moment in which the Universe entered the second age, occurred when Nyxus budged Chaos in such a way to interact with Locus, creating a rift in it’s space continuum from which matter began to bleed into the universe. Chaos attempted to destroy this first matter, aether, and yet the attempt was doubly futile. Chaos had not the power to undo the being of the matter at a rate to undo that at which matter spilled into time and space, and so it chose to neuter the matter in certain ways, choosing to whittle down and degrade aether into either earth, fire, wind, or water. This is the first choice a primarch force had ever made, and thanks to exposure and interaction with Nyxus, the pygmy’s sentience was rubbing off onto the first beings.

Nyxus interacted with Locus and Tempus to create the first axioms to unfurl time and space, creating the first Phi magic. Nyxus encapsulated the bitter nihilism and destructive tendencies of Chaos into the first Pi magic (Nyxus would later derive from Pi the forces of good and evil). Nyxus encapsulated the growing clout the Primal Force’s possessed in creating and destroying matter in space into the first Xi magic. Nyxus encapsulated the swinging emotions of the first Primal forces’ thoughts into the first Chi magic. From these magics, the first theories of physical laws (such as gravity, the invention of electromagnetic spectra from concentrations of energy, etc).

Magic proved an important invention for the gods, though. On pockets of planar earth floating throughout space, the first mana pools of these magic coalesced with leftover sentience produced by the primarch forces (and a growing contingency of subordinate forces) and formed into the first corpses of elves, which in some cases lived for very brief periods of time, bringing notice to the dull sentiences of the gods.

At this point, exposure to Nyxus and the sentiences of one another cause the primarch and subordinate forces to act and behave like formless gods, quarrelling among themselves. The force of Law, Nomos, an advocate for the developing universe, regularly denounced Chaos. Bono, an expression of goodwill and benevolence of his seven prime virtues, is perpetually opposed to Malo, an expression of malfeasance and ill-will of his seven prime sins. Many others are created, aided in a mutual rivalry by the intervention of nyxus, and soon, subordinate forces to metaphysical concepts are created, the first gods of love, war, arguably so that these first subordinate forces can have anthropomorphic manifestations of ideals with which to petulantly debate over.

It is the period in which the first council of the primarch forces is held. Chaos, who had taken to recruiting the favor of the other primarch forces (as he ought to, chaos is the most rawly proactive of the primarchs) convinced them that the creation of these tertiary subordinate forces of abstract ideas. Furthermore, Chaos was compelling in his case for a return to neutrality, so that in the end most of the subordinate forces of the universe gained Chaos’ self loathing, and the rest were coerced begrudgingly by the vile pain Chaos’ and his lackeys promised to inflict in their deaths.

A vote was passed in this council, documented by Raikos, the first cleric and custodian of the forces, who drafted a plan of action for the enactment of the reversion to Chaos that was to go underway. It was called the Ingrafi. In understanding the limits of their powers, the forces would use their willpower to temporarily go against the tendencies which dictated the moving of the 1st age universe, which was at this point composed mostly of small, astral islands of developing, complex ecosystems, and shape the entire universe to their image so that it would be most efficiently destroyed. The fire was conjoined into the stars, the water was frozen into the comets and asteroids, the air was coalesced into the gas giants, and the earth was congealed into the planets. All things were designed for a destruction and disintegration to bounce off of one astral body to another like a giant game of billiards, and the cue ball was a relatively small planet which was called Tarril in the tongue of the gods.

Tarril, in it’s infancy, was a small, elliptoid ball that was built around an aether center core, a mantle of the four elements, and an outer layer of earth, with the dermis coated in an ocean. We know much of the early composition of the planets thanks to The Phasmagora, an autobiography of the life of the God Kronos and the holy text of his followers. On a small, diamond shaped island, which is today Cyprus, there were three landmarks created by the gods.

First, there was Yggrdass, the tree of knowledge and the first plant. It was a mass of wood which varied in quality in different areas, appearing as an oak on some branches, a date palm on others, and a coniferous tree on others, an amalgamation of all of the plants which now inhabit Tarril today. It’s trunk was 15 thousand cubits in diameter, and it rose to a height of 100 thousand cubits at the apex of its canopy. It was designed to be the beating heart of a circulatory system of magic that flowed throughout Tarril, the arteries would later become the leylines with which magic is distributed around modern Tarril. It was located on the eastern vertex of the Island

Then, there was Parabolo, the garden of corpses, on the island’s Western vertex, an open chamber with which to throne the vessels that would house the diabolical consciousnesses that the forces developed. Three Thrones would house the primarch forces, with Chaos at the head, Tempus to his left hand, and locus to his right. These effigies were shaped like the Elves, who were despised as manifestations of the wretched irascibility which the forces would not experience in their dumb, unintelligent nonexistences.

Then, there was Smilios, a marble column 7500 cubits in diameter and 350 thousand cubits tall, decorated at the base with an engraving of the Ingrafi at the base and a chronicle of the universe’s history engraved in deep relief along the side. It’s purpose was to act as the billiard stick with which Tarril would be struck, slammed directly into the core of Tarril and causing it to explode, setting off a chain reaction of explosions that would resound around the universe, reverting everything back into its old state.

The stage was set. Raikos enacted the ritual of the rapture, a mass migration of the power, essence, and sentience of the forces to their new vessels in the garden of the corpses. Everything was transferred to these vessels except for the prime tendencies of the three primarch forces that would need to be run at the Universe’s inertia, and a trace amount of sentience for Chaos prime, enough so that he might strike Smilios into Tarril’s core in the proper way.

Chaos manifested in the sky, and nearly punched Smilios into the ground, but, as it is remarked in the opening text of the Phasmagora:

In my first view of the sky, I saw a manifestation of Chaos over that great, Earth shattering chisel, and lo, I saw it gaze unto the visage of his vessel in enamorment and conflict. It seemed that a compassion had been left with he who was tasked with destroying his son. Chaos dissipated. By his hand, our world would not be sundered.

It seemed that Nyxus had caused a misstep of Chaos, leaving in Chaos enough vanity so that it could not bring an end to itself. This marked a transition from the first age to the second age.

With a new found sentience, the Gods, as they would soon come to name themselves, would
Wander the primordial island of Cyprus and make it their garden. They planted and cultivated grafts of the Yggdrass into the ground, making the island fertile, and the deities many children would become the first living organisms of the world.

Rapidly, the three gods in the largest seats at the garden of the corpses were quickly deemed the leaders of the bunch. They claimed descendance from the primarch forces, were the most powerful of the gods, and could climb the treacherous branches of the Yggdrass to eat the virgin fruit of the tree, imbuing them with incredible magic and custodianship of Tarill. There was Ouranos, son of Chaos, who on eating the fruit of the Yggdrass, gained the powers of the astral bodies. There was his wife Gaia, Daughter of Locus, who on eating the fruit of the Yggdrass gained power over all of Tarril. Finally, there was Kronus, the first wizard, a hermaphrodite who, on eating from the fruit of the virgin, became one not only with time, but with all magic. These primarch gods were the only ones permitted to dine on the fruit of the Ygdrass, and to dine on the fruit of the tree was certain death.

The days of these gods were rarely varied. Kronus sat on the northern end of the island, experimenting with magics, chronicling their days, and devoting their time to codifying the laws of magic.

Ouranous would leap each day and meditate at the top of Smilios, taking in the energy of the sun, and at night would descend to have intercourse with his wife Gaia.

Gaia would give birth to a child each day, and would spend her hours raising her growing progeny as well as entertaining the other gods.

The children were all impeccably powerful and prodigious, at least as strong as the lower gods in their maturity, and the strongest would grow to enormous heights and powers to match the gods. Gaia would give some of her power over the earth to these children, who would become known as the titans. To house the titans, the first continents were created as playgrounds where they could endlessly spar and carouse with one another.

The progeny of the Primarchs multiplied rapidly, and Earth began to approximate, over the course of many millenia, to adopt the form that it resembles today, with its continents, oceans, and caverns dug up through the games of the Titans. Some settlements were formed here, too, and around leylines the first Tarrilean elves were manifested into existence, forming numerous colonies around magical areas, but the most notable one atop what is today the region of France. Some of those who were born on Cyprus ruled over the elves, and their sovereign became the first king, Nomos. As a representative of his people, he regularly decried the tyranny of the haughty olympians, and quickly drew the ire of Ouranous, who, after Nomos insulted Ouranous too personally, called for his children to obliterate their civilization. The only survivor of the carnage was Hermes, who warped himself in time to a small, rocky satellite close to the sun in time to avoid the destruction.

It was at this point that a particularly powerful string of children reached adolescence and implored their mother Gaia for an aspect of Tarril to reign over. Gaia confessed that she had no more power over Tarril to give to her children, and it was this denial of birthright and the carnage against the Nomons that caused them to agree to rebel. Working together, they climbed the yggdrass with combined effort and, reaching it’s canopy, ate the virgin fruit of the yggdrass, usurping power over Tarril. Hestia gained power over civilizations, Hades was granted the domain of the Svartal, the many caverns beneath Tarril. Poseidon was granted power over the ocean, and Demeter over the grassy plains of the earth. Whereas Gaia had been a mother to all of the gods, Hera, the maiden, would become the mother of all mortal life. The effects of this deification were immediately felt, and the gods and titans recoiled as half of their power was wrestled away from them by the feast of these renegades. Then, these gods would escape the Yggdrass and make flight to the peloponnesian peninsula, setting up a court to rival cyprus atop mount Olympus. Hence, they would be dubbed the Olympians.

On listening to the news of the new Olypmians’ treason, Ouranous truly embraced a hatred of all of the progeny, and came to the conclusion that only he and his wife would be fit to live on planet Tarril. First, he vasectomized himself so that he would never again give birth to another batch of mistakes which might eat of the tree of knowledge. He became the general of a counter-offensive against the Olympians, mustering the strength of his Titans to punish the unruly children. When Ouranous was alone and idol at the top of Smilios, though, he was condensing the astral energy he had absorbed into something which might guarantee his supremacy over the realm definitively: The Egg of Atma.