Part 1: The First Music and The Shaping of Arda-Valeria
I. The Beginning of Time: The First Music of Creation
A. The Primordial Void and the Nature of the Valar
The Formless Beginning: Before the stars or the earth, there is only the Void, a timeless, formless expanse of thought and potential. (Middle-earth)
The Pantheon of Primal Powers: In this void exist the Valar, a collective of immense beings whose forms are manifestations of cosmic forces. Each possesses a specific will and purpose. (Valeria lore)
Elysian: The High King, a being of serene order, whose will represents creation's ultimate purpose and balance.
Titania: The shaper, whose themes are of living stone, mountains, and the deep earth.
Oberon: The vibrant, whose themes are of fluid motion, oceans, and the life they contain.
Mystra: The weaver, a Valar whose focus is the intricate patterns of magic that will eventually bind the world. (Forgotten Realms/Valeria lore)
Reoryx: The maker, a being of passionate creation and impatient design.
Nyxara (Melkor): The most powerful, but also the most selfish. Her themes are of shadow, hunger, and discord.
B. The Divine Symphony and the Birth of Arda-Valeria
Elysian's Grand Design: At Elysian's quiet command, the Valar begin to sing the First Music of Creation, a harmonious, collective symphony of immense power. (Middle-earth)
The Manifestation of Creation: The music takes physical form, bringing the world of Arda-Valeria into being. Mountains rise at Titania's notes, oceans fill at Oberon's chords, and the first starlight is scattered by the song. (Valeria lore)
The Weave's First Form: During the symphony, Mystra weaves the intricate, flowing patterns of magic into the very fabric of the world, creating the nascent Weave of Valeria, a life-giving force that connects all things. (Forgotten Realms/Valeria lore)
C. Nyxara's Discord and the Embedding of Corruption
A Separate, Selfish Song: Nyxara, refusing to be a part of the chorus, sings her own, selfish melody. Her song is not of creation, but of dominion and consumption. (Middle-earth/Valeria lore)
The Nature of the Discord: Her themes are of fire and cold, of predator and prey, and of biting despair. They are not harmonious, but jarring and violent, designed to corrupt rather than create.
The Permanent Scars: This discord physically embeds itself into the world. Her influence creates the first volcanoes and chasms, and her songs of coldness form the primordial ice. The discord taints the natural order, making it possible for evil and suffering to exist. (Middle-earth/Valeria lore)
Threnos and the Netherworld: Unseen by the other Valar, Nyxara's dark song awakens the ancient, slumbering entity Threnos within the world's core. Her whispers of anguish begin to torment him, and his thrashing carves out the passages of the Netherworld, a realm that exists as a permanent scar of her corruption. (Valeria lore)
II. The Labor of the Valar and The Seeds of Defiance
A. The Ongoing Shaping of Arda-Valeria
Titania's Hands and the First Mountains: While Elysian's music echoes, Titania physically begins to sculpt the world. She carves the jagged peaks of the Dragon's Teeth Mountains to the north and coaxes the Stoneheart Mountains into existence. Her work imbues the earth with a latent resilience against chaos.
Oberon's Songs and the Primordial Seas: Oberon fills the great basins of the world with water, his songs creating the powerful, churning currents of the Cimmerian Sea and the calm, vast expanse of The Shimmering Deep. His influence ties the very essence of the seas to the cycle of creation.
Mystra's Great Tapestry: As the world takes physical form, Mystra works tirelessly, weaving the Weave of Valeria—the universal network of all magic—into the fabric of reality. This magical tapestry binds the physical and spiritual, ensuring that creation's energies flow in a structured, though still wild, manner.
Puk's Playful Artistry: The mischievous Valar Puk scatters the first seeds of life across the nascent continents and into the deep oceans. He is responsible for the playful currents and the first bioluminescent creatures in the darkest depths.
B. Reoryx's Defiant Creation: The Birth of the Noldir
Impatience and a Father's Yearning: Restless and filled with an untamed passion, Reoryx watches as his peers slowly shape the world. He yearns for life to fill the quiet spaces, to see his own creations walk the earth. He believes the Valar's measured pace is too slow.
Creation from the Earth's Heart: Defying Elysian's grand design, Reoryx burrows deep into the world's core. From the living rock and the primordial, unrefined magic that pulses there, he creates twelve singular beings.
The Twelve Proto-Patriarchs: These beings are the Noldir (Gnomes). They are stout of limb and keen of mind, each possessing an innate, powerful connection to the earth's magic. Each of the twelve is a proto-patriarch, the ancestor of a distinct bloodline destined to carry on his legacy.
A Fool's Hope: Reoryx cloaks his children's settlements with powerful magic, convinced that he can conceal them from the all-encompassing awareness of Elysian.
C. Nyxara's Dark Genesis: The Torment of Threnos
A Gaze of Cruel Cunning: Simultaneously, a different, darker fascination grips Nyxara. She is drawn to the raw, unrefined suffering of the deep earth, a primordial entity named Threnos, a titan of geology.
The Insidious Torment: She does not act with physical force, but through insidious whispers and psychic wounds. She stokes the embers of his latent anguish, fanning them into a scorching inferno. She severs his ethereal bonds, striking directly at the essence of his existence.
The Carving of the Netherworld: In unimaginable agony, Threnos thrashes, and his colossal, involuntary movements tear at the world's deep foundations. This agonizing process carves out vast, lightless caverns and abyssal pits that will become the Netherworld, a realm born not just of shadow, but of a silent, unending scream of torment.
III. The First War and Divine Judgment
A. The Discovery of Disharmony and The War's Spark
The Whispers of Corruption: Elysian, the High King, and the other Valar grow aware of the growing chaos in the world. They sense the unbidden life of the Noldir (Gnomes) and the new, agonizing realm carved by Threnos beneath the earth.
A Confrontation of Will: Elysian gathers the Valar and confronts Nyxara (the Dark Valar), who openly rebels against his serene order. She scoffs at his attempts to impose harmony, believing creation is a feast for the powerful to consume.
The First War of Valeria: The Valar, unified against Nyxara's open rebellion, wage a great war to bind her. This conflict is cataclysmic, tearing the nascent world asunder with its force. The seas are carved, and mountains are splintered by the sheer force of their power.
B. The Great Darkness and The Fate of the Trees
The Escape of the Lieutenant: Though Nyxara's forces are eventually defeated, her most cunning lieutenant, a being of shadow and fire, evades the Valar's purge. He retreats into the newly carved Netherworld, awaiting his master’s eventual return.
The Blighting of the Trees: In her final act of defiance, and with the aid of a new, monstrous creature of unending hunger, Nyxara poisons the two great trees of the Valar, the primary source of light and life for the world.
The Great Darkness: The light of the trees dies, and the world is plunged into an age of deep shadow and twilight, an era that will last until a new source of light can be found.
C. Elysian's Final Decree and The Great Retreat
The Judgment of the Gnomes: With the war concluded, Elysian delivers his solemn judgment. He spares Reoryx's children but decrees that their powerful magic and existence must remain confined beneath the earth until the time of the true Firstborn (Elves) to prevent further corruption.
The Sundering of Avondale: Weary and scarred by the conflict, the Valar make a momentous decision. They use their immense power to sunder the land, physically breaking a piece of the main continent away and pushing it into the sea to form a secluded, sacred island. This island they name Avondale, a place of pure light and life.
A World in Waiting: The Valar then withdraw to Avondale, leaving the rest of the world, now simply known as Valeria, to slumber in a perpetual twilight, awaiting a new dawn and the awakening of the Firstborn, who will inherit this broken land.
