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The World of Cthon - The Elder Gods

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 02:13:09 -0600

What are the Elder Gods?

The mortal sages of later ages tried to study the Elder Gods of the First Age (since some of them remained dangerously alive well into the Second and Third Ages), often and unsurprisingly without much success.

Sources of knowledge about the Elder Gods during the Ages.

In the Third Age, the influence of rationalism and theology both drove the studies of these beings, leading to many classifications without any factual meaning. Scholars called some of the Elder Gods "demons", some others "aberrations" or "abominations", and went on trying to fit each of these beings (and the countless creatures they spawned in their inexplicable, godly thirst for creation), always ending up into dead ends: very few if any of these creatures could be related to one another except for the most direct relationship of "creator and spawn".

In the Second Age, humans were still a young race, and rational thinking was something they enjoyed very rarel Probaly because of this, they understood the Primordials quite better than later sages. They understood that they were like "experiments" of the world itself. Beings that defied reason because they were created by irrational forces. They limited their classification to what each and every Elder God seemed tied to, both among natural concepts or immaterial and irrational ones. The runic grimoires of the deep-delving dwarves of the Second Age, the stone tablets of the ancient human philosophers, and the speaking trees of knowledge of the elves are therefore among the very few sources of reliable knowledge on the Elder Gods.

The third age "demonomicons" and "eldritch bestiaries" are instead full of misguided attempts of classifications and more often than not also completely false information, mostly because they are influenced by the various churches of the Celestial Gods which, often at war with one another, tried to associate these beings with rival gods, manipulating the facts to reach these goals.

So in the troubled time of the Third Age, adventurers are deeply ignorant about everything related to the Elder Gods and the First Age, and should first try to locate and recover some source of knowledge coming from the Second Age World before even thinking about battling with Elder Gods or their spawns.

The birth of the Elder Gods and their godly status.

Not even the most informed sages of the Second Age, and the invaluable words that reached the Third Age folks, know how or why the Elder Gods came to be, and especially how such strange beings became gods.

The Third Age lore even negates the godly status of the Elders, explaining that they can't give powers to their followers as the Celestials or some Primordial/Titan God, and that they aren't immortal, and that they can't call souls of mortals to their domains after the mortals' death. One can't blame them for such ignorance: none of them ever died and returned to the world to tell a different story, after their souls were taken deep into the Abyss, tortured and transformed to create countless more wretched creatures..!

The Second Age sages were far more cautious in their trying to understand the world, and they left these fundamental questions unanswered, simply recognizing that if more often than not many a Titan were needed just to imprison a single Elder God and thus avoid world destruction, then they were godly just as much as the strongest Titans and Primordials, if not more. They also knew for a fact that they could grant powers to mortals, since cults that venerated them abounded in the many uncivilized areas of the Second Age World, and those tribes often threatened the most civilized empires with terrible eldritch powers.

However, nobody knows for sure how the Elder Gods attained their status. It wasn't the earth itself trying to put some order back into a nearly destroyed world, like it was for the Titans, and it wasn't spiritual divine ascension as with the Celestial Gods.

There truly are some sources of information about this, but they are hidden and extremely rare, because they come from nothing less than the eons-old and defunct First Age civilizations. There are stories of Shadow-Web-encased dark jungles, recalled by the maddened and lonely survivors that went there and managed to come back, that talk about colossal stone temples devoured by alien vegetation of enormous proportions, and in these structures, written in the cursed languages of Yuan-Ti, Troglodytes, or even worse creatures, there are dreadful accounts of the history of some Elder Gods. Even if one wants to believe to the confused stories of this maddened adventurers, there seems to be no single version of the facts.

So the question remains unanswered, with certainty belonging only to the ones who lost their sanity while voluntarily or accidentally seeing an answer with their own eyes.

Note: I don't want to specify a fixed way for gods to become gods, especially with the chaotic Elders, so here are a a few possible origins for the godhood of the Elders:

- A being becomes so venerated by a lesser race that it acquires godly powers and status.
- A lesser race becomes so mystically powerful that it creates a god in its image by sheer force of will and psionic power.
- A being becomes so powerful (due to the exploding force of life proper of the age) that it becomes an Elder God.
- An already god-like being descends upon the world from outside of it.

In the last two cases, the god can also create a mortal race, which could be similar to it or not much.

How godly is an Elder God?

Elder gods are physical beings. As such, they might seem to be less godly than the later gods, such as the abstract Celestial Gods, or the mighty Elemental Titans.

In some cases it's true, but more often than not, their power is equal, and in a few cases (perhaps only one), the power of an Elder can even be greater than any other god.

Even in these terrible cases though, the Elders often have limitations that are connected to either their physical form, or their alien minds. Many sleep for ages, others have absolutely no interest in the world, and others still were cast so deep and far into the bowel of the earth, that even if they want revenge on the whole world itself, it will take them ages for them to actually drag their bodies out from their rock prisons.

Another way in which Elders are "disabled" despite their incredible power is because they were later hunted down and imprisoned, especially by the Titans, sometimes aided by mortals.

In very few cases and under very strict conditions, some of the less powerful Elder Gods can even be permanently killed. But the most powerful ones, even when completely destroyed, will often rise again, perhaps eons after having poisoned the very planet with their blood.

The Most Famous Elder Gods

Here are some of the most famous Elder Gods are listed here, including the name by which they came to be known in later ages, their areas of influence, and the race or races that adored them.

The Prince Of The Depths
- A fish-like being of enormous size, combining the worst characteristics of the worst aquatic species with a malicious and keen mind and a vast knowledge. It lures creatures inside the deepest abysses producing an entrancing song.
- Portfolio: the abysses, knowledge, music
- Favorite races: Locatah, Kuo-Toa
- Historical name: DAGON
The World Serpent
- A snake so enormous that it could strangle mountains and poison whole continents. It had a large role in the disaster that destroyed the First Age World.
- Portfolio: hunger, poison, apocalypse
- Favorite races: Yuan-Ti
- Historical name: just World Serpent, sometimes SSETH
The Night Serpent
- Another enormous snake, probably brother or sister of the World Serpent, which threatened to eat the Sun itself.
- Portfolio: darkness, nightmares, apocalypse
- Favorite races: none
- Historical name: DENDAR
The Lord of Vermin
- An elder being combining the worst traits of every insect and vermin.
- Portfolio: insects, metamorphosis
- Favorite races: insectoid demons, insectoid mortals
- Historical name: OBOX-OB
The Great Spider
- A colossal and armored spider.
- Portfolio: spiders, death
- Favorite races: ettercaps, bebiliths
- Historical name: The Wolf-Spider or MISKA
The Mad Jungle King
- A giant bipedal reptilian, also covered in fur and with tentacle-like arms, with two baboon-like heads. Mad becaue of the two personalities of his two heads, and constantly at war with others, mastering great armies of demons and jungle behemoths.
- Portfolio: jungle, madness, tyranny
- Favorite races: Bar-lgura, Girallons, others
- Historical name: DEMOGORGON
The Prince of Undeath
- Historical name: ORCUS
The Many-headed Dragon
- Historical name: TIAMAT
The Dreaming God
- Favorite races: Illithid
- Historical name. CTHULHU

And so on..! As you can see, some of these were regarded as primordials, one even as classic god, some as Obyrith demon lords, classic demons lords, and then aberrant/lovecraftian beings.
Basically, every demonic, aberrant or simply gigantic being of D&D lore can be an Elder God in this cosmology. Even the infamous Tarrasque. Not all of them need to have a race that venerates them, or a clear protfolio.

An interesting thing is exploring the concept of how a being later known as an obscure demon lord could once have been a god that was venerated by entire empires, and how it once had a portfolio a bit wider than just "world destruction", which instead became their only objective when they were cast into the underworld. It gives these beings a little more character, lore, and reason, although they still always are mostly destroyers.

A few elder gods might also be forces of good. In the First Age, being good or evil didn't matter much, since everything and everyone was under the classic Law of the Jungle first and foremost. But in later ages, the substantially good nature of a few Elder Gods might become more important, since they could constitute allies that are not affiliated with the normally warring Celestial Gods and Elemental Titans.

Examples of possible "Good" or even "Lawful" Elder Gods:
- Qotal, god of the Couatls. (a solitary elder god that continued to be revered in isolated continents of the word even by later humans)
- Ubtao, the god of behemoths. (an elder god that often protected the world against other destroyer elder gods)
- Chronepsis, the watching dragon. (possible "good" elder god of death)

As you can see, any god, primordial and so on, with a physically distinct appearance and an "ancient feeling" can be made into an elder god, and this may include a few good or even lawful ones. After all, the First Age was so chaotic, that even some lawful forces existed, to generate even more conflict..!

False Elder Gods and Creatures: Devils.

In one thing, the scholars of the Third Age were right, about the Elder Gods. There are certain creatures and powers that resemble them but are unrelated. This is the case of Devils, for example.

The origin of Devils is another mystery, a lot like those of the Elder Gods. But at least, it seems, it doesn't go as far back in time.

Although I will talk about Devils more in detail later, there seem to be fundamentally two different theories, perhaps not even mutually exclusive, about their origin and their relationship with Elder Gods.

The Fallen Angels

The Third Age and perhaps also the latest moments of the Second Age saw the birth of Angels. They are mysterious beings that don't offer but riddles about their nature, but what everyone knows for sure is that they serve the Celestial Gods.

It is said that among these beings, loyalty is unbreakable, but that at least once, during the chaotic times of the Great Disaster between the Second and Third Age, one of them would have betrayed its god. Some say that by doing so, it also killed the god and acquired godhood for itself. Others say it couldn't make it, but everyone agrees that one god or a coalition of allied gods, cast down the betrayer into the depths of the earth, imprisoning it for eternity.

The Evil Primordials

The second theory dates back the birth of Devils at the start of the Second Age. They would be the offspring of Titans and Primordials or even their half-blood siblings, who would have taken small godly portfolios, often connected with negative concepts such as Revenge, Murder, Hate, Terror, Incest, and other terrible acts and sentiments.

This theory, deduced from cryptic passages of epic poems of the Second Age that survived into the Third Age, doesn't speak of a "Prime Devil". There would only have been a countless number of minor devils, that lived underground to escape the fury of the Titan Gods, and to be nearer to Hades, the portion of what would later become the Shadow Web which was the domain of the first God of Death and the Underworld.

In the shadowy underworld, these devils would have tempted the souls of the dead to reach their own, deeper domains, in which they would have tortured these souls, sometimes "cultivating" the negative thoughts and sentiments these souls had when they were living, to either empower themselves or spawn more devils.

The relationship with Elder Gods.

Whichever theory is true (if any, and if not both are), what is sure is that these devils dwell somewhere very close to the domains of some Elder Gods, and in particular to the portion of the First Age World that became known as the Abyss in the Third Age. The scholars of this age who distinguished these beings, also distinguished their domain, calling it Hell or The Nine Hells.

What these devils have in common with Elder Gods is the terrible use they make of mortal souls.

It could be that they even learned these dark arts from some Elder, or it could be that their formerly godly (or half-godly) nature empowers them to do so.
Some say that the Prime Devil is nothing but an Elder God that is trying to take over the world. Others say that the Fallen Angel might have robbed an Elder God of his power. Others still say that the Devils are at war with the Elder-spawned Demons, deep into the bowels of the earth, and that this is the only reason why neither side has yet conquered or destroyed the world of mortals.

Whatever version of the story is true, everything about devils is probably as mysterious as the truths behind the Elder Gods. With one additional complication: devils don't just want to destroy the world and eat the souls of the mortals. They want to corrupt them, and they want to conquer the world, possibly without the mortals even realizing it.

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The World of Cthon - The First Age

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 07:14:53 -0600

Welcome to the first post detailing my World of Cthon cosmology!

I'm happy to announce that, along with the previous post and the next ones, this series/project will be part of a "blog carnival" as of now titled "If I Ruled The Multiverse", aimed at writing our ideal cosmology for D&D Next, but more than anything just at jotting our cosmological thoughts out!
An idea of Richard Greene, of whom you can read the related blog post here, along with the rest of his very interesting blog, while you're there!

As it is natural for this particular cosmology, which aims to be so "concentrated" that it inevitably also becomes a psuedo-setting , I'm going to start from the origins, talking about the First Age, dominated by the Elder Gods.

A note for those not wanting to read the first post first, even if this First Age is not the age in which games should be set (although it could be, at DM's discretion and players' will), the World of Cthon's peculiarity is that these ages, and the world they created, are not lost in time, but merely in space. This First Age becomes the Underdark of the Second Age, and goes even further down to constitute the deepest parts of Underdark and even the Abyss of the First Age, which is default age in which adventures are set.

This cosmology doesn't aim at a complete transposition of classic D&D planes, but its equivalent of planes often include either the traits of classic planes, parts of them, or sometimes even those planes in their entirety.

Since the closest equivalent of the planes in my setting are these "ages" which also have very different physical worlds connected to them, and which naturally change their position appearance, and function over time, I should describe each age from three perspectives: its own, and the ones of the other two. Although the most relevant perspective is that of the Third Age, which is the "prime material / natural world as we know it", I'll also give more detail to each age's own perspective to describe how the world was different during it.

In the most relevant sections, I'll also add some "conversion notes", describing which planes I have incorporated and where, and which godly (or not) entities I have transformed into deities in Cthon, and what does this deity status mean (it's not always the same "type of godhood", or power level).

The most "meta-gaming" info, for DMs, will be written in italics.

The World of The First Age

The earth was young during the First Age, and all but completely inhospitable.

The driving force of this age is, contrary to what sages of later ages could think, Life. Life was young in the First Age, and as all young beings, it was strong, curious, and without self-control. Life was so strong that it created the most astounding and gigantic flora and fauna that the World had ever seen. And the most terrible.

Where there is so much life anyway, there is also a lot of decay. Beings sometimes refused to die, so powerful was the Life Force during the First Age. But this also meant that they stayed alive while decaying. It was undeath, although in a primitive state like everything else. And just as with everything else in this age, nothing followed a fixed rule, not even death and undeath. Some beings simply died, some others didn't even materially decay, their flesh and "animus" much more resilient than those of later life forms.

Beings that defy reason and classification abounded in the First Age, as the force of life exploded without control. Some sages think that some of the products of this age might come from outside the World, while others think that rather than hosting alien beings, it was the world itself to be "alien" in these remote times.

The physical world of the First Age.

Life force was so strong during this age, that certain features that are normally made of earth and stone during later ages, were made of living vegetation, or worse, in the First Age. Entire mountains made by nothing more than gigantic trees growing on top of each other, immense inter-connected bridges of living wood and foliage chaotically climbing towards the dense sky, small seas made of living, fetid slimes, and more unfathomable features of this kind were common during the First Age.

Temperature was unbearably hot during this time, and humidity so high that the air itself felt more like thick mist.

Gigantic rain forests and thickly vegetated swamps were the most common terrain type, although they can't be compared with later equivalents of these terrains, due to dimensions, the aforementioned features, and the general alien appearance.

The races of the First Age.

While humans and demi-humans were primitive and weak, hiding themselves in the handful of relatively safe places of the whole world, hiding from a world that could kill them with overpowering ease, other intelligent races dominated the world.

Reptilian and amphibious races enjoyed the climate and morphology of the world of the First Age, so in different parts of the world, creatures later known as Lizardfolk, Troglodytes, Yuan-Ti, and Kuo-Toas built the first artificial stone structures on land or superficial waters, while Sahuaghin, Illithid, Locathas, and even stranger creatures (such as the powerful Aboleths) conquered the depths of the earth and seas.

Nagas, Couatls, and other powerful creatures bloomed in this age too, battling with dinosaurs and other gigantic behemoths too strange to be classifiable.
Dragons for example, instead of being divided into clearly identifiable races and species, were still not very differentiated from other reptilian creatures, including Hydras, so every dragon (and there were many) was a unique-looking monster, sometimes becoming so powerful and long-lived as to acquired godhood.

Insectoid creatures of every kind and every degree of intelligence were also very common in this age, often forming empires under the humid earth or above it.

Many demons roamed the earth too, and either ruled lesser races or swarmed the parts of the world that were too inhospitable even for the dominant races of the First Age. They were so powerful for a reason: they were spawns of the Elder Gods themselves.

Magic in the First Age.

Magic as we know it didn't exist in the First Age. The most common and closest equivalent of magic among many of the mentioned intelligent races was Psionics.

The second most common kind is "Eldritch magic", sometimes called witchcraft or "black magic", the one mastered by Warlocks. This was the equivalent of Divine Magic, since the beings that granted these powers were either Elder Gods or their vassals.

Primal magic was also present but different, more primitive. Natural Spirits were absent in the First Age, and at the same time, all nature was imbued with mystical power. Because of this, Primal magic existed but it was more of an independent phenomenon that either blessed or cursed individual beings chaotically, a bit like Sorcery in later ages.

Necromancy is the only form of traditionally Arcane or Divine magic that existed in the First Age. It is said it was mastered by an Elder God first, or that it was like Primal Magic, connected to the superior strength that Life itself had in the First Age. So much that death was easily overcome, although with horrid consequences.

The Elder Gods and the end of the First Age.

The most powerful creatures of this age, sometimes attained levels of intelligence and supernatural power high enough to be considered true gods.

These are the true undisputed masters of the First Age, but also the most probable culprits of its disastrous end.

Constantly vying for domination, these earth-walking gods, often of colossal dimensions, clashed in combats that were both physically and mystically terrible. The earth and sometimes the fabric of reality itself suffered so much damage, that at the end of the First Age, a disaster of planetary proportions struck the world, leading to the immense changes in the geography of it, that finally shifted and buried the First Age's World in the far depths of the earth, making the world's surface virgin again.

Life flourished after the disaster, but not anymore with the violence and chaos of the First Age. As such, living physical beings as powerful as the Elder Gods never walked the world again. But many of them were too powerful to die even in the great disaster that ended their age... So they either sleep or crawl in the immense innards of the world, dreaming or plotting their revenge against the World itself.

Planar features, and the First Age after its end.

The First Age World shifted into the underground after its disastrous end, and became the underdark of the Second Age World, and the hells, and abysses of the Third Age.

But just as the Second Age World didn't all go underground, being in part enclosed in wonderful mystical places that are "parallel" to the world (the Feywild, for example), the First Age World too gifted the World of mystical "places out of space".

The "Shadow Web"

It is not known if some Elder God was responsible for the creation of this "place outside of space", or if like some sages say it is all part of the will of Gaia, the Mother Earth itself, but during the First Age, a mystical parallel world was born. More than parallel, it is actually "woven inside the world", and if walked into by a knowledgeable being, it can make travel between very distant places incredibly short. The sages that propose an out-of-this-world origin for some Elder Gods also say that these dark ethereal tunnels could have been the "short-cut" by which those beings had arrived on the earth.

Whatever its origin, this "web of ways" is woven inside the world, unknown and unreachable to all but a few after the fall of the First Age World.

Natural sages and shamans say that this place is nothing but the roots of Iggdrasil, the World Tree, and while these theories are scoffed by academic sages, they could be actually closer to the reality. In fact, the similarities with the Feywild are apparent, and if it's true that the Feywild is like the "canopy of the World Tree", then this place could very well be the roots.

The academics call it with many names: the Plane of Shadow, the Shadowfell, the Webway, and other dark names such as "Shadow Web", which combines its web-like nature with the darkness trait. And it is in fact a dark place, accessible only from the deepest shadows. In some places of power, magic is not required to enter this world, but it is surely much better (and safer) to know appropriate magic or powers if one wants also to get out from it.

Legends and stories abound of portions of the First Age World, sometimes even cities and their inhabitants, encased in folds and pockets of the Shadow Web.
Stories of "bogeymen", shadow demons, and other malevolent creatures appearing out of thin air in the shadows to kidnap children and drag them into the darkness may very well be connected with this world.

What is sure is that by mastering the appropriate forms of magic, one can use the Shadow Web to travel large distances in the Material World in short times, even more so than by travelling in the Feywild. The problem is that even if the Feywild too can be dangerous for the time distortions and its luring nature that could make a traveller unable to leave but at least passing the time in an often blissful state, the Shadow Web can directly kill the travelers that take it as a short cut, either by ambush of shadow creatures or by transporting the traveller to the wrong place, which is often deep into the abysses or hells that were once the First Age World in which the Shadow Web was born (or created).

The seas: the closest frontier of the First Age world.

The pieces of the First Age World that didn't go deep underground, or folded into the Shadow Web, remained closer to the later World, although in a still largely inaccessible place. And this place is the sea.

Some of the aquatic monsters of the First Age still lurk into the seas of the Second and Third Age, and the raids of Sahuaghin, the ships capsized by Kraken, and the cult of Dagon are all reminders that the ancient world is still thriving in the depths of the sea.

The First Age World in the Second Age: Elders versus Titans.

In the Second Age, most of the powerful Elder Gods were asleep, but a great many of the lesser ones and the spawns of the greater ones could freely roam the earth after they found out the exits of the mazes of caves that was now their subterranean world.

The Shadow Web, which it is said was connected with the skies in the First Age, remained "higher" compared to the rest of the First World: an intermediate place between the shallow underground and the deep places where the First World was sealed off. So in this age it was a bit different compared to what it became during the Third. It was less of a web of shortcuts, and more of a "transitional realm" that drained towards it the mortals, when their light essences were free from their bodies. After death.
It became the Realm of the Dead, also called Hades, and a large portion of it became ruled by the Titan God of Death.
It was only after the magical disaster that ended the Second Age that the Shadow Web actually became web-like, connecting places that were materially distant.

The Elemental Titans were largely individualistic, but also, for the first time in history, gregarious. While the Elder Gods were all profoundly different and as such could nearly only relate with each other through conflict, Titan Gods were more of a great family, with varied relationships between each other. As such, when some Elder God crawled up to the surface, threatening of destruction the whole world, the Titan Gods often grouped together to confront the menace, and uniting their forces, they more often than not won these conflicts. Even so, they seldom managed to kill the Elder Gods they fought with, so they mostly gave them in custody to their brother god of Hades (sometimes known as Hades himself), who was a sage of the underworld and known the best places to imprison the weakened Elder Gods.

So most of the artificial godly prisons of the imprisoned Elder Gods were made during the Second Age by the Titan Gods.

It is also said that some of the Primal Spirits (the Gods of Life and Nature of the Second Age) were connected to the First Age, even that they could have been transformed Elder Gods. Note: this hook can be used to add a twist to certain campaigns: a primal spirit or forest god is secretly an Elder God that perhaps covets revenge against the earth itself. The greatest of twists, that I used for my "cosmology template" described in the previous series of blog posts, could be that Corellon, the Forest God of the Second Age and god of the elves, might be himself a transformed Elder God, perhaps even one of those coming from outside of the world, making elves and fairies a force that is secretly bent on destruction..!

The First Age World in the Third Age.

After the magical disaster that ended the Second Age, the First Age World should have become even more distant, and it did mostly. But it was also fragmented, just like the Shadow Web actually became a web, distorted by the disaster.

If the Second Age showed order in most thing, including the relationship with the First Age and the returning Elder Gods, in the Third Age everything is less certain, less defined, less known. The now distorted Shadow Web could bring ancient horrors back into the world on a whim, and the underworld, now largely formed by Second Age World portions shifted to the depths, is still connected with the First Age World, which is also less solidly sealed off than in the Second Age.

An important and unforeseen role of the deep First World places in the Third Age is that they became for some reason among the very few material (and immaterial) places from which the realms of the Celestial Gods could be reached.
The daring mortals who would like to reach the incredibly distant realms of the gods before death, would have to travel to the incredibly dangerous depths named Hells and Abysses first, and aided by the dark shortcuts of the Shadow Web that in those places still forms knots nexuses, they would then reach the ethereal and astral realms of certain Celestial Gods.

Planes that fit the First Age, and their locations

As a footnote, I'd like to specify what traditional planes are part of the big "meta-plane" that is the First Age World.

- The Abyss: this is a no brainer. The deepest part of the world, near its core (earth science not withstanding), is the Abyss. It contains probably countless layers because space changes here, due to the warping influences of the Shadow Web, which also has its "nexus" here. Going to the Abyss is like going back in time into the First Age: everything is alive, everything is hungry.
Location: not only the deepest part of the World: the layers need not to be stacked up vertically. In the Second Age there was more or less a vertical order, but in the Third Age everything fragmented more, and important layers, such as The Shadowsea (Dagon's realm) and the Gaping Maw (Demogorgon's realm) went up and they're now touching the earthly seas in some points, or the seas of the Underdark.
- The Shadowfell /Plane of Shadow: this is the Shadow-Web. In the Second Age it was also the Realm of the Dead or Hades, while in the third age it became more of a "web", justifying the travelling power of spells such as Shadow Walk. It still contains some souls of the Second Age, and many of them became Shades. The truly Shadowfell-like properties come in the form of the pockets and folds of the Shadow-Web. These may include places from multiple Ages, all characterized by unnatural passing of time, some sort of still time.
Portals don't have many reasons to exist in The World Of Cthon due to the physical location of the planes, but the few portals that do exist, always use the Shadow Web as the (unreliable) shortcut to anywhere that it is.
Location:even a "non place" like the Shadow Web has some sort of location in The World of Cthon. In the Third Age, it's just very dark places. Sometimes, due to the power and fixations of the dead/undead spirits that haunt the Shadow Web, some sort of "planar merging" can occur in places where very dark deeds are committed and the like. This could result in these places being "engulfed" into the Shadow-Web, or the Shadow-Web "opening" into the world.
can be earthly in The World of Cthon: it's the point of the setting! Dominions of particularly alien Elder Gods (that is, those that in D&D were classified as Aberrant entities or perhaps as Obyrith demons), are places that look alien themselves. And they are equivalent to pockets of Far Realm. If using the option of making these Elders come from the stars, the Far Realm pockets could be near to portals or conduits that take to the "outer Far Realm" from where these Elders came.
Location: as with the Abyss, it is better to have these places far underground. But again, the magical disaster that ended the Second Age might have shifted things randomly. Plus, since these places could be connected with the dreams of the Elder Gods themselves (just as the Feywild is like the dream of some Forest God and Primal Spirit of the Second Age), there's always the option of making the plane "leak" into the surface. This could happen where secret cults dedicated to the Elders manage to call the attention of the dreaming minds of the entities they crazily venerate.
- The Nine Hells: although Devils are not directly related to Elder Gods or Demons, as I explain in the later post, the Nine Hells work very well as a "smaller Abyss", closer to the surface or at least the shallow Underdark, since in the Nine Hells were born in The Second Age. They were also originally very connected to Hades, that is the Shadow Web before it became a web, when it was a more defined place in the shallow Underdark. For this reason or some other eldritch one connected with the history and origin of Devils, the Ninth Hell is also a "nexus of the Shadow Web", thus an important place to reach if one wants to travel to the secluded godly dominions of the Third Age (and this of course is tailor-made to represent a Dante's like voyage!)
Location: as already said, simply on top of the Abyss works well enough, so somewhere near to the middle of the Underdark there could be entrances to the Nine Hells.
- Other traditionally outer or inner planes: in no particular order and without much explanation, here are the planes that in some way or another are parts of the First Age World and are thus buried deep underground in The World of Cthon during the Second and Third ages.
- Positive Energy Plane (not as a true plane, but some "unbearable wellspring of life" is "compatible" with the concept of the First Age World)
- Negative Energy Plane (again not as an infinite plane, but as a place connected perhaps with the origin of the Shadow Web, which also makes the Shadow Web a place of death/undeath, where living creatures can't normally survive for long.
- Limbo (a place with bits of everything dancing in chaos. It could contain also parts of the Second Age, mixed with parts of the First. Plus, Slaads make for a perfect race from the First Age)
- (another one connected to both Second and First age, could be the section of the Underdark where the Titans imprisoned some Elder Gods.)
- Tarterus (its strange spherical structure makes it perfect to represent the center of the Earth, making it the absolutely deepest part of the First Age World during the later Ages. As such, it could be another place where travel would be needed to reach Godly domains and such.)
- Gehenna (not particularly fitting, but it could represent parts of the underground where the First or Second Great Disasters are still raging.)
- The River Styx (returns to be what it was meant to be: the great river of the Underworld leading to all the various "hells")
- Tytherion (the domain of Tiamat and Zehir, two deities that with little modifications make perfect Elder Gods, could be contained into a vast but secluded pocket of the Shadow-Web, or even simply be a secluded part of the world (for example in a continen at an opposite longitude compared to the main inhabitated continent). In this case it could be the last remnant of the First Age to remain at the surface of the world.)

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A Cosmology Both Old And New - Cthon

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 04:33:35 -0600

Hello fellow planeswalkers!

I've been quiet for a long time, and the cosmology as I had thought about it is actually quite done as it is, in that it is meant to be generic, a sort of "meta-cosmology", a template that anyone can use to make his or her own thing.

An idea has kind of sprout out of this loose project, something a bit more exotic and a bit less generic.

Real world / anthropological inspirations: three "classes" of gods.

The idea sparked while talking about the real-world inspiration behind the "trinity" composed by Elders, Primordials/Titans and Gods.

I tried to explain how in our world, all long-lasting cultures tend to have in their mythologies at least two "classes" of gods, the older and the newer, with some also remembering some beings that were pure chaos and that came way before even the first generation of "gods".

I tried to explain how in our world, these different generations of gods represent the level of cultural advancement of the culture that invented them.

The first generation of gods, the Elders: pure darkness and chaos.

The "Elders" would be chaotic and destroyers because the most primitive cultures that generated them basically viewed the whole world around them as an evil killing machine, that destroyed everything and everyone.

They are very often represented as hybrid beasts that mix the worst traits of the worst predators, and are more often than not aquatic or tied to the darkness, because both water and darkness are the two "elements" in which man feels less safe.

Typically, these "deities" require human sacrifices, irrational rituals and even worse things from their desperate followers.

The second generation of gods, the Primordials: masters of the elements.

Then comes the Elemental/Primordial generation, which is the beginning of rationalizations.

These gods start having humanoid features, especially in their "personalities", but they're often identified with natural landmarks or forces (volcanoes, the sea, etc), and their destructive side is directly connected to this.

We still have aquatic and darkness "deities", but they're a bit more benevolent.
They're not anymore mindless killers, but they're like very moody and powerful giants. Please them and they let you pass, anger them and they turn the forces of nature against you.

Generally speaking, the age of these "Titan gods" is a "golden age", in which the first mighty heroes arise, and the land begins to be generous to mortals. And these mortals become the legends of the successive era. Their grand-grandsons will remember this age as an age in which life was easy and good. Probably because rationalism hadn't yet "plagued" the minds of men.

The third generation of gods, the Celestials: incorporeal and intelligent.

Then comes the age of the classical Gods, Celestial gods in that they are much more often associated with the sky and/or are considered "ethereal" and abstract.

These gods are all but completely humane, and even if they still control the forces of nature, they are not one and the same with them, and they do so with intelligence, even if they're often subject to human emotions and passions, and can even fall in love with humans.

[The previous generations of gods, mythologially speaking, could also probably procreate with humans, but the offspring would be either complete monsters (in the case of Elders), or maybe giants and other not so lucky beings (in case of Titans/Primordials). Celestial gods procreating with humans would instead produce the typical demi-gods, or at the very least legendary heroes.]

Men living in this age (which I consider the typical age in which D&D campaigns are set) have fallen a bit back in terms of happiness. Their gods are not evil anymore, but they're also distant, and the advancement of civilization has probably brought more nations into contact, generating war. And rationality and the beginnings of science/magic have also made the mortals feel more wary of each other.

Note that I know this latest generation of gods and connected era isn't actually a faithful representation of the classical Greco-Roman gods from which it takes inspiration: I'm shifting things a bit forward to encompass the "medieval feeling" of typical D&D settings, but without of course including monotheism.
In this "system", the classical Greco-Roman gods and age would sit a bit in the middle between the Celestial and the Elemental.

The tree types of gods as a foundation for a D&D cosmology.

But all of this is not the point! The point is that as you can see, these generations seem to build one on top of the other. But most D&D campaigns would like both a plane or two associated with each one of these categories, and most importantly, would want these categories available at all times. That is, the Elders must still be a threat, and so the Elemental gods.

So I thought about the most simple concept of geology, my field of study and I hope work. "The new always sits on top of the old".

Gods and their domains "pile up" on top of each other, inside the earth.

So here's the idea: these three generations of gods or powerful beings, would actually have dominated the world in different and distant times. But due to cataclysms, time itself and a good dose of fantastic elements, they would have not died but gone where all really old things go: underground.

So much more than in the cosmology I described in the previous posts, this cosmology would be "vertical" and "localized". That is, planes exist in physical spaces (although they could still be infinite, at least from the point of view of mortals), and they exist on top of each other.

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The Elders: primitive and dangerous, sleeping deep underground or under the sea.

Note that Elders, in this case, are not anymore the beings from other universes. Their alien nature is represented more by the fact that the races that worshiped them were very primitive ones, and this in D&D means they were not human-like. Perhaps not even humanoid.

A dragon-like elder, distinguished by the later dragons for its more primitive, demonic, and chaotic features...

Another demonic and strange Elder god...

What's more, I would add demons in this mix. All the strangest and more evil creatures, including demons and aberrations, would be the spawns or maybe even hybrid offspring of these Elder Gods.

The Elder's favored intelligent races: monstrous and primitive.

Kuo-toas, Lizardmen, Sahuagin, Troglodytes and the like would be the races that "thrived" when these gods were at the apex of their power, and the appearance of these gods would have been similar to that of these races, which were probably their creations (or the opposite!).

While humans were just scared cave-men or hadn't even evolved yet, these first races would have erected temples and cities in honor of these gods. Elves probably hadn't yet arrived in the world (because maybe the Feywild wasn't yet connected to the world or didn't even exist because the true "elven gods" weren't even born yet), same for all the typical races. The world was too violent and chaotic for these races to survive.

Colossal serpentine Elders rise from the deepest primitive jungles to appreciate the temples that their reptilian followers have built for them...

The surreal, chaotic, and incredibly dangerous world of the First Age.

The legacy of the Elders.

Some races will have murky and chaotic legends and stories recalling this age, but there would be so many different versions of these stories, that nothing could be sure. So this era will go away practically forgotten, its knowledge recorded only in dead languages written on lost objects by all but extinct races.

This also allows the DM to decide that just about anything could have happened in these ancient times.

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The rise of the Primordials: embodying the natural disasters that birthed them.

Natural disasters came in big numbers at the end of this era, until the primitive races and their first empires were all but destroyed, and the very surface of the world shifted and this "corrupted" world was swallowed by the earth itself, becoming the first Underdark.

The second age would be elemental-themed also in the fact that it is born of the great disasters that submerged, swallowed and destroyed the elder world/era.
Volcanoes are more active than ever, big deserts abound, but also new virgin forests where the climate allows it, and in general, even if nature is fierce, there is a lot of variety and this permits the rise of civilization here and there.

The colossal disasters and commotions that destroyed the first age world, sending it underground, and starting the "elemental age"...

The Primordials' favorite races: dragons and giants, but also elves and dwarves.

The classical races are born in this age, although most of them are still primitive. Humans in particular, are just coming out of their caves.

This is the age of dragons (actually, some of the elemental gods can and should be draconic), of giants, and of the glorious dawns of elves and dwarves.

The Feywild or "World of Faerie" from which elves traditionally come from would be something like the dream of a Forest God, turned into a parallel world.

Note that Primal Spirits are mixed with these Primordial gods in this cosmology, just as Demon Lords and Elders are grouped together.

A draconic "forest god" primordial, with a small dragon.

The typical Primordials would be the more classically elemental of the bunch, while the "primal spirits" would be "elementals" of the primordial forests, embodying the "elements" of life, wood, etc.

A typical elemental Titan, battling the very first mortal heroes...

Dwarves would instead be of course the creation of an Earth primordial, which you can cal Moradin if you like.

The problem of the origin of the gods: a non-solution that still works.

It is actually tricky to decide if we want the races to be created by gods as the D&D tradition wants, or the contrary.
This whole idea was born while thinking the contrary, but it's not necessary to be coherent in this in all cases. That is, some gods could predate their followers or have created them, while some other could have actually originated supernaturally from the prayers of the mortals.
One way to see things is that a race becomes connected to a god when it reaches its apex. The god could be either a creation or a creator, but simply enough it becomes "associated" with the race when it becomes important, when it acquires culture and spirituality.
This allows for a much more ancient human race, perhaps even having resisted since the first age. Because we don't have to think "who created them?", since it's not a question relevant to this cosmology. It's more like "they're not an important race yet, so they don't have a patron god".

In this case, Elves should not "come from the dream-world of the Forest god", but perhaps having gained access to this world since they became the favorite race of the Forest God, because of their natural affinity and respect for Forests, and their wisdom. More of a "each god chooses its favorite race" thing, that allows ambiguity between creator and creation, and a good measure of mystery.

Anyway, this age is the typical ancient time of any campaign. A "golden age", but where Elves and Dwarves start their wars or grudges, Dragons thrive, Giants rule etc.

The second age is the "golden age", where mortals are strong and happy (or remembered this way), and the first empires rise, in harmony with nature, at least for a time...

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The classic Celestial Gods are born: from material entities to abstract entities.

The third age is the age of men. The second age ended a bit like it started: great disasters, but this time more magical in nature. The elves pushed their spells too far, the dwarves dug to deep (perhaps unleashing the demons locked away before!), the dragon-gods rained fire and ice on the whole earth and made mountains crumble while fighting for supremacy, and the giants did other terrible and BIG things.

The result? The world changes again, many places are swallowed by the Earth, the great Elven empires blink away into the Feywild bringing with them the first primordial forests, and everything becomes smaller and less extreme. That's why men (and other "weak" races, such as halflings) begin to thrive.

The third age world, where everything is "smaller" than in the past, an in which humans begin to thrive, wondering about the ancient ruins that surround them...

The new gods could also have been born out of the magical disaster. Or perhaps they're just created by the prayers of men, finally listened to. In any way, these new gods are now secluded in the skies and are ethereal.

They can't personally walk the earth like the previous gods, but that doesn't mean they can't bring trouble. In particular, they use their very numerous followers [humans always beat all the other races at one thing: reproduction rate!!] making them battle against each other for supremacy, and things like that. Before, holy wars were wars between gods. Now the gods just move their mortal armies from above.

If humans could see the true forms of their celestial gods, they would not perfectly understand it. Still they can appear also in very human-like form, although ethereal.

The age of humans, and the legacy of the previous ages.

So humanity is apparently the biggest mortal race and thus the luckiest in history, but it is also the most divided, a bit because of the gods, and a bit because of human nature itself (and aren't the two things the same after all..?).

In this bitter/sweet state of uneasy expansion into a rather emptied world, humans discover that in the murky past, the world was different and hosted big empires and a lot of knowledge has been lost to the earth and sea.

A runic artifact uncovered from abandoned halls in the mountains could teach useful magic as well as bring back from hibernation some forgotten elemental god.

A strange idol washed ashore after a storm could imbue its finder with psionic powers but also give him strange visions that could make him bring back a cult of an Elder deity, and with time the Elder itself.

Dangerous ancient rituals risk to surface back in the Third Age, bringing terrible evils back with them...

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Final considerations on the cosmology: simple and straightforward.

It's actually a very simple cosmology, which uses time and space as the true limit between the various "planes" and deities, which include all manners of powerful beings.

Adventurers could reach the "planes" (that is, the dominions of the current or past deities) relatively easily, and although they would still be arcane, dangerous, and alien places, the fact of having them on Earth and the fact that each of them had been on the very surface of the world at some point in the recent or distant past, makes this cosmology ideal for small campaigns in which players want to see a lot of different places, and dig into a lot of different plots and stories in a short time.

There's no need of portals or costly rituals to reach fantastic places. The adventurer just needs a bit of knowledge, and the guts to go deeper underground.
It also makes for the perfect "infinite dungeon", in which each level brings you to something more ancient, strange and dangerous.

The dungeons and deep places of the world always lead to the ancient locales of the previous ages. The deeper one goes, the more ancient things he encounters...

So this is why although being quite new in conception, it is also an "old" cosmology: it's actually a cosmology for the good old dungeon-centric typical D&D world!
And it can be made into a very realistic and simulationist cosmology (with gods being only invention of each race, for example, made powerful by the number of their followers), or a classic fantastic one with ease.

What's next??

As I typically do, I considered this project "done" when it's actually just begun.
This is because I like cosmologies to leave a lot of room for customization, but since I started this one saying it would be less generic, I think I will follow up with another post with the actual facts and details about this one, or at least, my version of this one.

Giving the cosmology a name is also necessary at this point. It must be something related to the earth, because if you noticed, all is earth-centric, all has originated on the earth and many things have been buried under it.
The first word that comes to mind is "Cthon", the greek-roginated word that is used to refer to the most ancient deities of ancient Greece, the "cthonic gods", more or less similar to Elders and/or Primordials.

So let's change the title of this post, and in the next post, we'll be delving deep inside the World of Cthon! :)

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A Cosmology Both Old and New - 2

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:28:49 -0500

Given the good feedback, I'll detail this "new" cosmology of mine in a small series of blogs. After a little intro that explains a bit of what I did with this cosmology in the latest blog, I will then delve into the concept of Elders and how they (can) mingle with the Fey.
While the previous blog was more of a "lore" article, now I'm doing more of a "designer's notes".

So what about the planes?

As you may have noticed, my cosmology draws heavily from 4e, more than from the Great Wheel. It is aimed at explaining things more rationally than the classic cosmology, even 4e's, so fitting in the aligned planes and the "wheel" schematic is a bit weird IMO.

I wanted a more "top-bottom" approach, that I actually see more as concentric.

That is, I see the "Elemental Chaos" as being nothing more than a "very bottom", an underworld. Every "planet" would have its "elemental chaos" inside it. And demons would dwell there. Probably even devils, if the corrupted god had been casted in it by the others (reminds of something else..?? ;-) ).

Then the World, or Prime Material, is nothing more than the main planet of the system. Note that I called Universe what I could also call solar system. That is, the Elders could come from other solar systems. But it's more fantasy to talk about entire universes. :)

The Feywild and Shadowfell are echoes of the World, which exist connected to the Spirits (4e's Primal Spirits), and are their dreams. Good dreams become the Feywild because a good dream for a being that represents life, is a world where life is stronger. Shadowfell would be the nightmare of Spirits because there life is weaker.

We could also say that undeath comes from the Shadowfell, or from mad, dead, or angered spirits. Which is actually the same thing! Because when and where spirits are like that, that's where the Shadowfell comes into being.

As you can see, I use a concept that we could call "infradimensional spaces". I like to picture the planes as places that can be found inside the regular world, but that distort space and time. Think about Narnia: you enter through a wardrobe and there's a whole world inside. You get out and not a minute has passed.

So I can picture many typical planes inside the world. The most difficult of course are the outer planes (excluding the Nine Hells and others like it). The gods are of course better set in the "sky/space" that is the Astral Sea. But the "infradimensional space" would then be represented by the fact that you could actually reach those places by flying very very high. Spelljammer anyone?

Of course though, I don't want to dumb down the planes and planar travel. There must be some mystical aspect too. For example, speaking of Feywild and Shadowfell, you might not be able to access these places even if you're in the right place and time if you don't please (or trick) the natural spirits somehow.
Another thing, in a campaign where these sorts of "palanar travel permits" are taken seriously, one could not access the godly planes if not by visiting the only (or only known) "god casted down from the heavens"... Asmodeus for example! And his underground realms. A Dante type of voyage: going all the way down to then reach Purgatory and eventually Heaven. In D&D terms it could mean you have to travel to the Nine Hells to get to an outer plane that could have been the previous realm of Asmodeus (or equivalent deity), and from that deserted place, you could then try to travel towards a godly domain.

I hope I covered enough ground, now let's focus on the other important points.

Who or what are these Elders exactly?

I could answer with one word. Obyrith. Let me quote from Wikipedia:

[quote]"The obyriths are so ancient that they predate mortal life, and even the gods. They rarely have a humanoid shape, and some say that just looking at an obyrith can drive a mortal insane. Their great age and apparent ability to instill insanity at a glance are strong hints at some relation with the Great Old Ones created by H. P. Lovecraft. "[/quote]

As simple as that. I just give these beings more importance, a stronger identity and an explanation that continues to draw from the classic D&D lore, 4th edition too:

[quote]"In 4th Edition, the role of the Obyriths is changed a great deal. According to the Demonomicon, the Obyriths lived in a different reality, one destroyed by their evil. With their realm in ruins, the surviving Obyriths created a shard of pure evil and pushed it through the fabric of reality, where it was ultimately found by the god Tharizdun. "[/quote]

As you can see, there is the "coming from a different reality". In my case, the shard of pure evil pushed through reality is actually integrated with their very nature. They are the corrupting force that pushed itself through the fabric of reality. But after all, each story could be different. The important fact is viewing them as the corrupting force beyond human comprehension, and so old that they predate everything, coming from an older universe that is now ruined, perhaps by them.

I also in some way justify their evil. Being their whole universe in ruins, ended, they do not have any purpose in their new universe, except for destruction or corruption. The latter could even just be something they need to do to survive. They are alien, and they need to re-create their alien environments in some way.

One thing I don't like much of what I wrote in the first part is how I make everything evil originate from them. For a twist, we could actually have Elders that are not inherently evil (although for their very nature, they would still be at least dangerous and/or unpredictable), and Gods and Primordials that are far worse than them.

The point is just having a category of beings that encases all that is Far Realm, all that is Lovecraftian, alien, older than everything, stranger than anything.

From an anthropological point of view, they are simply the pantheon of gods of the darkest and most primitive times. Followed by the Primordials, and then the Gods.
This makes sense in our history, where the pantheons represent the civilization that created them. A civilization always on the brink of death, living in caves and fearing everything coming from outside, creates these images of powerful beings that are evil and dangerous. Everything is unknown to them, so these beings are abstract horrors. Once they start to know the world around them, they think of superior beings that incarnate the dangerous elements, the Primordials of Sky, Earth, Fire, Water and so on. Finally, when they master their environment, they create gods that are a lot like them, with ideas and emotions. The typical Gods.

In D&D we generally assume that all these superior beings actually exist, so instead of justifying them like this, I simply "translated" this hierarchy into a chronological order of appearance, unrelated to humans.

And what about the strange connection between Fey and Elders?

This is actually where my cosmology, that was aimed at being usable and customizable, shows a degree of personal customization. The point is that Elders can corrupt Gods and Primordials, or even substitute themselves to them, a bit like godly doppelgangers.

In my personal take, the God(s) associated with the Fey are more vulnerable, because under the strange space and time conditions of the Feywild, the protecting role of the Spirits, the watchful eye of the Gods, and the impulsive fury of the Primordials are weakened. The Feywild (and Shadowfell) are somehow the most hidden places of the cosmology, so they could be the most convenient places to start corruption, for the Elders.

In one of my storylines, a paladin of Corellon became an adept Warlock of Caiphon after discovering some ancient manuscripts. (It was back when that Caiphon Paragon Path synergized perfectly with Paladin powers..! The story began from mechanics!!)
When he discovered these dark powers, he feared that Corellon would have taken back the powers given to him, but starngely this didn't happen. And when his superiors in the knightly order discovered his new powers, they didn't chastise him or exile him as he though, but praised him. He became more and more a successful paladin, but he felt something was wrong with this.
Ultimately, I decide that the wrong thing was that Corellon and Caiphon were nothing less than THE SAME BEING! :-D
And a few within the Eladrin knew this and were actually working for the Caiphon side... Preparing an INVASION!
Being the paladin a half-elf he would have been torn between his love for elven-kind, and the dark and dangerous truth about them, and he would have found himself the only one able to save the world, if maybe at the cost of his life...

So there you go, this is an example of what you can do with the cosmology, but it's only one way to go. In 4e, Tharizdun is the "hidden god of doom" that secret sects follow. In your setting, it could be the god of death, perhaps using his power over souls to fuel his world domination plans.

As I mentioned before, you could even leave the corruption from the Elders aside, and concentrate on other beings as the source of the main evil.

Perhaps, the fey truly are connected with the Elders, but that actually doesn't make them evil. Perhaps Corellon or the fey god of choice is actually an Elder, but a rare good one. Their "corruption" would be the tendency to "make everything like the Feywild", and it could even be desirable.

All in all, I just like to connect the fey to Elders because they are antithetical concepts, so it makes for a big plot-twist. And at the same time, I like to view Elves as a force that endangers the world, because I despise them for their perfection, and I "smell alien" in it, downright! :-D
But your views could be opposite and you could still use this cosmology. Simply don't use all these connections. Create new ones, or don't.
You could still go with the "default role for the Elders", that is the simple Far Realm one: entities from a very different and distant space/time that want to change the world as we know it into something completely maddening.

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A Cosmology Both Old and New

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 05:28:16 -0500

GODS (IDEAS, SOULS)
PRIMORDIALS (MATTER, ANIMATION)
SPIRITS (LIFE)
ELDERS (CORRUPTION OF MATTER, IDEAS, AND LIFE)

In every given universe, Gods and Primordials coalesce from the raw elements, and are intsantly separated, with the heavier Primordials going towards the bottom of the universe, where the physical elements collide eternally...

Primordials are quintessential compositions of elements, animated more than alive, but filled with force of will focused on creation (sometimes resulting in destruction), and able to forge anything made of their elements with their sole force of will.

...And the Gods floating towards the high heavens, where the etherealness of ideas and souls is at home.

Gods often appear in the shape of their mortal creations, but it's impossible to know their true appearance, because appearance itself is something that is not in their eithereal nature.

Spirits then form where the Primordials and Gods mingle, in their pursuit of recreating themselves through the creation of mortal life in the material worlds. The Spirits are like an inevitable byproduct of life: where there's life, there are spirits, and while they can't create life on their own, they are needed to sustain it, and the more life there is in any given world (to which spirits are confined, this being their limit), the more power the Spirits acquire, becoming able to rival both Primordials and Gods, when their native world is involved. On the contrary, if Life diminishes in some way, the spirits lose their power.

When Spirits of Nature manifest in physical forms, their connection with pure life is always apparent...

Universes are very far from each other, and they spring to life and die during the eons. The so called "Elders", are powerful beings that come from dying or dead universes into younger ones, and are said to be what remains of Gods and/or Primordials of those ruined places. They witnessed the end of all things, and somehow survived it, but they lost everything that matters to them, because in no universe is reality forged in similar ways, so the Elders always find an alien reality in the universes they end up into. And they inevitably want to destroy it all or corrupt it to make it similar to their own.

The shape of Elders is unfathomable for mortals, but even if they descend from Gods and Primordials of other universes, they are themselves mortal when they reach the universe they want to corrupt, since the elements that compose them are different. Even like this, they are as hard to kill as any God or Primordial.

Elders can even corrupt Gods and Primordials, but they can't corrupt Spirits because they're too different in nature. In fact, Elders are never descendents of Spirits of other universes, because Spirits are confined to material worlds, so they never travel outside of them, and they never survive the death of entire universes. But by corrupting Life itself, the Elders "compete" with Spirits and can even eventually kill them.

Where Elders and their creatures walk, nature and life become corrupted or dead, making the Spirits die with them.

Elder-corrupted Primordials are called Demons. They become agents of Destruction, as opposed to their former Primordial nature that was so focused on Creation.

A water primordial corrupted into a water demon lord, existing only to destroy.

Elder-corrupted Gods are very rare, and more often then not, only one God in any given Pantheon (and Universe) becomes courrupted by Elders. Normally, this god then gives rise to Devils, who are corrupted Angels. These corrupted Gods and their Devils corrupt souls and ideas, as opposed to the Primordial-originated Demons dealing only with destruction or corruption of physical matter and flesh.

Elder-corrupted gods combine the majestic and ethereal nature of the gods, with the alien nature of the Elders, becoming opposites of the intelligent concepts that their uncorrupted selves embodied.

Mortal souls are a source of energy for these corrupted and corruptor beings, and they use them to forge new creatures of their kind. The Gods normally reclaim the souls of their mortal creations, but if demons eat them (by force), or devils corrupt them (by temptation), those souls become drops of inexhaustible fuel for the engines of destruction that are the demonic and devilish hells.

Demons and devils from their second generation onwards take on appearances that resemble the mortal souls they are fuelled by, their worst sides in particular.

There are then powerful beings that are related to Spirits, and that can also be corrupted by Elders, but again, they're very rare, because these beings live in parallel worlds, or "world echoes", which are created by the dreams (or nightmares) of the Spirits themselves. These are normally called Feywild (that which originates from Dreams), and Shadowfell (that which originates from Nightmares). They are worlds in which Life is, respectively, heightened or diminished. And they can come into physical contact with the world itself, when the balance of life and powers of a world is in some way changed.
Some Gods and/or Primordials take interest in these parallel worlds, and they make their mortal creations dwell there, and that's how those Spirit-related powerful beings are born.

Beings generally called "Forest Gods" are either Spirit-infused avatars of gods and primordials or their offspring, and contrary to the spirits that gave life to them, they can be corrupted.

Elders of certain types have affinities for some of these world-echoes, probably because in their universe they were tied to one of them. When such an Elder exists, its corruption is often much subtler than that which can happen in the prime material world, because the Gods and Primordials have less power in these Spirit-crafted worlds, so they often can't perceive the corruption, and they become very connected to the Elders themselves. When this happens, Elders often appear in the dreams of mortals, being dreams always connected to the Spirit worlds.
If this kind of corruption is sparked, not even the most knowledgeable Gods can foresee the destruction it can bring to the world.

Corruption is much more dfficult to detect when it targets beings that are more closely connected to life itself.

It is even said, that the gods that take the Spirit Dream world as their favorite, are actually already masked Elders, or Elders that come from a rare universe in which life and reality were visually similar. If this was true, the Fey folk would be the closest thing to a folk created by the Elders themselves, and it would be an agent of destruction more subtle and dangerous than even Demons and Devils.

When the destroyer alien is beautiful, the world that hosts it is doomed...

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