The War Before the Gods
In the beginning, there was nothing. How long reality remained in this state of nothingness is unclear, since there was nothing around to record these things, but eventually two beings were born, a pair of brother gods whose names, if they even had them, are long forgotten.
These two brothers initially squabbled over what they should create and how, and as a result of their constant squabbling, nothing was ever accomplished.
Some time past, and the second generation of gods was born. Earliest records in Splendora referred to these gods as the vile gods, though more recent records refer to them as the 'old gods'
Led by three primordial forces called Chaos, Stagnation and Despair, these old gods despised the two brother gods and wanted to return them to the void, to restore nothingness, and thus a war began.
Fortunately, for the two brother gods, they were much more powerful then their enemies, and many of the old gods were slain outright while the most powerful of these, Chaos, Stagnation and Despair, could only be sealed away.
Realizing that continuing to remain in this reality would only cause the seal on the three to weaken over time, and that they'd have to fight these forces over and over again if they stayed, the two brothers cooperated for the first time outside of the war, and combined their powers and leave this reality completely. It is believed that they intended to create a new universe from scratch, beyond the influence of the old gods, though it is unknown whether or not they succeeded.
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The First War of the Gods
Before the creation of Splendora, there was a great war between the 12 dieties of the High Heavens and the 12 Lords of the Abyss, with the battlefield often being within the third realm, ruled over by a powerful entity of Old Magic known simply as Stagnation, the Emperor of Old
At some point around the time that the gods of the Heavens and the Fiends of the Abyss came into being, the seal that held Stagnation began to weaken, though it hadn't truly went away. Even so, in a partially sealed state, his power was still not to be taken lightly!
What is Stagnation? This is an important question. Just as the 12 gods were born from the power left behind by the two brothers when they tore there way free from this universe, the fiendish demons and their 12 lords were born from the power that had leaked out of Stagnation while it was sealed.
When the gods and fiends were born, they each created their own realms and the fiends, which were innately driven to destroy everything else, started a war that lasted an unfathomable length of time, against both the gods and the sealed away Stagnation.
Not wanting these new enemies to achieve any victories, the gods, which had previously ignored Stagnation, also went to war against it to tighten it's seal and to claim the universe properly, that they may create life within it. It is unknown what the fiends hoped to obtain from fighting their father, since in the end the gods won and the fiends were banished back to the abyss.
The old forces, and Stagnation in particular, had been too powerful for either side to overcome through brute force alone, even in their partially-sealed state, so a stalemate had persisted for an unfathomable length of time.
The stalemate was broken when the goddess of wisdom, Mylia, and the goddess of Fate, Pandora, devised a cunning plan to seal away the greatest of the old forces, Stagnation. While it could not be destroyed, it could be sealed, and the plan eventually succeeded.
With Stagnation sealed away, the remaining forces of the old, while still a nuisance for a while, were much more manageable, and thus the gods started working to create the world of Splendora, and the vast universe around it. This led into the second War of the Gods.
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Pandora's Box
The great Trap that Pandora and Mylia devised is called Pandora's Box by Historians and Theologians, though its specifics are unknown.
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The Second War of the Gods
With the new universe created and the gods growing much stronger then they had been before in the process, the fiends of the abyss were forced to withdraw from the great war that they had been fighting against them.
With this new peace, conflict arose from within the gods over who would lead then, with the brothers, Hadreon and Solios, and the goddess Salacia, being the three stand-outs, each trying to form their own factions, but Salacia, with her wild and untamed nature, did not get the support that the brothers did, remaining a faction of one, until she finally sided with Hadreon and gave him her support.
Pandora and Mylia both sided with Solios, while Perkatius tried to appear neutral as long as she could. eventually, she also sided with Solios.
The goddesses Marta and Quoya, and the gods Dionus and Quetza were the last of the divines who sided with Hadreon, while Volnus and Aochas sided with Solios.
Both sides were rather evenly matched, so the Stalemate needed to be broken somehow. Dionus was the one that came up with the plan that achieved this. The god of revelry charmed Perkatius and sparked within her feelings for Hadreon, and as a result she finally accepted his offer to be his queen, ending the stalemate and allowing Hadreon to rise to the status of King of the gods.
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The Formation of the Universe
With Perkatius at his side, Hadreon, the new King of the gods, began working with the others towards creating sentient life, not just in Splendora, but in other worlds as well, though they knew that they could not indefinitely divide their focus, for fear that Stagnation might one day escape, and thus they created new deities to govern and protect these new worlds.
Each of these Pantheons started out fairly weak but over time they would grow to be much more powerful, though never quite able to attain the same level of power overall as their creator Pantheon.
One particular deity in one of the earliest pantheons created, did obtain a power level greater then all but the top three greatest of their creators, but the goddess Nebrae was the exception , not the norm, and that is a story for another book.
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Chaos and Despair
Not much is known about these two emperors of Old. After Stagnation was sealed away via Mylia and Pandora's plot, their influence seemed to disappear immediately, and their power ceased to leak out of their seals. They have been silent ever since.