"
They say that Granate was painted red since the old times.
The elders say that when The Conjunction of Wandering Gods created the world there was a war for the right to rule it, as it was customary. The wandering gods traveled through the universe creating worlds and things together, always leaving behind one of their members to rule them. But this world was so beautiful that none of them wanted to give up their right. The war stopped being just a formality and devolved into an endless battlefield.
The gods fought for 3 eons, making and breaking factions without meaning and logic. The war spilled the blood of the divine creatures on the ground and created life. The creatures that sprout forth were a mix of everything the gods, beings of a single nature, were. The gods of Sorrow and Longing gave sadness, and the gods of Joy and Comfort gave happiness.
Finally, the blood of the chief gods gave freedom. Their blood was not spilled equally, but every creature had a bit of divine emotion in them. The People of Ae were made of three parts nostalgia, the Iliths were almost all freedom and playfulness, the People of Mer were half rage, and so it goes. The countless peoples and things of Granate were made, part flesh and part god, in these times.
Finally, after centuries of battle and bloodshed, Lumea, the largest but also the kindest of gods, intervened between all sides. Lumea tried to show everyone what were the results of their war. Granate was already occupied and had no need for a ruler. They had been lost in ceaseless war while the world had been doing just fine.
The gods were outraged at the situation. Lumea, who was not one of the chief gods, nor one of the strongest ones, dared to interrupt the holy struggle to point out something that everyone was willfully ignoring. The world should be theirs and the mortals who sprouted were mere consequences.
All of the pantheon bounded together to punish Lumea. Lumea was dead in a few seconds. Something that had never happened before. Since the beginning of times, when they came forth from the milk of creation, no god had ever died.
The Conjunction oathed to leave the beautiful but cursed creation behind and never return. They buried the body of Lumea deep under the earth of Granate, which created what is today called the Great Under, or the Carcass of Lumea, the enormous labyrinth that extends almost infinitely under the earth.
The Alma Studi, the oldest academy of scholars and casters alive (at the time of this writing), has the official position of being suspicious of this old tale, but still can't explain supposedly divine facts, like the Weird Happenings of the Carcass (the fact that some places on the Under have gravity inversed, bright skies (under the earth!) and the sprouting of Hateful Creatures inside and near the labyrinth, to mention a few) and the existence of divine cores, all of which can't be explained by mere castings.
This author humbly believes that it makes logical sense to be cautiously faithful to the myth of creation, since many stories very similar to this are told all around Granate, by grandmas of different Peoples. It does not seem to be a simple superstition, like drinking the oil of the Halve plant to cure unrequited love.
There's a sad freedom in living in a godless world. Like a young man who has just grown up, we have no one to guide us, but we are (literally, if the myth is to be believed), our own gods.
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On The Conjunction of Gods and The Creation of Granate by Rokmar Trm (45th Headmaster of the Alma Studi)