Chapter exploring the development of the Hierarites while Aetyaern rests from his labors.
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The roar of the first Lord rattled Haelins bones and sent his stomach rolling. His armor rattled and his prey-thoughts reared with newfound power even as the predator-thought fought to reassert itself. His body fought with his mind as primordial instincts rolled with the iron discipline instilled through whip and drill.
Discipline won in the end and he straightened himself out among the formation, his brothers at his flanks either already straight and blank faced or slowly getting there. A thousand sons of Aesbel had been assembled this day to fight in their father-ancestors name in the face of a rebellion greater than any ever seen before.
It had started simply enough, a few outer villages refusing to pay tithe to the capital-throne. A few of his brothers had been sent to bring them in line only to never return. The First had been incensed when no word returned and ordered the villages destroyed for their insolence, he sent forth two thousand brothers to destroy their little insurrection and not a single one of them had returned.
The rage that had consumed the First was indescribable, and his paranoia had grown to heights thought impossible. Tithes were increased across the Empire as food, coin, and manpower were conscripted to form a new army while the First's Son were given the weapons and armor they would need to better defend the sire.
Some parts of the Empire complied, but the majority stayed silent and no tithe arrived from them. Haelin could still remember the feeling of dread-horror growing in his breast as he watched the First visibly grow larger and more feral when the news came. His great stone wings grew monstrous and his once handsome face had become an animalistic snout, draconic in its features.
The silence of the cities was just the calm before the storm however and soon after armies began arriving at the capital-thrones walls to put it to siege. They were small, disorganized, and easily swept aside by the sons of Aesbel. Seven hundred years the First had ruled from the place of his birth, and seven hundred more would pass before his sons would allow the rebellious spawn of the other Firstborn to bring down the Empire which he had forged.
Haelin and his brothers had said that to one another, confident and projecting cool predator-thought with every word. They had shared stories of battle and honorable slaughter, hunts past and present in which they had earned their blood. Now standing with said brothers while their Sire roared his fury over head Haelin knew in his soul that their time had come.
Six thousand sons stood arrayed against them in tight formation while a hundred daughters sang to the spirits of nature for their blessing on this day. The sons of Aesbel had no sisters to sing for them, they had been forbidden to fight by the sire in his grief over the death of his mate hundreds of years before.
The lady Yaerel had been a sweet matron from what the songs of remembrance said, and her death had done much to break the Sire.
Haelin was afraid, blessed by a great need to run and hide. It was his curse to be brave and stand, to fight side by side with his siblings in defense of a sire whom they knew loved them. So he did not flinch as the sons of the traitors began their march, he simply locked shields with his brothers and began his own counter march.
His scales itched, and his heart's beat slightly out of tune. Three centuries he had served, and today he feared would be the end of that service. The lockstep drum of boots slamming into earth drowned out the prey-thoughts which threatened to overwhelm his mind. His Brothers surrounded him, only the enemy, the prey, remained in front of him.
His mind shifted and thoughts of running or hiding fled. His eyes sharpened, scales shifted into place, and his focus narrowed. Spirits tried to bind his legs in green bindings, to slow him and prevent his hunt. He broke the chains of nature with ease and continued his lockstep march.
The lines drew near, the world sharpened, and for one merciful second the world was silent as feet rose on both sides and no shields clashed.
Then the air quaked and the world shuddered as shields slammed into one another and Aesbel roared. Haelin felt his arm shatter as his shield met the preys, at the same time his scales tightened and kept his arm functioning. The pressure on his body was immense, his brothers from behind and the prey from the front a crushing press upon which his body was breaking.
For startling long seconds he felt as if he was dying as silver blood ran down his nose and spilled from his mouth. He pushed with might that could destroy boulders and break the bones of monsters and felt nothing, his strength useless in the face of such numbers that the traitor-prey had arrayed.
Then just as suddenly as the press had begun it came to an end. From the sky the sire descended and in his wake the prey fled. His maw descended upon the prey and destroyed scale and flesh in equal measure, breaking their formation and giving his sons a chance to push the advantage. Haelin and his brothers pounced on the chance and began a counter push of their own.
Spears flashed with the ebon light of their Liakon blades and pierced iron armor and soft unscaled flesh with ease. Prey died, brothers hissed with the pleasure of blood satiation and the sons of Aesbel advanced while their sire fought in the midst of a hundred enemies.
Haelin could see him in all his transformed glory. His skin was stone like and impenetrable, his scales covered him in his entirety, his wings were blades and his tail a hammer, his silver eyes were stars even in the light of the day and around him the spirits bowed in terror. He killed with whips of green and flashes of claw and fang.
He was glorious, a transformed God who would reign over the Hierarites forever in Haelin's eyes. Dragons ruled from their lairs, forces of nature made manifest and their Sire had become one.
The sons of Aesbel fought just as ferociously as their sire. Wielding Liakon blades and clad in Liakon armor they were unstoppable. The Ebon tipped weapons could pierce any known material aside from their own scales, and the armor they wore. In contrast the prey-rebels had come to battle wielding Iron and steel, bronze and copper.
Lesser metals, only useful against the fleshy areas uncovered by the Diamond-hard scales which cover a Hierarites vitals. The sons of Aesbel made use of their advantage in equipment gladly as they cut a swathe through the prey-rebels and fought to reunite with their Sire.
Haelins blood flowed and his mind jumped from prey to prey as he cut them down one by one in conjunction with his siblings. He felt unstoppable, unbeatable against the tide of chaff like prey that stood in his way.
Suddenly he felt it. His legs failed out from under him and he fell to the ground as many of his brothers did the same. His eyes rapidly turned to his legs to see small thorns stuck to his skin. Poisoned thorns sapping his strength without him even acknowledging them.
He slammed his shield into the ground to steady himself and deflected the venturing tip of a spear away from his face. The numbness was spreading across his body, his mind was reeling as the predator-thought dominance fled and prey-thought began to take hold.
Green vines of earth began to snake up his legs and torso even as he tried desperately to cut them away. Desperation filled his breast and he looked towards the Sire, hoping beyond hope that he was doing better than his sons. The sight of the sire nearly broke him.
Wielding Ebon tipped Liakon spears predator-warriors had climbed upon his back and cut away the scales to stab at his spine. Hundreds of ebon arrows and spears were embedded into his body, and a hundred daughters chanted around his great form to encase it in green.
Even still the sire roared in defiance against his death. His fangs claimed a dozen more traitors before he finally fell, exhausted beyond measure as a thousand warriors swarmed him. The last thing Haelin ever saw was the light leave his Fathers eyes before a spear of dull iron struck his eye and ended his life.
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Ulaenor Raeslin stood atop the corpse of the First Lord and felt exhaustion climb his limbs. The predator-thought had fled and all that remained was the fading satiation of blood which had kept him moving amidst the battle.
With Iron he had slain he who could rightfully be called the Father of their people. No Hieraite could claim they held no connection to him, and all could feel the echo of love and loyalty in their blood when they beheld him. Even transformed as he was, Ulaenor himself could feel the need to kneel in every moment up to the one in which he struck the First Lord down.
"Dragon-Slayer." He heard a sibling whisper.
"Ulaenor the Dragon-slayer!" Another called from below the corpse of the First Lord.
Ulaenor turned and saw the remaining sons of Aesbel fleeing in their ebon armor, their spirit crushed after seeing their sire slain. They limped with prey-like strides and it took everything in Ulaenor not to immediately begin striding after them.
Instead he turned towards the now chanting army.
"Ulaenor!"
"Ulaenor Dragons bane!"
"Ulaenor Iron blooded!"
"Ulaenor Dragon-Slayer!"
"Ulaenor Second Lorded!"
And many more they yelled in triumph. His blood pumped and his heart's beat faster as he raised his spear coated in the silver blood of their forefather and screamed his name.
"Ulaenor Dragon-slayer!" He echoed his siblings' roars and they howled in return.
He was Ulaenor, Slayer of Dragons and he earned his blood upon the corpse of their people's first father. In the aftermath of the battle he was bathed by the loveliest of his sisters and even the City-Lords themselves were forced to pay homage to his deeds.
The day after the battle many spoke of naming him the Second Lord of their people, an honor which he handily avoided by disappearing into the wilds the morning after. His people had named him Dragon-Slayer, and his blood and soul pulsed with power from the title. He had no ambitions for Lorddom, nor did he wish to spend his years managing the crumbling Empire he had fought to bring down.
His legend was just beginning, and in the dark of the night with the three worlds overhead he began a hunt unlike any his people had ever seen.
Dragon-Slayer they had named him. Dragon-Slayer he would become.
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In the histories of the Hierarites the slaying of Aesbel marked the end of an Age. The death of the last of the First born fractured the Empire that had united their peoples and gave them a singular vision. In the years that followed no singular Lord was able to claim dominion over another, and soon enough every City-Lord was claiming Lordship.
The First born people scattered across the continent upon which they had been born and new kingdoms were born. They left behind the paradise in which they had been born and began to explore the seemingly endless lands of the world which they had been given. They thrived, their numbers grew exponentially, and over the next three centuries they warred with both themselves and the hostile world.
Languages began to diverge, cultures grew and splintered, and a people once divided fractured without a central authority to lead them.
In the midst of all this Ulaenor the Dragon-Slayer would slay a further three Dragons by himself, and according to some reports lay with one. By the end of his life he would establish a kingdom of his own which his children which had suspiciously Draconic features would inherit and lead to becoming a major power in the western reaches of the Hierarite frontier.
The Age of the First Lord was over, and the Age of Splintering would last nearly six centuries. Kingdoms rose and fell, Heroes were born and died, and the age that came before began to fade into myth. Stories of the Draconic First Lord became bed time stories for children, The first Empire of their united peoples became a fairy tale of a simpler time, and the First born spread.
The Hierarites spread and spread and spread across the world. City states and Kingdoms rose in the wake of their settlers, and new and diverse biomes were discovered every decade by the great explorers of their people. Four centuries one of their people could live on average, but in truth few made it past their second before they were killed by one of the predators of their world.
Dragons were the most feared creatures but they were rare and lonesome. The biomes of their world had far more insidious creatures to throw at them.
Swarms of metallic skittering Umolings which could strip the flesh from a person in seconds. Gigantic Terrortiles, eight armed reptilian scourges with a dozen chomping mouths and a hunger which seemed near endless. Aesling wyverns which could break castles and eat Liakon clad warriors with singular chomps. Stealthy nine foot tall Raeslings who stalked adventurers through lands of utter darkness and stripped their skin to use as bait for others.
Hundreds and thousands of monstrous creatures even worse than these stalked the lands beyond the heartlands of the Hierarites. The Hierarites saw these monstrous creatures and inhospitable lands and jumped at the chance to slay the beasts and tame the land. Armies marched into swamps, deserts, and lands of impossibility and never came back.
In response more armies were sent, more adventurers went forth, and they tamed the land for themselves. The challenge stoked their lust for blood and honor and they died by their tens of thousands, all to be replaced by the masses of the heartlands who wished for nothing more than the chance to prove themselves against the monsters which had broken armies.
The Age of Splintering did not end abruptly like the Age of the First Lord did. It died quietly and slowly and gave birth to the Age of Adventurers, an age where the Kingdoms of the first Born want nothing more than to explore the world they had only just begun to know.
The world was larger than they could imagine, and they would explore it to the fullest. Like ReplyReport Reactions:Vas7, HellMayCare, Enchanter and 246
Like last time I'll be putting up a poll for what the next species should be.
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The weight of exhaustion no longer pressed down upon my soul like a blanket of concentrated sleep. The rest of Non-stimulus had recharged me in ways I hadn't thought possible as centuries of accumulated exhaustion were wiped away and replaced with a giddy excited energy I had forgotten that I could feel.
Well not forgotten, because I wasn't capable of truly forgetting anything but I hadn't actively searched my memory for the feeling. Mainly because remembering what it was like to be well rested when you weren't was self torture more than anything else.
Now though I was more than ready to resume my work. A quick check of my memory told me that I had been sleeping for about 12 centuries based on the amount of times the worlds had spun around myself and the sun. A short nap all things considered, and hopefully long enough for the Hierarites to have advanced past the stone age and into a civilization worth watching.
My attention turned towards their place of awakening and I couldn't suppress my surprise when I saw not a small village but an entire city. A million Hierarites walked among the streets of the city of ebon stone wearing fine clothes made of bright leathers and clean linens. Shops and markets bustled with trade of goods beyond count while ebon cloaked guards walked the streets and walls in search of any kind of law breakers.
At the city's heart a grand fortress rose from the earth to touch the heavens in its ebon-silver radiance. Statues of Dragons and beasts lined its walls while guardsmen manned siege weapons larger than a catapult.
It was a metropolis and topping it all was the skull of some kind of Dragon with candles and altars set in worship. It was an astonishing rate of advancement and I could only attribute it to their greater than human intelligence and the environmental pressures of their home. Even the relative paradise that I had set them down in still had beasts capable of manhandling polar bears or killing dinosaurs after all.
Eager to learn more I scanned their memories, absorbed the knowledge of their libraries, and absorbed the prayers they had been sending my way. Just what had they been up to while I was gone?
…They killed him.
He had slain children in my name.
They Killed Him.
He was a tyrant whom tens of thousands had hated.
THEY KILLED MY SON!!
I felt my power lash out against the sun and from it send forth a solar flare that would have vaporized the solar system if I had not contained it and set it into the warp. A singular tear of liquid light spilled from my eyes and fell upon the earth. Forests turned to ash and Oceans boiled as my tears began to flow and my wrath grew.
They had set his skull upon their highest towers and celebrated his death. They knew my love for him and saw fit to destroy that which I had loved more than anything. I could hear them now as they cowered beneath my storming attention and cried tears of liquid blood from the weight of my grief.
Their City-Lord even now was ordering the skull buried. He was young, he had never believed it to be the actual skull of the Mythical First Lord.
I didn't care.
He had killed so many more and consigned many to the pyre in an attempt to appease me and bring my attention back to him. He was a tyrant for whom fairy tales had been written and cautionary tales had been spun. He had transformed himself into something which could only be called monstrous in his need to see me again.
None of it mattered. My son was dead, and I hadn't been there when he needed me most. I could hear his prayers now as he was being cut to pieces by his own descendants. He called for me, begging and wondering where I was when he was in pain.
I almost destroyed them all. In my grief I killed thousands as their minds collapsed under the weight of my attention. Their City-Lord died screaming as the grief of a God washed over his soul and destroyed his physical body. Watching them die I felt vindication, happiness even. At least I did for a moment before I realized what I had done.
Horrified at my own cruelty I snatched their souls from the warp and gave them new bodies. I returned them to life, but they were traumatized. Their souls were battered and their minds scorched by the feeling of my own impossibly massive consciousness coming down on their own.
I pulled away from them and returned the majority of my attention to the sun where the weight of my consciousness would not cause any more deaths. I hugged the sun and fought against both my wrath and grief which threatened to cause me to do something I would regret. I would not kill my children for fighting against a tyrant, even if said tyrant was my first born son.
Even if all I wanted to do was wipe it all away and spend an eternity with my grief. Soon, a few short years after I had learned of his death I calmed and the heat of my wrath dissipated into a cool disappointment. Disappointment in him, in his children, and in myself.
I turned back towards my creation and found the once vibrant city I had seen was a place of unimaginable melancholy. Once the home of a million, most had left for the other cities and kingdoms to escape the cult of sadness that had sprung up in the aftermath of my visit. Now only standing a hundred thousand strong the first city was a shadow of its former self.
The City-Lord was a madman who spent his days desperately praying for my forgiveness and the citizenry worshipped through great funerary dirges. I wanted to take away the pain, to tell them I was sorry for making them feel a pain that was never truly meant for them. They had not been the ones who killed him and they did not deserve my wrath.
However I held my Will and withdrew. They did not need me interfering even more in their affairs and I had a feeling that my direct intervention again would just make things worse somehow. Instead I looked beyond the first city to see how the rest of their civilization was doing.
I was once again pleasantly surprised. Agriculture was ubiquitous, Metal-working was about on par with the early renaissance, and halls of learning were well respected and funded. Writing was a little young, having only been invented around six centuries ago, but it had grown like a weed and most kingdoms had a written language.
Only the higher ranking members of society were consistently literate but that was to be expected. The most surprising thing was the fact they had multiple religions. Some kingdoms worshipped the forty Firstborn, others worshipped the spirits of nature and cosmos, and others worshipped weird pantheons.
The frontier Kingdoms descended from Aesbels direct children worshipped him directly as a Draconic god of the universe and through him they claimed dominion over all Hierarites. They were incredibly warlike and unlike most of the other kingdoms they were more focused on conquering other Hierarite nations than expanding and colonizing into the unknown lands.
Culturally they leaned towards an almost Chinese blend of ideas and thought with a good mix of Japanese and Roman ideals. It was a weird blend of cultural ideas about society and the heavens but it was also supremely interesting. Merit, Hereditary ideals, and divine birth combined together to create a highly stratified society which was simultaneously static and maneuverable.
Aside from them the Kingdoms of the Heartlands were incredibly interesting. One of the few places to worship me the city states there were highly independent and fractured along lines of birth and language. Each of them believed themselves to be the inheritors of Aesbel's Empire and each City-Lord claimed themselves to be the so-called Second Lord.
It was a boiling pot of war and intrigue as cities constantly tried to one up one another for power, and until my grief nearly destroyed it the first city had been the one which nominally held power over the region. Now that the city had all but fallen the balance of power was destroyed and the surrounding cities were jockeying amongst one another once more.
I watched as armies were actively being mustered and war was declared in real time. A region the size of Europe was embroiled in what was soon to be an era of war and strife, and I knew for a fact that it was my fault. I pushed away the feelings of guilt and focused my attention elsewhere.
The Hierarites were all in all thriving. They had spread across an area about the size of Eurasia and they were rapidly colonizing more every year. Truly their ability to adapt to the death world I had put them in was astonishing. They had yet to conquer one of the gates, or kill a true Dragon that guarded them but I could tell that they weren't far off.
It was time to craft a new species, a new set of children who would inherit yet another world and make it their home. My soul called out for creation and I felt it deep within that I would not deny the call. I had loved Aesbel, and I loved the Hierarites, but I would not stop at just them when it came to creating diverse and amazing creatures whom I would love just as much.
Creation was my calling and I would not deny myself.
Before I did that however I needed to deal with a few things. Most importantly the influx of souls I could feel pressing on the gates of my domain in the warp.
I strengthened my connection to that plane which hovered about the Real and stepped into my Domain of silver Law and light. Around me the conceptual fortress which I had forged from corruption and remade into a paradise pulsed with power gathered over centuries left to grow and incorporate souls by the millions.
I spread my attention across the warp and took stock of my realm. The legions had grown, what had once been ten legions had swelled to thirty as the sliver of my consciousness that I had left behind to guide the realm worked to bolster the defenders. Only ten Greater Daemons existed, the same ten that I had created before I had to rest.
Only ten they may be, but powerful they had grown through age and deed both. So powerful had they become I would say they even deserved the title of Greater Daemon, even if I wouldn't count on them being able to battle one of the higher tier Greater Daemons of Chaos. Which was to be expected, because I wasn't sure I would be able to battle the greatest of Chaos's Daemons and come out on top.
Satisfied that my defenders had grown in both strength and number even amidst the constant assault by the lesser legions of Chaos I turned my attention to the gates of my fortress. My fortress was the anchor upon which my Domain functioned but it was only a small part of the greater Domain, and outside its gates long lines of the souls of my Children waited for my judgment and welcome to their eternity.
One by one I welcomed them into my fortress, and one by one I brought them to their places of eternal rest. My consciousness was split into ten thousand different ways to accomplish such a feat and steadily welcome them all while also expanding the rooms of the fortress itself but it was worth it. I learned all they had done in their lives, listened to their stories, played with them, and answered their questions as best I could.
It took years to go through them all, and more than a few wished for nothing else than to serve at my side. Those few dozen I gave the choice to become Greater Daemons and lead the celestial legions in defense against Chaos, or be reborn. Six chose to become defenders of my Domain and I fashioned their bodies much the same as I had done the previous, sending them to the front lines of the war against the warp.
The others I sealed their memories of their previous life and sent them to be reborn in a Hierarite body once more. When they died once more they would regain those memories and I would once again give them the option to either be reborn or stay amongst the dead and enjoy their eternal rest. One particular soul which had in life known itself as Ulaenor demanded I place him in the body of a Dragon.
He amused me greatly and after a quick perusal of his memories, I didn't even know Hierarites could fuck dragons successfully, I decided to grant him his wish. I wished him luck in his journey and set his soul into the egg of a black Dragon. I hoped he grew into the terror that I knew he could be.
Finally I found his soul. Farthest back in the line and hiding from my attention. His brilliant silver soul was lined with stone like accents, and I could feel the near feral instincts of his mind. His transformation had transformed him beyond the mind and body, even his soul had been affected by it. Carefully I washed away the layers of stone and instinct to reveal my son underneath.
I could feel him trying to explain, to ask my forgiveness for all that he had done. I simply pulled him into my embrace and kept him there. He was safe now with me, and despite everything that he had done I would not love him any less. I took him into the deepest parts of my domain and placed him carefully into the embrace of the part of my consciousness that I kept in the warp.
He calmed in my embrace and curled into peaceful sleep. His eyes closed for the last time and I had him dreams of us together as we had been once long ago. Dreams of family, and love, and his loved ones all together forever more. It was the least I could do for my most beloved child.
If he ever wished to wake I would not stop him, but for now he deserved his rest.
I watched him for a time, enjoying the feeling of his soul against mine. Eventually however my greater focus was needed elsewhere and I left him with my fragment. My domain in the warp was stable, my children were being let through the gate to their eternal rest, and my legions continued to grow. Everything was as it should be.
I drew myself back into real space and prepared for what was to come. It was time to create once again new Children to love. Like ReplyReport Reactions:GodOfPixies, Vas7, Enchanter and 263 others
Elves won the poll, and another guy gave me an idea for Sun waifu so I hope you all enjoyed this. I definitely had fun writing it. Lol. Also I've seen different sources saying different things on which celestial bodies have consciousness or not in 40k. I'm going with the interpretation that all of them have the capacity, but not all of them develop one. The next chapter will follow the newest children of Aetyaern as they discover the world around them.
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When I was a mortal man I was a fan of the father of fantasy. Tolkien was a great inspiration for me, and his ideas greatly influenced later parts of my life and ideas. His focus on creating a world that couldn't be defined by simple stereotypes and easily defined categories spoke to me. Even now as what can only be called a God I often thought of him and his works.
Despite my appreciation for his works however I knew I would never create something quite as he would have envisioned it for the simple fact that our values were quite different. Not only was he a mortal man with a mortal understanding of the universe, but he never had to watch his creations actually killing one another. He never had to comfort their souls or feel their prayers in their worst moments.
He never had to stay silent even as the children he had given life begged for his assistance, only to stay quiet and let fate play out. I had done those things, and I would continue to do so. The universe was cruel, my creations were deadly, and my throne worlds were nothing less than death worlds through and through.
It was all by design of course. I knew my creations would not survive beyond my aegis without suffering an environment just as harsh as the ones they would find in the wider galaxy. So I pushed them, challenged them, and bled them to encourage the traits that they would need when they finally left their cradle.
So while I enjoyed Tolkien's works and his ideas about the aspects that an Elf should embody I knew that when I created my own that I wouldn't be following his lead. Creation and creativity called to me, and the need to create new dominated my mind at all times.
From nothing I spun forth potential, and from that potential I began to shape my newest children. Man and Women I shaped from light and into that light I gave purpose unlike the genetic machinery of the Hierarites. I gave a connection to both myself and the wider world to these new children, an innate understanding of all that I had created and its purpose within the greater machinery of the world's.
They would see and know how every part of my creation worked with one another. They would see the interconnectedness of it all, and they would know how to manipulate it. Through the application of my own power, a miniscule fraction of which they would be imbued with, they would be able to manipulate the world around them through the force of their will.
Where the Hierarites convinced and asked, these newest children would command. Metal would turn sharper or stronger, Gems would glow brighter, plants would obey without question, and all the aspects of the world would bend to their will as long as they had the Will needed to make it so. On their very souls I wrote a script of divine enigma which would bind them even tighter to me than any of my other creations.
They would know me from birth and would return to my waiting arms on death.
Satisfied with their basest existence I began to form their physical bodies. DNA was encoded, cells formed into organs and complex biological machinery, and layered together to create a body perfect for them. Tall, taller than even the Hierarites at eleven feet on average, and with bulging muscles to accommodate them.
They were no skinny elves of popular imagination from my old life, they were large and powerful machines with an inbuilt grace. Despite their size however they were also light, weighing about the same as a human man. Their skin was fair and soft, more like woven silk than the skin humans would know.
Their muscles and tendons were woven strands of perfectly crafted flesh imbued with my own silver, their bones starlight forged from my sun and turned into bio-metallic generators which would produce oxygen, blood, and every other biological need for their bodies. They had no hearts, or lungs because their bones provided in place of both.
Their throats led to two twin air sacks which were specially crafted to produce noises capable of taming beasts and monsters, and below that a roaring furnace for a stomach that would convert anything they ate into sustenance for their bodies.
Their minds most of all were my greatest innovation. About as intelligent as the Hierarites but far more capable of a broad range of emotions. They did not think like men, or beast, or even myself. They thought of the world through a spectrum of color and gradients, each color and gradient representing a different emotion and a corresponding concept of base reality.
Finally their life spans, a full thousand years they would live. A thousand cycles of the sun would pass before their death, and upon it their corporeal bodies would transform into crystal shards of contained silver light. Remnants of my own power left behind while the rest of their body transformed into dust in the wind.
When I had finally completed them I was happy, but far from satisfied. They would be powerful, emotional and full of potential. However I knew they could be so much more with the proper changes. So I made more of them, I diversified them into three sub-species.
The Ygselvfn would be the base species from which the other two were both descended and could rejoin into. Their true form as it was. The two sub-species would have different aspects of the true ones.
The first of which was the crab-like Crelfn. They I encased in a crab-like carapace and on their necks I added anti-pressure organs which they could use to go deep into the oceans of the second world. I made them shorter than their cousins, about six feet on average. Intelligent, encased in armor even stronger than the scales of the Hierarites, and capable of living deep in the watery abyss of the oceans they would make a fine aquatic species to challenge their land based cousins.
The second sub-species was the Raelfn. Less intelligent than either of their cousins they were larger than the other two. Nearly fifteen feet tall on average, and with bodies like trees they were made to become one with the natural elements of the world. The deep forests would respond to their calls, the world would grow wild in their presence, and the calls of civilization would be like grinding nails to their ears and souls.
The Raelfn were brutes, feral and nearly monstrous in their strength. They would fight and die to maintain the sanctity of their sacred forests and they would be the perfect counter balance to the spread of their land based cousins. They were guardians, almost Ent-like in their disposition. They would make fine challenges for the Ygselvfn to overcome during their explorations of the world which I had gifted them.
Looking upon the six children who would be the first of their kind to awaken in the second world I couldn't help but feel a lump of dread build in my chest. Memories of Aesbel and my own failings as a father swirled within my mind. The thought of leaving these children defenseless and without any kind of guidance didn't sit right with me on a fundamental level.
No they would need something, someone to guide them through the start of their lives. To teach them everything I wouldn't and couldn't.
So I did something I never thought I would and looked for inspiration from the universe around me. In a universe defined by its darkness and unavoidable destruction under the avarice of Dark Gods there were also moments of light against said dark. Creatures who fought against corruption and acted as guardians of life.
While the Exodite Aeldari were the usual suspects to awaken them and harness their power I had a feeling I would be able to do the same. Reaching into the core of the second world ring I searched for the spirit that I knew had to exist within. I searched and searched with sense both physical and warp based for even a spark of the life that should have resided inside.
I searched for a full year, and to my silent despair I found nothing. Not a single spark of consciousness had made its home within the crust of my worlds. Annoyed, I turned away from my worlds and to the brilliance of my star. Wrapping myself around her light I luxuriated for a time in the quiet dance which we had done for thousands of years.
I let my senses spread across her to admire her brilliant plasma. Electromagnetic pulses excited my mind, bubbling plasma barely contained by sheer gravitational mass played across my senses, and a core hot enough to destroy solar systems tickled my soul. I could feel her trying to pull me into her through the force of her immense gravity, and were it not for my own ability to manipulate that fundamental force I would have long ago fallen into her eternal embrace.
Then I felt it, a spark beyond the fusion of her core. My mind raced and my senses dove deep and in her center I found it. Consciousness.
Bubbling underneath layers of heat, crushing gravity, and electromagnetic waves strong enough to fry the earth was a consciousness. An active consciousness from what I could tell.
Carefully I reached out to that consciousness touched lightly upon it. Connection was instantaneous. Shy and cool thoughts of welcome touched upon my mind.
"Hello." I spoke, not bothering to restrain myself. Weirdly I felt as if I had to project my fullness, my grandiosity in this moment.
"Hello." I heard back, a vaguely feminine voice which sounded like a perfect storm of plasma and heat.
I was momentarily stumped for what I should say, I wasn't exactly used to talking with sentient celestial bodies. I wasn't used to speaking at all, usually I simply projected my emotions and let the minds of others do the interpreting. It was simpler that way, especially since I mainly interacted with others in the warp and not in real space.
"Why have we stopped the dance?" She asked, her voice somehow calm despite the fact that I could hear the booming fusion of her core in every word. It was her question itself however that grabbed my attention.
"You're aware of the dance? I honestly believed I was dancing on my lonesome."
I could feel a pulse of displeasure that was quickly smothered. "I thought you enjoyed dancing with me. Have I not been active enough?"
"I…" I almost said that I hadn't noticed but quickly decided to actually think back on all the times I had begun my dance with the star. I remembered how it had seemed to flow around me, flash with light in tune with my own flashes, and move in different directions in an almost natural sway.
"I've enjoyed our dances very much, I was just foolish and had always believed your masterful performance was a natural process." I explained.
There was silence for a time. Carefully I wrapped my consciousness around her and deep within her core I felt the fusion rumble louder than before. Plasma pushed against gravity harder, and waves of energy pulsed almost like a cosmic heart.
"Why talk to me now?" She asked as I continued to watch her beautiful patterns of energy like I had done for thousands of years already.
"You know of my creations I assume?" I asked. I felt her core pulse an affirmative. It felt almost as if half lidded bored eyes were watching me.
"I require something that can guide them through their species childhood in my place, and with no world spirits to commune with I-"
"Commune with?"
I paused at the interruption.
"Yes, commune with. I thought to combine my light and their energies to create spirits which would guide my children." I explained.
A minor solar flare spiraled from her core and was barely contained by her gravity. "You will not do such a thing, if you require a partner to commune with I will do so."
"... May I ask why? The reason I was going to commune with the world spirits was so the subsequent created spirits would have an innate connection to the world and knowledge which I would not have to give them. I do not wish my children to rely on my own knowledge alone after all." Plus it would have been a fun new project instead of just creating divine spirits of what would have basically been my own will. I wanted to create more life, it was a voracious need, and I would rather that life be independent of me.
"I can provide such. I will ensure our children are well taken care of."
Our children?
… The sun is in love with me isn't she. I did not know what to think about that and subsequently decided to deal with it at a later date.
"You can provide them with all the guidance they would need to not only survive but thrive? Flesh and blood mortals are not like us, they are not celestials or spirits."
The sun pulsed. "Our children will teach their siblings. Knowledge from us both shall give them all they need to guide and when they are finished they shall be allowed to go forth and be their own individuals as you are fond of doing."
I pondered her words. She was offering her energy and knowledge to me freely to create something wholly new and which would help to guide my newest children. She would not need to trick me to destroy them, and I could see no malicious intent in her. She was offering me a new and distinct race on a plate.
How could I resist?
I reached out strands of my silver light and dipped it into her boiling surface. In response I felt her core fusion speed up considerably as heat and light reached out to meet my own. At the same time our bridge of consciousness began to intertwine. Perspective shifted, my soul shuttered in pleasure, and our combined essences met within her depths.
Silver combined with white, our celestial souls melded with one another and from our union came creation. Together we spun forth consciousness from nothingness, carving upon it will and form, spirit and calling purpose. Knowledge of the cosmos and the infinite distilled into individual concepts and fragments of knowledge that would not destroy the minds of our children.
Pleasure unlike any I had ever known, or perhaps that she had ever known flooded through our combined souls when the first of them came into existence. Light and heat, stone and metal, celestial matter given shape and form. Four of them came forth from our union, tied innately to worlds once barren of consciousness, and given power and knowledge from birth.
Polyseon, the First Ring and First born. Light given shape.
Kael'phaeon, Second Ring and Second born. Heat shaped from nothing.
Aetyrun, Third Ring and Third born, Shaped celestial stone of life.
Brilaen, Fourth Ring and Fourth born. Metal as a concept given shape.
Godlings, Celestials, Spirits. All of these things could describe them. Guides for my children. Defenders of my creations. New life to love and admire.
I pulled away from my star and our souls unmelded from one another. I was exhausted, happy but spent after such a major act of both creation and communion. Carefully I placed my newest children upon the earth of the second world and curled around my star. I created a further ten pairs of two and set them around the same area so that they wouldn't wake alone and allowed fate to take its course.
The world itself would see to their well being. I was sure of it even as I dove into the bliss of Non-stimulus.Last edited: Dec 1, 2025 Like ReplyReport Reactions:Vas7, Enchanter, PaterRichard and 221 others
Sorry for how long this one took guys, works been hell and I kinda just turned into a potato for most of the weekend. Hope y'all enjoy!
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In oceans deep, trenches long, and forests dark the first of the Sun-kin awoke from their ancient sleep. Whether it be in watery places long forgotten by stars and their spirits, deep and haunted forests more akin to the underworld than the living planes, or the great trench like plains that straddled the ocean and forest the Sun-kin explored and learned of all that their world had to offer.
The Yg were the first to awaken and it is they that the spirits and Kael'Phaeon first taught the knowledge of all that was and could be. It was they whom Aetyaern favored and whom the creator gifted most, for their connection to him and his Aethyren mysteries was the greatest of the Sun-kin. The world bent to their Will's in ways it never did for the lesser Kin, and the spirits sung long of their beauty.
Long was their stride and long was their journeys in that early childhood, far did they roam in search of lands of their own to settle and civilize. The plains of their birth were rich in all the things which made life joyous, food and sun came forth without hardship or pain even without the use of their Wills. It was also a land of beasts which strode with Wills equal to that of the Yg and whom they fled from in fear for their lives.
Where the Spirits and Kael'phaeon taught they did not defend and it was their decree which made all the Sun-kin aware that the children of God would find no salvation from the heavens. Only through their own Will and effort could they forge a corner of the world for themselves amidst the beasts which roamed its surface and flew among its skies.
The Yg did not despair though and in these Elder days they prospered in the earliest of creation. Heroes whose names have been lost to time rose among them and slew beasts so powerful they could bring down mountains and create valleys. With blade and Will the Yg carved for themselves a kingdom in high hills of the great continent upon which they had been born, far from sea and deep forest.
Towers of white stone rose through spell and power forged through Aethyren sorceries while walls of mightiest granite were ringed around their lonely cities to defend them from the wilds which they had escaped. Centuries before the first of the other Sun-kin had awoken the Yg fought a war of extinction against the wilds, and for centuries they barely stood against the tides of beasts which seemed to never end.
In their lonely cities they stood alone against a hostile world while the spirits watched on. In the darkest of those elder days it is said that Kael'phaeon himself nearly broke his own decree of non-intervention to save the Yg from the destruction which seemed oh so near at hand.
Then from the great city of Taer-Olsaen a great King was born. Aharin Ahaerion, High King of all Yg and conqueror of the wilds. Blessed with a Will unlike any other his connection to the Aethyren sorceries were unmatched, and his skill with the blade a thing of legend. In his youth he served as his fathers general in the wars of the beasts fighting for every inch of land so that his people might survive just a single day longer.
Long limbed and with a longer blade he brought down beasts of myth and legend which now none living have seen. Creatures of darkness and cruel intelligence, living swarms of crystal and light, hives of living metal soldiers and their cruel monarchs, and leviathans larger than the tallest towers all fell before his blade.
When his father died during a hunt Aharin ascended and his legend truly began. First he wiped away the beasts which had long terrorized his city and unified the lands around it. Prospering from the new wealth available to them from the lands which their king had cleansed, the Yg of his city rallied around him and from them he drew a great host unlike any the Sun-kin had yet seen.
Across fen and field, forest and hill, mountain and plain Aharin and his host swept forth like a great wave washing away the kingdoms of beasts who had once ruled the continent's lands. He brought the desperate and scattered peoples of the Yg together once more and added them unto his host to continue his war. Kings of beasts he slew with his golden blade and upon his crown he inlaid their bones, making their fall an integral part of his rise and the prosperity of the Yg as a people.
It was only when he stood against the greatest of the beasts, the winged Wyrms that he faltered. In the ruins of a shrine dedicated to a civilization that had fallen long before the awakening, Aharin and his host were laid low by the frost of the Great Wyrm Icalion. His shield was splintered, his sparkling armor was shattered, and his arms torn from his body to be eaten by the beast.
It was only through reflex as the Wyrm brought its mouth closer to swallow him that the High King was able to finally land a blow against the terror. He drove his Golden blade into the beast's eye from tip to hilt and sent the beast into a rage of pain as he and his Host fled from its wrath.
One armed, wounded, and laid low Aharin and his host returned to the kingdom which he had carved through the corpses of beasts and there they stayed. A thousand-thousand leagues they had carved from the hungry jaws of the beasts that had once claimed those lands as their own, including the plains upon which the Yg had been awoken. It was far too little for the High King, far too little by far as the songs tell.
A year a Yg could travel across his Kingdom and not reach the other end, a thousand families they could meet and not have seen a tenth of all the multitudes of his subjects. It was never enough for the High King of the Yg, and even wounded by the Great Wyrm he was still far too great and terrible to be stopped by his lessers.
A hundred turns of the sun would pass as he recovered and planned. A hundred years the High King of all Yg waited for his kingdom to grow and prosper before he set out once more towards the ruins of that long forgotten civilization. His mighty host, the likes of which have never been seen since marched at his heels and together they dove into the lair of the Great Wyrm which had once taken the arm of the greatest of their kind.
Their glittering armor, topaz shields, and golden blades would never be seen again. Fair they were of build and temperament. The greatest generation of that age and all to come followed their king into the lair of the Greatest Wyrm who has ever lived and none of them returned to tell the tale.
With their best and brightest lost forever in the mists of history and far too afraid to follow in their footsteps the High Kingdom of Yg-Olsean fell. Torn apart by Wills no longer subjugated under Aharins rule or inspired by his deeds. The Yg tore themselves apart in a war that saw Aethryen sorceries lost to time unleashed upon the world.
Cities burned, the land cracked, mountains fell, and volcanoes rose in what had once been the heartland of the greatest Kingdom which had ever been created. Fallen Taer-Olsean is now nothing more than a wasteland in which haunted souls kill all who dare enter. A cursed land of cursed fools who thought themselves the equals of those who had gone to face the terror of the world.
In the aftermath the Yg were no more. The Ygselvfn were all that remained of the once great and united people. Diminished and Lesser than the golden ones from whom they descended.
- A child's history of the early Ygselvfn
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In the Kingdom of Yg-Ulain on the border between the beasts of the world and the lands of Aharin they came. Straddled between sea and forest the kingdom of Yg-Ulain occupied the lands upon which the Ygselvfn had awoken, and its prosperity was renowned throughout the lands of Aharin.
From the forest came the newly awakened Raelfn. Young and unaccustomed to contact with others. The spirits, servants of Kael'phaeon brought them to the city of Taer-Poraein in hopes that through contact with their cousins they would find the knowledge and wisdom they sorely lacked. Most followed the spirits, they trusted them as a child trusted a parent such was their newness and lack of knowledge of all things worldly.
Some however doubted and stayed within the forests, watching and waiting to see what would become of their siblings. They watched their siblings approach the great gates of the white city and parley with the silver guardians who came out to meet them. They watched in horror as those same guardians ignored the spirits and slew through siblings where they stood, thinking them nothing more than beasts who had learned to talk.
The wrath of the Raelfn was great, but ultimately meant little. What could they do to the silver guardians who had so easily slain the greatest of their number?
So they retreated deep into the forest and ignored the calls of the spirits to return. Their promises that the silver ones had been punished and the peoples of the plains wished to make amends in any way they could. They promised that Kael'phaeon himself waited upon them so that he might bring peace upon their souls and grant justice for the dead.
The Raelfn knew them liars in their hearts and vowed never again to leave the forests in which they had been born. Only in the safety of the canopy were they safe, and while the spirits were sacred and deserving of respect, they were naive and incapable of seeing the harm they would bring.
Centuries the Raelfn hid among the woods, growing and learning, fighting and dying against beasts which the silver guardians had forgotten or thought legend and myth. They grew stronger, more attuned to the forest and its whispering winds, to sorceries the silver ones would never understand. They became one with the forest that birthed them and in its embrace they became more than what the creator had originally meant them to be.
Slowly, over centuries and generations they merged with the land and through the Will and power they had been granted they became more than cousins of the silver guardians. They grew taller than the canopies, stronger than the trunks of trees, and more plant-like with every birth. Roots took to the ground as additional branches like arms grew, and crowns of leaves grew from their heads.
In great communities they gathered, entwining with one another to become greater than the individual. The Will of one became the Will of the many, and where the silver guardians had their white cities the Raelfn had their colonies of wood and leaf. Encased within each colony the eldest slowly transformed into a true tree, one with branches so deep they pierced the earth and provided for all their descendents.
The elder trees were sacred, homes to spirits and ancestral knowledge. The life of the colonies may have come from the younger members who were still mobile, but it was the Elder trees who held their souls. So when the Guardians of Yg-Ulain came to the forests in search of new lands to expand they found only death.
Crushed under the weight of bark and root, suffocated and impaled, hunted like dogs across a forest which seemed to shift with every look. No patrol returned from the depths of the woods, and no army dared step into its darkness. The forest grew, the guardians watched, and for the time being the two races did not come to true blows.
No, the wars of the Sun-Kin would not come until the Crelfn came from the waves.
- The Raelfn and the sundering of the Sun-Kin
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From the depths they came. Armored in shell and salt. Not as children new to the world, but with armies unlike any seen since the days of the Yg. Riding crabs and wielding ebon blades the Crelfn had come to the surface to conquer all that they saw, and the glittering city of Taer-Poraein was the first thing they saw of the surface.
The leader of their host, Felona of the white foam was a great warrior and general of her people. Some say her Will burned with hints of Golden-Silver light and her sword when it flashed to kill brought memory of Aharin himself.
The city and its defenders were caught utterly by surprise by this sudden arrival of new creatures from the sea, and as the host marched upon their city they prepared for a long siege. The Gates were barred, soldiers armed, and civilians hidden from sight as the warriors of Yg-Ulain prepared to give their lives in their cities defense.
They ought not to have bothered as the seas crested the shoreline and began to creep towards the walls of the city which sat so close to the shore. Within an hour the salty brine lapped against the white walls, and within two it was beginning to spill over. From the frothing waters the Crelfn came and slaughtered their cousins' soldiers, enslaved their people, and washed away the once beautiful city that had stood for a thousand years.
Upon the backs of the tide the Crelfn host waged a devastatingly fast war upon the kingdom of Yg-Ulain, washing it and the plains upon which the Ygselfvn had awoken away with the tides. It is only when they tried to breach the forests of the Raelfn that they faltered as the enchanted waters refused to enter the lands of wood and darkness.
Even when the greatest of their sorcerers tried to break the enchantment upon the dark forests they could do nothing against the indomitable Will that seemed omnipresent across its borders. So they marched without their waters and searched for the source of this Will.
They found death.
Crelfn warhosts were crushed by the primal strength of the Raelfn, Raelfn colonies were burned and washed away when their Elder trees fell, and the two warred for every inch of forest. For a year they fought with one another until the great silver hosts of the Ygselvfn arrived and bore witness to the flooded cities and birthlands.
Great was their wrath, and great was their Will to destroy the invaders who dared to take from them the lands of Aharin. Sorcerers great and powerful threw their Wills against the enchanted waters and threw them back into the seas from which they had come. Felona and her great host were waiting and as the sea receded they surged forth and slammed into the silver shields of their cousins with all the fury of the ocean.
She was met in combat by Prince Ulainea, last son of the kingdom which she had destroyed. His Silver sword met Her ebon axe and the weight of their blows carved trenches into the lands. Soldiers nearest them were cleaved apart in the after shocks of their blows, and the two mighty hosts battled around their commanders.
Ulainea was the first to draw blood as he broke her shell and exposed her face to the world. Black hair flowed into the wind and the scent of salt and the ocean air followed as eyes that glowed Golden-Pink met the princes Emerald. The warrior-prince paused as he was struck by the greatness of her beauty and softly lamented the cruelty of the world.
Such was his lament that he threw off his own helm and revealed his own face to the woman which had captured his heart. Golden haired, fair of skin, and Emerald of eye he was a legendary beauty all of his own. It is said that Felona hesitated for a moment at the sight of the Prince and her armor shook before she readied herself for combat once more.
Golden and Black hair flashed as both warriors moved to kill one another. Armor was pierced, and the Prince fell. His sword at his side and his lips sealed upon the lips of the beautiful warrior whose blade sought his doom. Bleeding and dying from his wounds he laughed and cursed the world, because he had stolen a kiss from the beauty most fair.
Felona for her part despaired at the death of her opponent and fled the battle, never again to be seen.
The Crelfn host was broken upon the silver shields of the Ygselvfn and were thrown back into the sea for a time. Prince Ulainea's body was never found after the battle, and the host which he had led broke into infighting after his death. The kingdom of Yg-Ulain remained sunken beneath the waves, and the Kin War had just begun. Like ReplyReport Reactions:Vas7, Enchanter, Some_Respek and 126 others