Few are sure how the gods came about. Some say the gods themselves are unsure. What follows is more or less what seems to be mostly agreed upon.
The universe came into being with its various energies and some of these energies coalesced into stars, and planets and moons, and some of these energies coalesced into sentient beings that were the gods. Or did the gods come first and then they made the stars, planets, and moons? It was thought that some greater powers that sought to create made the universe and to assist with their creating of things made the gods. The gods, these first gods, were then charged or desired to create and they looked down upon the world and sought to create there. Or, they created the world like some blank, smooth ball of clay then began to sculpt it. These gods formed the seas and the land and the sky and the clouds. Then they created the animals and plants and all simple creatures and forms of life great and small. They saw that there was great diversity and multitudes, but no creatures in the world that could create as the gods could, so the gods created the mortal races and other sentient beings to continue on the act of creating. The elves became stewards of the forest. The dwarves became the stewards of the hills and mountains and places deep within the earth. The Ameya (halflings) became stewards of the pastures and fields and slow, gentle places. The humans, that could be stewards of all places, roamed across the world. Just as there was diversity amongst these races the gods saw fit to create diversity within each race as well.
When mortals were new and the organization of things was still being settled, it was determined that mortals’ souls would be kept in a general repository of sorts. But this idea was quickly abandoned as the soul retains the personality and memory of one’s mortal existence. It was argued that as such it did not make sense for some souls, those of mortals that had done malice, to rest with the souls of those mortals that had not. The gods had not foreseen that some mortals would be malicious. Nor had the gods foreseen that their mortal creations would themselves birth new gods – war, torture, greed, envy, lust, sloth, murder, rape, music, love, courage, etc. Nor had the original gods of creation foreseen that over time they or the new gods would become connected to mortals in such a way that the power of a god was based on mortals’ devotion to that god. It is argued that the gods knew some or all of these things. It is also argued that the gods did not know that their mortal creations, these races, would have such a thing as souls and had never planned on the Repository. Whatever the case may be the original gods of creation found themselves in some cases competing with these new gods and with one another for power and relevance. Some did not care, but enough did. Out of these things came the partitioning of what became known as the Divine Plane into various paradises or heavens, a place to punish those that broke the laws of the gods, or the Hell, and a place of Congregation for the gods to meet and discuss the various goings on in the planes. The gods (and some of their assistants) continued to look and walk upon the mortal world and choose from amongst the mortals representatives to spread the god’s will and solidify the god’s presence in the mortal world.
Why didn’t the gods intervene when they saw mortals doing destructive/malicious things? Some did in various ways – either directly or indirectly, some gods did nothing and judged their followers in the afterlife. How much to intervene in the affairs of the mortals became one of the first areas of conflict amongst the gods. Some gods argued that their mortal creations, all mortals, were meant to create not to destroy and so should be punished, and to stop this malicious behavior should be made to adhere to strict and clear rules. Others thought that would restrain the mortals too much and they should be left to find their own paths, within certain bounds. Others said that there should be no bounds, that the mortals should do as they may and come to set their own rules amongst themselves. And so because no consensus could be reached malice of all kinds was done from small lies to great wars with many innocent mortals across the races (especially the Ameya) being wiped from the world as though they never were. This disagreement about divine intervention and others over centuries led to the conflict known as the War of the Gods.
Up Next: War of the Gods
