Teredahar Hisotry & Mythology: Origin of the Elves

I'm starting a series of articles covering my personal campaign setting (not to be confused with the one being worked on in the Twitch stream). This setting is called Teredahar and I've been using it on-and-off for over 10 years. These articles will be answering questions that my players have that are out of scope for the actual game sessions, and helping me organize 10 years of notes into something sharable. Like everything on my blog this is all Creative Commons so if you want to use it go right ahead but please say where you got it.

Mythology of Teredahar: Origin of the Elves

Genesis

In the beginning there were two worlds adrift in the river of magic: one where events were shaped by nature's cause-and-effect, and one shepherded by a singular cosmic will. When it invented language the will named itself Ceratharidoun. When it invented living things with a need to worship, they called it their God.
For ageless millennia the two worlds ran their course. Cause-and-effect shaping one world, and Ceratharidoun's will shaping the other. In time, each produced life capable of thought and inquiry. Dragons, cunning and powerful, rose to become the dominant creatures of the natural world. Elves, inquisitive and cautious, became Ceratharidoun's favourite children and thus came do dominate their world.

Exodus

The oldest legends of the Elves tell us of the time Ceratharidoun made itself known to them. It came to thirteen chosen of its children as a being of countless faces. As a chorus, they spoke "I am your creator god Ceratharidoun. My will shaped this world and all things that live are my children. Just as children must outlive their parents, so must this world outlive me. I place now, into the hands of yourself and twelve others equal fractions of my power and charge you with shaping the future of this world." And the chosen knew this was true, for at that moment the sun went black and the stars fell from the sky.
A year of absolute darkness followed. Death and destruction ran rampant as the thirteen found each other and learned to master their newfound power. When at last their powers were brought together they returned the cosmos to their world, the people named them Hebdomad, world-shapers, and worshipped them each as lesser gods.

Yet gods the Hebdomad were not. Just a year before they had been common people. Not a single king, priest, or grandmaster was among their ranks. Leaderless they began to quarrel and started wars that would last for generations and tear asunder all that Ceratharodiun had made.

It began as a great shaking, toppling buildings and tearing open great holes in the ground. Instead of stone beneath these holes, it is said you could see the blackness of eternity, the howling void between worlds. With a great crack, the world of the Elves shattered, its fragments propelled outward into the void. Aghast at the cataclysm their fighting had wrought, the Hebdomad vanished to places unknown.

The void is said to be timeless. It is not known how long they drifted, but in time a lucky few Elves rode a fragment of their shattered world until it collided with the other. On that alien shore they founded a new home and called it Tan'Rar, "guiding star".

Next Time

The next article will cover what the present-day aftermath of the Elves cataclysm is like.