Cosmology

The cosmology of the universe is linked with the acts of gods and mortalkind.

The Formation
No one (some say not even the gods) are certain of what was before the creation of the universe. But, from the formless void before time its self, Primordial beings came from stars and gaseous masses and began to set forth, conquer, and form planets. Most Primordial beings, though they had power incomprehensible, were animal in aspect. Though they were timeless, many of the Primordials are forgotten, as they became uninterested, were slain by other Primordials, or became otherwise uninvolved.

It was during this time that the All-Father, one of many Primordials, planted the World Tree, through which the Universe came to be ordered. Through the World Tree, the Prime Material Plane, the heavens, and all other planes were linked in one massive plane that could be accessed without magic.

The Ancients
The All-Father (and, indeed, other Primordials) created living beings. Plants, animals, and humanoids made the Prime Material plane their own, free to roam among the planes through the World Tree. The All-Father chose mates from among creation and had descendants, forming the Ancient Gods. The Gods, with all of the power of the Primordials and the ambition of the living creatures, began to further order the Planes, carving their own homes from the branches of the tree.

The Ancient Gods took a special interest in creation, and they themselves began to create the varied races. They began to further order the World Tree, appointing the Fey to act as creation's mostly benevolent guardians. Treants and Dryads roamed the World Tree, stopping roaming troves of mortals; if the mortal's cause was noble enough, they would eventually let them pass.

The Weave
The gods ordered the Weave, the magical system that flowed throughout the World Tree all over the cosmos. Laws of magic were written into time and space, and they could not be broken. Angels, the first created beings, enforced the laws of the Weave. Though mortal society was essentially tribal at this stage, worthy mortals were given access to a portion of the weave: Divine Magic. Divine Magic was given by the gods through prayer, and thus tribal religion began to form as a consequence not of mortal superstition but of the very cosmology of the universe.

The Age of Mortals
Magic enhanced society beyond for tens of thousands of years. Mortals empires created from the first tribes rose and fell as an endless cycle. Magic only sharpened the ambition that had thus far ordered the cosmos. Eventually, the magisters of the ancient elven empire that stretched over present day Otumat discovered means to access to the Weave that the gods did not intend: arcane magic. This gave rise to the age of mortals, a time where population growth exploded. But this hidden magic in the hands of mortals gave rise to an unseen consequence: the opening of the Nether. The Nether, by consequence of its nature, was the only plane not accessible by the World Tree.

The Void Wars and the Voidplague
The Nether was by its nature not a plane, but the inverse of all planes. It was here that the forgotten Primordials rested. Their creations were aberrant to the creations of the World Tree. Mindflayers, beholders, and other aberrations ascended from the bowels of the earth to interlope in the World Tree. The peace of the planes was over, and the Void Wars - the war between the gods and the creatures of the Nether - began. Legions of angels descended on the Prime Material Plane to combat the demons of the Nether for thousands of years. Mortal society was reduced again to pockets of tribal societies, barely able to subsist.

The gods created the dragons to try as creatures of the Prime Material to attempt to eradicate the interloper aberrations. But, just as they did, the Primordials had their own answer. They sent charlatan doomsayers into the populace known as doppelgangers. In the night, the doppelgangers slew the high priests of the gods and took on their form. The doppelgangers wielded dark magic and converted many of the populace to turn against the gods and commit their lives to a dark cult.

They began to slay the dragons outright, dragging their corpses into the Nether and reanimating them as Shadow Dragons. The Shadow Dragons raged against the World Tree, and it perished. Travel between realms was no longer so easy. With the World Tree, the Weave was crippled.

Centuries passed. Just as mortalkind seemed to have no hope, and as the gods and their creation were doomed to destruction, Anactyr gouged his own eye out as a sacrifice for the missteps of the gods. He gained clairvoyance that preceded even his own godhood. He looked with his godly sight upon the world he had created, and he saw only mortalkind working together could thwart the works of the aberrations. He chose Ord to unite the peoples, giving him supernatural trances that revealed the path before him.

Ord was a willing recipient of the visions. He rode on Balhut, Anactyr's mightiest creation, from bastion to bastion, and he ousted the false prophets, earning the faith of the people. And finally, he ascended the highest mountain in Otumat disemboweled the Aspect of the Shadow Dragonflight, and with it, repaired the Weave (which the Aspect was sapping for power), but leaving a massive portal to the Nether which might have caused the Prime Material Plane to collapse on itself. Aberrations pooled out of the Nether portal.

Balhut, the Aspect of the Metallic Dragonflight, flew directly into the portal intentionally, so causing the portal to the collapse and burst into a supernova-like event. Ord stood the victorious champion of the gods, destined to rule forever, and the aberrations that prowled about the world (who were not killed by the blast) all scattered to the furthest reaches of the Underworld.

The Victorious Pantheon
But the gods were quiet to the new united peoples.

Though the Weave was repaired, the World Tree could not be saved. The gods agreed to hanged themselves on its last dying branches, their vision for the multiverse forever shattered. But just as they were about to perish, a message came through to the highest heavens: a prayer.

The gods, though their original vision was shattered, were contacted by the high priests of the reformed Otumati Pantheon. Inspired by the acts and deeds of mortalkind, they persisted and agreed to give a chosen few spells which they might combat the darkness with. They plucked several chosen mortals from their works to join the Pantheon in glory, so forming the Otumati Pantheon. Their clerics and their Chosen, Ord, would be their hands and feet in their beloved Aeonar.