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Oracle Answer for Ayoi
"Beginning with descriptions of the type of creatures and important entities that existed, what was existence
like before the Seals of Chaos and what changed when the Sealing took place?"
And thus spoke the Oracle:
"Three ages passed before the Brothers Khan ended the one called the Age of Chaos by mortal men. Before the
Age of Chaos came the First Creation, the Age of Ascendance, and the Age of Fire.
"The First Creation. In the First Creation the Ancients crystal dreams awakened motive within
the infinite possibility of that which present philosophers might call Chagode. In the First Creation, the Ancients dreamt of the
land rising from the waters. Illuminated by the birth of stars, they wandered their dream as avatars and, like master sculptors
they shaped it to their desire. As was their way, their avatars borrowed of Chagode and thus they were not merely visitors, but
they dwelt within the dream of First Creation.
"When the Ancients awoke they beheld their crystalline dream and saw how their avatars dwelt within.
Seeing the world become verdant in the care of their dreams, the Ancients hid the keys of their dream within it and departed to
let prophecy guide what had been fashioned.
"The avatars of the Ancients wandered the dream and fashioned a paradise. In their great gardens they
exalted in their purity and they were satisfied, for a time."
"The Age of Ascendance. As the avatars of the Ancients molded the dream to suit their fancy it
came to pass that the First Key was discovered, Entii, the Key of Creation. The time before the first age ended with this discovery
and thus began the Age of Ascendance.
"Like the Ancients, their avatars beheld the key to their own creation and became aware of their own
beginning. Seeking to emulate the ancients they too began to create. Their paradise became populated with perfect beings which knew
no emotion but for a desire to please their creators, the avatars of the Ancients, with their actions.
"The avatars raised their childer, teaching them to mold all that was contained within the dream so
that they might be amused by their creativity. And so, their creations labored while the avatars of the dream passed over its
surface.
"Many beings that you would consider alien and unknowable manifested beneath the gaze of the avatars
as their childer sought to fill the gardens with their own desires. They were beings without elemental form, without spirit,
formed of little more than automata of thought. They knew the gardens in a way you would describe as utopian, but mortal beings
of this age would tremble in fear to behold this time, were it even possible for them to dwell in this age.
"As they labored and shaped all that was, it came to be that the creations of the avatars discovered
the Second Key, Inoch (pronounced eye-knock), the Key of Ways. They presented it before their creators, not understanding that it
would be used to end their time within the gardens of the dream.
"Their creators beheld the Second Key and became aware that there was that which was not within the
dream. With its word, they used the key to touch the worlds without, not knowing that more ancient creations would be visited
upon them. Thus began the Age of Fire.
"The Age of Fire. When the ways were made to other realms dreamt by the Ancients, there was
visited upon this dream the dwellers of other places. The avatars first welcomed the strange novelty and watched that which they
had not created interact with their childer. Some of the creations of the dream mated well with those which visited, taking upon
the clothes of material being and becoming knowable in a way that you could comprehend.
"By the ways that were made, the avatars discovered the elemental and spiritual materials of creation
and used them to fashion new things like that which visited the dream. In this time the First Men were made, their forms imitating
the beauty of benevolent beings which visited the dream. Like their visitors they were given a will, but it was a perfect will
which acted according to the intentions of their creators. These First Men were neither dwarf, elf, nor human, but an embodiment
of perfect form similar to each of these.
"Not all which visited the dream came in peace. Some sought to unearth the keys left behind by the
ancients so they might add to their own creations. From their worlds they brought with them knowledge of the key called Roa,
the Key of Conflict. Later records would call this the Curse of Roa. Thus was shattered the ideological and spiritual unity of
the dream.
"What you would call Celestials and Infernals freely traveled the ways and visited this creation,
defied the avatars, and brought their ancient battles with them. Seeing the terrible things which had been brought into their
garden, the avatars sought to close the ways, but the work of a key cannot be undone. So, the avatars made new creations to vie
against the visiting beings and to safeguard their creation.
"The Age of Chaos. The wars of what mortals call the heavens spilled and were joined with
this creation. Since the avatars were still young, their creation new and not safeguarded, it became a fertile battleground
where the powers of other dreams could do as they pleased. The avatars had but the Key of Creation and the Key of Ways. They
feared to use the Key of Ways to search of a means to rescue their world, and so they used the Key of Creation. With each new
incursion came new creations. The land trembled beneath the weight of power that surged from the realms beyond and began to
change. The avatars themselves were eventually consumed as they gave too much of themselves unto the Key and fell to greater
visiting powers. This was the Age of Chaos.
"Unguided, the dream began to change, bending to the will of Others which were born from places
outside of the dream. But their desires were not the same as those which created this realm, and their conflicting desires
altered all that was known to the dream with whimsy and malice.
"Beneath the endless evolution of conflict and creation, the world toiled and strained. Neither day
nor night were consistent, few mortal creatures lived more than a handful of generations before another would arise to conquer
and take their place. Where rivers flowed might in weeks turn to desert and mountains thrust beneath nomadic villages over mere
days, only to dissolve to dust and succumb to ocean waters. These were the final centuries of the Age of Chaos.
"The First Men hid in the gardens, but could not escape the changes of creation and their forms
were changed too. Thus the races of the world as you know them. Some still bear the taint of chaos within them, these are the
shapechanging races: dopplekin, glamerfolk, mwelwrets and others. Some creations which were consumed by chaos still wander
creation as well: chaos wraiths, chromatomorphs, the devourers of color, and more. Much of what evolved can still be seen in
this age. Haunted forms created late in the Age of Chaos dwell still too.
"From this age were born beings known as the Sons of Khan. They, like no other, understood the
futile attempts of Creation to restore its balance and they, like no other, adapted and thrived while other beings perished.
In the midst of the uncontrolled chaos that had taken the dream, the Others were not aware of the Khan's rise to power, nor
did they suspect the craft of the devices which would bring about an end to their free incursions into this world.
"Together the Brothers Khan brought an end to the Age of Chaos by sealing away dangerous evolutions,
by tempering what you call divine magic, and by warding the gateways that gave the Others and their minions access to this
world. The devices which maintain this state are known as the Seals of Chaos."
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