The Age of Beginnings – in the beginning … you’ll have to forgive me. Ever since I read your bible, I always wanted to start one of my pieces like that and I can’t think of a better place to do it than here. This map is pretty darn simple, there just wasn’t much to show back then. In all of existence (without bringing the Greater Realm into it, which I generally won’t do and when I do, I’ll be sure let you know) there was only the Girdle and the Outermost Heavens. Esel didn’t even exist yet. Finbardin created it later, to break the monotony of the nothingness beyond the Heavens.
The Age of Creation – Near the start of this age (or maybe at the end of the last one, it’s all a bit arbitrary), Arra (the Sun of Heaven), Sangrar, its three suns (Edda, Imma and Olla), Esel and then the stars all appeared on the scene. You can thank the Herald for the suns, all four of them. To hear Kandol tell it, the Herald had taken a shine to Zuras and Majestrix in the Void and had presented them the suns as gifts. Much, much later, I heard the Herald’s side of that story and discovered that Kandol had been well informed. The Primals trotted out the Craeylu early in the age and it didn’t take long for Erlik to show his true colors. Before the ink had dried on his birth certificate, he’d murdered his brother Lindivar and escaped to Sangrar. The Craeylu gave chase and Finbardin made Erlik pay by taking his eye. Majestrix whisked Erlik away to the Darkhold in the center of the world, where One-Eye remained safe and beyond the reach of his brethren until Annumbra the World Walker imprisoned him there.
The Age of Mankind – the biggest upheaval to the heavens occurred with the Reckoning of the Planes, which followed Kandol’s destruction of the Darkhold. I suppose I’m being kind putting it that way, but I liked Kandol and if there had been any other choice, he wouldn’t have done it. You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to. If you told me that Kandol destroyed Sangrar too, I wouldn’t have argued, but that was never his intent. After Kandol did … the deed, the Primals and the Herald made a splashy appearance surprising everyone. The Girdle grew, Sangrar was remade, the Heavens expanded and One-Eye took up residence in the Darkstar. For the spirits of slain mankind, the Primals made the Blessed Kingdom and for those less worthy, the Spirit Realm.
The Darkhold – the lair of Erlik One-Eye, the Dark Lord, lay in the hollow of the world. At first, it was his stronghold, but it became his prison when Annumbra trapped him there. It was a strange place not governed by natural laws, cross hatched with a spiderweb of gravity defying pillars converging toward the Black Citadel in the Darkhold’s center, where Erlik ruled his dark domain. The pillars supported massive stone platforms tilted at impossible angles, like a landscape from a Max Escher painting, on top of which were Breeding Pits spewing forth legions of Dark Ones.
The Outermost Heavens – during the Age of Creation, only the Craelyu dwelled in heaven. Most Ealar and Elehu chose to live on Sangrar, where they could be closer to the Elder Races, or called Esel home. After the Reckoning, the Ealar and Elehu departed Sangrar for Heaven.
