Creation of the World

In the beginning there was Ao. Ao was an eternal and formless entity of infinite power. It had been alone for eons and one day began to grow lonely. For want of companionship, Ao took a small corner of itself and detached it to create Io. Io was different from Ao, lesser. Its limits were conceivable and well defined to Ao, being still limitless itself. Io, however, was unaware of these limitations and ecstatic at his birth. Io asked his creator if there were any others. Ao thought for a moment and told Io that no, there were no others. This made Io sad and he asked why there were only two. Ao explained how it had created Io and Io became very excited. The young being began tearing himself to pieces and flinging those piece all about.

Thus it was that Io created the greater gods who would eventually come to be known as: Tharizdun, The Chained; Gruumsh, The One-Eyed; Lolth, the Spider Queen; Ghaunadaur, That Which Lurks; Cyric, Prince of Lies; Asmodeus, Supreme Master of the Nine Hells; Bane, The Black Lord; Shar, Mistress of the Night; Corellon, First of the Seldarine; Silvanus, The Forest Father; Kelemvor, Lord of the Dead; Tempus, The Foehammer; Oghma, The Binder of What is Known; Chauntea, The Great Mother; Selûne, The Moonmaiden; Moradin, The Soul Forger; Amaunator, The Keeper of the Yellow Sun; Torm, The Loyal Fury;  and Sune, The Lady of Love.

By the end of his work Io was greatly diminished, so much so that he was only slightly more powerful than the beings he had created. The gods were all bewildered by their birth, and at the feelings they felt inside them. Each was born with an aspect of Io’s personality. Gruumsh received his wrath, Corellon his wisdom, Cyric his treachery, Moradin his love of creation and so on. Ao decided that Io and the gods needed a place to live. He tore off a large chunk of himself and stretched it out so that it covered the universe from end to end. It was a brilliant place of light and wonder that Ao dubbed the Astral Sea. So there it was that the gods and Io made their home for many years.

After a time Moradin became restless with the desire to create new beings, but he had no materials. He pleaded with Io to provide for him, and so Io turned to Ao. Ao took pity on Moradin and decided to create another world. This one, however, would be much more complex and, weakened from creating Io and the Astral Sea, Ao decided it would need help. It plucked another piece from itself and from that piece created the Primodials who would become known as: Bazim-Gorag, Lord of Pendemonium; Grumbar, The Lord of the Earth; Akadi, The Queen of the Air; Istishia, The Lord of Water; Kossuth, The Lord of Fire; Dendar the Night Serpent; Kezef the Chaos Hound; Borem of the Boiling Mud; and Erek-Hus the King of Terror.

Ao looked upon the beings it had created and decided that they would not be enough for what it had in mind. It enlisted the help of several of the gods of Io. Led by the twin sisters Shar and Selûne, Tharizdun, Asmodeus, Corellon, Silvanus, Amaunator, Moradin, and Oghma worked together with Ao, Io, and the Primordials to create the Material Plane on which the primary continent of our game, Aon, rests. As they worked, Ao provided raw materials from his body and when they were finished they all looked out upon the wonder they had created and were quite proud of themselves.

The gods of Io presumed that they would be in charge of this wonderful world since it had been Moradin’s request that started the process of its creation. This presumption angered the Primordials and the two groups went to war with each other. Though there were less of them, the Primordials were individually much more powerful than one god by itself. The war lasted for centuries; hundreds of races were born and slaughtered, created by one side, and killed by the armies of the other. Ao looked down upon the world it had worked so hard to create that was being devastated by war and was saddened. So weakened it was, though, from its work, that it could do nothing but stand by and watch that beautiful place burn.

Io was an arrogant warrior, and his arrogance was his downfall. While the other gods banded together to combat the Primordials, Io spurned their assistance. He was so confident in his own might that he faced the terrible primordial Erek-Hus, alone. With a rough-hewn axe of adamantine, the King of Terror split Io from head to groin, cleaving the god into two equal halves. Erek-Hus did not have the chance to celebrate his victory, however. No sooner did Io’s sundered corpse fall to the ground than each half rose up as a new god—Bahamut from the left and Tiamat from the right. Together the two gods fought and killed the King of Terror. Legend continues to explain that Io’s qualities were split between the two gods who rose from his death. His hubris, arrogance, and covetous nature were embodied in Tiamat, who is revered as a goddess of greed and envy. But Io’s desire to protect creation and his sense of fairness took root in Bahamut, now worshiped as god of justice, honor, and protection.

The sundering of Io enraged Ao, for it looked upon him as its progeny. It tore a scrap from the farthest reaches of itself and wove it into a terrible prison which Ao cast beneath the World. With its strength waning, Ao gathered the Primordials and incarcerated them in a place that would be known thereafter as the Elemental Chaos. With a final surge of power, Ao tore the three planes apart, separating them with empty void. Then Ao receded from these places and now drifts through the vast nothingness that exists outside them, tired, and weak, nursing its innumerable wounds.

The rest of the stories and more detailed information on the gods and primordials and their relations are the same as in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting