In an age when the Heavens were not yet stretched over the Earth, and Hell still silent beneath the lands of creation. When all creatures bright and dark had yet to grasp the first weapons and tools left behind by the gods and their children, there was the Void.
Within the Void, a Cosmic Egg with perfectly balanced Yin and Yang chi coalesced and formed. From within the egg, Pangu, the first being, awoke and emerged. He noticed the swirling ball of energy, and realizing that within its mass neither Yin nor Yang held sway.
For a fraction of an instant, in that Age when time had yet no meaning, Pangu began to contemplate on the possibilities that this Void could provide. With fierce concentration his thoughts burst into flame about him. In the flames, he beheld a vision of a world filled with ideals, honor, compassion, glory, and beauty that could be molded out of the Void’s chi. Standing amidst the flames and moved by the vision within, Pangu decided to destroy the Void to create the Perfect World.
Pangu inhaled his vision; his lungs were filling with a strong fiery wind. He approached the Void and spoke words of flame to shape it, breathed upon it to fill it with energy, and finally exhaled fully to immerse it in his fiery vision, to shape the very nothingness of the Void itself with the fires of his vision.
As the Void began to take shape and come to life, Pangu found that it refused to be completely shaped by his will. It shot slivers of Void chi and speared Pangu in the chest. Pangu drew the Void chi from his wounds, breathed on them and transmuted it into matter. The Void chi was then reformed and became the first weapon – the Primal Gem; a jeweled axe-hammer of black and silver adorned with streaks of blood red. Holding the Primal Gem, Pangu spoke to the Void.
“Why do you attack me?” he thundered.
“You seek to make something of me, and I do not wish it,” said the Void in a hundred thousand sounds that gurgled and howled though was still understandable despite the cacophony of sounds.
“What is it that you wish to become?” Pangu said.
“I wish to remain as I am, without form and without substance. Join me in oblivion.” said the voice of Void.
“I will not,” said Pangu, “I see the dreams of those that have yet to exist; I hear the cries of what can be, I feel the potential of all the magnificence that could be created. Yield to me, Void. Turn away from the emptiness and together we can create a perfect world.” “Fool! I am everything and everywhere. There is nothing but the emptiness of my embrace.”
Then, the Void attacked Pangu with a million Void Stones imbued with the will of oblivion. Pangu parried each assault with the hammer and shaft of his weapon, sending them back to their master.
The Void then grew a hundred thousand pairs of arms, all at once punching, gouging, grabbing, and piercing Pangu. Pangu blocked, dodged, and spun away, burning away the thousands of tendrils with his breath.
Then, the Void created a hundred thousand pairs of tripping, kicking, stomping legs and chased after Pangu. Pangu cut deftly at the Void with the Primal Gem, easily severing the limbs that sought to harm him.
Finally, the Void had weakened sufficiently and could no longer attack. Pangu raised the Primal Gem and was about to claim his victory when the Void spoke.
“I am inevitable, Pangu. Where you see honor, there will be corruption, where you see compassion, there will be cruelty, where you see glory, there will be shame and where you see beauty, and there will be decay. You will find out soon the virtue of emptiness, and everything you create, will return to me.”
Pangu paid no heed to the Void’s words. With a mighty swing of the Primal Gem, Pangu split the Void in two – the Yin and the Yang. Pangu then threw himself between the halves of the Void and struggled to keep the two apart, lest they recombine and reincorporate the Void that was.
Thus the Yang became the Earth, while the Yin became the Sky, and Pangu struggled to push the two further and further apart. At last, after nearly eighteen thousand years, Pangu was satisfied with his work and turned his attention to the World, the space between the Sky and the Earth, where the energies of the Yin’s divine brilliance and the Yang’s dark radiance mixed and churned and strove to create chaos anew. He created the Pillars of Existence from his bones, his blood, and fragments of the Primal Gem, to help keep Earth and Sky apart.
Satisfied at last, Pangu summoned the last reserves of his chi, and entered a meditative trance beginning the long process of healing his wounds and shaping his Perfect World. As he deepened his meditative state, his fiery vision consumed his thoughts, and Pangu began to change, and the World changed with him. His breath became the terrible winds his voice became the rumbling thunder; his words became furious lightning. His body became the mountains and edges of the world; his blood formed rivers; his muscles, the fertile lands; his hair, the forests; his bones, the minerals and ore.
His thoughts divided and immersed themselves in the new aspects of the World, becoming powerful beings that the races of the World would eventually call gods: The Lords of the Boundaries (North, East, South and West), the Goddess of the Sun, the God of the Moon, the River Kings and the Mountain Emperor, the Seven Saints of the Hammer and the Immortal Regent of the Axe, and so on.
The Celestial Monarch and the Ten-Veiled King created humans to cultivate the ravaged Land of Pangu. The bodies of the first humans were made from the mud of the Earth, their minds were cut from the raw gems of the Underworld to better withstand the warping effect of the Yang’s emanations, and their souls were distilled from the breath of Pangu to better withstand the sterilizing effect of the Yin’s emanations.
These humans, new and pleasing to gods and demons alike, rapidly multiplied and their number covered the Lands of Pangu. Farms and orchards, towns and villages, cities and kingdoms sprang up across the face of Pangu, and when the Celestial Monarch and the Ten-Veiled King decided to return to their respective dominions. Tens of thousands of years ago, they sealed off all the portals to the Heavens and the Underworld, leaving behind handfuls of powerful gods and demons to oversee the development of the Land. God, demon, and human lived together in relative harmony for a time.
Then one night, a burning brightness suffused all the Lands of Pangu, followed by a numbing darkness. All gods and demons vanished from the Land of Pangu. In the wake of their disappearance, three new cities were discovered that had apparently been hidden from the eyes of man for years.
The Wingkind
A race of beautiful winged humanoids suddenly appeared in what came to be known as Feather City. They claimed to be servitors created by the gods sent to help the human lands prepare for the coming of the Void, but the gods that ruled their city had disappeared in the numbing darkness. And with that, they opened up their city and began to spread across the world.
The Beastkind
A race of beast-like humanoids also appeared in what came to be known as Beast City. They claimed to be beasts uplifted to sentience by the demons to help the human lands prepare for the coming of the Void, but demons that ruled their city had died in the burning brightness. So they too opened up their city and also began to spread across the world.
The Humans
A third city was discovered, seemingly newly built but devoid of people and other signs of life except for two infants – a boy and a girl. The Winged race and the Beast race were questioned about it and rumors about a third city that the gods and demons had neither created nor visited surfaced. Due to the abundance of dragon-related artworks and murals, it came to be known as Dragon City.
Soon relationships between cities and kingdoms became strained, communities began to cluster along lines of family, race, and social standing, and the intricate mechanism of laws and enlightened rules fell apart. Unrest, injustice, and conflict plagued the Land of Pangu, and its inhabitants once again began familiarizing themselves in the tools of battle – weapons, invocations, and potions of power again emerged, and great heroes arose to champion the causes of the helpless and the wronged. Kingdoms built by warlords and tyrants rose and fell, borders shifted yearly, and the scent of blood and the ring of combat was commonplace throughout the lands.
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