| The Genesis There was a collision. That�s how it began. That is, in fact, how it always begins. The six inner planes collided, ever so briefly, and from their mergence came a material realm. Earth, water, air, fire, life, and finally death combined to create the world of Acadie. It was nothing atypical, it was the way that all the material worlds before it were born, and the same way an infinite number of them will be born after it. It was however, quite an event, as even in the timelessness of eternity the creation of a material world is rare. It was not long (it never is) before the outer planes began to take their sway in this world. Elements of law, chaos, good, and evil began manifesting throughout the fledgling realm. The gods were at once aware that a new place had risen, and all were anxious to claim their portion, like kids grabbing at freshly baked cookies. The presences of some gods were inevitable. The sun rose on the horizon and brought with it Pelor. Nature began its perfect yet vicious cycle of life and death, eat or be eaten, and so of course Obad-Hai was there. And inevitably with life came death, and so Nerull�s cruelty could be felt over the land. And of course, the mortals were close behind. Now if you listen to the elves, and if you�ve ever met one you probably have listened, Corellon Larethian brought them to Acadie first, making them the first of the mortals to walk on its new ground and breathe its new air. However if you listen to the dwarves it was they who were the first to set foot on Acadie and mined its terran depths, delivered there by Moradin, and everyone knows there isn�t any arguing with a dwarf. Regardless of which was first, they were the first of the mortals to come here, to Acadie, and are the most ancient of the races. It wasn�t long after their arrival that Garl Glittergold guided a colony of curious gnomes into a new world, filled with new opportunities, and it was about the same time that Gruumsh in his greed and envy sent his orcs to compete with the dwarves and elves for supremacy, followed by Maglubiyet and his goblins. Other races followed, of course, some less welcome than others, but all of them, good and evil, made homes in Acadie. Humans were among the latest arrivals, as they often are. With no racial god to lead them around, it is left to sheer chance that humans make their way to a new world. Humans were greeted in this world as they are in every new world: with a sense of curiosity and suspicion. For reasons beyond explanation, humans are hard for the other races to comprehend, if they try to at all. It may be that they have no great alignment to good or evil, law or chaos, or perhaps that there is no specific deity who created them or maybe it is the intense diversity between each human that so baffles the other races, all of which can be easily stereotyped. The other races mistrust them because one human can be immensely different from the next. If you�ve met one dwarf you�ve met them all, and if you know one elf you have a good idea of what to expect from the next one. But one can live with humans for centuries and they will still surprise you� And so life began on the world Acadie, as life begins on all worlds: uncertain. |