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The Galactic Essence and the Birth of the Cosmos
The Primordial Beginning
Everything begins with the Galactic Essence — a primordial collection of energy from which all things emerged. What the Galactic Essence is, where it came from, and whether it was itself created are questions that have occupied philosophers across Vael for as long as philosophy has existed.
Some hold that the Galactic Essence was a seed planted in our singleverse by an original creator — a being or force beyond the cosmos itself, whose nature cannot be known from within the thing it made. Some extend this further, arguing that the original creator planted multiple seeds, and that beyond our own singleverse there exist other galaxies, other verses, other worlds entirely — a multiverse of parallel creations. Some go further still, positing infinite seeds spawning an infinite number of galaxies without beginning or end.
These questions are, as the philosopher Tynes argued, both unknown and unknowable. No person has ever seen another verse. No instrument has measured one. The discussion of other verses is a subject of speculative philosophy, and while worth considering in the right setting, the domain of natural philosophy — the things that can be seen, felt, heard, sensed, or known — begins here, with what we have.
The Celestials
In the ancient cosmos before time began, when matter was first birthed by the Galactic Essence, it appeared first as celestials — sent out with great haste from the centre of the galaxy to take positions in the night sky. The celestials came in three primary forms.
The first were the Astrals — great blue wanderers, sent to mark the signs and seasons. They are the largest and most ancient of the celestials, their light the oldest light in the sky.
The second were the Sentinels — lesser celestials, white and numerous, forming the constellations that watch over the world below. Their purpose is to advise, to teach, to offer wisdom and knowledge to those with eyes to read them. The great constellations are not decorative. They are instructional.
The third were the Watchers — yellow and red dwarves in comparison to the Astrals and Sentinels, least of the three types in size and power, sprinkled across the singleverse in great numbers. But the Watchers carried something the others did not: a unique power called life.
A fourth type emerged later. These were the planets — without form and powerless, but numerous. They fled the galactic centre and each found a companion celestial, settling into orbit around it and drawing warmth and energy from their host. Some planets settled around Astrals. Some around Sentinels. But most settled around Watchers. And some planets, selected by their Watcher, received the gift of life.
Epherion and Vael
Epherion is a Watcher — a yellow dwarf star, one of countless thousands scattered across the singleverse, each carrying the seed of life within them.
Vael is our planet. When Vael came out of the Galactic Essence, she settled around Epherion, drawn to his warmth. He gave her the seed of life. She received it, and in time she first birthed the moons Ashira and Isen — and later, all the other creatures of the world.
This is the foundation beneath every creation myth in Vael. When the Thylians speak of Epherion planting the World Tree, they are speaking of a star’s light falling on a living world. When the Kiranoise speak of Epherion setting his anvil beneath the Eastern Peaks, they are speaking of the heat of a sun made manifest in stone. The myths disagree on method and location. They agree, in their deepest grammar, on this: that life came from above, from a light that chose this world, and that what we are began with what Epherion gave Vael, and what Vael made of it.
The Creation of the Aelvaeni
The World Tree and the World Anvil
Two nations claim to be the cradle of life. Two myths explain how the Aelvaeni — the first created people of Vael — came into being. Both centre on Epherion. Both claim the Aelvaeni as his first and finest work. And both cannot be true.
This has not stopped anyone from believing them.
The Thylian Myth — The World Tree
In the beginning, Epherion looked upon Vael and found it without voice. The land had form and the sea had motion, but nothing lived, and a world without life was a world without meaning. So Epherion took a seed from his own light — the same light that had given Vael life — and pressed it into the earth at the heart of what would become Thyl.
From that seed grew the World Tree: vast beyond measure, its roots threading through the stone of the world itself, its canopy touching the lower reaches of the sky. As it grew, it shed. Leaves fell from its highest branches and drifted to the ground, and where each leaf landed, an Aelvaeni stirred into life — small and bright and new, shaped by the element of the ground that received them. Those that fell on fertile earth became earth aelvs. Those caught by the wind before they landed became air aelvs. Those that drifted to the water’s edge became water aelves. And those that fell near the the ancient fires of Elduros, became fire aelves.
The tree still stands, the Thylians say, at the deep heart of their oldest forest — too far in to find, too sacred to look for. It is still shedding. New Aelvaeni are still being born from its falling leaves.
For Thyl, this myth is territorial and cultural claim. If Epherion’s seed was pressed into Thylian earth, then Thyl is the axis of the world. Their forests are sacred. Their nation is the world’s first nation. The myth suits the Thylian character: organic, hierarchical, rooted. Creation here is a matter of grace — of landing in the right place at the right moment.
The Kiranoan Myth — The World Anvil
In the beginning, Epherion looked upon Vael and found it unfinished. A craftsman does not leave work half-done. So Epherion descended to the heart of Estia — to the place beneath the Eastern Peaks where the rock was oldest and the heat of Vael’s core was closest to the surface — and there he set his anvil.
He worked. The World Anvil rang with each stroke, and the sound of it moved through the stone of the world in every direction. From the material of Vael itself — earth and fire and water and air, taken in measure and beaten together — Epherion forged the Aelvaeni. Each subtype was a distinct making: the earth aelf shaped from stone and deep earth, solid and patient; the fire aelf hammered from heat and bright metal, quick and fierce; the water aelf drawn from water and the mineral richness of the deep sea, fluid and knowing; the air aelf blown into being from the breath of the bellows, light and far-ranging.
The World Anvil remains beneath the Eastern Peaks — buried under millennia of stone, but present, and warm to the touch if you know where to press your hand against the mountain.
For Kirano, this myth speaks to its values: creation is not passive, not a matter of where leaves fall. Epherion works. He shapes. The Aelvaeni are intentional, individually crafted, each subtype a deliberate design. The Eastern Peaks are not merely mountains. They are the walls of the world’s first workshop.
Part Three: The Aelvaeni — A People Divided
The Aelvaeni themselves have not resolved the question of their own origin, and different subtypes have landed on different answers.
Earth aelves favour the World Tree. The image of an Aelvaeni stirring to life from a fallen leaf settling into fertile soil speaks to something central in their self-understanding. They were made by landing. They belong to the ground they landed on.
Air aelves are divided, and noisily so. The World Tree gives them romance — the leaf caught by the wind, becoming something aerial in the moment of its suspension. But the World Anvil’s image of Epherion breathing life through the bellows has its own appeal. Air aelf arguments about creation tend to be long and enjoyable for everyone involved except those who wanted a straight answer.
Fire aelves overwhelmingly favour the World Anvil. Fire and the forge are their element — the idea of being hammered into existence at a divine smithy is not merely plausible to them but almost self-evident.
Water aelves lean toward the World Tree, though with reservations. Their hesitation comes from the leaf-landing imagery — they were carried to the water’s edge, which suggests they were not quite intended for it, merely deposited there. Some water aelves find this undignified. The World Anvil at least gives them a deliberate making.
Part Four: What Neither Myth Addresses
Both myths agree that Epherion made the Aelvaeni first, and that he made them from the elements of Vael. Everything else is contested.
What neither myth addresses is the Usurper — the thing that came after creation and set itself against everything Epherion had made. Whether the World Tree or the World Anvil account is true, something emerged to prey upon the life that had been given. The creation myths are stories of beginning. The Usurper is the reason beginnings are not enough.
The Knights Celestial were raised by Epherion as a foil to the Usurper — which means the same star that gave Vael life, that grew the World Tree or set the World Anvil, also looked upon what threatened his creation and responded. Whether he acts through the order still, and whether his protection of the Wentworth bloodline is part of the same long purpose, is a question the stories hold open.
Notes
Epherion is a yellow dwarf star — the source of all life on Vael, and the power behind both creation myths
Terra is the planet; Ashira and Isen are its two moons
The World Tree’s location is unknown — said to be in Thyl’s deep forest, unfindable
The World Anvil is beneath the Eastern Peaks — buried but possibly accessible
Tynes is a named philosopher whose work on speculative versus natural philosophy is referenced in the cosmological tradition
Elindor’s oral tradition may contain a third account, older than both, that neither Thyl nor Kirano acknowledges
The Usurper’s origin relative to the Aelvaeni’s creation remains an open question
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