In the beginning, Ar’rin was just a word. Adrift in the blue-green sea of forever, four lands emerged, spoken into being by the Powers That Be. Each named and became real. It is said that Ar’rin was spoken first, and the most powerful of all magical words is still believed to be the names of the first four lands, the foundation of power itself.
To the eyes of the first godlings, Ar’rin’s geography was simple and plain, and so they painted it with their will and magicks. To the North a great Frozen land of Ice and Snow. A great stretch of mountains was shaped on the Western side, descending towards the east. These are now know as the Steppes of the Wold, and they are mighty indeed. With peaks that pierce the clouds everyday of the year, since time immemorial. A vast desert dominates the South, and crosses its center, from coast to coast. But plains of green saplings were placed throughout the land threatening to become forests among the plains and hills.
The island children of Ar’rin sprang up in the East and South, and numbered in thousands it is said. But whether they were brought into existence by the young godlings or were simply always there is not truly known.
Two moons were set in the sky, above the clouds of Ar’rin. One cast blue light, the other silver. Some say that it was Danika who was delighted by mystical luminance and wished for the lands to remain bathed in an eternal night, lit only by these two moons. But it was certainly her that arrived first in the West and claimed the land of sea and fog as her domain. For it said that the moist beautiful views in all of Ar’rin are the western coasts under moonlight, framed by the mists that she played with in the beginning.
Following the model of the Powers themselves she raised the islands of the Storm Isles with her own words of magick. It is said she carved and manicured the land to reflect perfection in her eyes. Many of the beasts of the forest and the sea were birthed from her magicks, and given life in the lands to the West. She released them after perfecting their forms and attitudes, creating the harmony of the wilds in her own way.
Soon she walked amongst them, setting the Laws of Nature itself. It is said she spent an eon creating, testing, and altering the aspects of Nature until the Wold’s desires and her own had become one. The Powers must have been greatly pleased with her, for Nature prospered in her wake, hills shifted, and beauty was made of stone and soil. Trees reached for the stars and flowers blossomed under the radiance of her moonlight. They say the mists are her will made eternal, and they tend the lands with her love, in harmony with Nature and the Powers That Be.
But Danika soon traveled, to the North for even Darkness needs Light to create contrast. The frozen lands took on a beauty of their own, and many godlings followed in her wake, using their own magicks to shape the land. But Danika returned home to her Isles, and named her abode: Avalar. It became a place of great majesty and power. There she contemplated the perfect children, while the first seasons were formed by her laws and the will of the living Wold.
The land flourished, and it says that the lesser three continents also were tended and shaped in a similar form, following Danika’s vision.
But in the East another godling had come to prominence, and his name was Arkon. He traveled across the land, but was drawn to the North, where he learned the laws of Nature from the land, the beasts, and other godlings. He spoke to stone and trees, studied the light of the moons, and reveled in the beauty of the frozen mountains. In time he learned how to twist and shape the North, mastering its Darkness. He bent it to his will and challenged many of the Laws of Nature, and many of the noble beasts of that time now had fearsome cousins, thanks to Arkon’s arrival.