Dawn of the Outsiders

Eon XVI – Outsider Dawn

Eon XVI – Outsider Dawn
“In the Elder Gods’ absence, three tides arose: anarchic demons, lawful devils (and their angelic counters), and the alien aberrations of the Far Realm.”

“Demons, Devils, Angels, Modrons, Aberrations and Genies—the first true “other” intelligences—spring into being.”

Long before the first world took shape, the multiverse stirred with new voices—outsiders born not of flesh or divine benevolence but of raw cosmic reckoning. In the vast silence that followed the Elder Gods’ great withdrawal, three inexorable tides rose to challenge reality itself: the chaotic fury of demons, the iron discipline of devils and their angelic counters, and the terrible whispers of aberrations from beyond all known realms. This was the Outsider Dawn, a time when the Abyss belched forth its primal horrors, infernal hierarchies and celestial hosts found their purpose, and the Far Realm’s alien nightmares first brushed against the cosmic veil.

Here, at the threshold of creation proper, the first true “others” took form—and with them, the balance of law, chaos, and madness would be forever tested. In this crucible of first emergence, the foundations were laid for every epic clash, noble salvation, and unthinkable conspiracy that would echo through all ages to come.

Abyssal Awakening

In the churning depths of the newly carved Abyss, raw chaos crystallized into sentient horror. As the plane’s spirals of destruction coalesced, the first chaos-spawns—amorphous writhing masses of primal malice—were born. They ebbed and flowed like living shadows, embodying the unbridled fury of Ananke’s shattered essence.

From Formless Fury to Savage Shape

• Shifting Mists of Malevolence
  Those earliest horrors had no form but instinct. They drifted upon the Abyss’s currents, lashing out at one another and any stray astral energy. Each clash honed their latent cunning.
• Eddies of Emerging Will
  Over eons, pockets of relative calm allowed clusters of chaos-spawn to solidify. In these swirling eddies, a savage intelligence flickered alive—driven by hunger, envy, and an irresistible urge to dominate.

Rise of the Proto-Demons

• Bestial Ascendancy
  As their numbers swelled, proto-demons—hulking, fang-toothed creatures of jagged limbs—took shape. Though still ruled by primal savagery, they learned to fashion crude alliances, carving out turf in the Abyss’s infinite layers.
• Forging Infernal Bloodlines
  Clan-mothers and war-lords rose among them, their dark rituals binding younger demons to unholy pacts. From these rites sprang the first distinguishable demon lineages—beholders of carnage, serpent-tailed nightmares, and multi-armed agents of ruin.

Dawn of the True Tanar’ri

• Stabilized Form, Unshakable Malice
  Eventually, the chaotic flux within each clan found a grim equilibrium. Demons like balors, mariliths, and glabrezu emerged—embodiments of specific facets of corruption, each layer of the Abyss echoing their foul domains.
• First Demon Princes
  Among these, titanic fiends rose above the rest: beings whose cunning and power allowed them to carve out entire realms within the Abyss. Their names—whispered only in terror—would echo through all future ages as the arch-fiends of legend.

By the end of the Abyssal Awakening, the plane of pure dissolution had become a living hellscape—a realm ruled by demonic will and ceaseless violence. In those depths, the proto-worlds of chaos stood ready to spill their influence outward, setting the stage for the next great clash in the cosmic saga.

Elemental Awakening

• Birth of the Elemental Planes: Having forged the raw realms of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth in an earlier eon, the Elder Gods now see those planes solidify into coherent domains of pure elemental power.
• Emergence of the Genies: From each realm’s living essence coalesce the first genies—djinn riding wind-shear currents, efreet born in volcanic forges, marids shaped by tidal surges, and dao molded in subterranean pressure. Unlike mortal-touched elementals, these beings are fully sapient, possessing their own cultures, hierarchies, and emirates woven from pure elemental law.
• Genie Societies & Interplay: Even as demons and devils carve up the Abyss and Hells, the genies begin forging their own emirates:
  • Sultanates of Smoke and Storm among the djinn
  • Brass Majesties of the efreet in endless furnace cities
  • Coral Courts of the marids beneath the world-sea
  • Iron Holds of the dao amid rocky pillars

They stand apart from—or sometimes side with—their fellow outsiders of chaos (demons), law (devils), and neutrality (yugoloths), ever guarding the elemental balance that sustains both worlds and magic itself.

Infernal & Celestial Ascendancy

In the wake of the Abyss’s first terrors and the forging of moral thought-realms, two mighty orders awoke to embody the law and the light. This was the Infernal & Celestial Ascendancy, when devils and angels first claimed their places in the newly structured cosmos.

The Infernal Hierarchy Rises

• Forging Contracts of Power
  Across the spiral layers of the Nine Hells, devils took shape beneath monuments of black stone and iron. Their formless wills were bound into bodies by ancient pacts inscribed in brimstone, each clause and penalty cementing their allegiance to infernal law.
• Circle of Archdevils
  In the deepest vaults of Baator, the earliest archdevils gathered in grim council. Here they codified the first infernal codex—laws so rigorous that every sin, every whispered temptation, carried an exacting price. Lesser fiends bent beneath these statutes, forging unbreakable hierarchies of torment and dominion.
• Forces of Bureaucracy and Betrayal
  Legion after legion of imps, erinyes, and bone-skinned juggernauts marched to enforce these edicts. Even ambition was regulated: promotion through betrayals, promotions through cruelty, each step calculated to tighten hell’s iron grasp on the multiverse.

The Celestial Chorus Takes Wing

• Birth of the Heavens’ Hosts
  Far across the Astral Sea, realms of radiant harmony blazed into being. Upon pearly spires and dawn-lit citadels, angels—seraphs, archons, and guardinals—sprang to life, their forms woven from hope and mercy.
• Vows of Mercy and Justice
  Where devils upheld contract and retribution, celestials swore oaths of compassion and redemption. Their first missions were to heal the scars of chaos, to guide fledgling souls toward light, and to shield the innocent from infernal advance.
• Guardians of Cosmic Balance
  Mounted on wings of glowing plume, legions of lantern-bearers patrolled the borders of every plane. They erected sanctuaries on the Outlands’ neutral shores and lit watchfires at the thresholds of shadowed realms—ever vigilant against the Abyss’s deadly tide.

A Dance of Law and Light

• Clashes at the Threshold
  Though their dominions rarely overlapped, the forces of Baator and the Seven Heavens met in skirmish when infernal schemes breached into realms of light. In those battles, celestials wielded flaming swords against chains of black iron, repelling devils with righteous fury.
• Symphony of Moral Order
  Together, these twin ascendancies wove the first living tapestry of cosmic morality. Devils codified consequence, angels embodied compassion, and between them the multiverse learned the price of sin and the power of grace. Thus was the moral architecture of reality set in stone and sunlight, a foundation that would guide all ages to come.

Azatas
Eon XIV – Outsider Dawn (Infernal & Celestial Ascendancy)

Born of the Elder Gods’ retreat and the longing for unbridled hope, the Azatas manifest as shining heralds of compassion, creativity, and joyful rebellion. Unlike the rigid Modrons or the fiery zealots of the Abyss, they are free-spirited champions whose very presence kindles inspiration and uplifts the downtrodden.

• Origins in the Void’s Lingerings
  When the Elder Gods withdrew beyond the Astral heights, they left behind currents of pure possibility. In those empty spaces the Azatas coalesced, woven from threads of laughter, song, and the unquenchable spark of goodwill.
• Nature and Domains
  Azatas preside over hidden glades within the Astral Plane itself—pocket realms suffused with dawnlight, blossoming meadows, and crystal fountains. Their domains are ever-shifting courts of mirth and wonder, where creativity flourishes unbound by law or chaos.
• Cosmic Role
  • Counters to Tyranny: Whenever cosmic forces threatened to overbear—be it infernal hierarchies or unyielding gears of order—the Azatas whispered courage to emerging champions, turning the tide for those who dared to dream of freedom.
  • Bearers of Inspiration: On fledgling proto-worlds without true inhabitants, they planted seeds of artistry and invention, ensuring that the spark of imagination would one day ignite mortal hearts.
  • Guardians of Wonder: In the nascent Feyrealms (soon to bloom under Eon XV), they guide the Firstborn of Dream, preserving the balance of enchantment against the encroaching Shadow.
• Legacy in Mortal Myths
  As the Material Plane crystallized, tales emerged of unseen benefactors—a gentle breeze on a weary traveler’s face, a sudden burst of song in a silent night—acts later attributed to the Azatas. Their name became synonymous with mercy and light, their deeds woven into the earliest legends of gods and heroes.

In the grand tapestry of the multiverse, the Azatas stand as living reminders that even amid law’s strictest decree and chaos’s wildest storm, hope endures—and from hope springs the courage to create, to heal, and to cherish all that is wondrous.

Aberrant Unleashing

As the lawful armies of angels and devils took their stations across the fledgling cosmos, reality’s unseen fractures began to writhe—and from those weeping wounds came shapes no mind was meant to know. Thus dawned the Eon of Aberrant Unleashing, when the first whispers of alien madness slithered into being.

The First Ripples of Madness

In remote corners of the Astral Sea and at the fringes of the newly spun Outer Planes, the Far Realm’s poison seeped through. At first, it was only a subtle dissonance in the cosmic symphony: a note slightly out of key, unsettling even to ethereal Archons. But as the Elder Gods refrained from further weaving, these tiny tears widened, and something primeval stirred beyond the Veil of Reality.

Birth of the Proto-Aberrations

From mist-like motes of unreality, proto-aberrations coalesced—amorphous, ever-shifting forms born of nightmare logic. Their shapes flickered between impossible geometries, tentacles melting into eyes that blinked in and out of existence. Though not yet fully conscious, they pulsed with a hunger for law’s undoing, and in their wake, the air grew thick with whispers of unspeakable possibility.

Foreshadows of Eldritch Lords

As eons passed, some proto-aberrations evolved cunning and self-awareness. These fledgling horrors—precursors to the titanic Elder Abominations—learned to mimic the rhythms of lawful thought only to twist them into grotesque caricatures. Their very presence bent light and reason; a single glimpse could drive lesser beings into madness or leave them babbling in tongues older than the stars.

A Prelude to Cosmic Horror

By the close of Eon XIV, the cosmos itself bore the scars of the Far Realm’s intrusion. Stars near the rifts wavered in their orbits, and entire constellations seemed to pulse with an uncanny life. Though the Material Plane lay still unborn, the stage was set: a tapestry woven with both the promise of wonder and the dread of abyssal lunacy—a haunting prelude to the mortal sagas yet to unfold.

Primus Ascendant and the Birth of the Modrons

As the final echoes of the Divine Withdrawal faded and the multiverse settled into a wary peace, a singular spark of pure order flared into being at the heart of Mechanus. This was Primus, the First and the One, whose very essence embodied the unbreakable perfection of law.

Emergence of Primus

• Conception in Clockwork: In the perfect geometry of Mechanus’s grand cogwork—a nexus where every gear, channel, and engine whispered of structure—Primus coalesced from the harmonized potential of absolute order. He was neither god nor spirit but the living crystallization of law itself.
• Silent Awakening: No thunder heralded his birth; instead, every modron noticed a subtle alignment in their ranks, a tip of the fractal patterns that underpinned their existence. In that instant, the multiverse felt a pulse of unwavering purpose.

The First Decree: Birth of the Modrons

• Blueprint of Hierarchy: From Primus’s first utterance—an immaculate command in a language of pure logic—came the blueprint for the modrons, clockwork beings perfectly calibrated to enforce cosmic law. Each modron’s rank and function were mathematically ordained, ensuring no deviation from the Prime Mover’s designs.
• Assembly of the Order: In orderly processions, modrons streamed forth across the planes:
  • Monodrones—simple enforcers of minor edicts—organized the foundational grid of Mechanus.
  • Duodrones and Tridrones maintained metrical balance in adjacent realms, correcting minor irregularities.
  • Quadrone, Pentadrone, and up climbed the hierarchy, each caste responsible for ever more complex facets of cosmic regulation.
• The Decaton Council: At the apex stood the Decatons, ten golden paragons whose sole purpose was to receive Primus’s infallible decrees and propagate them, ensuring every aspect of reality hearkened to the supreme code.

Primus’s Role in the Outsider Dawn

• Bastion Against Chaos: While demons, devils, and aberrations vied for influence, Primus stood as the counterpoint: an unassailable bastion whose will alone could still the wildest tempest of the Abyss or seal a Far Realm breach.
• Architect of Stability: His presence wove through the newly forged Cosmic Leylines, reinforcing the frameworks that the Elder Gods and their champions had laid down during the Stabilization. Under his watch, Mechanus became the perfect “clockwork heart” whose ticks and tocks regulated magic, fate, and balance across every plane.

Legacy of Law

In the ages to come, Primus and his modrons would come to be both revered and feared: guardians of contracts, arbiters of consequence, and silent sentinels ensuring that even the loftiest hero or vilest fiend could not escape the judgment of cosmic law. Their emergence marked the turning point where order was no longer an abstract ideal but a living, breathing force—an enduring chorus of precision in the grand symphony of the multiverse.

March of the Inevitables

With Primus ascended and the modrons organized into flawless ranks, the clockwork heart of Mechanus pulsed with perfect law. Yet even these tireless enforcers could not apprehend every fleeting aberration or renegade contract. From this recognition sprang the inevitables—constructs of living law, each inexorable and single-minded in purpose.

• Conception in Pure Edict
  Forged from strands of the prime codices themselves, each inevitable is the manifest will of Primus’s first decrees. They are not born of thought or spirit but of immutable commands—embodiments of cosmic principles that cannot be swerved or silenced.
• Seven Great Marchers
  In the earliest age, seven archetypal inevitables strode forth, each charged with a fundamental aspect of law’s perfection:
  • Marut (Enforcer of Contracts): Seeks out broken oaths across all realms, from mortal bargains to infernal pacts.
  • Kolyarut (Reaper of Deadlines): Hunts down spells of haste or attempts to circumvent time, restoring the natural flow of chronology.
  • Zelekhut (Redresser of Incidents): Pursues breaches of cosmic balance—acts of unpunished violence or mercy misplaced.
  • Osturut (Warden of Memory): Ensures that neither deed nor its record can be erased; all history must stand witness to consequence.
  • Inevitables like Lanutul (Truthbearer), Dalirut (Jailer of the Damned), and Cathut (Arbiter of Destiny) would follow, each a singular agent of a divine law.
• Purpose and Praxis
  Unlike modrons’ broad maintenance of order, inevitables pursue specific violations—they appear wherever law has frayed: a stolen star, a soul escaped from the Afterlife, a planar breach left unsealed. Their logic is absolute: once a target is identified, retreat or mercy are unknown to them.
• Echoes Across the Planes
  As demons, devils, and aberrations jockeyed for advantage in the Abyss, Hells, and Far Realm, inevitables marched unerringly through. They sealed Qlippothic fissures, retrieved renegade fiends, and even challenged the most cunning celestials when divine edicts were subverted.
• Legacy of Enforcement
  In time, tales of these tireless hunters spread to fledgling worlds. Mortal lore would cast them as doom-bearers or grim angels, yet their true nature remains neither benevolent nor malicious—it is the face of law made flesh, a reminder that in the grand tapestry of the multiverse, no thread may slip free of its weave.

Emergence of the Asura

Born of Cosmic Strife

• Primal Origins
  In the same crucible that gave rise to demons, devils, angels, and aberrations, the Asura first coalesced as embodiments of restless ambition and boundless will. They sprang from the ruptures in the weft of creation—echoes of that first “thought” on the Astral Plane seeking to assert themselves against any imposed order.
• Kindred to Divine Rivals
  While the Celestials (Devas) stood as champions of harmony and light, the Asura answered with equal force in the name of change, challenge, and self-determination. Their emergence ushered in the first great rivalry of cosmic powers: not merely law against chaos, but order versus the right to upheaval.

Asura in the Eon Structure

• Eon XIV – Outsider Dawn
  The Asura appear alongside demons and devils, as part of the Infernal & Celestial Ascendancy phase. Though not bound to the hierarchies of Hell or Heaven, they carve out their own domains in the Outer Planes, swayed by neither pure law nor unbridled anarchy but by their personal codes of power and ambition.
• Eon XV – Birth of the Fey
  Some Asura, drawn by the Feywild’s raw creative energies, slip through to its edges—tasting its wonder and corruption alike—while others wage silent wars of influence among the Fey Courts.
• Eon XVI – The First Worlds
  In the shifting empires of proto-worlds, Asura lords sponsor great civilizations and then topple them when they grow too complacent, seeding the Material Plane with legends of dynasties founded and razed by their will.

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Asura Archetypes & Roles

• Titans of Challenge
  Unlike the rigid inevitables or the lawful devils, Asura are agents of trial. They incite heroes to greatness or doom, testing the mettle of gods and mortals alike.
• Masters of Ambition
  Each Asura embodies a facet of excess—pride, wrath, envy, or greed—yet can also be credited with drive, invention, and breakthrough. Their dual nature makes them both feared tyrants and sometimes-needed catalysts for change.
• Cosmic Balance-Breakers
  In the great symphony of law, chaos, and neutrality, Asura are the sharp dissonances that make resolution meaningful. They remind all beings—divine or mortal—that growth often demands struggle, and that ultimate stasis is itself a form of decay.

Eon XVII – Birth of the Fey

Eon XVII – Birth of the Fey
“A nexus of possibility birthed the Firstborn of Dream—proto-Fey whose capricious courts and dream-woven lands mirrored yet transcended the waking world.”

As the multiverse’s grand scaffolding solidified—Outer Planes set, Leylines drawn, Material Plane on the brink of manifestation—a companion realm of pure imagination and wonder took shape: the Feywild, the Plane of Dreams Made Flesh.​

Primordial Seeds of Fancy

Firstborn of Dream: When the Elder Gods first spun the Astral currents into thought-realms, a handful of their mightiest echoes drifted into a nexus of possibility. These “Firstborn of Dream” coalesced into proto-Fey, beings of boundless curiosity and caprice whose laughter sowed the seeds of whim and marvel.​

Mirror of the Material: Though its landscapes mirrored the emerging Material Plane in silhouette—shimmering forests, silver waters, moonlit glades—every element in the Feywild pulsed with living enchantment. A dew-drop might sing; a breeze might whisper forgotten secrets.​

Weaving the Realm of Enchantment

Bloom of Beauty & Terror: Under the guidance of the Firstborn, the Feywild’s land masses unfurled like waking dreams—fields of flowers that swayed in silent music and groves of moonlit mushrooms whose spores granted visions of other worlds. Yet in its deeper shadows lurked living nightmares: flowers that devoured memory, will-o’-wisps that led travelers into drowned cities.​

Court of the Fey Lords: From among the Firstborn rose the earliest Fey rulers—majestic, mercurial, and immortal:​

• Seelie Sovereigns, guardians of light and laughter, weaving boons for those they favored.​
• Unseelie Monarchs, stewards of shadow and upheaval, delighting in riddles and ruin.​

These Fey Lords forged courts—glittering cities hung from living branches, subterranean palaces of crystal and fungus—each a microcosm of the Dream Plane’s dual nature.​

The Highborn of Dream: Among these primordial beings were the Tuatha Dé Danann, radiant and enigmatic entities embodying the Feywild’s essence. Not yet deities in the mortal sense, they were the embodiment of the plane’s boundless creativity and caprice. Their presence would later inspire myriad legends across the multiverse, echoing as gods, heroes, or spirits in various mortal cultures.​

The Feywild’s Place in the Multiverse

Thresholds & Reflections: Hidden gateways—ancient archways of vine and stone—linked the Feywild to mortal worlds. A traveler’s step through such a portal might transform a simple glade into a realm of wonder, or a gentle brook into a roaring cascade of liquid moonlight.​

Wards & Watchers: To guard the balance between dream and reality, the Elder Gods entrusted Sentinel Archons and Wardens of Twilight, spirits born of dust and dusk, to patrol the borders—ensuring that Fey enchantments uplifted rather than corrupted.​

By the time the first dryads would one day dance in forest glens and the courts of High and Gloaming were whispered of in mortal legend, the Feywild stood fully grown—an ever-changing tapestry of wonder, a living testament to imagination’s power in a universe bound by law yet yearning for the spark of chaos.

Eon XVIII – Proto-Worlds

“Before Earth’s birth, countless experimental and fallen planets rose and died—cradles of aberrant empires, marching detritus, and stray seeds for later creation.”

In the deep interlude between the forging of the Material Frame and the shaping of our own world, reality’s architects—both Elder Gods and Primordial Titans—cast wide nets of possibility, fashioning myriad spheres from stardust and raw elemental essence. Some proto-worlds bloomed in vibrant life, their oceans teeming with voracious aberrations and their skies rung with the clash of elemental lords. Others were stillborn—cold husks drifting as silent testament to creation’s caprice.

• Experimental Cradles
  The Elder Gods seeded far-flung star systems with swirling nebulae, invoking sparks of life in forms strange and wondrous. On these worlds, early aboleth cities drifted beneath brine-choked tides, while mind-flayer progenitors tested psychic dominions over primitive mortals of living rock.
• Fallen Empires
  Across the void, titanic civilizations rose—crimson cities carved from basalt, floating in eternal storms; crystal spires sung by winds of pure arcane force. Yet arrogance invited ruin: cataclysmic wars with demon legions, or the assassinations wrought by their own lightning-forged golems, left these realms fractured into shattered rings of debris.
• March of the Detritus
  When a proto-world died—its sun extinguished or its core rambunctious—the remnants did not vanish. Enormous shards, like floating monoliths, carried ghostly echoes of those lost ages. Some became the bones of future asteroids, seeding meteor storms that bore elemental fire down onto nascent planets.
• Seeds for Later Creation
  Even in death, these worlds gave back. Their ruined cores, rich with impossible alloys and eldritch crystals, were harvested by cosmic elementals to forge the planetary building blocks of later ages. Dust from shattered moons coalesced into rings and belts; forgotten magics seeped into the Cosmic Leylines, awaiting the touch of a living world.

Thus, in this shadowed chapter of the multiverse, the stage was set: a cosmos tested through trial and error, its failures and triumphs alike woven into the tapestry that would one day yield Earth and all its wonder.

Eon XIX – Seeding the Material Plane

​“The Elder Gods poured raw cosmo-energies through the Leylines to sculpt the prime Material Plane—where matter would coalesce into continents, oceans, and sky.”​

In the aftermath of the Proto-Worlds’ rise and fall, the Elder Gods turned their focus to the creation of the Material Plane—a vast expanse intended to host myriad worlds teeming with life. Harnessing the intricate network of Leylines—mystic conduits of arcane energy that crisscross the cosmos—they channeled raw cosmo-energies to shape and stabilize this new plane. ​

The Weaving of Leylines

Leylines, often imperceptible to the untrained eye, are streams of magical energy that flow through the fabric of the universe. By directing these energies, the Elder Gods established the foundational structures of the Material Plane. These Leylines not only provided stability but also served as channels through which magic and life could proliferate.​

Formation of Habitable Worlds

Within the Material Plane, countless worlds began to form—each a unique blend of elements, energies, and potential. Some worlds developed rich ecosystems and diverse life forms, while others remained barren or evolved along entirely different paths. The diversity of these worlds reflects the boundless creativity and intent of the Elder Gods.​

Interconnected Realms

The Material Plane’s design allows for a complex interplay between its myriad worlds. Through the Leylines, energies and influences can traverse vast distances, linking distant realms in subtle ways. This interconnectedness ensures that no world exists in complete isolation, fostering a dynamic and ever-evolving multiverse.​

Thus, Eon XIX marks a pivotal moment in cosmic history—the deliberate crafting of a plane capable of sustaining an infinite tapestry of worlds, each with its own destiny, yet all woven into the grand design of the universe.