[B][I]The fifth of October,
Four hundred and seven years since the resurrection of Lucius,
Three hundred and forty-nine years since the founding of our Holy Church,
In the ninth year of the reign of His Majesty, King Manus Dei;[/I][/B]

In the Beginning;

[B]The Longing [/B]
[B][I]The First Difference[/I][/B]
In the beginning there was only chaos, an endless Abyss. It was not light or dark, hot or cold, It did not rise or sink, for there was nothing apart from anything else, but instead all was one, and that one was everything, and as nothing, for there was no difference in place or time. But the nothing could not remain nothing. All that might be or that never would be formed and unformed without any eyes to see, without any extent, and without any duration. From this ceaseless unceasing and then ceasing again, a longing was born, and the longing stirred the chaos, and what was light moved away from all else, and became the first difference: different from what moved together and sank to itself. Thus there was up, and there was down, and the very lightest of things, the highest up, came to be the Heavens over all.

[B]The Brothers[/B]
[B][I]The Second Difference[/I][/B]
From the Heavens two brothers were born. Though they had neither mother nor father, they were kin to each other; though they were kin to each other, they were very different, and that was the second difference there ever was.

[B]Umbra[/B]
One was born with a cruel heart and a desire for malice: Umbra. The lesser brother; skulking; sneaking. He was untouched, though his Brother would have embraced him; he was also unknown, though his Brother would have liked to know and to cherish him. He was darkness, and he was where and what his Brother was not. His heart and hands were cold, and knew without being taught how to break and mar things.

[B]Soldeus[/B]
The other was born with a desire to do good: Soldeus. Radiant; shining; glorious. He was the greater of the two, and He beheld all things. He, too, was what His brother was not. His desire was to touch all things, and to protect and to cherish them, and so His Hands and Heart formed, and were warm, and had the power to create and to mend.

For countless ages the two brothers lived in the heavens, always one where the other was not, growing further apart in their hearts and longings.

[B]Nave [/B]
[B][I]The Third Difference[/I][/B]
One day the third of all differences appeared, in the form of the Most Beautiful Goddess: Nave, full of joy, broad-bosomed and fair in all things. Though small and new, She enjoyed sculpting Her own Nature and Substance into mountains and canyons, lakes and rivers and seas, trees and grass and all such things. Upon Herself in the sight of the Gods She practiced her art, expressing many of the forms that before had only gone unseen in the Abyss. The brothers were each aroused by a similar desire, to do to Her the very same as She did to herself, and they competed for Her Hand.

[B]Pride & Perversion; Fear & Loathing; Lust & Contempt[/B]
Umbra, whose heart was cold, pridefully displayed to Her his ideas, which he considered superior to Hers. His dark and demented creations-- and his perversions of Her ideas, as She brought them forth-- he paraded in front of Her, enjoying Her repulsion and, most of all, Her fear, which was the first in all the universe. He looked forward to having power over Her against her will, to having possession of Her, and perhaps more than anything to hiding Her from his brother forever.

[B]Appreciation & Generosity; Art & Music; Joy & Love[/B]
Soldeus, showing Her appreciation and warmth, humbly offered Her great wonders, great pieces of art and music and other things too splendid to tell, for Her enjoyment as well as His own; and, His own power in the service of Her desires; thus, He fairly won her Heart, and They announced Their love to Umbra.

[B]Fury & Jealousy; Envy & Hatred; Theft & Murder[/B]
Umbra, bested and scorned, then created the saddest difference in all the Universe: he changed life into death. He slew Nave in a fit of jealous rage and cast her body out of the Heavens. Thus, he marred himself forever, beyond any power to mend.

[B]Grief & Mourning; Loneliness & Sorrow[/B]
Soldeus was overcome with grief, but still loving His brother left the Heavens in exile, being unable to face him.

[B]Mockery & Desecration; Corruption & Shadow[/B]
Umbra, in his bitterness and hatred, made a mockery of Nave’s fallen body. Upon her corpse he sculptured and twisted dark forms of life and surrounded Nave in an encasing Shadow. He continued to desecrate and corrupt the beauty of Nave.

[B]Forgiveness & Righteous Wrath; Crime & Punishment[/B]
Time passed and Soldeus missed His home amongst the Heavens. He came to long to forgive His brother. He returned home, only to see the evil desecration His brother had committed, and was filled with great and righteous wrath. Determined to punish Umbra, He attacked His brother who, being cowardly, sent forth his creations as an army against Soldeus. The creatures of Umbra could not stand against the blazing Light of Soldeus, Who slew foe after foe. After He had thus defeated thousands of His enemies, His dark brother leapt forth from the Shade and gravely wounded Soldeus.

[B]War & Victory; The Stars & The Seventh Day; Mercy & Banishment[/B]
Both brothers now turned upon each other and the very Heavens shook from their fury. They did battle for six days and, as they fought and tore at each other, the sky became filled with glistening stars amid darkness-- their blood and flesh, gleaming or lightless, scattering throughout and painting the Void. On the seventh day Soldeus was victorious. Moved by mercy, He was unable to slay His brother, and instead threw him down, banishing him from His sight forevermore.

[B]Hope & Healing[/B]
Soldeus, overcome with sadness, approached the body of Nave; as He did, He saw that the pall of Shadow around her dissipated before His radiant Light and that wherever He shone upon Her flesh the evil work of His brother came undone. The nature that She had sculpted out of love was healed, and the Great One knew a measure of Content.

[B]Nurture & Night[/B]
Soldeus would now come every day and gaze upon His fallen love,
looking at her from head to toe to nourish and nurture what She had created with His radiant Light. The wound from the great battle never fully healed, and at times He would have to return to the Heavens to rest. Ever would Umbra skulk in the Shadows and return to Nave to continue his bitter efforts whenever his Brother had left.

[B]Man & Woman; Mind of Body & Spark of Soul[/B]
Turning His love for art and creation to the body of Nave, Soldeus
began to make creatures and animals to live upon its beauty. His greatest creation was that of sentient life; of man and woman, drawn to each other as He and Nave had been, in each of whom He created a Spark of His radiant Light, to warm and illuminate them from within.

[B]Deception & Temptation; False Promises & The Pain of the Good God[/B]
Umbra, spying from the Shadows, saw how much Soldeus loved His creations and set about to corrupt them. Consulting and mirroring his own foul heart, and using subterfuge, he corrupted a man and seduced him into killing his brother with offers of power and false promises of eternal life. Soldeus felt the pain as if it was His own, and knew then that Umbra would continue to haunt the Universe, attacking creation and defiling Nave whenever he was granted a chance.

[B]The Lesser-Gods; The Pantheon; The Angels & The Prophets[/B]
Soldeus created lesser-gods and appointed them each to watch over Nave. He constructed the Pantheon where He ruled over the Heavens and Nave as King of the Gods. He created Angels as defenders of His realm and sent forth prophets to offer guidance to Man.

[B]To Guide & Warn; Splendour & Content, or Ruin & Terror Unending[/B]
These prophets came to teach the people of Soldeus, to guide them in developing and to warn them about the evil ways of Umbra. But not all heeded these lessons and the corruption of Umbra continued. Those who strayed from the Teachings or broke the righteous law of man would corrupt the Spark within themselves and would not be able to rejoin Soldeus in His Splendour and Content in Heaven when their mortal bodies failed and their substance returned to Nave. Instead, their defiled sparks would be forced to wander the Shadow of the Abyss alongside Umbra, to endure the unending terror he loved to inflict, or to fall in cinders and ruin.