A Dream Begun

It began with the stirring of a great mind, a consciousness so ancient and vast that it predated all. In the void, there was nothing but a great Wyrm named Ophyxia, and her profound loneliness. For an age, she drifted in the endless black, a divine being with no world to call her own. In her unbearable solitude, a deep yearning took hold, and she began to dream.

She dreamt a world into being, a magnificent continent woven from the very fabric of her slumbering mind. It was a land of staggering contrasts, a reflection of the Wyrm's thoughts. The great mountain range that runs through the world, The Dragon's Spine, rose from her own slumbering body, her unyielding backbone becoming the rock and her silent heart the molten core. The deserts of the east, The Cinder Wastes, were born of her restless exhalations, and the most treacherous part, The Dragon's Breath, was a part of her spirit that burned with a fierce, untamed fire. To the south, her most peaceful and gentle dreams blossomed into The Verdant Cradle, a jungle overflowing with life, while her darkest and most primal fears became The Shadowfang Jungle, a land of relentless peril.

But the greatest part of her dream was life itself. From the depths of the jungle, her thoughts took form, and she dreamt the First Children into existence: the stoic Loxodon, the powerful Gorillafolk, the swift Tabaxi, and the proud Leonin. They were not made by her hands, but born of her consciousness, bound to the land in a way no others could be. They understood their sacred purpose was to live in harmony with her dream and not to conquer it. They followed The Dreaming Path, a sacred way of being that taught them that every river, stone, and creature was a part of her spirit.

The legend holds that if the Great Wyrm Ophyxia were to ever fully awaken, the dream would end. The world of Wyrmgath would unravel, dissolving back into the void from which it came. The native peoples walk in fear of this possibility, for they see the encroaching settlers of Aeridoran Vael and their vicious ruler @ Aerionna Vaelenor not just as invaders, but as a terrible omen—a people who would scar the living land with steel and stone, whose rigid ways and profane gods risk disturbing the slumber of the Mother and bringing about the end of all things.