The First Story

Among all known traditions concerning the origin of existence, none is more widely accepted than the account of the First Story.

Although its details differ across cultures and civilizations, nearly every recorded mythology describes a primordial state in which all of creation existed as a single, unified whole. Mountains and oceans, life and death, memory and dream, every world, every possibility, and every future had yet to become distinct from one another. All were said to exist within what later generations would come to call the First Story.

Whether the First Story was written, spoken, sung, dreamed, or simply existed beyond such distinctions remains unknown. The name itself is understood to be an imperfect translation, adopted by later scholars to describe a reality for which no surviving language possesses an adequate word.

Unlike the worlds that followed, the First Story knew neither separation nor distance. Time, as it is presently understood, had not yet emerged. Nor had the countless boundaries that would one day divide the Realms. All things existed together, not as separate parts, but as expressions of a single, indivisible existence.

At some point beyond the reach of recorded history, the First Story underwent an event now known as the Fracture.

The nature of the Fracture remains one of the greatest mysteries in all cosmological study. Some traditions describe it as an act of creation. Others as a necessary transformation. Still others insist it was the result of an irreparable wound inflicted upon the First Story itself. No evidence has conclusively favored one interpretation over another.

Despite these disagreements, nearly every account agrees upon one essential truth.

The First Story did not cease to exist.

It became many.

Much like light passing through a prism reveals colors that were always present within it, the First Story separated into countless fragments, each carrying some measure of the whole while remaining incomplete on its own. From these fragments emerged the first Realms, each possessing its own laws, histories, peoples, and possibilities.

Some fragments became worlds.

Others became dreams, memories, ideas, or places that exist beyond ordinary understanding.

Many are believed to remain undiscovered.

Though divided by the Fracture, the fragments were never wholly severed from one another. Invisible bonds continued to unite them, preserving relationships that neither distance nor time could erase. Later generations would come to describe these connections as the Threads of the Great Weave, though whether the Threads originated with the Fracture or predated it remains a subject of ongoing debate.

From these fragments, all known creation emerged.

Every Realm is understood to descend, directly or indirectly, from the First Story, and every living being is believed to carry within them some immeasurably small reflection of that original whole.

Whether the First Story still exists in some hidden form, whether it can ever be restored, or whether the Fracture was intended from the beginning are questions that have shaped theology, philosophy, and exploration since the earliest recorded age.

To this day, no answer has been universally accepted.