Age of Blood

The Age of Blood was the era after the Creation of the World, in which the blood shed by the primordial being Vitaia resulted in the birth of thousands of gods who ended up warring violently with one another in what the humans would give names to such as "The World at War", "Age of Calamity", "Bloodtide", "The Divine Reckoning" amongst other such titles.

Genesis of the Gods
Due to the calamitous clash between Vitaia and Kaelum during the creation of the world, the land of Mythe was stained with blood and flakes of skin of the primordial being. After Vitaia scattered the remains of Kaelum back to the sky, she retreated beneath the sea, never to be seen again, and the world was bereft of life once more. However, after untold ages, the blood drops would slowly shift and coagulate, the life-giving capabilities of the World Mother persisting even after her departure. The begins that rose and formed out of these droplets of blood would soon gain sentience, as well as the memory of their mother and awareness of all that occurred before their forming.

The number of these gods were vastly numerous, thousands upon thousands of them sprouting out across the entire land of Mythe. No two god looked exactly alike, many of them resembling the humanoid upper half of their mother, though some walked with two legs, some with four instead of a serpentine tail. The gods all got along quite amicably, their shared memory of their mother and her trials being a common link between all of them. During this time, they would each test out their own powers of creation, shaping life out of the earth, sky, or water, so that wondrous and fantastical beasts soon roamed the land freely, in the care of their patron god. However, this peace would come to a pass upon the action of two closely linked gods.

Kaine and Abelle
Though no two gods looked exactly alike, there were several that would bear such close similarities to one another that they were seen as "twins", though all gods considered themselves brothers and sisters of one another. One pair of these twins would end up shaping history with their actions. Kaine and Abelle were seen as two of the most beautiful gods in the world, with many a god seeking them in courtship. However, while both were fair to gaze upon, Abelle was kind and polite to all of her suitors, while Kaine was cold and standoffish. This in turn meant that there were far more suitors for Abelle than Kaine - which did not perturb the latter.

Kaine only ever had eyes for one particular suitor, whose name has now been lost to time. This nameless suitor would also return the affection towards Kaine, and the two of them had a deep and fulfilling relationship. Abelle would see her twin being so happy in love, while she on the other hand just had nonstop suitors which fail to appease her, and jealousy would ferment in Abelle's heart. Bending her considerable charm towards Kaine's nameless suitor, Abelle would strive to take the suitor for herself. However, the love between Kaine and the suitor was impenetrable, and Abelle would find that for once in her life, another were to refuse her advances.

Driven by petty rage, Abelle would eventually attain her wish by masquerading as Kaine, tricking the suitor and taking them for herself. However, Kaine returned to see her beloved and her sister entwined together, and in an act of furious rage would smite down her sister, forever being immortalized as the first god to murder another. The ramifications of this action would be catastrophic - for the moment that Abelle's last breath left her, every single god on Mythe would feel themselves become marginally stronger, and more whole. This alerted every god to a terrible truth - the less gods there were, the more powerful the remaining ones become, and this would herald the beginning of the Age of Blood.

Birth of Man
With this newfound information, gods began to fight and murder one another almost instantly over night. In the first day after Abelle's death, half of the existing gods were slain by their compatriots, all of their essences being used to bolster the remaining, living ones. With this newfound power, the existing gods began to create more of their mystical beasts, using them as soldiers to wage war upon another. Many a god would be slain not by the hands of a sibling, but at the claws or fangs of their minions instead. However, as gods fell left and right, they were all too caught up in their affair to notice another matter of grave import. The flakes of skin leftover from Vitaia and Kaelum's climatic battle would begin to grow and change. These flakes outnumbered the gods ten thousand to one at the least, and they would soon become sentient beings much like the blood from which the gods were born from.

These new beings were much weaker than their predecessors, possessing none of the might or ability to mold life out of the earth, or other such intense powers. However, they have one ability that was a marked difference - the ability to reproduce naturally with one another. Gods were never able to create or give birth to another, this distinction being a reason why they grow stronger collectively with each subsequent loss of their kin. Another major difference is the lack of immortality amongst these new mortals. A god could only die if slain violently - they do not age and do not get sick, yet the new mortals do. Finally, these mortals possess the same memory as their predecessors of the World Mother and the creation of the land they are on, but with each subsequent generation, that memory becomes fuzzier and faded, with only a rare few still possessing the memories (and becoming what is now known modernly as the priest caste).

While the birth of these mortals slipped past the eye of the warring gods, soon enough they began to gather together in bands to hunt and protect one another, even beginning to develop tools to fight and slay those of the god's servants which saw the mortals as food or playthings. This would soon garner the attention of one of the more prolific gods, a mighty being who has slain and taken down many of his compatriots in singular combat while their minions clash. Elweh, who in current times is titled "the Almighty", was the first of his kindred to notice these particular mortals, and would give them the name of "humans".

The Promised Land
Elweh, while recovering from a battle with two of his kin whose names have been lost to time, decided to observe these humans in depth. Utilizing one of his godly powers, his All-Seeing Eye, Elweh could observe all in the world of Mythe simultaneously barring areas under another god's influence. With this Eye, Elweh observed the ingenuity of the humans, of their mortal, fleeting lives, and how they slowly began to adapt and learn to fight against the myriad of minions of the gods roaming the land, many bereft of a master as their patron god was slain ages ago. Realizing there were great many hidden war potentials in these humans, Elweh finally made himself known to the largest band of humans available.

On the human's part, they have always been aware of the gods and their war (for how can one miss a titanic clash that would shake mountains and level forests), but this was the first time one of them had deigned to speak to them, or even acknowledge them as more than mere ants (and in some god's case, dismissed as minions of a rival god). Knowing instinctively that this was a being above them, the humans immediately prostrated themselves before this great being that could crush them with contemptuous ease. Elweh, realizing that the human bands often hunt for food, water, or shelter, used a hefty portion of his considerable power to create a land that would provide all the humans would desire. Elweh diverted a mighty river to flow through this new land and providing nourishment, while raising mighty cliff faces with caves in their sides to protect the humans from storm and snow. Animals would be ushered into this new land to provide bounteous game for the humans, ensuring they would never run out of food nor drink.

The humans were overwhelmed by what they perceive as generosity from this mighty being, and began worshipping him in thanks for providing for them. Elweh then saw opportunity, as while warping the land like this drained him considerably, the amount of willing soldiers to be generated from the humans far outstrips the cost of constantly creation and replenishing his personal minions (which he dubbed the Celestial Host). He told the humans that this was his gift to them, their "Promised Land". However, this land would exist as long as he remained, and there are many other gods who would seek to take his life and this land for their own. The humans then swore to fight for their new lord and land, and started preparing to war for their god. Elweh saw it was good, smiled, and would soon unleash his new human army upon his fellow gods.

Of Gods and Men
Elweh would soon unleash his new human army upon one of his rivals, using them as fodder to fight against that god's minions, while he would then swoop in with his Celestial Host to easily overwhelm the rival god. This tactic would prove to be extremely effective, as for eons gods have always pitted their minions against one another, before engaging in battle with one another while their hosts were engaged. Elweh had little care for the humans fighting for him beyond as a disposable army, and when their numbers would dwindle too much for the Almighty's campaign requirements, he would go out and approach other human bands, leading them to the Promised Land, or creating a new area for them if they were too far, this way keeping up the numbers of his men.

Of course, Elweh's new strategy would not go unnoticed by other gods, and they too soon began to pick up on this method. The gods began recruiting humans enmasse, bringing them into the conflict and escalating the warfare to untold amounts as blood of gods, beasts and humans began to drench the continents of Mythe. The amount of casualties among the humans reached staggering heights, and if the conflict continued to proceed at its current pace, total extinction of humanity would have been an absolute certainty. However, complete annihilation was averted (though not by deliberate intent) through the actions of Anlil, one of many gods who wielded the power of the heavens akin to Kaelum. After defeating a rival god, the latter pleaded for mercy, and Anlil, for the first time in the Age of Blood, spared his opponent, Nammuras, on the condition that she swear fealty to him. Having no other choice, Nammuras bent the knee in obeisance, and in doing so would bring about change that the gods had not seen since Kaine's murder of Abelle.

A Tentative Peace
When Nammuras swore to serve Anlil, every god felt the customary surge of power attained from the loss of one of their kin... Except without the actual loss of said kin. This realization would affect each god differently - some would despair at the blood they have already shed in their pursuit of power, when they could have just went for alliance. Some would see this as an opportunity to attain the power they so crave, without running the risk of losing their immortal lives in the process. Others wouldn't even care, having fallen so in love with the carnage and devastation wrought by their hands that they would continue to murder their siblings. However, the latter would be in the minority, and many of them end up being crushed by the other, alliance-building gods, for unbeknownst to the warmongers, the heads of the pantheon (the name upon which the gods took to calling their alliances) would gain the power of all of their subordinates combined, while said subordinates retain the strength they would have had while free.

This meant that even the most powerful of gods were required to build such a pantheon, and those who were too slow or late to do so would either have to choose to humble themselves and submit to a more powerful god, or stick with their pride and cease to exist - violently. Nonetheless, violence between gods began to taper off dramatically, many gods opting to throw in their lot with nearby pantheons to survive. Through this time of peace, humanity no longer needed to war, and could concentrate upon other pursuits, leading to the rise of man's prominence.