The Ancient Gods Awoke

Oshanal has always been a place of powerful spiritual and magical strength. Long before the current age, it was known as the world of gates – this was due to the fact that in so many places, the membrane had worn thin between the material world and the spirit realms beyond. In ancient graves, ghosts dwelled; in the thickest hedges of the great forests, beast spirits walked; in volcanoes, elementals bathed.

So familiar were Oshanalians with the idea of other realms that they discovered several borderline sciences related to the arts of interacting with the metaphysical. One of these arts, the art of summoning, began with an earnest effort to catalog the archetypical True Name of magical things. Access to a True Name could only come with a certain level of understanding of a thing, and having access to these names would allow a summoner to then call that spirit or influence that archetype.

Summoners were, overall, very well esteemed for most of Oshanalian history. They were scholars of the many spiritual laws, historians of the metaphysical roots of eternity, and wayfinders of the gates and the many spiritual realms. Most importantly, though, they were a proven path to power, as the True Names a summoner would collect could give them limited powers of control over spirits of considerable power. Obtaining a contract or pact with such a spirit, for a lease on its True name, would give the summoner access to its incredible strength.

It was not long before most monarchs and conquerers were, in some capacity or another, trained in the arts of summoning. Each would have an extensive lexica of powerful True Names, sometimes cultivated across centuries or milennia until it represented a formidable arsenal of magical power. This culminated at the end of the last age with an imperial dynasty, led by a powerful summoner named Marimneros, the Summoner King.

A rigid and charismatic demagogue, Marimneros presided for nearly five centuries as the Emperor of the Eruvenian Empire. His reign was marked by endless war and the near eradication of many of the "impure" peoples. In this case, purity was a scale defined solely by Marimneros and his lieutenants; this definition varied based on convenience and had no genuine internal consistency. The whims of this maniac emperor terrorized the world, enforced both by the dynasties he presided over, and the terrible magics he commanded.

Inevitably, revolutions took form and were stomped out time and time again. Eventually, however, one took hold: over decades, it grew into an inescapable opponent that even proud Marimneros had to acknowledge as a legitimate danger. This conflict began an arms race, and at the forefront of this race was the Summoner King's favorite tool: the summoning of greater and greater gods to do devastating magical war by proxy.

So began a quest, fueled by Marimneros' endless hubris, for the final, most devastating summons of all: the legendary forgotten names of the First Gods.

The legend went something like this: in the earliest days of the Cosm, the universe was but one egg in a basket of endless eggs, each their own, distinct universe with its own laws of physics and metaphysics. These were the First Gods, creatures so vast that within them were contained entire truths of reality undiscovered. To invoke the True Name of a First God was, according to Marimneros, to gain control over not just truth which was, but the ability to create and reshape truth itself.

Marimneros began his quest in the heart of peace-talks with his opposition, where he learned about the existence of paladins of the First Gods', and their ancient crypts. Harvesting this knowledge and formally resuming war on the rebellion against his empire, Marimneros followed a thread of clues for a decade or more.

The war did not go well, particularly with Marimneros distracted by his quest. His pride would not waver, but his forces began to. Each loss amplified his desperation, but he persisted.

At last, the day arrived: the Summoner King had assembled the litany of True Names in a splendid new lexicon, which he named the Writ of the Great Conjunction. He posited that invoking the names was not enough to call being so vast, so old. You could only call them on significant moments, where the planes had aligned and the membrane between eternities had thinned just so.

This exact day made for a wonderful target for the rebellion. A great battle ensued as Marimneros began the ceremony; it was spectacular, a truly legendary struggle. Unfortunately, Marimneros was strained, but not thwarted: after hours of bitter conflict, Marimneros, glittering with the splendor of his summoned celestial raiment, at last uttered the names of the First Gods.

They awoke.