Proto-History

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In the beginning, before time and matter coalesced, the cosmos was a formless void known as the Primordial Abyss. From the Abyss emerged the Eldritch Forces, vast, ineffable beings that shaped the planes of existence through their wills. These forces were not beings in the sense mortals understand; rather, they were embodiments of concepts—chaos, order, light, darkness, time, and oblivion.

Over aeons, as these forces waged cosmic wars and performed acts of creation, they inadvertently gave birth to the first gods. The gods arose as sentient beings capable of guiding the universe's growth and balance. These gods banded together, seeing themselves as guardians of the multiverse, and created the Great Weave, a metaphysical network that unified the planes and governed reality. Life, death, magic, and time all flowed through the Weave, each bound to its rules.

However, the Weave did not exist unchallenged. A shadow of the Primordial Abyss lingered in the form of Oblivion, a remnant of the original void that sought to consume all that the gods had woven. The gods needed a custodian for this aspect of the universe—someone to oversee death and ensure that Oblivion did not claim too much, and that the balance between life, death, and the afterlife was maintained. Durnstang, originally a god of death, decay, and the orderly passage from life to afterlife, was given this role. He became the Lord of the Dead, a neutral figure who managed the flow of souls between planes.