(Note: The contents of this page are not explicitly IC knowledge. No human, not even the most accomplished of mages, knows how the universe began or exactly how the world came to be. However, some hints of this fundamental truth are known and have shaped people's beliefs, which is why this has been posted.)
In the beginning, the universe was nothing more than energy. Clouds of power, floating in an infinite abyss. Over some immeasurable time, this energy collected and coalesced, forming entities without mass but self-aware nonetheless. In other places, where the energy ran thin, smaller nodes compacted into cold, hard spheres, lifeless and motionless lumps.
As the entities roamed, speaking with one another and exploring the expanse, they came across those cold, dead orbs and wondered. Is this what they used to be? Is this something new and different? Is it what they will become? Some stopped to contemplate the mysterious objects. Others laughed at their brethren and continued on, seeking the far reaches of the universe.
Those who remained long enough realized the peculiar orbs soaked up their power — not the energy by which they lived, but what the entities gave off as a matter of course. And they stayed longer still, studying this revelation. Given that energy, the spheres began to change — life apparently being contagious. They gained warmth and activity, life without intelligence, to the wonder of the entity that looked after each.
When the wanderers returned, in their own time, they were proud at having seen the distant edge of the cosmos, smug in the knowledge their kin lacked. But their return was not what they had expected, for the marvels of the many different living spheres, the diversity and complexity of their world-bound life, was at least as impressive as anything they had encountered. Cold and bitter, the wanderers continued to roam, thinking dark thoughts about what they didn't have.
Eventually, they gathered their anger and began to attack the protectors of the worlds they coveted, seeking to steal the treasures away from those who had shown them up. A few succeeded at first, and the other entities watched those worlds turn dark and cruel under the thieves' influence. Against that possibility for their own worlds, they chose the most adaptable inhabitants and actively changed them, laying the foundations of both intelligence and magic — both of which would be necessary for them to stand against any of the older powers.
That conflict continues to this day, and perhaps will never end — suns seeking to protect their worlds, comets to wrench control away, and the people of each world serving as a last-ditch defense at need.
