The Origin of the Species
The creation of the world that is (and the rest of the universe)
Before The Beginning there was Unity, the core element. All was Unity and Unity was all.
Then Unity split up into nine, and this was The Beginning. The nine were, and still are, the base elements: Life, Water, Lightning, Chaos, Void, Fire, Air, Time and Earth of which all we know is made.
Soon after The Beginning, the nine combined again to form The World That Is, the ancient gods, the void and possibly an unknown number of other worlds and universes. In each of these the elements mixed differently: The World That Is was a blend of all elements except for Void, of which it had none. In the Ancient Gods one element was always predominant, different for each god, but they had traces of all elements except for Life and Void (some scholars believe that there were once old gods that did have parts of Void but that these died off very fast). The Void was the only pure construction: it only contained Void and nothing else.
The first phase of Evolution: Creation
Each of these evolved separately and simultaneously, except for the Void which having no Time could not change.
The forming of The World That Is and the origin of the fey.
On The World That Is, the elements collided and combined to form mountains, seas, atmosphere and everything else a young planet needs. Life bloomed here in many forms: trees and plants sprang forth from the earth and animals evolved from tiny cells. Those things in which Life was strongest started to gain degrees of sentience. Those in which the sentience was strongest would later be called the fey.They sprang from all of nature and became ambassadors and guardians of their origin. So dryads were born as trees aged and grew more and more defined by their past, more sentient and aware. The Ur-Pixie was born out of living chaos, the zephyrs out of the whispering breeze.
The descent of the Ancient Gods
While the World That Is was in its cradle still, the Ancient Gods – lifeless but powerful – combined with Life to create sentient beings of great power: the new gods, the dragons and the elemental spirits (often called titans).
Some of the dragons chose the young World That Is as their home. Others, the larger and strongest ones, turned to the black skies and found a home there, like the celestial dragon Andromeda. The new gods did not then take a physical shape, but were still attracted to the young world and hovered closely, observing.
The second phase of Evolution: Destruction
Because there was no Void in the World That Is, life was eternal and soon there was little room left for new things to be created. The strongest of the fey then looked for places to go. Places where there still was room.
It was the Ur-Pixie which found it: A gateway to the Void. He opened it to his own destruction because the power of Void ripped him apart into many pieces and thus were born the pixies.
Void seeped into the World That Is and where it flowed things that were ceased to be. Void isn't death for death is simply the absence of life but Void is the great destructor. Without it no other element can cease to be. Therefore in a way Void is entropy, and death, and the quenching of the flame. By the seeping of Void into Life was created the cycle of life, it is the origin of mortality.
It was the new gods, with the aid of the dragons and the fey who sealed the rift and closed the World That Is to the void once more, but already the damage was done: Void was as much a part of the world now as the other eight elements.
Though the fey and gods were largely unscathed, the dragons were not so lucky and ever since they have carried Void with them. However through their strength they can keep it separate and while they can be killed, they will not die of age.
The third phase of Evolution: The coming of the elves
Not even the combined power of the dragons, fey and gods could fully destroy the link between the World That Is and the Void and even now it lingers: leaking elements in both directions. The fey soon found that they could travel this link and in the void be nothing and everything at once. At this time a change came over the fey. As those things that had given birth to them died off many of the fey became detached. Dryads wandered the world in confusion as their trees withered and died so too did the spirits of ancient animals. Many of those fey eventually combined into greater fey, fey that did not represent one specific part of nature but rather an aspect of it. So was born the Lady of the forest, who humans call Morgane, and others like her.
Because new life was now born constantly, many new fey came to be. These new fey had not the same link to the void as teh older ones and the longer after the opening of the gate they were created, the harder it was for them to enter it. Then there came to be a time when the newest fey could barely cross the link at all and the last of these were what are now known as the elves. They crossed the link into the Void but found it not to their liking. However, when they returned, they took part of the Void back with them.They were the first fey to become mortal and after the dragons the first sentient beings to know death.
The fourth phase of Evolution: The rise of men and the later races
Through the cycle of life, the elves evolved much faster than their peers and they soon became estranged from the spirit world. They grew more sentient and more independent than any others. The gods observed and were curious, for the elves could reproduce themselves and create new life, new beings, something the gods had hitherto not succeeded in.
Some gods then combined forces and out of the elements molded a creation of their own: a human. They formed it after the elves but as they were not fey their power over life was less strong and humans lived lives much shorter than elves. Because of this they changed much faster than their counterparts and quickly became more flexible, more creative and more numerous.
Others watched the experiment with interest and more races were wrought. However few others succeeded in the creation of life from base elements and most opted instead to combine. Thus the stone titans combined themselves with the life-giving fey to create dwarves and trolls while dragons mixed fey and humans to create the diminutive but impressively intelligent gnomes.
The fifth phase of Evolution: The spirits
So strong was life now in the independent races that even their ideas started becoming sentient. Much how the fey had evolved from high concentrations of life in nature, so did now other spirits evolve from the emotions and dreams of the sentients. The furies; Spirits of anger. Morpheus; Keeper of the dreams. These are just two examples of the often short-lived byproducts of life itself.
And still the world evolves. What will come next, no one knows.