The awareness of the empty Universe. The beginning of everything; the alpha and the omega. Through her, we are.

Loneliness is a hell of a drug.

overview

The Motherlight's firstborn, given life by splitting off a piece of her consciousness and giving each Eldest a Name to anchor it. Born before the establishment of the Timeline, it's impossible to nail down how long their golden age of reign lasted or what order events occurred in. Each Eldest is distinct from the others, with its own personality and form, but their minds operate as a massive network with one another, and all are beholden to the Motherlight's whim. That said, she wasn't particularly demanding; she only wished to enjoy their company, and in time, they went to work filling the Universe to further entertain her.

The stars came first, deeply magical and brilliant and beautiful, and then great veins bursting with magic that could spontaneously birth more of them. Various baubles and trinkets followed, vastly powerful in function but treated as little more than novelties. The Motherlight really sat up to pay attention when her Eldest made children of their own, dubbed the Gods, and paraded them around to amuse the Motherlight and themselves.

The only massive wrench in this arrangement was that the Eldest made their children live by splitting off bits of their own Motherlight pieces to give to them, also anchored to a Name. This linked Eldest and the Gods they created together inextricably, generating deep compulsions in the Gods to be near and obey their parents or, in absence of them, the Motherlight. Initially, it wasn't much of an issue. The Gods stuck close and the Eldest preferred them nearby anyway, so everyone forgot it was something to deal with in the first place.

Memory of it returned in a real hurry when the Motherlight suddenly disappeared and the entire Universe went into a meltdown of wanting to be near a being that appeared to no longer exist. The Eldest were frantic in their search for her, until the Call echoed through empty space that summoned every Eldest to what would later be named the Heart of the Universe by the grief-stricken Gods. The Eldest answered her immediately and for reasons unknown, left their children behind. Suddenly, every single one of the Gods was harnessed with a deep longing they couldn't ease, and the search for the Heart of the Universe began.

Biology

• The Eldest take any shape imaginable, and many that aren’t.

• Don’t appear to reproduce, as the Gods don’t remember any more coming into creation.

• All they need to subsist on is their piece of the Motherlight.

skills

• Able to generate magic at will in unlimited amounts and shape it as they please.

• Created the stars, magic veins, artifacts, and Gods

Trivia

• An Eldest doesn’t ever disobey the Motherlight. The Gods aren’t sure if their creators even have the capability to refuse her.

overview

Beloved children of the Eldest, they've been given life through pieces of the Motherlight split from those of their parents with a Name as an anchor. They're considerably less powerful with only a fraction of the Motherlight involved in their creation, but still plenty strong enough to create wonders and wreak havoc, which the Eldest found rather charming. Their births took place before the Timeline was established, so not even the Gods know who the oldest is and thus base their "ages" on power levels, of which Death found himself the unfortunate winner. Plagued with little except, on regular occasion, each other, they enjoyed a harmonious, beautiful, uncomplicated existence.

Then the Eldest were called to the Heart of the Universe.

Suddenly, the Gods found themselves abandoned with deep, aching compulsions to be near parents that were hopelessly out of reach. They drifted around aimlessly, wallowing in the remains of their upended lives, until some of the most prominent Gods decided that enough was enough and that they needed to Do Something. Ideas and plans were bandied about on how to make the Eldest return to the Universe, in which it was decided that they would continue their mission to fill the Universe with life, using the abundant magic and various artifacts their parents left behind. Thus, the first Soulbound were born.

Social

They all more or less love each other, but their minds aren't connected to one another as the Eldest are, so individuality is valued. Left to their own devices, their personalities are as varied as any Soulbound, and disagreements and fights are common. Death is tired of mediating these conflicts, but he's the only one who can reliably bully his siblings out of laying waste to huge swathes of the Universe when they're in a temper, so most disagreements are the equivalent of hushed, angry whispers out of Death's earshot.

Humanoid physical designs are fairly common and honestly, fairly coveted. Many Gods who weren't blessed with this shape have draped enough magic over themselves to fool even the Motherlight into thinking they were made that way, though all the magic in the Universe doesn't increase their magical potential despite the appearance change. Death abhors this vain use of a resource that's abundant but ultimately limited, but given that he's humanoid himself and doesn't know what it's like to be anything else, his siblings rail against any attempt to squash the practice.

"Etiquette" is perhaps a strong word for the interplay between the Gods, but it's generally agreed that they won't go around destroying each other's planets or leave each other high and dry when the Deepdark comes calling. Beyond that, pleasantries end, and attempts to be polite are regarded with the suspicion they're due.

They regard the Eldest with a grudging sort of love they can't escape tempered with bitter resentment, and deeply love the Soulbound and do what they can to help them survive.

biology

• Much like their parents, the Gods take on a vast variety of shapes, though a startling amount of them are humanoid to mimic the Motherlight. It's also suspected that humanoid physical forms have the greatest potential for harnessing magical power, as the overwhelming majority of the strongest Gods take the shape, but nobody really knows for sure.

• When the Eldest disappeared, the population growth of the Gods came to an abrupt halt. Any attempts to make more Gods have been resounding failures, so the elder siblings have forbidden this dead end of creation and make sure the rest of the bunch are only releasing more Soulbound into the Universe.

• Like their parents, they subsist on the fragments of the Motherlight granted to them by the Eldest.

skills

• They can't create magic the way their parents can, but there's so much of it lying around that they hardly need to. They're able to shape it at will to do whatever they please.

• Their major creations revolve almost entirely around building Soulbound, though they're very deft at utilizing the resources available to them left over by the Eldest.

• Appear to speak one common language, though shaky alliances and other close-knit groups of Gods have been known to develop their own languages on the fly to lock others out of the discussion. Petty, but there you have it.

trivia

• They can't touch their creators in terms of raw knowledge, but they sure do beat out any Soulbound from the sheer amount of experience they've gathered. Less powerful/younger Gods retain their experiences somewhat imperfectly, so they appear to be "dumber," but despite the elder siblings' doubts, they're perfectly capable of learning and growing over time.

• The only event they have that could be argued flowed with some kind of time cycle was when the Eldest were called away. They were there, and suddenly they weren't, in any time, in any dimension, in any plane. Not long after, Entropy reared its ugly head and began making life as miserable for the Gods as it could, and the Gods retaliated by locking it away, inflicting the Timeline on its creations, and ruthlessly crushing any signs of the Deepdark's corruption to be found in the Universe. Unfortunately, their inability to actually create more magic means they can't replace what was lost, so they fiercely protect what they have left and hope they can bring the Eldest back before the Universe is too far gone to save.

overview

Finally, we come to the Soulbound, the countless children of the Gods, intended to catch the attentions of the Motherlight and the Eldest through sheer volume. Before anyone started building, however, it was decided that Soulbound would only have Names, without pieces of the Motherlight to sustain them and thus not tying them so painfully to the Gods.

First attempts were not particularly elegant or nuanced. In fact, the first Soulbound didn't really do much at all. Without pieces of the Motherlight giving them consciousness, they were catatonic dolls made of stardust and magic. There was much breaking down and restarting, but it was only when Thought and Emotion devised an elaborate magical system of self-awareness and personality to apply to all new Soulbound that they began to do things under their own power. They weren't very impressive things, but they appeared to be alive, and that was a start.

What followed was a cacophony of events, where several Gods developed systems of their own to manage and shape the Soulbound to be as varied and distinct as their parents. It was a free-for-all, with numerous systems of questionable usefulness coming and going without much oversight. Death, as the strongest God, found himself stretched as thin as he could go and then some trying to clean up a thousand messes at once. Something had to be done.

It was during this period that Time introduced the Timeline, which fundamentally changed how events occurred throughout the Universe. Suddenly, everything slowed way down, bottlenecked to happen one at a time per God with a strict cause-and-effect relationship. Second only to Death in power, Time forced the rest of the Gods to adhere to the Timeline's ordered nature, in part to ease the load on Death, and in part because Time was an incurable control freak. Death continues to operate in and out of its constraints at will, which drove Time straight up the wall when he was alive and was probably a deciding factor in why Death kept right on doing it. Regardless of the poor reception of the new stranglehold of a system and the host of new rules Death brought down on the Gods' heads through a little coaxing and many threats, the Soulbound flourished under it, and most subsequent systems and rulesets developed after rely heavily on the Timeline and Death's rules to function.

As it stands, the Gods are still out there, creating huge swathes of Soulbound while fighting the ever-present influence of the Deepdark, Entropy's bleak domain.

social

Souls are given Names upon creation that are recorded in Death's Book of Names, but souls are able to change those Names based on how much they identify with a new one, making them a fluid construct that prevents too much power being wound up in a Name that can then be abused. Even Name-based magic systems adhere to this policy, or it would be impossible for such a populace to govern itself. Souls who lose their Names become Nameless, their Names blacked out with corruption in the Book of Names to be locked out of the Elyr forever, even if they're fortunate enough to find a new Name in the future. Being Nameless is not an enviable existence, so Gods go to great lengths to ensure that corruption doesn't touch their planets. It's too bad Entropy is a resourceful beast and invades them anyway.

Like Gods, humanoid Soulbound are seen as the beauty ideal across the Universe. Physical features beyond that basic shape, however, are largely ignored by the Gods, though other Soulbound surely have plenty to say about it.

Gender is an entirely social construct inflicted by the Soulbound upon each other, though genders often fall down the lines of reproductive groups. The Gods don't really understand Soulbound who are wrapped up in it, but then again, the Soulbound do many, many things the Gods don't understand.

Soulbound designs have massively improved over time, though there's still a wide variance in how successful some populations are versus others. At the very least, the overarching systems developed by the more influential and powerful Gods have drastically improved the quality of life and the richness of Soulbound experiences, even in the hands of the notoriously awful builders. Overall, the number of Soulbound in the Universe is growing despite Entropy's best efforts, giving the Gods an upper hand over the dangerous, insistent Eldest.

Relationships with the Gods are varied, but most Gods are seen as, well, godlike figures by their Soulbound populations based on sheer power and knowledge differences. Some Gods interact with their Soulbound a lot more casually, presumably for their own amusement, but it's not necessarily common.

biology

• Humanoid designs reign supreme in the Soulbound, as it's the undisputed champion of physical forms in terms of magic potential. Various Gods occasionally try to create a new paradigm by "improving" humanoid designs, but none have yet to be successful in topping out those closer to many of the Gods in shape. Despite that, there are plenty of Soulbound mimicking non-humanoid Gods who create them and appear to survive just fine with the proper environmental requirements. Arguably, these Soulbound tend to have more stable environments because of the care gone into building them for a form's specific needs, making non-humanoid Gods better builders across the board, but you won't catch any humanoid God dead admitting that.

• For most Soulbound, pre-defined genetics are usually passed down from multiple parents to offspring to prevent genetic bottlenecks and physically frail Soulbound. There are a few novelty Soulbound out there who don't follow this pattern, but they require precision, care, and time that most Gods don't have the knowledge, skill, or patience to put into their build.

  For humanoid Soulbound, some kind of way to differentiate bodies who carry life and bodies that don't is common, often with other distinctions to separate out reproductive groups. The methods used to actually create the new life are a kaleidoscope of options, both magical and non-magical, and heavily dependent on the builder's preferences and ideas of how to best expand their planetary populations in a stable, sustainable fashion. It's harder than it looks, but the best builders have planets who survive with no God interference. It's big bragging rights if a Soulbound population advances far enough to achieve functional interplanetary travel, which causes much resentment and passive aggressive commentary among the sloppier builders.

  For Soulbound who aren't humanoid, reproductive means are a free-for-all, with as many ways to reproduce as there are Gods and requiring much building finesse to create lasting lifeforms. It's not uncommon for Gods with something to prove to attempt novelty forms to flex their building prowess, which matters to more Gods than they might care to admit.

• All Soulbound age in some way, most growing more frail as they move along the Timeline save for those Soulbound that are magically enhanced not to do so. Though lives can be lengthened by various means, with longer lifetimes skewing hard in the direction of more magical Soulbound, all lives do eventually end so souls can cycle through the Elyr and move on to other lives throughout the Universe.

• Despite the concept of physical consumption being rather abhorrent to the Gods due to it being developed by Entropy, Energy was quick to latch onto it as a primary method of restoring physical energies to prevent Soulbound from burning through their life forces quite so fast, along with some kind of rest period. Just because it's used by your mortal enemy doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea, though Energy made few friends by incoporating it into his incredibly efficient system.

• Most planets are situated in a magic vein to enable magic manipulation, but there are plenty spread in other parts of the Universe as well, and those are generally safer from corruption than their magical counterparts.

skills

• As in all things with the Soulbound, social structures vary, but there's a notable difference between those directly influenced by the Gods and those left to their own devices, with those needing a more hands-on approach being frailer overall. Most Gods strive to make their planets entirely self-sufficient without needing their intervention outside of Deepdark incidents.

• All Soulbound have the potential to manipulate magic, but without pieces of the Motherlight to give them innate control, the Gods must create dumbed down magic systems that the Soulbound can interact with in order to do it naturally. Some of these systems work better than others, depending on the skill of the builder, but neglecting to do so entirely on planets nested in a magic vein leads to a very short-lived planet. Some Gods remove magic from their planets entirely, which is generally seen as eccentric and unnecessary, but those who do it boast planets that are almost immune to Deepdark corruption due to the difficulty the Nameless have surviving in environments without magic to stabilize their impossible anatomy and the inability to open portals directly to the Deepdark.

• Though intelligence levels vary, experience and age generally improve it. Since all experiences are lost in the Elyr, the cumulative intelligence of the Soulbound stays fairly low. Still, many of the longer-lived Soulbound can hold a reasonable conversation with a God, so extending life forces as much as possible has the added benefit of more entertaining Soulbound.

• Successful interplanetary travel is the standard to shoot for in terms of a planet’s technological advancement. Gods who achieve it often are usually insufferably smug about it and quick to bring it up to their less skilled siblings.

overview

The core of who we are, everything we've been, and what we will ever be. Names are a Big Deal, serving as a record that holds a soul or, in the case of the Gods, their piece of the Motherlight, and to lose it is a fate much worse than death. Soulbound Names are almost always given by Death, who assigns all new souls Names upon their creation, but occasionally, a Nameless stumbles across one when they've eaten enough magic.

Though the Soulbound don't have pieces of the Motherlight that would automatically compel them to obey their creators, a God can force the issue by using a Soulbound's Name. Luckily, the Gods have forbidden this practice amongst themselves, and those who break the taboo are swiftly and severely punished by elder siblings. Unluckily, other Soulbound don't give half a damn about the ethics of Name compulsion and are quick to abuse it in every magic system developed that links Names to the magic vein the planet is built in. Many Gods have given up on Name-based magic systems to level the playing field, but those who still use them swear by them as the most natural and intuitive way for Soulbound to manipulate magic. It's a heated, ongoing debate. Death, for his part, has heard enough of both sides to last a thousand lifetimes and has expressly forbidden the subject from coming up within earshot of him for the rest of time.

History

As with most things in the Universe, the origin of Naming can be traced back to the Motherlight when she gave Names to the Eldest. Though Names themselves aren't quite enough to create life all on their own, they provide a container for everything a soul will ever do, will ever be. The Eldest and the Gods retain awareness and personality from the pieces of the Motherlight held by their Names, but the Gods decided that wasn't the greatest solution for a species they intended to leave one day, so Emotion and Thought devised an elegant awareness and personality system to give the Soulbound inner lives as rich and varied as their creators'.

Soul creation and naming

Solely under Death's purview and only done when the Elyr is empty of souls. Souls created by other Gods usually come out a little...off, and Death has to repair them anyway before feeding them into the Elyr. He's long since told his siblings to stop being "helpful." After Death creates a soul, he gives it a Name and records it in his Book of Names before feeding it into the Elyr. Names listed in the Book of Names are fluid entries and will adjust to whatever a soul's new Name is when they're born into a new life onto a planet. This means that most Soulbound built in the current era aren't really true, living Soulbound right out of the gate, but vessels to carry already existing souls.

Occasionally, when a Nameless survives long enough to eat a truly massive amount of magic, they find Names of their own in the midst of all the hunger, detach completely from Entropy, and live free as Lords of the Deepdark to do as they please with the full awareness they possessed when they were originally Named. These found Names are not listed in the Book of Names and the corrupted souls are still locked out of the Elyr to stop the Deepdark's influence from spreading into the irreplacable artifact.