Before there was time or reality as we know it, there was only the Umbral Realm. Also known as the Otherworld. All souls dwelt, dwell, and will dwell within the Umbral realm. The strongest souls are that of intense emotional attunement. The strongest were the souls of the Titans. There were twelve, one for each element. The second strongest of the souls were all fueled by anger. These were the souls that would be the Dragons. They lashed out at the Titans, fighting on a battlefield beyond understanding by mortal minds. The Dragons proved victorious. As the Titan souls were defeated, they vanished.

When the Titan souls were defeated, they were cut off from the rest of the Umbral Realm as they formed a new realm, the Material Realm. The Dragons set to follow as to continue their assault but were unsuccessful. The deemed some form of energy to be blocking them, and began to refer to it as The Barrier.

Now, when the Titans fell through The Barrier, their souls dispersed. They fractured and merged with the realm. The first Titan to fall through was the Titan of Time. It’s soul creating the march of time as we know it. The Titans of Gravity, Umbral, and Space fell next, creating the fabric of reality within the material realm. Then came the Titans of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water. Their souls became the physical material from which we name this realm. Then came Body, shortly followed by Mind. Their souls became the basic seeds for future life.

In the Umbral realm, flashes of energy began occurring. Dragons watched these flashes. Sometimes other souls would slip through The Barrier because of them. Other times not. Through observing these flashes, the Dragons figured out how to breach The Barrier. The twelve strongest Dragons, one for each element, entered the Material realm.

Powerful draconic bodies formed around them as they breached The Barrier and entered the Material Realm. Through physical eyes they viewed a realm of land, water, air, and fire. There was no pattern, all was chaos. The Dragons practiced their knowledge on this side of The Barrier. Ways of magic revealed themselves to the Dragons. They discovered that the flashes of light were resulting from the use of magic.

After a time, the Titans Radiance and Necrotic entered the realm. This was possible because the Umbral realm does not recognize the passage of time the way that the Material realm does. The Dragons were shocked to discover that these last two Titans held a fraction of life. Powerful Titanic bodies formed around the wounded souls and the addled Titans fought alongside each other against the Dragons.

The Titans, however, did not retain their knowledge of the Umbral realm. Dragons, retaining their knowledge alongside their knowledge of magic were able to defeat the Titans for the final time. The last battle of the Titans and Dragons.

As the last Titans fell, the Dragons noticed, with magical vision, the souls leaving the bodies and drifting toward The Barrier. Not wanting the souls to escape, the Dragons attacked the souls directly. The Titan souls shattered into piles of bright and dark gems. The umbral elder Dragon realized that this was pure energy of a soul, and used the Titan souls to create powerful relics. The Radiant and Necrotic orbs of power.

The Titan bodies dissolved into the land along with their bodies to imbue purpose to the creatures to come.

The Dragons then split, each claiming part of the world. Each continued their study of magic, reluctant to share their insights with the others. With increasing knowledge of magic and incredibly long lifespan, the Dragons learned how to pull a soul from the Umbral realm. They pulled other souls of anger into the Material to serve them as worshipers and servants. Controlling the entrance to the Materia realm allowed them to control the bodies given. Their servants attained similar bodies to their own, though the Dragons restrained the forms to be weaker to exert control over the new arrivals, leaving them as worshipers and servants. Like the Titans before them and all species after, these souls did not retain memories of the Umbral realm.

It didn’t take long for the Dragons to begin their tradition of waring against each other. They fought for territory and control of the orbs of power. They sent their worshipers to fight and killed them for their Soulshards. Aided by the orbs, plus their own extensive knowledge of magic, the Dragons formed the lands to their liking. Various regions took shape, mountains, oceans, forests, plains, and more.

It was during this time of tremendous magical energy and fluctuation that some souls slipped through The Barrier and gained bodies that reflected the tumultuous fluctuations, Shifters. The Dragons attempted to hunt down these creatures, but they proved too elusive.

Two more souls of note entered the material realm. The first entered the realm from deep in the ground. It rose through a great fissure in the ground caused during the last battle of the Titan war. When it reached the surface, it formed a small yet powerful body with membranous wings. The first Demon. It felt a pull and followed it. Hated it.

The second of these souls entered the realm within the heart of the sun. It streaked toward the ground, forming a similar body with feathered wings. The first Angel. It felt a pull and followed it. It felt compassion. Love.

The elder Dragons eventually found that their worshipers could be as much of a threat as their elder kin. Some rose against their gods. Most were quickly put down, as the elders were vastly stronger than their worshippers. The fear of rebellion was fostered, thus the elders began making their worshipers smaller, with less raw power in exchange for dexterity to craft things to please the elders. These were the first Kobold.

Still, some lesser Dragons were successful, like the first fire Dragons. One male and one female, they made a powerful team. They stood strong together and killed the elder fire Dragon. They went on to bore a powerful Dragon lineage. Together, atop a volcano formed from the orb of fire, they managed to survive thousands of years without being killed by other Dragons. They lived long enough to notice a slow deterioration in their bodies. Their skin wrinkled, their bones ached. Until one day the male Dragon died. No battle. No spell. His body merely failed.

In grief, the female Dragon attacked his soul. Shattered it. Kept it from returning to the Umbral, from leaving her. She put up little resistance as the Angel came for her. It cried as it slew her and released the Soulshards of the male Dragon. Both Draconic souls flowed back to the Umbral realm together.

The elder Umbral Dragon was surrounded by his worshipers when the Demon flew upon it. The Demon managed to kill the Dragon before succumbing to wounds and the onslaught of the lesser Dragons. The great wealth of soul energy gathered by the elder umbral Dragon flowed like a torrent into the Umbral Realm.

Many years passed. More lesser Dragons died of old age. The elders began to see the first signs of age and feared. They began seeking ways to prolong their life. Some managed to reenter the Umbral realm, but only for a brief time and were shunted elsewhere in the Material realm.

More Angels and Demons appeared within the realm. Always drawn to a certain time and place. They called this feeling ‘the pull’. The Angels created seven golden cities in the sky. The Demons went to dwell within the fissure that birthed the first of their kind. Many cultures refer to it by many names. The Scar, the fissure, the Void Gate, the Chasm.

Some souls entered lush lands and formed bodies that resembled the land. Flora. They remained largely unnoticed by the other races.

Many thousands of years passed. The land and strife stabled out, though Dragons never ceased to war with each other. Only a few of the elder Dragons remained. Most notably the time Dragon, who is less affected by the ravages of time, and the mind Dragon, who was imprisoned by the Angels deep within the earth in an eternal sleep.