Baba Yetu

by Clan Dragoodle

War is an endangered act now practiced between legality and politics. A League was erected in its demise; now, only thirteen can enter to determine the fate of Nations on the word of Tyrants. They are Champions, Gods, and Soldiers. But above all: Human.

GAIA 1:2

"Beyond the edge of humanity's memory there was a Planet untouched by its existence. Eons ago, Gaia birthed this Planet from oblivion as a clean slate of empty space among the cosmos. There, the Cetra begin to grow moral and law, sewing protectors for her treasure from the fibers of her hair.

She created thirteen. Thirteen celestial beings to command and govern her Planet in her name.

Of those thirteen, the first were Phoenix, the being of Life, and Bahamut, the being of Death. These two were trusted with the responsibility of existence and balance. With their birth came humanity.

Over the centuries, the two beings maintained the Planet's life in the ebb and flow of the Lifestream. As the seasons fell away, the two beings began to create something Gaia had never intended:

Love.

Phoenix and Bahamut defined one another and their feelings overshadowed their devotion to Gaia. Enraged by their forgetfulness, Gaia cursed her creations, for she demanded balance in her Planet and thought love an unbalanced grace.

Gaia's jealous curse forced Bahamut to strike down its beloved Phoenix to balance its love for the other with the pain of loss and heartbreak.

The treason paid and lesson learned, Gaia grated Phoenix the power of forgiveness, letting her creation rise anew from its ashes. But again, Phoenix and Bahamut fell in love. And again, Phoenix was destroyed and reborn.

The two beings endlessly cycled in their pain.

Eventually, old age turned Bahamut twisted and sick in its endless torture of a forever lost love. The being brought hatred and destruction to Gaia's Planet, terrorizing her servants out of spite and malice. It broke free from its responsibilities, renamed itself Ragnarok, and fell upon the Planet as a fiery calamity to infect the land.

Ragnarok's disease turned the peaceful servants vicious and deformed to mirror its internal betrayal and pain. Forced to take action, Gaia called upon the twelve other celestial beings and created War to wage against Ragnarok and its army of infected.

For centuries the war raged before Gaia was forced to split her Planet open and call upon the Lifestream to reclaim her thirteen celestial beings. Sealing the earth, Gaia birthed four weapons to guard the scar and put them to sleep within the Planet's skin; lest they suffer the same fate of the first thirteen.

Then Gaia lulled herself into an eternal slumber to stave off her pain."