Prologue
Mortals... I am Chaos. The void, the chasm of space and time. I have been since the beginning of time and I will be there at the end of time. You've been told many tales of how the world and gods came to be. Well, the gods and immortals have our own tale. The tale of really happened at the beginning of time.
In the beginning there was only I. Then from my dark void came Gaea, the mother of the earth. Then there came Erebus, the darkness of the Underworld, and Nyx, the mistress of the night. While sleeping, Gaea created Ouranos, the sky, and Pontus, the sea. Together, Ouranos and Pontus created rain which gave life to the earth from mountains to rivers, from forests to meadows. Erebus and Nyx gave birth to the gods and goddesses of darkness in the underworld. These children included Moros, the god of doom, Thanatos, the god of death, Hypnos, the god of sleep, Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, Eris, the goddess of strife, and the three Moirai or fates.
Ouranos and Gaea gave birth to more children. The first of these where a group of twelve beings called titans. Six sons: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Cronus, and six daughters: Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys. Pontus and Gaea also created some sea gods: Nereus, Phorcys, and Thaumas. Gaea later gave birth to three one-eyed giants called Cyclopes and three more giants with a hundred arms and eyes.
In the beginning, Ouranos ruled the earth, but was a terrible and selfish ruler. He hated the cyclopes and hundred-armed giants and feared they would overthrow his power. He had them imprisoned inside the depths of the underworld, to never see the light of day again. However, Gaea loved all her children and was upset with the giants' cruel treatment. She devised a plan to stop Ouranos and free her giant sons.
Gaea fashioned a giant sickle made of iron and asked her children to stop their father and free the cyclopes and hundred-armed giants. All of them were too scared, but the youngest titan, Cronus, volunteered to preform the deed. He slashed the sky and spilled Oranos's blood on the earth which formed another group of giants, the ash tree nymphs, and the furies. Drops of blood in the sea formed Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. With Oranos no longer the ruler of the immortals, the titans made Cronus their king, but Gaea failed to be the ambition in her son's eyes.
Over time, Cronus became a worse ruler than his father before him. He forced mortals and immortals alike to bring his gifts to satisfy his greed and hunger for power. He neglected the earth and underworld to ruins, forcing others to look after them. Prometheus and Epimetheus, the sons of Iapetus had to look after all the humans and animals of the earth, providing their every need. Erebus, Nyx, and their children were stuck in the underworld, which was neglected into a horrible place for both the living and dead alike. Worse of all, Cronus did not free his giant brothers as he promised Gaea. He didn't want any competitors.
Cronus made his sister, Rhea, his wife and queen, but when he went to the fates, they predicted that his children would overthrow him and punish him for his cruel treatment of his family and the world. To prevent the fates' words from happening, every time Rhea gave birth to a child, he snatched it away and swallowed it. When Rhea was expecting her sixth child, she turned to Gaea for help. Together with Aphrodite, they devised a plan to save the child. Rhea ran away to a secret island where she gave birth to a son named Zeus. Rhea and Aphrodite swapped the baby for a stone wrapped in cloth. Cronus assumed the stone was the child and swallowed it. Aphrodite took the child to an island inhabited by her sea nymphs companions and raised him as her own.
Cronus had yet to learn you can't escape your fate...