The following excerpt was taken from the original copy of the Book of the Sangrians. All ownership rights belong to the Curator of the Grand Sangrian Archives.
When this world was yet nascent, seven celestials, the Great Diamond Authority, came into being, created by the Universe itself. They dwelt in harmony with all creation, their own gemkind, and later humankind which spontaneously erupted into being from the conditions of the world they created for their gems.
Pink, youngest of the Diamonds, was beloved by the Sangrians. She abode with them and cherished them, and they prospered under her care. So too did the other Diamonds take a people under their watchful light, and cherish them in turn.
Pink's oldest sister, however, Grey Diamond, had taken no people under her care. She dwelt apart from Men and Gems alike, until the day that an orphan waif sought her out. Grey Diamond accepted the child as her disciple, and called him Gregarion. It was from Grey that Gregarion learned the secrets of Diamond Magic and became a sorcerer. In the years that followed, kindred souls sought out the solitary Diamond in the same way. They joined in brotherhood to learn at the feet of Grey Diamond, and time did not touch them.
It came to be that Grey Diamond, pensive by nature, began to ponder upon the origins of consciousness itself, and so she broke off a natural vein of rose quartz, superheated it, and fashioned it into the shape of an orb, no larger than the heart of a child, and she turned the gem in her hand over and over again, until it became sentient. The power of the living jewel, named The Grey Ward henceforth by Men, was immense in its own right, and Grey worked wonders with it.
Of all the Diamonds, White Diamond was the most radiant, and her beauty was both revered and feared by all who saw her. Hers was a people called the Alabastians. They sacrificed before her, calling her the Queen of Queens, and White found the smell of sacrifice and words of adulation sweet. The day came, however, when she heard word of The Grey Ward, and from that moment she knew no peace.
Finally, in a dissembling guise, she came to Grey Diamond.
"Dear sister," she began, "It is not fitting that you should absent yourself from our company and counsel. Put aside this petty pursuit which has cast your mind away from our fellowship."
Grey Diamond was not so easily taken by her words, and saw the truth in her intention. Gently, she rebuked her sister.
"Why do you desire lordship and dominion so fiercely, White? Is not Alabastia enough for you? Do not, in your hubris, my sister, seek to possess the Ward, lest it destroy you."
Like piercing blows, Grey's truthful words filled White's heart with shame. Raising her hand, she smote her sister, took the jewel, and fled.
The other Diamonds had pleaded White, in gentle tones, to return the Ward, but she refused. Their hands forced, the other races of Gem and Man rose up against the hosts of Alabastia and made war upon them. The wars of Gems and Men raged across the land until, near the high peaks of Ignia, White Diamond raised the artefact and forced it to join its will with hers to rend the earth asunder. Mountains crumbled and cracked, and the sea rushed in where new space was created. Only with the timely intervention of Pink and Grey Diamond was the cataclysm mitigated, and the sea's advance halted. The various races and peoples of the world, however, were irreversibly separated by the event, and with them, so too the Diamonds.
When White raised the living Ward against the Earth, its mother, it awoke, and began to glower with holy light. The face of White Diamond was seared by its intensity, too radiant and bright to behold. In pain, she cast down the mountains. In anguish, she cracked open the earth. In agony, she let in the sea. In an instant, her left hand which beheld the Ward was snuffed of all light. The left side of her face became corrupted and malformed, with erratic patterns of black crystal taking root all over her form. Her left eye shrivelled and died in its socket, and became infected with crystal rot. With a great cry, she cast herself away, hoping not to behold her twisted reflection upon the sea.
When next she revealed herself before her people, her right side was still fair, but her left was scarred and deformed hideously by the searing of the Grey Ward. In endless pain, she led her people far into the East, where they built a great city on the plateaus of Mania, which they called Noxu-Isyak, meaning the Black City, for White now hid her maiming in darkness. The Alabastians raised an ivory tower for their Diamond and placed the Ward in an ivory cask at the topmost chamber. Often stood White before the cask, then fled, weeping, fearing the Ward's retribution upon her a second time.
The centuries rolled by, and White was rechristened as the Black Diamond, both for deed and appearance, which the world came to know at both the moment of her maiming, and by legend for the generations to come.