Tucked underneath Tikor’s louder pantheons, older than every record any human has bothered to keep, sit the Primordials. They are the gods of the Animal Kingdom, and their concerns lie almost entirely with the species they guard rather than with the people walking around them.
Each Primordial is bound to one species. They are the apex of their kind, the embodiment of what makes that species what it is, and they show up so rarely that most humans go their whole lives without knowing one was ever close. When a Primordial does appear, it’s because their kin are in serious trouble. The signs tend to be subtle and strange — animals gathering with no apparent reason, a forest that’s gone unnaturally still, weather doing something it shouldn’t.
The scholars have argued for centuries about where the Primordials came from. Some say they were among Ishvana’s first creations, planted to keep the new ecosystems alive while the rest of the world figured itself out. Others say they grew organically out of the Etherforce itself, the planet’s own immune response to chaos. There’s no consensus, and the Primordials seem indifferent to the debate.
Their relationships with each other are quiet. Territories overlap — Lutren’s groves run up against Khanoru’s peaks, Karael’s tides feed into Orunja’s rivers — but there are no quarrels worth mentioning. They mostly stay out of each other’s way, the way the ecosystems they guard do.
Known Primordials
- Eshva — Primordial of the Shivasteeds. The Eternal Flame of the Plains. Speed and the open grasslands.
- Karael — Primordial of the Abyssinians. The Silent Tidekeeper. Oceans, deep mysteries, and the rhythm under everything.
- Lutren — Primordial of the Turtlemon. The Eternal Shell. Longevity, earth, the patient kind of wisdom.
- Khanoru — Primordial of the Ingagi. The Titan of the Peaks. Strength and the Ibirunga Mountains.
- Orunja — Primordial of the Tritops. The Eternal Grace of Fortune. Luck and the deep groves of the Ilun Valley.
Cross a Primordial’s species the wrong way and you’ll find out fast that nature doesn’t need a court system to balance the books. Tikor handles it.