In the beginning, there was Chaos... But from this Chaos, the gods made Order and life.
As the races of the worlds where still young, the gods made artifacts of great power, some as experiments and some as a gift to their creations.
One of the first to be created was the Astral Portal.
The portal was a gateway to the place between worlds, and was originally made to allow the mortal races fast travel between worlds.
But something interfered in the making of the Artifact, and whilst the portal did as it was designed, there was another feature in which the gods themselves did not understand.
A demon used the essence of itself, and created a place inbetween the Abyss and Hell.
It is uncertain how the demon linked itself to the barriers of the worlds, but the effects was most impressive.
By using the power of the barriers, it could grant the power of gods.
The demon gave itself this immense power, but also got stuck inside the astral plane.
And so it waited...
Meanwhile, other plans where made and executed.
While there is a theory that the Abyss itself made these plans, the demon Malcanthet was the "Prime Suspect" as to who was the ringleader.
Malcanthet knew about the demon trapped inbetween, and made a magical rose out of crystal.
The petals of this rose could be broken off, and this was to be the sign that the being who brought the petal should have one wish granted.
But every time a petal was used, the barriers would weaken.
The first to use it was a wizard named Atos, giving himself godlike powers.
Atos came from a family that hated the gods, why is guesswork at best, and the hatred was so powerful that even death would not stop them. They made themselves into Quells, ghostlike spirits that have some limited power over the connection from the gods to their servants.
After Atos used the rose, the family decided that the rose needed shielding from the servants of the gods, so they hid and protected it for nearly a thousand years.
All this time, Atos searched for someone he deemed capable to be gifted as he was.
He finally found the perfect subjects, and with the help of his family lured them into using up the petals. The Abyss and Hell crashed.
The goal was probably for the Abyss to consume Hell and thereby gain enough power to challenge the gods, but then something happened.
Three gods, the Reaper of Flesh, the Gnomesmasher and The Spider Goddess had tired of the status quo and formed a coalition, the Dark Council.
The Council formed a plan to rid themselves of their enemies, and eventually become the only gods left in existance.
But the plans foiled one another. Because of the clash between Abyss and Hell, the council could not hide their actions long enough.
And the remaining gods had gained so much power that the forces left in the abyss could not hope to defeat them.
And such came the Times of Chaos. War raged for years, on every world of all planes of existance.
The Heavens all but burned down and Hell was cleansed of all its devils, Mechanus laid to waste.
Everything changed.
