Creation Myth
The Primordial God
In the time before time, there was nothing — no light, no darkness, no passage of hours, no edges of space. There was only a single, nameless god drifting through an infinite void. This god possessed boundless power, yet there was no one to speak to, nothing to touch, no other presence to acknowledge its existence. Aeons of solitude ate away at the god's mind like slow poison.In the end, the god made an irreversible choice: to destroy itself so that a world without loneliness might exist. This was no serene sacrifice. In its final moments the god was wracked with pain, trembling with fear, clinging to reluctance. But oblivion was preferable to an eternity alone in the nothing. And so the god's body shattered and became the earth and mountains; its tears surged forth and pooled into vast oceans; its breath became the winds, its sighs became thunder, and the last ember of its warmth became sunlight. This world — Tanapocia — is the inheritance purchased by a lonely god's death.
Jie and Jiao
Though the Primordial God had perished, its will did not entirely extinguish. From the last fading whisper of the god's consciousness, two divine beings were born: Jie, the Holy Mother, and Jiao, the Holy Father. Jie inherited the god's longing for life; Jiao inherited its search for meaning. They were echoes, afterimages — the final imprint a dead god left upon the world.
Together, Jie and Jiao created humanity. Jie gathered clay from the earth and shaped human forms with her own hands — bones, muscles, skin, features — pouring painstaking care into every detail. But clay figures remained clay figures, until Jiao leaned down and breathed the spark of consciousness into those empty shells. Then the clay opened its eyes, drew its first breath, and spoke its first word. Humanity was born.
Yet not all humans were alike. Jiao took a greater hand in crafting the Western peoples, endowing them with robust physiques and unyielding wills — making them adept at conquest and construction. Jie, however, poured a special love into another group of her children. These she sculpted with her own fingers, blessing them with an innate affinity for nature and an inborn magical potential. They came to be called the Eastern Children. They settled in the east of the continent, living among mountains and rivers, in communion with wind and rain and lightning, developing a civilization utterly distinct from the West. Jie regarded them as her most beloved children — a favoritism that would sow the seeds of tragedy.
The Three Ages
The history of Tanapocia is divided into three great ages, each ending with a catastrophe that reshaped civilization.
The First Age was the Age of Gods. During this era, Jie and Jiao walked among mortals in person, teaching them agriculture, language, architecture, and ceremony. There was no barrier between divine and human; the world existed in a primitive, pure harmony. But as humanity's numbers grew, so did their appetites. Humans began to covet the gods' power — some even attempted deicide. Jie and Jiao realized with grief that their very presence had become the root of human conflict. And so, after the first great cataclysm — the Sorrow of Divine Withdrawal — the two gods chose to retreat from the mortal world, leaving behind only cryptic oracles and scattered relics.
The Second Age was the Age of Heroes. With the gods withdrawn, humanity was forced to face a dangerous world on its own strength. Great warriors, sages, and adventurers emerged in droves, forging countless epic legends. The Eastern Children and the Western peoples each flourished during this era; there was friction between them, but a fragile peace endured. Magic was widely studied and practiced, and the Eastern Children's innate gifts gave them a commanding lead in the arcane arts. Yet it was precisely this imbalance of power that ultimately triggered the second great cataclysm — the Coming of Darkness — the emergence of the first Black Sorcerer and the devastating war that followed.
The Third Age is the Age of the Church — the current era. After Venus defeated the Black Sorcerer and ascended to godhood, her followers established the Holy Church and ruled the Western world in her name. The Church proclaimed itself Venus's agent on earth, controlling faith, law, military, and education. Venus City became the center of the world, its towering Bishop's Tower surveying all below. Under Church rule, magic was tightly regulated, history was carefully curated, dissent was mercilessly crushed. It is an age of perfect order — and suffocating control.
The Rise of Venus
Venus was not always a god. She began as a mortal — a female warrior from a small frontier town in the West, possessed of extraordinary swordsmanship and an unshakable will. At the end of the Age of Heroes, when the first Black Sorcerer drew power from forbidden abysses and threatened to consume the entire world, it was Venus who stepped forward and rallied the Western peoples to unite.
The war lasted seven years, known to history as the Holy War. Venus personally led the allied forces through countless life-and-death battles. In the final confrontation, Venus sacrificed her own life force to unleash power sufficient to tear open the sky, annihilating the Black Sorcerer utterly. But the blow exhausted every drop of her life. In the moment she fell, it is said a golden radiance appeared in the heavens, and Venus's soul transcended mortal limits, ascending to true godhood.
Venus's followers built the first cathedral on the site of her ascension, and that cathedral eventually grew into Venus City. The Holy Church was founded by Venus's most loyal comrades-in-arms, who swore to carry out her will forever: protect humanity, destroy darkness, maintain order. Over the centuries, the Church grew from a small faith community into a colossal power structure spanning the entire Western world. Venus's image was continually deified, her story retold and embellished, while details that did not fit the official narrative were quietly erased.
The Hidden Truth
The above is the official history sanctioned by the Holy Church. But the true history is far darker and more brutal.
Venus did not merely defeat the Black Sorcerer — she used the war as a pretext to launch a long-premeditated genocide against the Eastern Children. The Eastern Children's innate magical talent had always inspired fear and jealousy among the Western peoples. Venus understood that as long as the Eastern Children existed, the West could never truly rule the world. So after defeating the Black Sorcerer, she did not halt her armies — she turned their blades eastward.
It was an utter slaughter. The Holy Knights charged the Eastern forces with near-suicidal fervor. The Eastern Children fought to the death, refusing to surrender — but Venus ordered the killing to continue until none remained, not even the children. Millions perished within mere months. Their written language was put to the torch, their temples toppled, their history erased. The Eastern King — later known only as the 'Nameless King' — was slain and his corpse erected on stakes for public display, his remains burned before the cheering army. The Holy Knights sang and danced in celebration, as though this were not a genocide but a grand festival. The king's name was scrubbed from every record — which is why he became the 'Nameless King.' A handful of survivors fled south to the settlements of the Serem people, or fought their way beyond the Forbidden Mountains into the wilds. Their descendants never revealed their true identities, passing down the bloodline and memories of the 'Eastern Children' only within the family, generation after generation.
The Holy Church then meticulously rewrote this chapter of history. In the official narrative, the Eastern Children were recast as 'allies of the Black Sorcerer,' and their annihilation was glorified as 'heroic liberation.' The Taboo Directory exists specifically to prevent the truth from resurfacing — any book, manuscript, or oral account documenting the Eastern Children's true fate is classified at the highest level of prohibition. Anyone who discovers the truth, anyone who attempts to spread it, faces execution. The Church's inquisitors are stationed in every city, ensuring this secret remains buried forever.
But a lie remains a lie. No matter how the Holy Church paints over the past, bloodstains do not vanish on their own, and the dead do not stay silent forever. Beyond the Forbidden Mountains, the descendants of the Eastern Children still remember everything. They are waiting.
Historical Timeline (Official Church Version)
The following timeline is the official record sanctioned by the Holy Church. Entries marked 'Truth' are known only to Lina.