I n ages past the was but one god of strife, death and the dead, and he was known as Jergal, Lord of the End of Everything. Jergal fomented and fed on the discord among mortals and powers alike. When beings slew each other in their quest for power or in their hatred, he welcomed them into his shadowy kingdom of eternal gloom. As all things died, everything came to him eventually and over time he built his power into a kingdom unchallenged by any other god. But he grew tired of his duties for he knew them too well, and without challenge there is nothing, and in nothingness these is only gloom. In such a state, the difference between absolute power and absolute powerlessness is undetectable.
During this dark era, there arose three powerful mortals - Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul - who lusted after the power Jergal wielded. The trio forged an unholy pact that they would dare to seek such ultimate power or die in the attempt. Over the length and breadth of the Realms they strode, seeking powerful magic and spells and defying deat very turn. No matter what monster they confronted or what spells they braved, the three mortals emerged unscathed at every turn. Eventually, the trio destroyed one of the Seven Lost Gods, and they each seized a portion of his divine essence for themselves.
The trio then journeyed into the Gray Waste and sought out the Castle of Bone. Through armies of skeletons, legions of zombies, hordes of noncorporeal undead, and a gauntlet of liches they battled. Eventually, they reached the object of their lifelong quest - the Bone Throne.
"I claim this throne of evil", shouted Bane the Tyrant.
"I'll destroy you before you can raise a finger", threatened Bhaal the assassin.
"And I shall imprison your essence for eternity", promised Myrkul the necromancer.
Jergal arose from his throne with a weary expression and said, "The Throne is yours. I have grown weary of this empty power. Take it if you wish - I promise to serve and guide you as your seneschal until you grow comfortable with the position." But before the stunned trio could react, the Lord of the Dead continued, "Who among you shall rule ?"
The trio immediately fell to fighting amongst themselves while Jergal looked on with indifference. When eventually it appeared t ither they would all die of exhaustion or battle on for eternity, the Lord of the End of Everything intervened.
"After all you have sacrificed, would you come away with nothing ? Why don't you divide the portfolios of the office and engage in a game of skill for them ?", asked Jergal.
Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul consider the god's offer and agreed. So Jergal took the skulls of his three most powerful liches and gave them to the trio so they could compete by skull bowling. Each mortal rolled a skull across the Grey Waste, having agreed that the winner would be he who bowled the farthest.
Malar, the Beastlord arrived to visit Jergal at this moment. After quickly ascertaining that the winner of the contest would get all of Jergal's power, he chased off after the three skulls to make sure the contest would be halted until he had a chance to participate for the prize. Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul again fell to fighting as it was obvious their sport was ruined, but again Jergal intervened. "Why don't you allow Lady Luck to decide so you don't have to share with the Beast ?"
The trio agreed, and Jergal broke off his skeletal finger bones and gave them to the players. When Malar returned from chasing the skulls, he found that the trio had just finished a game of knucklebones.
Bane cried out triumphantly, "As winner, I choose to rule for all eternity as the ultimate tyrant. I can induce hatred and strife at my whim, and all will bow down before me while in my kingdom."
Myrkul, who had won second place, declared, "But I choose the dead, and by doing so win, because all you are lord over, Bane, will eventually be mine. All things must die - even gods."
Bhaal, who finished third, demurred, "I choose death, and it is by my hand that all that you rule Lord Bane will eventually pass to Lord Myrkul. Both of you must pay honor to me and obey my wishes, since I can destroy your kingdom, Bane, by murdering your subjects, and I can starve your kingdom, Myrkul, by staying my hand."
Malar growled in frustration, but could do nothing, and yet again only the beasts were left to him.
And Jergal merely smiled, for he had been delivered.
B efore the Dawn Cataclysm, there was but one goddess of luck, Tyche. Ever flirting with fortune and disaster, Lady Luck bestowed and withdrew her favor at a whim. After eons of toying with powers, Tyche found herself embroiled, along with the rest of her circle of deities, in a war between the gods resulting from the actions of a current paramour, Lathander. Always fickle with her favors, Tyche kissed the Morninglord with misfortune and wandered off to explore the Realms.
During her travels, Lady Luck discovered a budding rose of unequaled beauty. Delighted with this fortuitous happenstance, Tyche reached to pluck this delightful token, which she assumed was a peace overture from Lathander, who sought to regain her good graces. Much to her amazement, Lady Luck could not pluck the rose from its bush no matter how hard she tried. Frustrated, she cursed the rose with bad luck, and the flower's stem broke in her hands. Carelessly, Tyche stuck the plucked rose behind her ear and continued on her way.
Unbeknownst to Tyche, the rose was a manifestation of Moander, god of corruption and decay. The severed rose stem crept into Tyche's ear and subtly began to rot her from the inside out. Lady Luck now suffered from misfortune, and it sprang from her own careless hand.
When Tyche returned home, she came across her dear friend, the goddess Selune, waiting to speak with her. Also waiting for her were Lathander, who wished to regain her affections, and Azuth, who had come to mediate the dispute between the two. Selune wept great tears as she saw the corruption destroying her friend from within, and before Tyche could even intuit her intent, Selune lashed out with a bolt of purifying light. Tyche's rotted core split right down the middle and a smaller, brighter version of the goddess of luck stepped out, allowing the goddess of the moon to save that which was good and pure in her friend. However, following this first figure from the rotten external shell was another form stunning to behold, but full of dark malice and capricious ill will. As the two emerged, they immediately fell upon each other in , struggling madly, and were only separated by the combined efforts of all three visitors.
It is said that Tymora, Tyche's Fair-Haired Daughter, embodies all the grace and kindness of her mother, while Beshaba, Tyche's Unpleasant Daughter, got only her looks. Since their birth, the twin aspects of Tyche - Tymora, Lady Luck, and Beshaba, Maid of Misfortune - have battled each other in a civil war that continues to this day.
B ards and sages pass down the tale the headwaters of the Unicorn Run are, in truth, the Font of Life, and a cradle of fecundity. Each natural race is said to have emerged from the womb of Chauntea onto Toril at the river's source and then traveled down the Unicorn Run to the outside world. Some say a daughter of Chauntea resides at the river's source to usher the newborns into the world, while others claim that Shialla midwives the process.
Regardless of the truth, the lore of elves, korreds and halflings all agree that the Unicorn Run is sacred to life and a site of incredible purity. As a result, all these races have strong taboos about extended trips up the run, for if the river is ever fouled, then no new races will ever be born on Toril again.
E ast of the Great Rift in the Eastern Shaar once stood a land of titans. This empire rose at the dawn of time in Faerun, and its lords thought to challenge the gods in their arrogance. In punishment, the powers cursed the reigning monarch of the land with fascination and his brethren with devotion. The powers then dropped a star onto the land. The impact of the fallen star created a huge valley later known at the Sea of Fallen Stars. Slowly picking up speed, the ball rolled through the titan nation and onward to the south.
Unable to contain his curiosity, the titan king ran off after the bouncing sphere and his followers dutifully followed his tracks. The meteorite rolled on and one until it reached the Great Sea and vanished into the depths. The monarch dove into the sea, and, lemminglike, the entire titan race down in after him, never to be seen again.
Ashamed at the destruction they had wrought, the powers vowed to keep both curiosity and loyalty firmly in check to avoid such disasters in the future. The have done so to this day, preventing both new ideas from being pursued with any speed and the intelligent races of Toril from ever fully cooperating.
T his was the birth of the world and the heavens. After Lord Ao created Realmspace, there was a period of timeless nothingness, a misty realm of shadow before light and dark were separate entities. Within this dim chaos stalked thirteen lords of shadow, the shadevari - whether they came from elsewhere or are children of the shadow itself, none can say.
Eventually this primordial essence coalesced into twin beautiful goddesses who were yin and yang to each other; they were so close they thought of themselves as one being. The Two-Faced Goddesses created the heavenly bodies of the crystal spheres and together infused them with life to form the Earthmother, Chauntea. (Although Chauntea has since contracted her essence to encompass only Abeir-Toril, in the beginning, she embodied all matter in Realmspace.) This new universe was lit by the face of the silver-haired goddess, who called herself Selune, and darkened by the welcoming tresses of the raven-haired goddess, Shar, but no heat or fire existed within it.
Chauntea begged for warmth so that she could nurture life and living creatures upon the planets that were her body and limbs, and the two Sisters-Who-Were-One became divided, as for the first time they were of two minds. Silvery Selune contested with her dark sister over whether or not to bring further life to the worlds. During this great conflagration, the gods of war, disease, murder and death, among others, were created from the residues of the deific battle. At one point during the battle, Selune seized the advantage and reached across time and space to a land of eternal fire. Fighting the pain of the blaze, which burned her sorely, she broke off a fragment of t ver-living flame and ignited one of the heavenly bodies so that it burned in the sky and warmed Chauntea.
Incensed, Shar redoubled her attack on her injured twin and began to snuff out all light and heat throughout the crystal sphere. Again, Selune gave of herself and tore the divine essence of magic from her body, flinging it desperately at her sister in defense of life in the sphere and nearly killing herself of the spiritual injury it caused her. A just-born being of raw magic tore through Shar, bonding to some of her divine magical energy and ripping it free of her, and reforming behind her as the goddess of magic, known now as Mystra, but then as Mystryl. Though Mystryl was composed of both light and dark magic, she favored her first mother Selune initially, allowing the silver goddess to win an uneasy truce with her more powerful, dark twin, Consumed by bitterness at her defeat, Shar vowed eternal revenge.
The twin goddess contested for eons as life struggled into existence on Toril and the other planets under Chauntea's watchful gaze. Shar remained powerful, but bitterly alone, while Selune waxed and waned in power, often drawing strength from her allied daughters and sons and like-minded immigrant deities. Over time, Shar grew strong again, aided by the shadevari who preferred night to the blinding light and who stalked the Realms seeking to meld light and dark into shadowy chaos once again. Shar's plot to reform the world after her own desires was undone when Azuth, the High One, formerly the greatest of all mortal spellcasters and now consort to Mystra (incarnate successor to Mystryl), found a way to imprison the shadevari in a pocket-sized crystal sphere located beyond the edges of the world by creating the illusion of a realm of shadows. The Lords of Shadow were drawn to investigate, and before they discovered the trick, Azuth imprisoned the shadevari with the Shadowstar, a key of shadows forged by Gond. The High Lord then hurled the key into the endless reaches of the cosmos allowing life to flourish on in Chauntea's loving hands.
I t is said t ven the powers must cavort and amuse themselves once in a great while. Far to the north of the Spine of the World is the Valley of the Gods. A paradise unequaled on this world or in the planes, this playground of the gods is not meant for mortals. Any mortal who reaches the Valley becomes a deity, for only deities may exist in the Valley. Far too many mortals with delusions of grandeur have thrown away the pleasures of this side of the Spine and their kingdoms in this world only to break their backs searching for the legendary Valley of the Gods.
O ld tales tell that luck plays a crucial role in each person's life. When each new-born baby enters into the Realms, Tymora flips a coin formed from the remnants of the original goddess of luck, Tyche. Beshaba calls it in the air - the moon (heads) or the cloak (tails). If Beshaba is right, that person is cursed with misfortune for the rest of his or her days. If she's wrong, Lady Luck smiles on that child for the rest of his or her life. For some rare beings, the coin lands edge on - and these luckless few can forge their own fates, for they have more freedom over their destinies than the powers themselves.