The conflict between Veeshan and Kerafyrm is fundamental to our universe's cosmology. It is the story of Order versus Chaos, of existence pushing back against the Void.
When these old gods--the Primarchs--awoke, they traveled the universe. Veeshan sought to take what was there and make it perfect by subjecting it to Order. Kerafyrm sought to improve through change, as is the way of Chaos. He sought knowledge as his path to perfection.
Kerafyrm and his followers embarked upon a celestial journey that took them to the edge of the universe. He peered beyond and gazed upon the ruins of other realities where Order and Chaos had fallen out of balance, allowing Void to enter and consume them.
He returned to share his knowledge and found that, in his long absence, Veeshan had refashioned the mortal life she encountered in the mold of Order. The universe was out of balance. The universe was doomed.
Kerafyrm tried to warn Veeshan and her followers, but they believed he was a trickster attempting to deceive them. To restore balance, Kerafyrm began infusing Chaos into Veeshan's perfect structure. She fought back, triggering a cosmic conflict between the Primarchs, devastating the universe in the process.
In the final showdown, Veeshan channeled all the power of her followers and unleashed it upon Kerafyrm in a last effort to purge his influence. But the forces she commanded were so potent that the ensuing wave killed not only the Chaos God and the other Primarchs, but all mortal life in the universe. Only the Primarch of Order remained, all alone in the night.
Veeshan wandered this silent wasteland for untold ages, until at long last the spark of life began to return. And amidst this reawakening, she heard a sound almost at the edge of her consciousness. She followed it to the heart of the universe and realized the sound was laughter...laughter emanating from the long-dormant remains of Kerafyrm. The Chaos God was not dead, only slumbering. Veeshan realized that her ancient foe would one day awaken.
To contain him, she took hold of the fragments of broken worlds, piecing together a prison sealed with magic. She placed four warders to stand guard over the slumbering god, locked away deep under layers of earth. Veeshan believed her ancient foe was at long last contained.
But Chaos and Order were not the only primal influences in the universe. Nature awoke too, and the prison world fashioned by Veeshan began to manifest a potent world spirit that, even in its primordial state, radiated with a power greater than any other world in the cosmos. Veeshan sought to commune with this world spirit but found that she could not--its essence was fundamentally different from her own.
To bridge this gap, Veeshan seeded the world with her own perfect creations, the dragons. Her children were given two directives: assist the warders with safeguarding Kerafyrm's prison, and find a way to commune with the spirit of this new world. Her will made clear, Veeshan left Norrath to undertake her own celestial journey.
Life evolved as the world spirit matured. From a primordial age in which the dragons clashed with elemental titans to the rise of giants and eventually the mortal races, this world called Norrath was a place of growth and change. And thus the tapestry of Norrath's history began to unfold.
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What does the average Norrathian know of these old truths? Nothing. Such secrets have long been buried, or have become the stuff of legend. The only evidence to be found is the existence of ancient artifacts, objects that predate even the Keldarain--such as spires that open gateways to realms beyond their own.
The dragons know. But Veeshan has been gone so long, and so much has happened in her absence, that some of her children have begun to question the best manner in which to fulfill her ancient edicts. One might wonder how creatures of perfect Order came to be divided so...
This universe was born of conflict between rival influences. And those conflicts echo through the pages of Norrath's history, forming the foundation of gameplay in EverQuest Next.
