in the beginning, there was nothing, and then there was The Expanse. the expanse was vast, and empty, save for Dust . from the dust came Hafei, the first of the Inna. the inna are cosmic beings, made entirely of dust. not omnipotent or omniscient, but regarded like gods due to the immense amount of dust that they consist of making them extremely powerful.
to give meaning to the then-empty void, hafei created the World Garden. World Seeds are planted in the garden, and from the seeds grow new worlds. at the natural end of the world, a newborn inna blossoms from the seed.
together with the first few inna born in the garden, hafei forms the Seedkeeper Council to govern over the inna. the council puts into place a set of tenets that all inna must follow.
The Inna Tenets
- Neglect not the garden you have sown.,
- Care for your creations.,
- World seeds must not be neglected or treated badly. It can result in a weak, hurt Inna, which is cruel to the Inna and to the Expanse.
- Creation leads to Endings, and Endings lead to Beginnings.,
- The cycle of created life must be respected.,
- All dust taken from the expanse must return to the expanse. Dust contributed to a world seed must return to the Inna that blooms from it.,
- Honor the connections between Inna.,
- All threads are connected.,
- Conflict between Inna is meaningless. All Inna work toward the same goal, and all Inna are connected through Dust.
inna who don’t follow these tenets get punished, usually by having some or all of their dust confiscated by the Garden Wardens . losing dust means losing power, and life. lose all of your dust, and you cease to exist.
unbeknownst to most inna, this dust that is being confiscated from rule-breakers is actually being given to hafei to extend his life. powerful inna that are close to hafei tend to hold the same beliefs as him, but many inna do not agree with his practices. some inna do not believe all life on a planet should end with the bloom of an inna, and believe the inna and the people of its seed can and should exist at the same time.
hafei has been around long enough and has absorbed enough dust throughout that time that he is much stronger than any inna that has tried to dissent, but he cannot be everywhere at once. so, he enlists many inna to become the the fieldtenders - spread out across the expanse to uphold each of the tenets for hafei.
Anwi and Wefa are part of the World Curators, meaning they travel the expanse checking on worlds being grown to ensure they’re growing well and not being neglected. Emeut is part of the [name pending], who travel the expanse to find any stray life that may have left a planet before the bloom of an inna, and ensure that inna are not intentionally disrupting the balance.
emeut is a relatively powerful inna, that has been around for a while (not as long as hafei but longer than many inna). he has been harboring very extremist ideals, that inna should not be so concerned with the care of their seeds, and should be making as many inna as possible -regardless of how neglected they are - to fill the expanse. while under the guise of working for the council, he has been using his dust to essentially “fund” other inna’s worlds for his own means. this has gained him many followers.
Anwi and Wefa check up on Emeut as part of their job and find that he has been neglecting many world seeds and creating essentially an army of inna to try to overthrow hafei. emeut had convinced many other inna to help him create many world seeds that they ultimately would not put any care into, just so they would bloom as soon as possible and become inna to work and fight for emeut when the time came for his coup.
when this is found out, anwi and wefa report it to the council and emeut is punished severely by the garden wardens, and has most of his dust taken away. other world curators are sent out to investigate and ensure whoever was working with emeut gets punished as well. this not only fuels emeut’s anger towards the council and hafei, but also towards anwi and wefa.
some time later, Anwi and Wefa plant their own world seed together. this seed sprouts into the planet Asilles. 4 moons sprouted around the planet as well - Kuraesmeris / crescentmoon, Hiitomeris / bluemoon, Buromeris / bloodmoon, and Folmeris / fullmoon.
as the planet grows, the pair decide to gift it sentient life as well. they each use their power of Creation to create beings to live on the planet, each with Souls that work in different ways.
anwi creates the Selhae . selhae souls work inwards, towards the core of the self. selhae resonate with Soul -type dust. the selhae received two gifts from anwi: Construction, which allows the selhae to create constructs by using a piece of their soul, and Soul Archetypes, which provide the selhae with unique powers and abilities determined by the resonance of their soul
wefa creates the Fae . fae souls work outwards, towards the elements. fae resonate with Essence -type dust. the fae similarly received two gifts from wefa: Shapeshifting, which allows the fae to take on many forms, and Elemental Magic, which provides fae with the ability to manipulate elements that resonate with their soul.
at first, anwi and wefa play a very active role on asilles. the selhae and fae regard the inna as gods. however, as more inna are creating planets, anwi and wefa are needed more often to do their job for the seedkeepers. as time passes, they get very attached to their creations and don’t want them to have to all perish when the planet wanes and their new inna baby blooms, so they figure out a plan to save the life on the planet before it dies - they construct two guardians to watch over the planet and assist when the time came.
Merisdae - will choose a selhae to guide the people to the moons, and Yudora - will choose a fae to establish life on the moons.
a looong time later, (like tens or hundreds of thousands of years later or smth), asilles begins to wane naturally, signaling the end of the planet’s lifespan. this happens very slowly. it isn’t really noticable by the people on asilles, but they might start noticing that the waning of dust from the planet is affecting their crops, etc.