Anrithari - Rise of the First People

Of the world the Anrithari came from, very little is known. The few old tales that survived the ages describe it as an idyllic world of lush forests and vast oceans, dotted with cities of graceful white towers, all ruled over by the Emperor in Sapphire. Yet for whatever reason, their world was rent asunder in a cataclysmic event, and of their great number only a small fraction survived. It was the elder mage Galathon that saved them, ripping a hole in the very fabric of reality and ushering as many as he could onto another world. Perhaps, if Galathon had had more time to prepare, the Anrithari would have come to a world more inviting, one more suited to their needs. Instead, they came to Edania, before it was as we know it now. Created out of the darkness of the Void by the mad dragon-god Varus, it was a world of darkness and fire, of ice and stone.
As the Anrithari emerged onto the open plain before Varus' Black Palace, he came to them, in the guise of one of their own, though with eyes and hair as black as the Void. He welcomed them, offered them sanctuary. His was a new world, he explained, still in its infancy, and together they could shape it as they saw fit. A new home for a displaced people. Still shaken from their flight and many with minds clouded by their despair, they accepted Varus' offer and went with him to the Black Palace. And, at first, things were just as the mad god had promised. He entertained and fed them, raised a city of black stone manors and towering spires, a mirror of their lost capitol, from the plain where they had first appeared, and in the Palace itself he allowed the wisest and most influential among them to reside.
Yet Varus' heart held no warmth, nor love, and it was with those within the palace that he focused the lion's share of his attention. To them he whispered his dark thoughts, and over the years twisted their minds with his foulness. They became separate from their kin, a class apart. In Varus' thrall, they consigned their own people to slavery, and thus the Anrithari branded them Vareshi, "betrayers". For untold generations, the Anrithari people suffered in bondage even as their numbers grew. The elite, the Vareshi, flourished in the Black City and the Palace above, while the Anrithari labored in the camps and mines created by Varus and the Vareshi to mine precious gems and metals from the burning, lifeless rock of Edania's infancy. Still, even this could not last. From among the enslaved arose those who would resist. Led by the smith Oren, who in secret fashioned strong armaments for his fellows from the metal Varus forced them to mine, they rose up against the mad god and his dark, twisted minions.
The war that ensued lasted for years, but in the end it was Oren himself, now a swordsman and commander of great renown, and his companions who cornered Varus in his very throne room. The Kal'vaer were slain, broken, and the maddened god too diminished in power to simply strike his attackers down. In his own citadel, they faced their oppressor and struck him down. And, as he died, his life-force flowed from him. It permeated those assembled before him, those that had brought his death, and through them, sinking into the very rock. Beneath their feet, the heart of the world began to beat and churn, and Varus' black palace began to crumble.
As rebels, they had entered Varus' domain, and from it they emerged as Gods themselves, granted some measure of the mad god's immense power and eternal life. Thirteen were their number, and at their head, as ever, was Oren, shining light a beacon of hope in the darkness of the world. The Anrithari praised them as heroes, saviors, and they were lifted up. Their new power connected them to Edania itself, and with it they willed new life to spring forth from the young world. Barren wastes became verdant forests, and in a short time Edania became a paradise, not a sign remaining of the mad god's fiery kingdom.
With a true home created for their people, Oren and his fellows then raised a shining city over the very site where the Black City of the Vareshi, a true echo of the once-fair world where their people had been born. For a time, they lingered there, Oren ruling over the Anrithari as their Emperor, but it became obvious as time passed that some among their own people had become jealous of their rescuers and their newfound divinity. It was then that Oren issued a decree: that never again would those of divine might rule over the First People. The Anrithari would flourish, and Edania would be their golden empire. Placing his trusted friend Laerek on the throne as its first Emperor, Oren and his fellows then departed with a promise that they would continue to watch over and protect their people from afar.
And so the Golden Empire was born, and they revered the Circle of Twelve, those who had struck down Varus and brought Edania forth from its barren infancy. Of the Thirteenth, few remember, for he vanished after the raising of the Shining City, and of his fate history knows naught.