The sun shone harshly upon a new world. Moisture fled the endless desert, sheltering in the wide crater punched into the face of Galbar. Day after day bleached the rock white and red and ivory-yellow, leaving dunes and mesas and vast salt pans where there could have been life. [i]There was... a lake.[/i] High in the north of the planet, where the seasons stretched the days into long hours of twilight and the nights into maddening gloom, the mid-summer sun rolled over a great salt plain. The land stared up at the sky, and went blind, losing all solidity and distinction, melting into an endless puddle of mirage, like water. Winter came, and night, and the mirage froze solid, and when the sun rose again months later, there was nothing left but ice. Ice, white and flat in every direction. It multiplied the light tenfold, and the land was as blinding to the eye as it was blind itself, an inescapable wash of cold sunlight that cut deep into the retina. Even when the chilling winds of death swept moisture over the surface of the ice, it came in an endless, shapeless mist of grey, such that a wanderer could be lost between the cold below him and the cold above, unable to tell the sky from the earth. A lone crystal strider cracked itself out of the ice, and staggered starving through that place, its optic veins flooded with empty stimulus, yet unable to find so much as a single rock to ponder for its sustenance. Searching, searching, searching, it waited for the coming of night, when it would be able to subsist on meagre meals of astrology and aurorae until the coming of merciless Day. [i]No, not like this.[/i] It was bright, bright, bright... [i]...But there WAS a lake.[/i] Midsummer came again, and there was a second mirage, a little further south, connected to the first by a channel. Winter passed, and when the sun shone upon the ice, it melted. Great floes wailed and screamed and groaned against one another as they broke apart. Wind and waves broke them into curious shapes, beautifully blue and dusted with snow, ready to roll and break at any moment, sending any would-be ice walker deep into the crushing darkness of the polar water. Pools of pure blue melt filled upon the white flats and froze solid again. Galbar turned, and the water became slush, then brash, then ice once more. Currents of lethal freezing brine and life-giving oxygen circulated with the motions of the ice and the sea and the wind. Krill sifted food from the open waters while they could, and when the ice came again, their starved bodies were gnawed upon by starfish that starved in turn. Here and there, a seal eked out a living on cold-blooded fish, desperately packing on fat before the dark and the cold came again. Starving each winter, yet unable to leave the only source of water in the desert, the fish caught in this trap clung on from summer to summer. This world was ruled by the passage of the Sun. [i]There was... a hand.[/i] Wavering rays of sunlight cut across the vast desert, like claws, like knives. They tore up the dry surface of Galbar, raising up a hot and angry cloud, and through this cloud the sun gouged and tore at the earth like a demented animal, ripping up stone and sand as if searching for a memory. [i]No, not that hand.[/i] The solar gorges were deep, walled by hard bedrock that would not be eroded by wind. Their edges had been raised high, like welts of broken flesh under the scourge, blocking the dust storms that would have mercifully blocked the sun. At the bottom of each valley, air circled and circled, unable to escape, growing hotter, hotter, hotter, until at last night came and the earth was permitted to cool. [i]There was another.[/i] A small, bright beam of light wandered the face of Galbar, flashing hither and thither until at last it came upon the Tree. There it shone, from the first break of dawn to the last moment of dusk, a straight, clear beam connecting the life of the earth with the light of the heavens above. Everyone with eyes to see, saw; from the far west of the crater hemisphere to the east, from the crystalline ice-striders to the worshipful crow-people, from the goats to the goblins, they all saw the Guiding Ray, and knew that where it led was the center of all things, the birthplace of the universe, the seat of all gods, and it could not be hidden, come storm, come dust, until night. The Tree of Life grew a bright and healthy green in the light of the Ray, and blossomed. And the blossoms blew on a gentle wind to the hollow heart of the Tree, where the sun gazed down into the Scroll and saw the name that was written upon it, as it had been, as it would always be: the Itzala. [color=thistle][i]Ah yes,[/i][/color] thought the Sun. [color=thistle][i]There I am.[/i][/color] [hider=The Sun awakes] Itzal wakes up, remembering almost nothing of the time when he was growing. He recalls a lake, and creates two polar seas in the far north, conjoined by a strait. One half of the polar sea is permanently frozen and impossible to navigate by sight due to the lack of landmarks, featureless cold fog, and above all, sun-blindness. One of the Eidolon's crystal striders forms out of ice here, and the brightness frazzles its optic fibre nervous system a little, but it barely manages to survive by doing enough stargazing in winter to make it through the featureless summer. The other half of the polar sea is 'ruled by the Sun'- it thaws seasonally, and is filled with polar sea life, heavily dependent on the summer melt. The winters are brutal, but there's nowhere for the sea life to escape to, so they cling on and wait for the sun. Then Itzal recalls a hand, confusing the Hand of Mysteries with Misri's slashing claws, and slashes deep valleys into the desert of Galbar. Much like Death Valley in California, these valleys trap solar heat, becoming unlivable for any ordinary being- even more so than the rest of the desert. Itzal then creates a holy site, the Guiding Ray, to shine upon the Khodex and remind himself of what his own name is. The Guiding Ray is a relatively innocuous sunbeam, but can be seen anywhere on Galbar's crater hemisphere, an unusually bright ray of sunlight that points directly to the Tree of Life and makes its location impossible to hide. It may one day be useful as a navigational tool, but it may also call unwanted attention to the Tree, even from space. 10 Might. -1 Might to create the Blinding Sea, empowered by Curses to be worse. -1 Might to create the Solar Sea, empowered by Curses to be worse. -1 Might to create the Solar Gorges, empowered by Curses to be worse. -1 Might to create the Guiding Ray, a Holy Site co-located with the Tree of Life. -4 Might to claim the Solar Domain, the Sun. 2 Might remain. [/hider]