Atarus' following in Pyramis only grew after his death.  One hundred years after his death, Atarus' Onin faith claimed nearly five percent of the population.  They seemed to be able to divorce themselves from the fact that Atarus' grand plan had gone haywire.

The Empire of Pyramis was slow to catch on to this statistic.  At the time, they were occupied in a quest for evangelistic empire in Meildon and Predishe.  To cleanse the barbarians of Zaizun.  They did succeed at least at the conquest part for a few years, but they were paid back for their efforts with a wash of refugees and immigrants of all natures and faiths.  Instead of cleansing others, they sullied themselves.  Managing a empire in the midst of a cultural shower proved too much for their simple faith, and they at first made the mistake of insisting on conversion.  Naturally the newcomers drifted toward the all-inclusive faith of Onin and the followers of Atarus.  And soon even the emperor had to admit that the faith could not be eradicated.  As the upstart faith actually included the traditional Khelna-Zaizun, the Emperor realized that he would lose nothing and gain much by incorporating it somehow. 

Emperor Igi Zhai Khan liked to stand on the balcony.  Separated from the palace by silk curtains in the open doorway and from the city below by great height he felt suspended between two worlds.  Neither place felt right.  The old, stolid guard versus the rule of masses of peasants cancerous with new ideas and cultures.  "Only this place makes perfect sense" he thought to himself.  The sound of a gong rang out.  He heard the quiet footsteps of Tomikan his Arjat (chief holy man).  He dreaded this moment.  But he had made up his mind.  It's not that his will alone would not be enough.  He was just tired of being the only being in the Empire not willingly headed for disaster.

"To service my lord…" began the Arjat.  But the Emperor cut him off.  He knew what he was about to hear.  He had heard it for years.  The Emperor crossed to the balcony doors and back into the palace, the Arjat following him.  "We are changing everything.  We are doing it today."  You shall announce it tonight.  "This is a mistake…"  The emperor flashed teeth at him "Stop now" he shouted.  "You have had centuries.  The world is not what we were told.  It is a place of disorder.  Cruelty.  Ignorance.  The people do not need your rules.  Do not want your rules.  We did not give the barbarians order, they gave us chaos.  You cannot rescue this with your admonitions, canes or banishment."  "The transmuter cannot win" inserted the cleric.  The Emperor turned hard and stared into him.  "He has won.  But… he is dead.  We are not.  The people think him a martyr.  We shall make him a hero.  Our hero.  Of our new faith."  "What faith, my Emperor?"  Tomikan was suddenly gripped by fear.  He could feel his life slipping away.  The Emperor looked at him "Atarus is not in the position to protest if we relieve him of his faith.  He cannot.  His followers cannot because it is all-inclusive.  We simply design a bigger box to hold it in and it shall combine all of us. We shall call it "Unis" because it is greater than "One" (Unis) it is "Unity of all".  Stop sweating Tomikan, you have not lost your job."

Next: La Dame Divin and the Ascent of Man

Atarus planned and dreamed to extend his Obelan around the world.  He has already erected one in Brechba to aide in his Transmutational experiments.  He set another in Halian for the same reason.  To support this expansion and allow them to work together he knew that he would either have to send massive numbers of missionaries to convert the local populations, or he would need another, massive Power source.  This meant an etheric entity of substantial size, that everyone already believed in - and perhaps feared.  But an entity that could not take over.  That was held permanently at bay.  Kathubra became the perfect choice.  He journeyed to her island prison and erected an Obelan there.  His Kheld easily killing or converting many of the inhabitants there, who had still worshipped the Goddess in their confused chaotic way.  Kathubra was powerless to stop the incursion of this new Onin faith that incorporated her without her consent and usurped her followers.  Her Power was added and the stage was set.

Atarus had even designed the architecture for the perfect world capital in Kheldakar. But Atarus never realized his ultimate goals.  The last Obelan that he constructed was in his homeland of Pyramis in -1,540.  By that time he had amassed followers who welcomed him to his home country as a returning prodigal.  The leaders of Pyramis granted him a reprieve as they were interested in his accomplishments.

To be able to further pursue his diverse dreams, Atarus had turned the administration of Kheldakar over to a "king".  A kheld named Zenalas.  He proved a poor choice.  One day in -1,535 as they conferred by the central Obelan in the capital, Zenalas pulled a dagger and plunged into his creator.  Atarus managed at that moment to Will his dying spirit into the Obelan.  Zenalas became ruler of the Obelan (Arjat), but he could not remove Atarus's spirit from it as Atarus knew well how to hide within.

Upon the murder of Atarus the kingdom erupted into a violent struggle for revenge and Power.  Zenalas won out eventually, and relegated many of the human and Jasou inhabitants to slavery using the Obelan as enslaver.  He denied access to Power to all but the kheld.  All who opposed him were labeled traitors and Zaizun.  Zenalas' lineage eventually built Atarus' glorious capital, and through the Obelan extended their reach well beyond Kheldakar.  But they had not the desire to attempt nor manage world domination.  They were merely bullies content to control their corner of the schoolyard.  The world would afterward only slowly take notice that the nature of reality and Magic had been changed forever.

Next: Unis

Atarus realized that altering the reality of hundreds of people was an achievable feat.  He had, in effect, made himself a deity to the people of Kor.  He had inherited a factious prison island with prisoners that hated each other, but loved him. He organized the peoples into four groups and eventually separated them onto four islands surrounding the main land mass.
The islands proved to be rich in magma-crytallized gems, some capable of holding Power.  He erected an Obelan on each island.  Dedicating each to a specific element.  He taught the population different schools of Magic corresponding to each element.  He had designed a microcosm of the world at large.  Only Earth (Kor) was lacking as he had no knowledge of Kinesis.   Almost on cue, at around -1,555 a ship of Jasou explorers landed on the main island.  Among them was a Kineticist.  They fell under the spell of Atarus' vision of a utopian society.

By -1,550 Atarus' Obelan were soaking up Power and doling it out to the population of the island.  His plan was a success.  But not yet complete.  He had begun to believe that we was indeed a form of God.  He wanted to test his grand plan on a global scale.  He took epic shamanic journeys to help determine locations, and he took telekinetic expeditions to the far corners of the earth.  He became his own age of magic in a world now nearly devoid of it.  He gathered creatures from his visits, creating new life forms through Transmutation and Necromancy.  And his penultimate achievement was the production of a "perfect" sentient species, the Kheld. Men borne of Transmutational Fire (Khelna).  He utilized the primitive tribal human inhabitants of Brechbada so as not to alarm his own population with the threat of being experimented upon.  He combined these humans with the powerful Halic beast of mountainous Halian, and the strong but primitive Cyban Betlen - a sentient insectoid being to the north of Brechbada.  For advanced perception he sought out the fabled Rayla of the northern Brechban forests.  The only other groves of Rayla outside of DOM.  From them he learned of the existence of the other groves.  He named his entire collection of islands "Kheldakar" (watery home of the Kheld) in honor of his creation. 

Next: Atarus Returns Home

Landing on the shores of Kratox was tantamount to a death sentence.  Humans generally were not welcome there.  But the Glacial spread had rendered the usually active Kratoki into a near comatose hibernation as they are cold-blooded.  Atarus and his acolyte quickly settled themselves amongst the small group of Energeticists and Transmutationalists of Krata.  It was a novely to the Kratox that a human worshipped Krata.  That and Atarus' natural charisma quickly made them court favorites. They both studied with Kratoki teachers, quickly picking up the language, though neither ever became adept at speaking the gutteral clacks and whines necessary to produce decent Kratoki speech. 

They journeyed also to Cosdrevye to the south to study Shamanics and Necromancy with the last remaining Master Shaman named Julan.  Atarus was a student again.  And he was a brilliant one.  He was particularly fascinated by the use of Power Gems.  He learned the use of them. 
Mixed with his ingrained culture of perfection, his experiments in Transmutation took him to places perhaps no one had gone before.  He became obsessed with the construction of perfection.

Julan took him on spiritual Shamanic Journeys.  Ethereal journeys.  Astral journeys.
At some point Atarus determined that the use of Power Stones in the previous age to hold and generate Power was terribly inefficient.  Uranta itself held vast amounts of Power.  You only needed to tap into it.  To channel it to certain locations and to connect those locations.  A connected spiritual Power hub.  A nexus of faith.  Those of the faith would access the Power.  Those not of the faith could not.  He resolved to construct such a hub.  But first he needed a faith.  He rejected all of the ones he was aware of.  Yet he knew that there was Power in all of them.  Of course.  He would finally vindicate himself and his student for their desire to know.  He would embrace all of them.  "No other faith could command such Power", he thought.  "But can one simply make up a faith?  If only I believe in it - will it work?"

To the east of Cosdrevye lie a collection of small islands known as Kor which was originally a Cosdrevyen prison colony,.  It was not long before the island had reached a population that demanded attention.  They overthrew their guards and seized the island.  Natural candidates for the sickness of Kathubran chaos, they mostly murdered themselves off.  Disease also took many.  Then the ice came.  Retreating to smaller islands from the main for protection from each other the men that survived existed in a very primitive way.  Atarus journeyed to KOR several times.  The first in -1,570.  The inhabitants at first feared his spell-casting, but his compassion, discipline and natural flair for teaching quickly made him a revered figure.  Setting up on the main island, he built a temple dedicated to no specific deity.  There he taught them of the Elements.  Of the light (Khelna) and dark (Zaizun).  The latter they knew well.  The former he brought to them and they very much needed it. 

He would construct a symbol of his new faith.  A faith of One (Onin) out of many.  The symbol would be a stone obelisk placed in the center of the temple grounds.  In it's heart he would place a small Gem of Power.  "We should not need much", he thought.  "Just a conduit". 

He then began his long journey toward his dream.  A dream that would take him down very dark roads, and that would change the world forever.

Next: The Creator of Perfect Things

Far from DOM, the Island country of Pyramis was originally settled by men from Zorbesh who migrated to Femer.  Then north to Tixtlan.  Then finally to Pyramis.  This took  millennia.  Situated as it is near the equator of Uranta, this lush Island paradise was little affected by the epoch of ice.  But it was instead frozen in it's lawfulness.  One man would challenge that, and then ultimately succumb to it - changing the nature of reality in Uranta along the way.

Far from DOM, the Island country of Pyramis was originally settled by men from Zorbesh who migrated to Femer.  Then north to Tixtlan.  Then to Pyramis.  Situated as it is near the equator of Uranta, this lush Island paradise was little affected by the epoch of ice.  They had survived the chaos of incarnate Gods and magic, as they maintained a simple faith that they had carried from Tixtlan.  It simply described the world as positive and negative.  Good and evil.  Light and dark.  Order and chaos.  What little Power they obtained for magic was based on the careful balancing of the two natures.  They did understand the Power of the elements, and of the gathering of Power through etheric entities and respected those disciplines - but believed such heightened Power dangerous to wield.  This is not to say that they were entirely a virtuous, level headed people.  They were consumed with honor and the minutia of living in balance to the exclusion of basic enjoyment of life and compassion for the less than perfect. 

Atarus was the prodigal son of this culture and was born at around -1,600.  He started life as the quintessential Pyramisan.  He studied well, he lived well, he was well bred and well positioned.  He was perfect.  His life was perfect.  But Atarus also had something inappropriate for a young man in Pyramis - he had compassion. 

Atarus sat on his mat in the prefecture court.  He ignored the discomfort that an hour in the same posture brought.  Onchi, his student, sat in front of him. Before them was the Prefect Inquisitor watching them carefully as he spoke.  "I understand that you have dishonored the prefecture." 

It had been a month since he had caught his prize student hiding a Kratan idol.  Symbol of the Kratoki Fire God.  A deity worshipped by Lizard men in lands to the south.  "Are you practicing Energetics?" he had asked him.  But he knew.  It was outlawed.  It was Atarus' duty to report it, or he would bring dishonor to his family.  He knew that it would be dealt with harshly.  And he loved this student.  His wife and he were childless.  This young man was every bit his son.  His wife did not share his concern.  She shared little with him.  Atarus' only sympathetic lover was his studies.  Still, he loved her and her proud beauty. Even if not yet reciprocated. "Tell them" she pleaded to him.  "Or we are dishonored".  Atarus wrestled with the decision he knew he had to make.  In his soul he began to question the wisdom of his ancinet culture of immovable law and protection.  He hated how it capped the pursuit of knowledge and kept it's children immune from truth as well as danger.  But in the end, it was his compassion that could not allow him to do it.  He could not tell this young man that he had learned as much as he should.  So he said nothing.  But his wife did not remain silent and without a word of warning betrayed them both to the Prefect Inquisitor.  And so they were called in. 

"Your student has overstepped the boundaries that our leaders and ancestors have set - and you allowed him to do it."  announced the Inquisitor slowly.  Atarus had listened respectfully "like a child", he thought.  Suddenly he wanted no more of it.  When the Prefect announced that his young protege was to be publicly caned then banished from the country, he stood.  He would listen to no such pronouncement for himself while sitting down.  In the end, the guards had to restrain him.  Both student and teacher were to be discarded on the shores of Kratox.

Next: The Birth of the Obelan.