[Blub]

Hey, what follows is a history I wrote for the Malazan world. It's not very good writing and confusing as hell, but I just want to post it. Most of it is completely invented. Enjoy! (or not)

In the beginning there was only Darkness and that Darkness was infinite. Like any unchained natural force, it started to become an elemental. Because elementals are more powerful and ‘sentient’ the bigger that from which they come forth is, this Elemental became almost alpowerful: Mother Dark was born. Mother Dark, being the only thinking being in the universe, felt extremely lonely, so she made herself company. Out of Darkness, she created smaller, weaker, yet senient companions, the Tiste Andii. The Andii loved Mother Dark enough to start worshipping her and She, on the other hand, was happy with her work.
This however didn’t last: Mother Dark got bored with the Andii, they were after all way out of her league. So Mother Dark decided to perform her trick once again. This time however, she would not only sacrifice half her realm, but also change it, make it completely different from herself. She took half of Darkness, half her own mind even, and turned it inside out, made it the very opposite of herself; so was born Light.

What She didn’t expect was that Light and Darkness couldn’t exist peacefully, as soon as Light existed it started to attack Darkness. Out of the massive clash of the two diametrically opposed powers came Chaos. Chaos, unlike Darkness, was no calm lake but a impossibly wild and destructive river that branched out infinitely. Soon Mother Dark and Father Light saw no other possible way out than to create a third realm to atleast keep Darkness and Light away from eachother. Together they created Shadow, a gentle blending of their two Aspects in between their realms. Driven half-insane from the birth of Light and the fact that they could never actually live like she wanted, Mother Dark retreated into Darkness’ core.
Light had not only riven Darkness, but also the minds of the Andii. Some of them decided that the only way to help their Mother was to blend with Father Light’s children, the Tiste Liosan. In the realm of Shadow, those Andii met with likeminded Liosan and gave rise to a third people, the Tiste Edur. Mother Dark, still grieving, left the Edur alive and Father Light, on his side, was already closing off Light. Other Andii, uncluding the second of Mother Dark’s most favored children, Anomandaris, concluded Mother Dark had betrayed them and started Darkness’ civil war against those Andii still loyal.

Chaos, aggressive as it is, expanded around Dark and Light and continued to attack it. Soon Chaos too had grown large enough to form a conscienceness and did so. Out of the immeasurable fury came, paradoxally, order. Unlike Mother Dark who had always been and would always be connected with Darkness, the creature from ordered Chaos had no direct control over it; after all Chaos is by definition uncontrollable. Out of Chaos proper came a more ordered version in the form of a huge creature, in whose veins flowed the raw power of Chaos. This creature was Tiam, mother of all dragons. Immediatly after she came into being, Tiam started to serve Order, by inflicting it on Chaos, one Aspect – Chaos is essentially every Aspect, from Fire, Air and Earth through Health to Honor or Love, except Light, Darkness and Shadow all jumbled about-- at a time. Time and time again she would pluck out a random Aspect out of Chaos, and die, only to be reformed with the now different Chaos. Eventually, if she were able to go on infinitly, she would ‘deplete’ Chaos (and herself).
However, some Tiste and later a few others found out that if someone killed her just before she brought a new dragon to order, he or she could take that theoretical dragon’s power, with Tiam restarting her birthing cycle. This individual then gains acces to Tiam’s almost-chaotic power and can take on the form of a dragon aspected to what power it wielded before.
These Soletaken however didn’t want to leave open such a way to power and kept Tiam dead, preventing her from restarting her cycle and coming back.
Tiam’s actions before this time made Chaos slightly less wild, allowing actual matter to form.
One large lump of matter eventually turned into Wu. In the deepest part of its oceans life appeared, which slowly began to conquer the entire world. In the worlds that Darkness, Shadow and Light had become, a lot of Andii and Edur got intrigued with this particular world.

Out of the uncountable kinds of animals, the first sentient species evolved, the K’chain Nah’ruck. The huge reptiles, strangely ressembling dragons (which had many people later on confuse the two), had short tails that allowed them to stand up. The Nah’ruck were truly obsessed with machines (which they infused with their individually weak Unaspected magic – meaning there was no dragon Aspected to it, making it clumsy and almost pure Chaos). This actually made them vulnerable to certain things like epidemics. Assailed by numerous diseases and hereditary malformities, a large part of their species dissappeared: a lot of them just died out and others fled to the only visible moon on their only truly succesful machine, the Skykeep, to at least escape the diseases.
The Nah’ruck who stayed were at the brink of exstinction forcing them to take desperate decisions. One community tried to survive by giving all of both its political or even mental power and all of its magical might to its last female member: the first Matron.

The Matron did indeed bring salvation, but was completely corrupted by her almost limitless power over her people. She noticed she was able to ‘engineer’ her offspring in any way she wanted. As she changed the form of her kind, their society too, was completely changed. In stead of the community of individuals, they were now more of a hive. This new species came to be known as the K’chain Chemalle. It proved highly succesful and quickly destroyed the remaining Nah’ruk and conquered most of the rest of the world. The Matrons also acquired humongous power thanks to their growing hives, giving them all their own magic. They even managed to dredge an almost stable Aspect out of Chaos without relying on a dragon’s power.

During the Nah’ruk rise and death struggle two species developped on the sub-continent later named Seven Cities: one was a race of mighty beasts, who could even, at their peak, keep the Chemalle away; the other was a kind of almost-sentient ape capable of walking upwards, the Eres.
Also during the lifetime of the Nah’ruk certain elementals, with Aspects, started becoming so powerful, they were developing sentience. However before they could achieve complete awareness, the Matrons’ grip on Wu tightened to the point that couldn’t create a focus for that mind.

Just when the Chemalle thought themselves alpowerful, they got wounded. Anomandaris had discovered Wu as a place away from the civil war. Together with the purest son of Father Light, Osserc and several others he made the first ‘Gate’, out of the Dark, Shadow and Light bubble into the Wu. They, and most of the other previously incorporial Tiste, had to choose physical form. Anomandaris and like-minded Andii fought themselves through a hive of unsuspecting and luckily unprepared Chemalle and disappeared.
Meanwhile, the Wound they created, turned out way more important than anticipated. Mother Dark was unable to close it and the only way she could save herself from being consumed by Chaos, was by making it wander, ever outrunning Chaos.

While the Chemalle were still reeling and trying to come up with a weapon against more of those strange invaders, the Eres got the chance to flourish.
The Eres were the first to be really aware of the world around them and understand the power it held. By finding and reinforcing natural sites of power they gave the world spirit magic and layed the base for the future Holds by weakly binding Aspects to the world. Seeking to escape the tyranny of the Hounds, several groups of Eres began to move away.
One of these groups migrated to the north, into the ice, that they eventually identified with and, since it was an Aspect, were able to form into Hold for them to use. They became the first Jaghut.
Another group hid in the mountains and flourished: they eventually founded large cities, that crumbled soon after due to civil wars. This race of giants split into numerous branches that later mingled with other races such as Jaghut and humans; they, however, never rose again.
The Matrons think they have found their new weapon in resurrecting the Nahruk, but these refuse to donate their power to the Matrons. A war breaks out between the Chemalle and the Nahruk.

The wars between the K’chain raged for centuries and allowed Elementals to take more defined forms. This lead to the birth of Mael from the Seas, Draconus from Order out of Chaos, K’rul from Order, Killimandaros from Justice, etc. These Elders too started attacking the Matrons.
Another people branched out of the Eres, whose numbers were dwindling fast: the Imass. Unlike most other Eres-groups, the Imass didn’t move away; the Hounds were dying out. The Imass came in contact with Jaghut who were rediscovering the rest of the continent, but relations were still neutral.
The sight of sentient beings who look weaker, makes some Jaghut mad with power, but they are usually subdued by their family.

A new Elemental is born, Sanctuary, and proves very succesful, so succesful it changes its aspect: instead of protecting people inside against things on the outside, it starts to protect the outside world from what’s inside. Because it imprisons weaker, not-yet-sentient Elementals it gets even more powerful.
The Imass tribes discovered magic : they formed the Beast Hold and learned that by indentifying with a specific animal their so-called bonecasters could, among other things, change into that animal’s form. The first of them takes on the aspect of dragons : Olar Ethil. Most tribes lived close to eachother, with one ‘emperor’ loosely ruling them, forming the First ‘Empire’.

Draconus starts thinking and working on a way to keep the first gate away from both Mother Dark and Chaos.
Killimandaros spawns a race to help impose Justice on the world. This race resembles her physical form, only smaller. These Forkrul Assail were mostly artificial as a race and culture.
K’rul decides dragons and their power shouldn’t flow so violently. He starts negociating with certain dragons about donating their power to his plan.
K’rul fixes the Holds, a lot of previously free Aspects get their own realm. K’rul urges his dragon allies to retreat back into what has become the core of his being and Starvald Demelain eventually gets sealed.

The Edur known as Scabandari tries to seize power by killing the Edur royal line. Fearing he would abuse the still young realm of Emurlahn, some dragons try to stop him. Scabandari kills the dragons and creates the fatal wound. Emurlahn starts to fall apart and Scabandari enlists the aid of the Andii to invade the safer world of Wu. Their armies destroy most of the remaining K’Chain.

Imass-Jaghut encounters became more violent and Jaghut stop restraining their dominative family members. Those Jaghut become the Tyrants and start enslaving large populations of Imass.
The Imass empire soon starts fighting back to save their brethren and even though most Jaghut help them when the Tyrants get too powerful, the Imass turn against the Jaghut as a whole. Feeling attacked, the Jaghut start using their ice magic against the Imass, causing the beginning of the Jaghut winters.

The Eres’ numbers have slunk to around ten, most of them are old males and live on an solitary continent; they soon die out. The last Eres female lives on another continent is too young to survive on her own. Just before she dies however, the Eres spirits save her; helped by the fact that she is the last of a forgotten race, the spirits free her from the time stream and send her back to just after the old males’ tribe loses its last female member.

The Edur and Andii succeed in killing the K’Chain near the temporary location of the Gate. The Andii are betrayed.
The Imass are weakening and conclude they won’t survive, but decide they should at least rid the world of the Jaghut. All tribes are called to the First Empire. Stealing most of the power of the Beast Hold and some from Thyr (thanks to Olar Ethil), the present Imass create a new Hold, meaning to form the Hold of Fire, they actually create Ash. Yet their plan mostly succeeds, almost their whole race is linked to Tellan and becomes undead, the T’lan Imass are born. The first great Jaghut Wars take place.

Most children, who weren’t included in the Ritual, eventually evolved into humans. Most of the human population lived in Seven Cities and Jacuruku. The First Empire is founded in Seven Cities, the Kallorian Empire on Jacuruku. The First Empire flourishes and its inhabitants even start to consider ascending collectively. The High King Kallor gets megalomanic, forcing the hand of a powerful cadre of mages who bring down the Crippled God. Kallor knows his end is near and using K’chain machinery destroys Jacuruku.

Meanwhile the emperor Dessimbelackis forms a pact with the seven surviving Deragoth : he splits his soul into seven pieces, each fusing with one Deragoth. He also creates a race of demonic creatures called the Trolbarahl. These creatures quickly get out of hand and the Deragoth are forced to exterminate them. Some of them manage to create a body for their little collective forming the entity of Dejim, which the Nameless Ones imprison almost immediatly. One of the Trolbarahl escapes to the colony of Letheras, but gets soon caught by the Azath house there. At what would become the end of the First Empire, Dessimbelackis leads a ritual that would gift every citizen with shapeshifting abilities. The ritual runs wild killing Dessimbelackis, destroying the Deragoth’s physical forms en shattering the Empire. Because humans are descendants of the Imass and drew heavily upon Beast Hold for the ritual, the T’lan felt responsible and cleaned up most of them mess. Colonies were less affected, but most still perished or survived by banishing their shapeshifters.

Draconus fixes the First Gate in Dragnipur; the part of the holds that is magic turns into the warrens.

[Mentalist]

nice... though convoluted, lol

[Zanth13]

yes maybe breaking it into Paragraphs would make it easier to read, but I support any one who writes... very cool

[Blub]

It was mostly meant as an actual history for Wu, less as an actual writing exercice; though it is by far the longest text I've ever written in English.
I posted it in 'Writing' because for a lot of things, I have absolutely zero "evidence".
Thanks for the comments (and rep) so far

[Sinisdar Toste]

here and there in your narrative there are certain details that made me say "well that would certainly explain a lot."