This is a short story about the gods and goddesses of Aluin before Aluin, and their first war with Skorne.

In the beginning there was the void, and in the void was nothing. But nothing there could not be and so from the nothing there came existence, and existence was scattered on the four winds of the void and cast out to the furthest corners of it unto infinity. Existence for a time simply existed and it was good. But then existence became more than just being and became life. Some of this life came and went in an instant, but others remained, and of those that remained there were 11 who were above all the others. They were later known as the deities of Aluin: The Lady, Sigmar, Helm, Feanor, Lolth, Svartr, Catalan, Grak, Netch, Slanneesh, and Skorne. These 11 felt kinship for each other, a bond of family and destiny that they each knew could never be torn apart.

And so the 11 siblings traveled existence together, as they did ages came and went and they did not know age, tiring, or death. They also found that existence was empty, and this emptiness they felt was full of possibility. And so with their great powers they ripped a great part of existence away and carved it into their own image of what they wanted and thus Heaven was created, as a home for the 11. It was endless as existence itself, and perfect in every way. But the 11 saw all that they had created but they still felt empty, and so they desired to share their creation with others, and so with their great powers they created the Angels who were to serve and live with them in their paradise, and this was good. But of the 11 there was 1 who was greater than the rest.

Skorne, the first and most powerful of all life in existence. Skorne with his great power also had great confidence and pride in himself, and it was not enough to create others who were lesser than himself, because that life that already existed was lesser than himself. And so Skorne raised a great palace, greater than all the other palaces of the other 10, and in his palace he crowned himself lord of all existence. But the other 10 did not understand, they cried out, "but we are all of the same origin. How can you say that you can rule us?" But Skorne scoffed at their protests, for he was the most powerful, and he saw that power was the only proof one needed to rule over others. But the 10 still did not agree with him, and so Skorne decided to show them why he deserved to rule. Skorne reached out and grabbed his brother Netch and he throttled him with his power before casting him aside broken, and to never be the same again. The others were horrified as to what had happened to Netch, and together they took council on what to do about Skorne.

After much debate they came to only one conclusion: Skorne must be removed from their home. And so the 10 rallied their legions of Angels and attacked Skorne's palace. Skorne in his confidence did not expect the attack and what Angels he did have were easily overwhelmed by the armies of the 10. Skorne himself joined the battle, and his brothers Sigmar, Helm, and Grak fought him in the battle. In the end Skorne was not a fool and he saw he could not win, and so with great regret he fled from heaven, back into the first plane of existence.

With Skorne gone the 10 tore down his palace and declared that it, nor anything else, shall ever be built at it's site again. They also agreed that they would never declare one of them better than the rest, and that they would always make decisions together. Although Skorne was defeated and gone the 10 still feared his power and so they built a great wall around Heaven, and a great gate with which to keep Skorne out.

Skorne fled from Heaven for many ages, and as he fled he grew more and more hateful of his siblings, till finally when he was entirely consumed by hate he stopped and used his great powers to build himself a mighty fortress and a new kingdom within it. He brought the chaotic debris that floated throughout existence into a large sphere of rock so strong that not even he could break it. And in this sphere he left a hole to the middle of the sphere where he could hide. As he crawled into his new shell he shivered and so he set the hole into flame hotter than the brightest star. Next he took the webbing of existence and he stretched and bent it until it defied the laws it had been birthed from and his small, cramped home became an endless land as large as Heaven and yet took up no more space than what he had begun with. Finally he built a great black gate over the hole in the sphere that could never be broken.

With his home complete Skorne spent many hundreds of ages waiting and plotting his revenge on his siblings. He created new life, similar to the Angels he had once commanded, but instead of beautiful they were disgusting and wretched and thus Demons were born. Along with Demons he created all sorts of other vile creatures such as Furies, Shrikes, Balrogs, Imps, and other monstrosities too vile to mention. All the while he went unnoticed by his naive siblings who enjoyed paradise blissfully unaware of the danger that lurked on the edges of reality.

Existence was beginning to settle into order, where everything was coming into line and behaved well with everything near it. And just as everything seemed like it was going to be perfect the horns of war were blown once more. An endless sea of writhing, contorted, dark, and evil forms swarmed across existence and destroyed what little order was being put together in the blink of an eye. This mighty horde of demonic creatures moved so quickly that the guards of the gate of Heaven barely had time to rally the defenses. The horde smashed against the majestic walls of Heaven in wave upon wave. They swarmed forward, unworried about their own lives for they did not value life in the least, even their own, these creature lived only for destruction, it was all they were built for. The Angels were horrified at how vicious the Demons were, but they did not waver and fought them off with equal determination. Countless Angels and Demons died in that first battle which lasted for more than a millennium in the time of men, but in the end the Demons could not get past the defenders and Skorne saw the futility in continuing the fight so he ordered his armies to fall back to lick their wounds.

The 10 gathered together, horrified that Skorne could be capable of such evil as to create creatures like what they had just witnessed. They resolved that they could not stay in Heaven and continue to ignore Skorne, they had to defeat him anyway possible lest he finally break into and retake Heaven with his Siblings as his slaves, or worse he could take all of existence and twist it to his own perverted vision. And so the second great creation of Angels began. The 10 also created creatures to match Skorne's foul beasts like the Seraphim, Elementals, Fairies, and the Zodiacs.

Then the 10 armies of Heaven marched forth but Skorne was ready for them. As soon as the gates opened his own armies rushed forward zealously trying to make it towards the gate, caring only to set foot in that forbidden land. The armies of the Angels were not so easily fooled however and they stopped the suicidal creatures with ease and then they began to fight off the rest. Although the Demons numbered many times more than their enemies they could not overcome them. For every Angel that fell 4 Demons fell as well. Skorne could not understand, his power was greater, how could his creations be any less than those of his weak Siblings? Once more Skorne was forced to call his armies back to regroup, but this time the armies of Heaven chased after him.

From one end of existence to the other the armies of Heaven and the armies of Skorne fought. Skorne won many battles too, but always his Siblings won more. And as the war continued both sides continued to create more and more Angels and Demons to fight but Skorne soon found that he could not keep up with how many Angels his Siblings were creating. In both fear and confusion Skorne fled from his armies and he let them fight for themselves as he returned to his home on the far side of existence. In his dark, fiery sphere Skorne sat and pondered on what he was doing that was wrong. He surmised that it was because although Skorne by himself could create far more than any one of his siblings, he could not create more than all of them together. But also he discovered that every time he created a Demon he had to put a bit of himself into that Demon to give it life. But because Skorne had created so many each one had a smaller percentage of his power than what his Siblings put into each of their own, hence his Siblings Angels were more powerful because they divided their power into less pieces. So Skorne thought on this and finally he devised a plan to make up for this.

Skorne left his fortress home and while his armies slowed down the armies of Heaven, Skorne went out and stole a third of the stars out of the sky and brought them back to his dark home. In his bottomless pit he took the stars and he smashed them together and forged from them 13 terrible weapons that would never be surpassed in all the ages to come.

While this all occurred the 10 armies of Heaven continued to push back the armies of Skorne. Without their leader the Demons did not know what to do and so they were much easier to defeat for the Angels. Finally they stood before Skorne's great fortress. Skorne's armies cowered, fearing the wrath of both the Angels and their angry lord whom they knew they had failed. But the armies of Heaven did not strike as they expected. Instead they simply surrounded Skorne's fortress. And then, out of their midst came the 10 lords and ladies of Heaven. They called out into Skorne's dark hold, and they begged for him to surrender, to end this madness and come home. They even offered him a place in Heaven so long as he gave up his power forever.

And from within Skorne's dark keep a low and evil laugh came. "I will never submit to you," he called back, and then the gates to his fortress opened and 13 sets of eyes peered out at the armies gathered around Skorne's fortress. Then the 13 creatures charged forth. They were mightier than any creature that had ever been created, and they were so mighty that even the 10 were forced to flee from their thunderous charge that shook reality itself.

The 13 were the Colossi, forged from the stars for the sole purpose of destruction. The armies of Heaven charged forward in protection of their creators, and one of the Colossi simply blinked and 10 legions of Angels burst into fire and an instant later they were no more. Along with the Colossi came more Demons as well to supplement Skorne's depleted army. This mighty, dark horde smashed into the armies of Heaven and slew legion upon legion of Angels, but still the Angels held firm and they would not break.

Even though the Angels would not give up fighting the Lords and Ladies of Heaven knew that they would need more than what they had to stop these new terrible beasts. So Svartr, Lord of Creation went out and forged great weapons with which to battle these new beasts. But unlike Skorne, Svartr only forged 2. He forged the first for his brother Helm, the most quiet but also the most honorable of all of the 10. To Helm he gave the Lance of Truth, a mighty spear which would break through every deception and seek out the bare heart's of it's enemies. And then he gave to Sigmar, the bravest of the 10, a great twin-tailed, comet tethered by a chain of light with which to smash any foe who ever stood against him.

Together Helm and Sigmar charged forward, side by side, right into the very heart of the battle. And with their new weapons not even the 13 Colossi could stand against them. In that first battle the two brothers killed 4 of the 13 and many legions of Demons as well. Skorne had no choice but to pull his armies back into his fortress to bide his time.

For many ages the armies of Heaven continued to surround, entrench, bombard, and attack Skorne's fortress, but no matter how hard they tried they could not break the great sphere of rock or Skorne's dark gate. Even Sigmar and Helm could not break through Skorne's fortress for it had been just as well built as the wall of Heaven and no army could hope to break it. As the siege continued ever so often Skorne would unleash his armies to try and break through the Angels, but every time his Demons were pushed back. Even Skorne's Colossi could not break through the armies of Heaven, and after losing 3 more over the ages Skorne did not want to continue to risk his most powerful creations.

The 10 came together once more to deliberate on the matter. They knew that Skorne could not escape, he could never match their armies of Angels and Skorne did not have the resources or power to build anymore Colossi or anything else of equal power to possibly tip the balance in his favor. But although Skorne could not defeat them, they likewise could not defeat Skorne. Even if they were able to break through Skorne's impregnable fortress' outer defenses they would still have to fight his armies which were still very mighty, and even after that there would be Skorne himself to contend with. The 10 siblings pondered if they could just continue this siege forever, but they feared that perhaps they would become complacent and let their guard down and lose it all. And they did not want to ruin existence again with order just now returning after it had been disturbed by their war all across it's breadth. So they decided that they had to contain Skorne within his fortress so that he could never escape again to terrorize anything or anyone.

On the final day of the war all was silent, and the 10 came forward. Once more they offered a truce to Skorne, but Skorne did not even respond this time, such was his contempt for his siblings. So, with great regret the 10 used their power and they brought forth more rock from all around and they smashed it into the surface of Skorne's spherical fortress. Skorne laughed at their apparent futile attempt to smash his home, but still the 10 continued. And soon it became apparent that they had no intentions of breaking Skorne's fortress, instead they sought to bury him under an equally thick layer of rock, to be forever trapped within his own home. When Skorne finally realized what was happening he quickly tried to thrust open the gates of his keep, but it was too late. Already a mighty mountain range of rock and metal covered the gate. Skorne's power was great, but it was not great enough to escape that which he had created to be indestructible. But right before the last open slit was covered Skorne threw out a small orb of black and fiery red onto the surface of his fortress. This sphere was the key to his gate, so that perhaps someday it could be opened once more from the outside. His siblings did not notice this sphere being thrown out, instead they continued about their business. With the gate buried they next poured water all onto the sphere, to cool it down from the hot fires of Skorne within it. Catalan went out in the stars and found the brightest, most beautiful star in all of existence and they put it beside Skorne's keep, and the 10 caused it to circle around the fortress, acting as a light which would expose any foul machinations of Skorne upon it's surface. The 10 also built a great, magic wall which divided the surface of the sphere in two, one side where Skorne's gate was buried, and the opposite side was made completely safe and protected from Skorne's all seeing gaze which could pierce even rock. Finally Svartr went out and forged more great weapons, to be used in the event Skorne ever did escape his prison, but to protect these weapons from falling into the wrong hands the 10 created a Sphere much like Skorne's and inside it they put Svartr's new weapons. They locked the gate and each of the 10 kept a key so that only all 10 of their keys could ever be able to reopen the gate and use the terrible weapons within. This new sphere was also made to rotate around Skorne's fortress like the star, but on the opposite side lest the two crash into each other.

After all this was done the 10 armies of Heaven finally returned home, their job was done.

For many ages afterward Skorne sat in his dark home, with no way to escape. He created more Demons, and sometimes out of boredom he would destroy all of the Demons he had created only to recreate them again. As he sat and waited his hatred burned within him, and it became so much more than just hatred. He despised his siblings with such intensity that it permeated everything around him, and caused his already vile Demons to become even more cruel and evil.

Then one day Skorne heard a pair of familiar voices outside of his prison. It was his siblings Feanor and Lolth, they had returned, and so he sent forth his Demons to creep through the small tunnels in his prison that only they could fit through to the surface to see what Skorne's siblings were doing. The Demons soon returned with news of the transformations that the surface was quickly going through due to the things Feanor and Lolth and the other deities were doing. They also told Skorne of the frail, new lifes the deities were creating: the Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Dragons, Humans, and other creatures. And Skorne was pleased, he knew he could use this to his advantage. He saw that his time was drawing closer, to finally escape and exact revenge on his siblings, all he had to do was wait.