Seven Lost Lords: The Anomaly

Prologue: The Seeker

Long ago, before the world began, darkness was all that there was. There was no form of light or being within the void. But then a shining whiteness burst into the shadows, and from the light came seven beings of color. They were The Seven Lords.
The first lord was Crim, the lord of fiery resolve and the determination that burns within all beings.
The second was Tane, the patient god and lord of the gritty earth.
The third was Sol, a violent being whose strife brought forth golden light and warmth to the land.
The fourth was Vrilore, the calm lord of growth and the green that covers the earth.
The fifth was Az, lord of the ascent and gatekeeper of the heavens.
The sixth was Lune, god of the night sky and watchman of the moon.
But the most powerful of the heavenly band was the lord Kno, god of illusion and mystery, patron of the unknown. No one knew his face, and many said that he had a white countenance, while others said that he was blackened by his allure. Whatever the case, he was the cornerstone of the Light that birthed him and his brothers.

The Seven Lords were delighted at coming into the void, and they shaped it as they pleased. They created a race in their own image and a land for them to inhabit, and so the Aetyrim were born.

The Aetyrim are a fascinating race, distantly related to those of the Fae. They walk on two legs and are covered head to toe in colorful pelts. They don manes that resemble those of sheep's wool and have the likeness of foxes.
Back in the age of the Seven Lords and the horned Aetyrim, magic was hard to come by and only those chosen by the gods could receive such power. But there was one aetyr who was so blinded by his love for the art that it eventually overcame him.
His name was Dukalis, Aetyria's greatest mage. He had hazel fur and a long, midnight mane, with spiraling horns the color of oak wood and eyes that gleamed sapphire in the sunlight. He was a mysterious creature, overwhelming in both magic and cunning wit. But his wit failed him the day he came face to face with the Third of the gods, the Lord Sol.

Dukalis had disrespected the gods who created him and his race, and he tried to outpace them in his greed for knowledge and magical prowess. As a result, within the golden god's fury he was banished from the face of Aetyria.
His book was all that remained of the mage, a testament to what was once the most powerful aetyr, and a warning to those who tried to overthrow the gods. To cast spite upon the mage, the gods enchanted his book to give every newborn aetyr from that point on a form of magic, to make everyone mages and to learn from one another.
However, there is a distinction between Aetyrim regarding the upper and lower classes. Although many variations of pelt colors lie within the acceptable social community of an aetyr, only two remain of the manes: Black and White. Black symbolizes the presence of all hues, and so reflects that of all magical prowess. Meanwhile, white is that of an emptiness, a weakness and void of a truer calling to the status of a lord.
And it just so happened that just as Dukalis had a black mane, so those who received greater magic also had black manes. The gods had unwittingly created a greater divide between their creation, and so while the black maned Aetyrim rose to be kings and queens, lords and magistrates, the white stayed near the bottom and reluctantly accepted their fate as peasants and workers.
Perhaps as the black manes rose to power, the gods grew tired of reasoning with their creation, and due to that, or for some other reason altogether, they disappeared from the face of the earth.
Many believe that the gods died from lack of belief, but those who doubt this say that they left over the East Horizon to seek a new life, and so left their creation on their own.
The doubters have left to seek the gods over the edge of the world, and none have ever returned. Some say that they have met a storm and died that way, while others say that they have fallen off the edge of Aetyria.
But a very select few believe that beyond the East Horizon, where water and sky meet and the moon shines brighter than the sun is where a new world lies. A world of strange, furless beings, of autonomous creation and towers of steel. But only those already there know what they have found: A world of death or life, of light or darkness, of allies or foes.