In the beginning...

Men

In the beginning there were the Ten Gods, or so the Men say. The gods wove a world out of seven elements, and it was suffused with land and sea and trees and life. They left their world to it's own devices to watch how it would grow, and grow it did indeed. The elements strode across the land leaving change in their wake and it was creation, but it was not what the gods wanted.

The gods wanted a world to flourish, for grand civilizations to rise, to be a home for people. This could not happen while the elements roamed free, for they destroyed as much as they created, so the gods hatched a scheme. They would trap their own creation within a stable form, but their creation fought back. Thus a clash, God against Titan, the Dawn War. All the peoples of the world chose a side, the humans and dwarves and elves and such siding with the gods, while the orcs and goblins and lizardmen and such sided with the titans. Those titan-followers were fools as the gods had created the titans, but nevertheless their treachery allowed one god to be slain before the elements were contained, thus The Judge fell from the heavens and objective morality was no more.

As punishment for their betrayal a great purge was enacted, all those who fought on the side of the titans were banished to the Beastlands, and under the direction of The Architect the dwarves sealed up the only pass with a line of impenetrable fortresses. Thus the beasts were trapped where they belonged, in the lower half of the world where not much grew and the gods did not give their gifts.

And so the world carried on, the kingdoms of man and dwarf and elf and such rising, but falling too to their greed and hubris and other faults for The Judge was slain, the pantheon incomplete, the afterlife broken, and objective morality shattered.

Counterclockwise from the left: The Watcher, The Keeper, The Cultivator, The Inventor, The Mage, The Architect, The Warrior, The Champion, The Seer, and The Judge

Giants

In the beginning there was the Giant King, or so the giants say. The world was full of life but none truly Alive save for the Giant King, so he had seven sons with the seven elements and thus the lords of Magma, Lightning, Clouds, Ice, Wood, Metal, and Blood were born. The Giant King retired to his castle, done with creation in favor of rulership. The seven Lords had not yet tried creation so together they had many children, not pure beings of elements like they but still mighty, and called them "Giants" for they were giant indeed. 

The Giants lived for glory and greatness, fighting the beasts of the earth and eating and drinking, but there was much to be done and none to do it, so they pleaded to their Lords for servants who would be small and weak and tasty and could serve, so the Lords combined their elements and made cattle and chicken and all the other servant-beasts, and the Giant King emerged from his castle to ensure that all was well.

Then the dragons came down from places unknown, true rivals to the Giants. The world was not large enough for both so they warred, Magma dragon against Wood Lord, Lighting against Metal, Ice against Cloud, and so on and so forth. Many on both sides were slain, until the ruler of the dragons, a truly titanic creature, wished to make a deal. The elemental Lords were shaken for bigger is better and this dragon was the biggest of them all, so they called out the Giant King from his castle. The Giant King scoffed and tore the dragon asunder into a thousand thousand pieces, splitting it's mind amongst all the chickens as punishment. But all the displaced chicken-brains needed somewhere to go so they were placed into the thousand thousand pieces of the slain dragon birthing a new kind of creature, one with a thousand-thousandth the body of a dragon and the intelligence of a chicken. The giants called this creature "man", and made it serve like the chickens before them.

All was well for a long time, except the Giant King had retreated to his castle again, and his castle retreated from the world. Without their King to guide them, the Giants grew weaker of mind though they were still strong of body, and their manservants plotted in secret, thought to be too small to be dangerous. The men prayed for freedom and prayed and prayed until they prayed Ten Gods into being, and the gods brought them out from under the shadow of the Giants. With no King to guide them all elemental Lords fell, save for three which were smiled upon by one of the new gods, The Inventor, and sequestered away in an island far from danger. Thus the lords of Magma, Wood, and Cloud hid while the rest of the surviving giants scattered to the mountains and hills and the world was ruled by men and their derivatives like elves and dwarves, and even the shameful halfling descendants of giants.

Top left to bottom right: Magma, Lightning, Cloud, Ice, Wood, Metal, and Blood

Serpents

In the beginning there was an egg, or so the snakes say. From that egg hatched septuplets, seven Titans of immeasurable power. They played and fought, wrestled and danced, and where their elements combined the world was born. From Magma came the earth, from Cloud and Ice the seas, from Wood the trees and plants, from Metal all that hides below, from Blood came life, and from Lightning the spark of intelligence.

The first pitiful creature to be struck with Lightning became aware, saw the world around it, and declared itself ruler of all. It learnt the patterns of the elements and learnt how to use them, and found others like itself. The Sea Serpent, the Dragon Turtle, Ursa, and other primordial ur-beings. But it did not have shape or name like them, so the Sea Serpent bade it to choose something that wriggles upon the ground and uplift it, to guide it to greatness.

So this ruler of all chose the land-serpents and named itself Serpent Queen, and brought them to Lightning so that they may become aware too, and took the Sea Serpent as her consort, for he thought of the idea. These land-serpents learnt to tame the elements as well and became great and mighty, and moved to inhabit the world in it's entirety. 

But while they conquered the world they could not conquer death, for they were born of the elements and must return to them as well, so the Serpent Queen sought for something outside of the elements to save her people, and found it in the Moon. She caught the swift moon with chains and bolted it to her world and captured it's light, but no matter what she could not learn it like she learnt the elements, and no matter how many goblins and trolls she made they all could still die.

So fearful of their inevitable deaths, the land-serpents built great fortresses and froze themselves in stone, the most stable of children forged of Magma and Ice, to await when their Queen had found a solution. But the Serpent Queen was disillusioned, and saw that her serpents did not love her so but just expected her to serve them, and such froze herself in stone as well to await when they woke up, and as such the entirety of the Serpentine Empire quickly and quietly went to sleep, to never wake again.

The Visage of the Serpent Queen