Eons ago, the Shaper created the world. This great being, though nearly all-powerful, did so by splitting a piece of itself off of his formless shape and giving it Form, creating the lands and seas and animals and, most of all, the Peoples of the world. To each living thing, it granted a spark of the Divine, something that gave them awareness.
But the act of breaking produced a wound, and thus the first evil was born into the world. Not from humanity, but from the divine, whose wound festered and grew, and eventually bled out into the world, corrupting land and living things to spread the evil there. The Shaper realized what had happened too late, and could not stop the spread of the malevolence overtaking the land. Instead, it cut off the wounded portion of itself, and buried it deep within the earth, bound by chains of Will and Faith.
Unable to survive thus wounded, the Shaper split into fragments of itself. Still enormously powerful, these fragments themselves became the Amethyne, akin to what other worlds would call angels or gods. The Amethyne each took up a purview and watched over the world, aiding the forces of light in vanquishing the evil that had leaked across the land. A war which they won.
Ages came and went, and the Amethyne became content. Complacent. Unaware that the remnant of their parent had festered and rotted within the earth, they were stunned when the Shajem broke free. The dark core within had learned how to escape, and had done it by splitting itself into dark mirrors of the Amethyne. Unprepared, the Amethyne were nearly slaughtered.
Only the presence of the Blooded saved the world from a fall into darkness. Remnants and descendants of those who had been granted a touch of the Divine during the earlier wars, the Blooded rallied against the Shajem, and with great sacrifice, managed to drive them back into the earth and seal them away.
Thus things remained for centuries, with the Blooded raising Binders specifically to deal with the evils that leaked out, and to reinforce the seals. In time, most forgot about the Divine War as nothing but a myth, and the lands again fell to conflict, this time from the petty evils of humanity. But the Shajem still slumber, waiting for the chance to finish off their crippled Amethyne siblings.
