History

Creation of the Waters and the Wastelands

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© Daniel S. Wall, September 15, 2026.

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This is Chapter 2 of the most authoritative account of creation contained in the Stone Philosophic. A full table of contents can be found here.

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Text

In time the great dragon awoke to the sound of a voice; “Are you not hungry?”

And he was.

So, Hetht consumed a portion of the mass below him, carving still greater valleys into the mass still spinning beneath him. In time, the great dragon satisfied his hunger and laid down again. Before he could resume his sleep, the voice returned; “Are you not thirsty?”

And he was.

But the world as yet had no water, and so Hetht cupped his great forepaws and spat in them. In the palm of his left hand, the great dragon found to his own surprise that he held a small turtle whereas a tiny fish clung to the talons of his right hand. And Hetht placed the spittle, the turtle, and the fish in the greatest depression he had made upon the mass and bade them to call it home.[1]

At first, the turtle and the fish got along well with one another, but then the fish bit the turtle and grew larger in consequence. Again, and again, the fish lashed out at the turtle, growing still larger each time it feasted. In his own defense, the turtle grew a hard shell, but still this did not deter his voracious companion. Hetht admonished the fish to play nicely and to love its brother, but the fish cried out; “I cannot help myself father. My brother’s flesh calls to me, and I hunger so.”

Seeking to end the rivalry between his children, Hetht sent the fish to the east and the turtle to the west. As each swam away from the other, the waters stretched out with them until all the great impressions in the world had been covered. And the turtle grew into the god, Ayomichi, and the fish became The Shark King. Ever enemies, these first-born children of Hetht contend with one another for control of the seas, the one by means of its wisdom and the other by the strength of its jaws.

Hetht then drank his fill from the oceans created by his progeny.

Once again, Hetht laid down to rest only to be disturbed by the voice once again. “Isn’t there something you have to do?”

And so the great dragon relieved himself, turning a portion of the world into a great wasteland.

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[1] It goes without saying that the text here refers to the great trench, Marianis, but the great sages differ as to the source of the impression. The greatest mages of the Library Philosophic insist that this location had been created when Hetht dined upon the world earlier in the text.

A rival school of thought favored among the elves of the Sylvan Isle suggests that the depression was in fact the place where Hetht finally slept. The impression left by Hetht’s meal may be seen, according to this view, in the beginnings of the great dungeon which is said to stretch beneath all the seas and to connect all the great lands of this world. What Hetht actually did when he consumed the first meal, so this theory goes, was to pull a great tuber up and out of the ground, only to find its roots stretched endlessly in all the directions of the world. Hetht ate all of this, leaving a great tunnel complex where its roots had once been. No dwarf has ever accepted this theory, of course, insofar as it suggests the origin of their own homes are best understood in terms preferable to surface-dwelling gardeners and arborists.

 

Cosmogony

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The best account of creation can be found in the Library Philosophic, complete with commentaries from a number of credible sources. Below is a list of the individual chapters in this story along with a brief summary of its content.

I: Out of Nothing. Being an account of the creation of The Stone Philosophic by the God, Hetht.

II: Creation of the Waters and the Wastelands. Being an account of the creation of the oceans, the wastelands, and of the gods, Ayomichi and The Shark King.

I: Out of Nothing

/ danielwalldammit / 2 Comments

© Daniel S. Wall, September 15, 2026.

***

This is Chapter 1 of the most authoritative account of creation contained in the Stone Philosophic. A full table of contents can be found here.

***

Text

In the beginning there was nothing, not even Hetht, a fact which displeased him to no end. And so the great dragon brought himself into existence. There is little reason to believe that he meant to create the rest of the world, but of course accidents do happen, and something else soon followed the self-creation of Hetht. All things in this world have their origins in this something else, the afterbirth of the first Dragon.[1]

No sooner had he brought himself into this world than the great dragon flew to the east, but his claw caught a corner of his afterbirth and stretched it right along beneath him. For eight days and untold miles the great dragon flew to the east. Finding nothing of interest, he turned to the South, still dragging a corner of his afterbirth along with him. Sixteen days did the great dragon fly to the south, but he found nothing to keep him occupied. So, Hetht turned and flew west for thirty two days before changing course. Finally, Hetht flew to the North for sixty four days, the formless mass still caught in his claw. [2]

Wondering at the effort it now took to fly, Hetht looked beneath his feet and finally saw the great stretch of ill-formed mass now grown large and spinning slowly beneath him. Tired of dragging so much weight along with him, Hetht finally shook the mass from his claw, yawned a bot and stretched his wings one after another, until he resolved to shed the feeling of exhaustion that had come over him. So, Hetht laid down upon the center of the mass beneath. His sleep was fitful, and Hetht tossed and turned for ages, kicking up mountains and digging out great impressions in the mass below his body.

Thus did the world begin to take its present shape, even as it slowly hardened beneath of the fitful dragon sleeping on top of it.

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[1] The dvergr sage, Horst Gverdigen, objects to this passage, arguing that the world could not possibly be the afterbirth of a dragon as of course any real dragon would have issued from an egg. Gverdigen does not object to the notion that this world is secondary to the self-creation of Hetht, but he does reject the specific notion that the world began as a sort of placenta.

The hrega sorceresss, Tiannon Shigire, has provided what most consider to be best answer to this argument when she noted 3 things, 1) that Horst Gverdigen is known to have disappeared fully a hundred years before one might expect a Dvergr to die of old age, and no-one alive today can rule out divine retribution, 2) it is in fact an article of faith among the priesthood of Hetht that he is the sole dragon to have been born rather than hatched, and 3) the next phase of creation is far easier to reconcile with the qualities of soft and malleable placenta than those of a hard and brittle egg,

The Cult of the Broken Shell has long argued that Hetht was indeed hatched and this world has an entirely different origin, but this is best regarded as a minor heresy of little concern to serious scholarship.

  • Melia Turee, Archivist, Library Philosophic

[2] A wise man would note that the direction of movement in the first stage of creation matches that of benign winds and whirlpools. This is not a coincidence. All right-thinking winds and currents follow the pattern of creation by turning from east toward the south. Following the pattern later established by Mizizra, a corrupt wind reveals its nature by turning from east to north.

The pattern of movement described herein is of course the basis for the common terms used to describe the direction of spinning movement. Those turning from east to south are commonly said to be turning creatively whereas those turning from east to north are said to be spinning destructively.

  • Professor, Nilgin Fozhe of the Library Philosophic