The Dawn of Creation

Before History Began

No one knows what came before the world's creation. In some theories, Xoriat once encompassed everything — the Realm of Madness was not an aberration but the original state of reality, and the planes were sculpted from it; some cults of the Dragon Below assert that the daelkyr are simply trying to restore this original balance. Others contend that there was nothing before creation — that the Progenitors descended from a higher level of reality, the same unknowable realm that lies above and beyond Dolurrh. Some argue that the Progenitors might have been exiles of the Great Wheel, deities in the large framework of reality, who decided to create their own contained cosmology within a close network. The question has no answer that mortal scholarship can verify, and the arguments about it tend to generate more heat than light.

What almost all cultures agree on is what happened next.

"Before the world, there was either nothing or everything. The theological distinction matters less than you'd think. Either way, something had to change." — Provost Hammond Faurious, cosmological foundations

The Account

Every child in the Five Nations knows the basic creation myth: three cosmic beings — the Progenitor Dragons, or perhaps titans of some other form — created the thirteen planes of existence, each embodying a concept. Their final work was the Material Plane, where all ideas would become manifest: a realm that could know war and peace, life and death, order and chaos.

Then Khyber struck Siberys without warning and tore him apart.

Eberron wrestled with Khyber but could not defeat her. So Eberron coiled around Khyber and became a living prison — the world itself — binding the traitor within her body. Siberys's scattered remains drifted into the golden Ring that still encircles the sky.

Thus the world as we know it is made from the intersection of three: the Dragon Above (Siberys), the Dragon Between (Eberron), and the Dragon Below (Khyber). The Ring of Siberys is the source of magic. Eberron is the source of all natural life. Khyber spawns fiends and aberrations, forever struggling against her bonds.

Whether this describes literal events, compressed truth, or moral allegory is a matter of tradition and temperament. What is not debated is that the account explains the world as it is actually observed. Magic does radiate from the Ring. Natural life does emerge from the world. Fiends and aberrations do come from below. The creation myth is either true, or something very much like it is true, and the distinction between those two positions is narrower than it appears.

"The giants say the Progenitors were titans. The elvish view says they were dragons. My students ask me which is correct and I tell them: the giants are extinct and the dragons won't return my letters, so we are working with what we have." — Morgrave University lecturer, introductory survey

What Survives

Scholars of Khorvaire have yet to find any relics or records from this time before time. The Progenitors did not build structures. They did not leave inscriptions. If an artifact from before the creation of the world were ever recovered, it would possess vast power and be of tremendous scholarly interest — but no such object has been authenticated.

What survives are consequences:

The Ring of Siberys — a brilliant equatorial band of golden light that dominates the sky. Siberys dragonshards fall from it. Its golden color suggests the entire Ring may be comprised of these crystals. The Siberyan Theory, as taught at Arcanix and the Arcane Congress, postulates that all arcane magic manipulates energy radiating from the Ring — and that magic itself is the Blood of Siberys.

The world itself — Eberron is the sole planet in its Material Plane, the fulcrum where the thirteen planes come together. Go below the surface and you find not a molten core but the demiplanes of Khyber. The world is, structurally, a prison — and everything that lives on its surface lives on the outer wall.

The demiplanes of Khyber — an endless array of strange realms beneath the surface, some tied to bound overlords, some serving purposes no one can determine. The heart demiplanes of the overlords are still inhabited. The overlords' consciousnesses are still bound within them. The Silver Flame still holds.

The Draconic Prophecy — a vast, evolving matrix of conditional statements written into the conjunctions of planes and moons, the patterns of dragonshards, the emergence of dragonmarks, and the movements of civilizations. Whether the Prophecy was created by the Progenitors or emerged from the structure they left behind is unknown. It exists. It is being read. It is being fought over.

For full treatment of these consequences, see The Progenitor Dragons, The Planes of Existence, and The Draconic Prophecy.

"There are no Progenitor ruins to excavate. There are no Progenitor artifacts to authenticate. What there is: a ring in the sky, a world that is a prison, and a prophecy no one fully understands. If you want relics of creation, look up or dig down." — Field archaeologist, Morgrave expedition briefing

What People Believe

The creation myth is universal in Eberron. Everyone knows it. Not everyone takes it the same way.

In the Five Nations, most people consider the Progenitor account a simple metaphor for sky, earth, and the monsters that lurk below. It is the kind of story told to children and referenced in everyday speech — "by Siberys," "Khyber take you" — without implying literal belief. The account functions as shared cultural vocabulary, not active theology.

Among the druidic traditions, the creation myth is treated as literal truth. Even so, most druids do not worship the Progenitors in the way a Vassal might worship the Sovereign Host. Siberys is dead. Eberron is the world itself — the source of all life, but she does not actively intervene. Some Eldeen druidic sects treat Eberron as a living presence, but this is understood as a condition rather than a personality. The Gatekeepers in particular treat the binding of Khyber as an ongoing responsibility — not a completed act, but a commitment that requires constant vigilance.

Among the kobold cults of Khorvaire, the Progenitors are worshipped directly. This is a fringe position. It is also, by the standards of the available evidence, no less defensible than any other.

The Aereni preserve accounts that predate human settlement by tens of thousands of years. The Undying Court's unbroken continuity gives their tradition a depth no Khorvairian institution can match. They do not share their records casually, and what they have shared suggests their understanding of the Progenitors is more complex and more specific than anything taught on the mainland.

The Dhakaani did not venerate the Progenitors, nor any gods as far as surviving records indicate. But their civilization was organized around a practical understanding of Above and Below — the Ring as a source of power, the depths as a source of threat. Their engineering accounted for the structure of the world without requiring theological explanation. The Dhakaani did not worship the lock on the prison. They maintained it.

Some Dragon Below cults maintain that the standard account has it backward — that dragons were the creations of Khyber, stolen by Siberys and Eberron, and that the daelkyr are restoring the proper order. Under this belief, the world is not a successful prison but a theft in progress.

"Everyone agrees on the architecture. Three powers, a betrayal, a binding, and a world that holds. The arguments are about what it means — and more importantly, about what to do with it. The Gatekeepers say: maintain the binding. The Dragon Below cults say: open it. Most people in Sharn say: someone else's problem." — Korranberg scholar, comparative theology

Why It Matters

The Dawn of Creation is not inert backstory. Its consequences are the operating conditions of the present.

Every civilization in Eberron depends on the stability of a binding whose terms no living being fully understands. Every spell cast may draw on the blood of a dead Progenitor. Every mine that goes too deep risks breaking into a demiplane that has been sealed since before mortal life existed. The Prophecy that describes the possible futures of the world emerged from this moment, and the war being fought over that Prophecy — between the Chamber and the Lords of Dust, between dragons and fiends, with mortals as the necessary instruments — is a direct continuation of the conflict that began when Khyber struck without warning.

The world was built from the aftermath of a betrayal. Everything that has happened since is downstream.

"My students want to know when the Age of Demons starts. I tell them: it starts the moment the binding is complete. The prison is built and the prisoners are inside. That is when you find out whether the lock holds. It has held for a hundred thousand years. That is very impressive. It is not the same thing as forever." — Arcanix instructor, ancient history