Birth of Shanyang

Bright, colorful nebulae filled the gaps in the clouds over a world that had no sun, and was filled with an elegant, orderly wilderness of flowery fruit-bearing trees and many unrestrained rivers, untouched by agriculture or industry. This idyllic paradise was occupied only by nature spirits that mostly looked like giant insects or roots, enslaved to supply the needs of the one city in the Realm and to feed the pride of the one who ruled it. The palace city was a broad, oriental affair with yellow roof tiles and buildings with sizes that far outstripped their utility as a tribute to their ruler, arranged in an astrological symmetry. The juvenile god Huangtian Shangdi was reclined in his enormous couch-like throne in the grandest structure.

Huangtian Shangdi looked like an enormous catfish whose appearance caused terror and adoration in equal measure and filled the air around him with a deeply pleasurable fragrance. He watched his grateful slaves hurry on their tasks to maintain his splendor. "Everything went exactly how I wanted", he thought to himself. "My rivals are dead or crippled, all who matter are loyal to me, the rest are no threat, and I am the ruler of a world filled with slaves who are grateful to me." But he internally frowned bitterly.

"It's not good enough," he thought as his slaves were washing him. "Why should I be forced to rule over a world of people that are of someone else's design? Am I not the greatest being in the infinitely layered reality of time? That's it," he thought, the passion to fulfill his pride filling him, that likes of which he hadn't felt since he took over the nature spirits. "These pathetic things are the worst I've ever met. They're only suited for the most menial tasks, barely worth keeping alive, and the others aren't much better. I'll create a proper species to be the masters of my many slaves."

Huangtian Shangdi sent his slaves away and quickly designed the spirits of his new children. He briefly considered making them look like him, but he didn't want them to think that they were his equals, and he didn't want them to look like his slaves for a similar reason. He settled on the goat shape, and made one gold, one black, one gray, one brown, one gray-blue, and one white. When he was done, he breathed life into them, they knelt before him, and this was the first thing he spoke into their minds

"I am the Highest Deity the Heavenly King, and you, my children, the most elevated of my slaves, are the supreme species that I have created to rule over everything. The greatest of you will be my regent, the Huangdi, and hold total power over all of my slaves." He named them the Shanyangians, after the name he had given his conquered world. Huangtian Shangdi saw that he had filled the Shanyangians' hearts with pride, a lust for status, a drive for perfection, absolute feelings of supremacy over other beings, and a complete lack of compassion. They were beings after his own heart and he was very pleased.

He had created beings who reproduced with their own kind, so he made copies of his Shanyangians who were just like them, except female, and gave them to the males as brides. He taught his children the principles of alchemy, divination, mediumship, clairvoyance, and dimensional cosmology, which they learned perfectly. After he taught them these things he gathered all of his children to himself and said "One of you will be my Huangdi and rule over all of my slaves, of which your brothers and sisters are the highest. Leave my palace, increase your numbers, and prove your worthiness to rule." So they left with the ambition in their hearts to be elevated above their siblings, and their own plans to do so.

Youth Without Pastance

The Shanyangians were made like their creator and let no time go to waste in fulfilling their master's commandments, so they put their prodigious fecundity to good use multiplying their own breeds in segregation from their rival breeds. Since Huangtian Shangdi put his innumerable nature slaves at their disposal, each patriarch's mind was filled with grand ideas to prove his own worthiness to rule the world. The white Shanyangian patriarch, Xue, was walking through the forest that surrounded his house, and observed the enslaved nature spirits wandering through the forest searching for the ingredients that the Heavenly King's alchemy demanded on a regular basis. "Pathetic slaves," Xue thought with contempt, "Meandering around all day, thoughtlessly gathering bits of plant. It would be much better if all the plants the Heavenly King desired were all in one place." Then it hit him. "Slaves! Stop this foolishness and do as I say!" Xue ordered them to bring him all that they had gathered that day, and for their fellow slaves to bring their plants as well. He commanded the stretch of woods near a river be cleared, and the plants be buried in rows. He instructed them to stop gathering flora from the woods and instead to tend the enormous gardens. When Xue showed what he had done to Huangtian Shangdi, he was pleased, but did not yet name Xue as his Huangdi.

The gray-blue Shanyangian patriarch, Qi, was impatient and a firm disciplinarian without scruple. The enslaved nature spirits were simple things with little wills of their own, but they were animals of ancient habit who occasionally forgot their obligations and regressed to their old unproductive states. Qi was watching one of his children vigorously beating one such slave while reminding him of his tasks. "It's such a waste of my valuable time to attend to the punishments of all lazy slaves," Qi thought, "Yet my progeny cannot be trusted to make their own judgments." It was so obvious. He ordered one of his grandchildren to him, and began dictating a list of rules. Every possible indiscretion during labor or incompetent damage to a master's property, and disobedience to superiors was listed and a cruel penalty assigned to it. He had copies made and posted in all of the public places, and when Huangtian Shangdi saw what he had made, he was pleased, but did not yet name Qi as his Huangdi.

The brown Shanyangian patriarch, Zong, was large, strong, and hateful. As a disciplinarian he was second only to Qi, and organized his progeny into hierarchical teams at all times. He ordered them to complete strenuous exercises and fight with each other at all hours of the day, because Zong was determined to have the strongest breed of all Shanyangians. He was observing his children spar with each other with their stone weapons, practicing different maneuvers and formations to find the perfect ways to destroy the Heavenly King's enemies. He noted that the weapons his children used frequently wore down and needed to be replaced, so he used his alchemy to search for a better material for weaponry, eventually settling on a mixture of copper and tin. He showed Huangtian Shangdi his progeny, arrayed in disciplined lines, armed and armored with bronze, and Huangtian Shangdi was pleased, but did not yet make Zong his Huangdi.

The gray Shanyangian patriarch, Hui, was a being of elegance and arrogance. He had created fine clothing of luxuriant fabric and gold thread to indicate the status of the wearer, and after Xue's breakthrough he had made an entire farm to produce the fabric. He found the uncouth behavior of his most youthful progeny disgusting, and the other breeds as a whole to be boorish and irreverent. "It is as though I alone have deduced the height of civilization that the Heavenly King expects of us", he often thought. He was walking through one of the Heavenly King's courtyards one day, when he saw a copy of Qi's legal code posted on a pillar. He studied it, silently cursing Qi for the approval he had gained in the eyes of their master, and plotted how he might overcome him as he returned to his own home. Hui remembered every time the other breeds behaved without dignity, and he wrote a much longer code than Qi had, because Hui's Book of Etiquette dictated the cultured Shanyangian's behavior in every conceivable encounter, taking into account all possible combinations of rank and family relation. He sent copies to each of the other patriarchs, and to Huangtian Shangdi. When the Heavenly King saw what he had made, he was pleased, but he did not yet make Hui his Huangdi.

The black Shanyangian patriarch, Li, had an unhealthily perfectionist obsession with layout of the wilderness. Not a leaf was out of place in the gardens of his house and he constantly harried his children to keep his maps updated with the activities of all of the Shanyangian breeds. The disorganized sprawl of their activities drove him insane, and he spent months at a time shut in his rooms cross-referencing his progeny's reports on the industries and deployments of the slaves of his rivals, lashing out violently when interrupted. He emerged with his masterpiece, a resource map of all of charted Shanyang, divided into neat sectors that segregated all of the projects of the slaves and other breeds into efficient units, finally satisfying his own need for order. When Huangtian Shangdi saw what he had made, he was pleased, but did not yet make Li his Huangdi.

The gold Shanyangian patriarch, Jin, was the smallest and quietest of the Shanyangian patriarchs, who spent most of his time expanding upon what the Heavenly King had taught them in the beginning, and watching the accomplishments of the other breeds. He was very particular about his children, and would cull those who showed deformity at birth, and those who showed disability or weakness of mind or body in childhood. Those who passed, he subjected to the behavioral standards of Hui and the martial standards of Zong, never wavering in his application of Qi's punishments in pursuit of utter perfection. As a result, Jin's progeny were fewer in number than any of the other breeds, but they were nearly identical to each other in appearance, never fell ill, and were strong in both body and mind. When Huangtian Shangdi saw what he had made, he was pleased, but did not yet make Jin his Huangdi.

And Jin was puzzled. "I have taken the crude materials of my fellows and crafted the instruments to seize the fires of eternity. The strength and wealth of my house is unrivaled by any under the master, and by right I should be the master of the Heavenly King's slaves." Jin took the host of his descendants to the house of Zong, and demonstrated the unquestionable martial superiority of Jin over Zong. The children of Zong were beaten under the hooves of the spawn of Jin, and Zong himself was forced to swear obedience to Jin. With the combined force of the gold and brown Shanyangians, Jin captured the houses of the other patriarchs and forced them to swear their obedience to him, and collected tribute from the production of their lands. And as the other breeds lay prostrate before Jin, the Heavenly King descended from his palace in all of his glory, and Jin bowed before him. "The purest of your slaves has by his own strength doubly enslaved his brothers, just as through your own purity of mind and strength of spirit, Huangtian Shangdi, you made slaves of those who were scarcely worth living." And Huangtian Shangdi was pleased, and named Jin his Huangdi, master of the slaves of the Heavenly King, and regent of all existence.