Origins of Polaris
Originally, the world known now as Polaris was a pair of mirror worlds, moving in perfect lockstep through the great void of the multiverse.
One of the worlds, Opteron, was a world massively aligned with the forces of Order - a lockstep world where chaotic things had no place. Living creatures went about their business in a precise and methodical fashion, and everything seemed to function according to some vast plan. The native population didn't praise the order, because the idea of chaos was effectively unknown. Even dust settling from the air would land as a uniform film across an object, and the moss really did always grow on the north side of a tree. In this world, the main battle was between good and evil, as in many others - those trying to promote the good of all, and those trying to benefit themselves, but all constrained within the rules.
The other world, Melys, was a world where chaos reigned supreme. Rivers were unpredictable, sometimes chewing through miles of landscape in a few hours and other time remaining perfectly still in their banks for years. New races of creatures were bor overnight of wild mutations, unpredictable surges in magical energy, and more in a bizarrely accelerated view of evolution in action. Rarely did cviizations amount to more than moderate city-states, unlike the world-girdling empires of Opteron, as the populace never felt a need to follow the rules of any but themselves, making only small anarchic democracies the most stable of governments. Where the battle between good and evil on Opteron was a thing of vast armies marching at each other, the battle was much more personal on Melys, with heroes and villains rising up and battling back and forth across the world in epic battles. Again, these were a people with little concept of Order, those few whoeven knew of the principle equating it with foulest evil as a means of taking away freedom.
What happened to change the balance is unknown, only that one day Melys lagged behind in the orbiting dance, or perhaps Opteron accelerated; either way, the two worlds collided, sending horrific storms - the first and mightiest of the Maelstroms - exploding into being, ripping across the weirdly mirrored landscape of the worlds and fusing them together in a band where neither Law nor Chaos held sway; the same storms shoved the excess energy away from the neutral zone, resulting in the creation of the poles - and at the center of the poles, the creation of the Cores, massive condensations of pure Order and pure Chaos.
Needless to say, each side regarded the other with undiguised horror, fear, and revulsion - here were things born of the darkness fever dreams of their respective worlds, nightmares made flesh across an unfathomable philosophical divide. Even the gods - each oddly mirrored the same as the landscape - could only regard their opposite numbers with shock and disgust. War - a clash between the vast, orderly armies of Opteron and the small, wildly erratic bands of Melys - broke out almost instantly, each side discovering that their combat was so alien in nature that neither could turn it to an advantage over the other. The armies of Order found themselves harried and confused by an enemy who seemed to appear from nowhere and melt away just as swiftly, while the warriors of Chaos felt as if they were trying to destroy implacable mountains with a child's toy shovel and pick.
