Legends in Stone

Order of Being

The Primordial

First causes: the powers that existed before there were gods to name them.

Graecia
Roma
Plate IPrimordial

Gaia/Terra Mater

Earth, Fertility, & the Primordial Mother

Gaia is a cosmic and vengeful mother-force; Roman Tellus is a practical farmland deity whose rites concerned crops and property lines, not cosmogony. Rome kept the fertility and discarded the rebellion.

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Graecia
Roma
Plate IIPrimordial

Uranus/Caelus

Sky, Heavens, & Cosmic Order

Greek Uranus is a violent dynastic character; Roman Caelus is a decorative emblem of cosmic order, appearing on coins far more often than in cult. Rome preferred the heaven that could be stamped on currency.

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Graecia
Roma
Plate IIIPrimordial

Nyx/Nox

Night, Darkness, & Fate

Nyx is a terrifying cosmic matriarch who commands divine respect; Nox survives in Rome chiefly as a poetic and magical figure. The same darkness, demoted from sovereign to atmosphere.

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Graecia
Roma
Plate IVPrimordial

Erebus/Erebus

Primordial Darkness & the Deep

Both traditions treat Erebus as a place more than a person — one of the rare figures Rome borrowed without refashioning for the state, because there was nothing political to extract from him.

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Other Orders

All Primordial plates