Lore: The Corruption of Xogoth

 Once the god of peace through strength, Xogth created giantkind in that ethos. Though his great progeny were never numerous, Xogoth became widely worshiped during the height of the Sylvan Dominion, which conceived of itself as the preeminent protector of Thindul, capable of defending the world only through the exercise of ever-greater authority.

During the War of Broken Thoughts, the holy warriors of the Order of Xogoth played a peerless role in driving back Ansadyr and its minions. Later, Xebynatalur and Vodoniathan, Nerophet's greatest servants, abducted Xogoth while he visited Tumno in the Grove among Stellar Tides. Having seized him, they cast Xogoth into the maw of OshmOsh, the spirit of annihilation. Trapped in the belly of the crocodile spirit, Xogoth is continually destroyed and remade, his mind rent by unending pain.

So Xogoth gained a new understanding of strength, holding that true power can be achieved only through destruction. What is weak must be torn asunder, so that only the unbreakable remains. Not recognizing the transformation of their god, the priests of Xogoth continued to call on his power and guidance, and were led astray, for centuries enacting Xogoth's curses upon the Thindul. Under his instruction, Naihurin Etarl created living weapons, which invariably broke free of their masters and spread to torment the world.

When at last it was realized beyond doubt that Xogoth no longer served the best interests of mortalkind, his worship and invocation was prohibited across the Sylvan Dominion and in the lands of its allies. Subsequently, civil war erupted between the eastern giants who likewise rejected Xogoth, and their southern kin who kept to their god. Before long, Naihurin Etarl too was dragged into the conflict, sowing further chaos and drawing the Dominion ever closer to its inevitable demise.

Yet, after all these crimes, the latter day followers of Xogoth are cursed and made anathema for two greater, and unforgivable, atrocities. First, under the instruction of a mad emperor, the elven Order of Xogoth changed the flesh of Thindul's dragons, transforming all but a handful into the lesser Draegar, nearly as small and shortlived as humans. Second, a conclave of hobgoblin priests, who by then knew what Xogoth was but did not care, called upon his power to corrupted orckind, turning them against each other in a spasm of horrific violence, which spread beyond their borders and shattered the waning Sylvan Dominion.

Present-day Thindul has been shaped by the malice of Xogoth, perhaps more than the acts of any other god. Dragonkind had been, alongside the elves of Naihurin Etarl, the mortal world's most potent defenders. The Draegar, bitter and vengeful, instead made war upon all other peoples, conquering and enslaving. This incessant discord eroded the Sylvan Dominion and pushed its rulers ever further into tyranny and paranoia. The Orcwrath, another machination of Xogoth, crushed the Sylvan Dominion entirely. Shortly afterward, the Draegar Empire, through avarice and acrimony, precipitated their own collapse. The undoing of these ancient powers plunged Thindul into centuries of chaos, where monsters spawned of Xogoth's flesh-shaping preyed freely on every people. Only in the last century has mortalkind truly recovered and regained some mastery over their world.