The Greatest Game Ever Played

'The Greatest Game' is a constructed fantasy extraverse (like a multiverse, but not quite a multiverse) set against an epic timeline of many millenia. It is partially inspired by Steven Erikson's malazan book of the fallen series, and partially inspired by Dan Simmons book Carrion Comfort. It has a very old, very gritty feel to it, but it should also have some of the coolness and flare of manga like Claymore and Blade Of The Immortal.

The greatest game is open to additions by basically anybody. but if I tell you not to touch something, please don't touch it. And if someone wants to make a really major change, then at least give me a heads up about it and ask permission.

Basic information
The Greatest Game universe is all about playing games. Or rather playing a Game. The pieces are men and nations and powers beyond imagination. The players are the Elder and Younger Gods.

A few men realize that something is going on. Even fewer realize what it is. Occasionally, a man can rise to become a player in the Game. When this happens, he is on the road to ascension. All the Younger Gods are men or creature that ascended to godhood. But not all ascended entities are Gods: some never reach that point before their deaths, some could reach that point, but choose not to.

The history of the extraverse in which the Game is played is long and dark. Throughout millenia, Gods have playe their Game, since before the foundation of the mundane world. they have played with every piece possible in the universe. Strata of reality have risen and fallen as part of their machinations. But the Gods play on, in fact the Gods have been playing so long, that they can not imagine stopping. Because the Gods were created by far older, far vaster, formless things, full of malevolence, solely in order to play the Game.

The Greatest Game universe is all about the history of the Gods. The history of civilizations. The history of the men who rose to ascension, or even to godhood. And the history of the wars fought, the Games player, between these powers.

Background
Long version: see The Greatest Game: History

Short version: see below

In the begining, there was nothing. In fact, no one knows what the begining was even really like. All anyone knows is that the worlds had been in Darkness for many ages beyond the thought of the oldest of the old creatures that were before the Gods. And in that Darkness, waiting, was Life. It moved and breathed and thrived in the Darkness: brutal, seemingly chaotic, and yet at closer look strangely ordered. Everything had its place, it the endlessly tangled, often broken chain that was Life. And then, from beyond time and space, from out side of the extraverse, came Light. And with it it brought the first God: Death-the White Angel, the Reaper On The Shore.

Darkness and Light fought. Death reaped a great harvest. And somewhere in that eons long battle between The two greatest and only forces in the world, the Elder Gods were Born, or ascended, or simply took their rightful place above the lesser races.