Island of Creation: cradle of the Greek world

The Island of Creation was the place where all life began in Greece, a landmass raised at the very edge of the Greek world by the primordials Chaos and Nyx. According to legend it was the home of the Sisters of Fate, and it lay so far from any civilization that reaching it from near the center of Greece required at least six days of riding a Pegasus without rest. It was counted among the most heavily guarded places known to man, for any who could defeat the Sisters would gain the power to change their own fate and control time itself. In the end it was Kratos who did exactly that, directed to the island by Gaia so that he might turn back time and take his revenge upon Zeus.

The birth of an island and a world#

When the universe first appeared there was nothing but Chaos. Eventually Nyx came to Chaos, and together they created the world of Greece: a vast, flat circle of land surrounded by an enormous circular ocean. Wishing to survey their work, the two primordials created the Island of Creation, and from it Gaia was born. Soon Ouranos came to accompany her, so that she would not be alone. The two joined, and Gaia gave birth to the Titans.

The Titans ruled the island in the early age of the world. Their reign there ended not by war but by displacement, for the Sisters of Fate gained ever greater power over the island until the Titans were forced to leave it behind and explore the world of mortals. From that time forward the island belonged to the three Sisters, and the fate of every god, Titan, and mortal was measured within its temples.

The Steeds of Time and the drifting edge#

As the Titans filled out the rest of Greece, the world grew more and more crowded, and the Island of Creation began to drift toward the edge of the world. Its slow slide toward oblivion was halted by Cronos, who gave the Sisters the Steeds of Time to pull the island away from the brink. The gift served two purposes at once: it prevented the island's demise, and it was meant to sway the Sisters in the Titan's favor.

The great horses remained yoked to the island through the ages that followed. After Zeus began his rule, the hero Theseus entered the service of the King of the Gods and became Keeper of the Horses, standing watch over the Steeds and the key that bound the island to its outer fortress.

A graveyard of heroes#

Under the reign of Zeus, many heroes attempted to change their fate by venturing onto the island, and none of them ever made it through. The island's defenses were too strong, and those brave enough to make the attempt all met their demise upon it. Jason and the Argonauts journeyed there with the Golden Fleece in their possession, only to be killed by the monsters that infested the Bog of the Forgotten. Perseus came seeking an audience with the Sisters after the death of his beloved Andromeda, for the Graeae had told him that only the Fates could restore her to life.

Others came with darker purposes. Alrik, the Barbarian King, escaped the Underworld with the aid of Lahkesis herself, who loosed him upon the island in the hope that he would stop Kratos. Alrik believed that, like the others, he might change his fate and take his revenge on the Spartan, but Lahkesis never considered him worthy of an audience and never intended to rewrite his destiny. The crazed Icarus haunted the island's cliffs on his battered wings, and wild Cerberus hounds, living apart from the packs of the Underworld, roamed its wilder country. A Phoenix slept within the island's depths, waiting to be roused from its ashes.

Regions of the island#

The island was less a single landmass than a chain of temples, chasms, and wilds, each one an obstacle set between the outer sea and the throne rooms of the Fates. Travelers who survived the Steeds of Time passed through the Temple of Lahkesis and Destiny's Atrium into the Bog of the Forgotten, a deep, dense swampland forest that held the temple of the Gorgon sisters, where Euryale brooded over the remains of those who had come before. Beyond the bog lay the Courtyard of Atropos, the Lowlands, and the Great Chasm, a rent in the island that dropped away toward the roots of the world. The Pillar of the World, the column that held up all of Greece, stood directly beneath the island, and it was in the depths of the chasm that the condemned Titan Atlas bore his burden.

The final approach ran through the Palace of the Fates, the Spire, and at last the Temple of the Fates itself, with its twin auditoriums, the Throne of Lahkesis, and the Loom Chamber where the threads of every life were spun and cut. Within the palace grounds stood the Garden of the Gods, a hall of golden statues of the Olympians. There a statue of Athena warned Kratos not to listen to Gaia or the Titans, and a statue of Ares named the dead Olympian "The Fallen God of War".

The coming of Kratos#

Betrayed and slain by Zeus, Kratos was drawn out of the Underworld by Gaia, who directed him to the Island of Creation to find the Sisters of Fate and use their power to go back in time. The Spartan broke through the island's primary defenses with ease. He fought his way to the Steeds of Time, killed Theseus, and took the Horse Keeper's Key that connected the island to its fortress.

Returning to the island proper, Kratos passed through the Temple of Lahkesis, the Bog of the Forgotten, and the Lowlands, cutting down every guardian the island set against him. He slew Euryale in her temple, broke Alrik and the cursed steed the Barbarian King rode, put down the Mole Cerberus, and killed Perseus, who had mistaken him for a final test of the Sisters. During his battle with Icarus, Kratos was dragged off the cliffs and fell into the Great Chasm, where he met Atlas before climbing back to the surface. Among the relics he claimed on the island were the Golden Fleece, the Barbarian Hammer, the Shield of Perseus, the Head of Euryale, the Icarus Wings, and the Spear of Destiny.

Near the end of his crossing, Kratos fought the Last Spartan, who with his dying words told him of Zeus' attack on Sparta. After killing the Kraken that guarded the way, the Spartan reached the Palace of the Fates and located the temple hidden within it.

The fall of the Fates and the island's end#

Within the Temple of the Fates, Kratos defeated all three Sisters. Lahkesis and Atropos fell together, the latter trapped inside her own mirror, and Clotho was slain at her loom. With the Sisters overthrown, Kratos took control of the Threads of Fate, and with them the power to command time itself. He reached back through his own thread to the moment of his death and returned to face Zeus with the outcome unwritten.

The island did not survive his victory. As Kratos worked the threads a second time, drawing the Titans out of the age of the Titanomachy and into his own, the Island of Creation began to shake. Its destruction followed from the Spartan's triumph over the Sisters and from the rampage he then carried to Mount Olympus. The place where all life in Greece had begun ended as a casualty of the war that unmade the Greek world.