Many thousands of years ago, God exploded into pieces. Some say it was caused by instability from the ever-conflicting forces of good and evil, others that humans were to be tested to prove their spiritual devotion. In any case, Hatishahe, meaning "the Spirit that is Broken" or "the Puzzle God" in the native language, had been composed of good and evil, and was now scattered about the sacred land of Aradashe and some of the surrounding seas. The good portions of Hatishahe became the wonderful artifacts, jewels, relics, and good magic of the land. The evil side of Hatishahe manifested as devils, curses, evil magic, and especially demons.

Aradasheans believe it is their duty to reconstruct Hatishahe by collecting the scattered pieces together. However, there are two views on which pieces ought to be assembled. The priests of one sect, the Uradaiha, teach that Hatishahe should be reconstituted with only the good portions. They wish to create a perfect god. Having done this, they believe, the Chosen Ones of Aradashe will also become part of the new god and the others will continue to live as they have been, but in a new world.

The other sect, the Masade, believe that the entire god ought to be reconstructed, good and evil. This means that in addition to collecting artifacts and relics to form the god, they also must seek out and kill demons and collect their hearts.

A female side of Hatishahe manifested itself as the mother of all living things, an earth goddess called Aichimi. Aichimi has no physical form, but is very human in spirit. She later gave birth to a demigod, called the Hatimaka. The Hatimaka is the physical human representative of Hatishahe. He lives among mortals as a mortal himself, through a continuing cycle of birth and death.

He also happens to be the emperor of Aradashe.

We all know Aradashe as a dynamic, mysterious place across the sea, that only exists now in the pages of history.

Before a combination of events sealed its doom, Aradashe was a thriving culture, with its own religion, language, fashions, and stories of magic and demigods, of wars and heros, of strange beasts and quests to rebuild their god.

Aradashe's Golden Age was in the 20th and 21st Centuries (the 36th and 37th Centuries in our calendar), a time of relative stability that produced new growth in arts, literature, learning, wealth, and agricultural productivity. Many great epic poems and stories were composed in this time. The Golden Age was followed by Aradashe's most turbulent era, from the 22nd to the 25th Centuries. It began with a unification of the city-states and regions of the island, and ended in the years following the assassination of one of the great demigod emperors in 2408.

Aradashe never fully recovered its full glory after the beginning of the 25th Century, but continued until it's final fall centuries later. It took the combination of a famine, a plague, and an overseas invasion to wipe out a remarkable culture unlike any other on our planet.

Although Aradashean history is filled with lore back to its formative years, no age has attracted as much literary attention as the period from the 2390s to the end of the 25th Century. This hundred-year span is where we will focus with this window into the "Land of God's Two Hands".