Honest opinions.
I have spent several years building a homebrew world and everything with it. I feel as though I want to share it with others in this community and let them play in the sandbox I created. But I question if I have made something that I alone think is cool or is actually something to start to put money and time into to publish for the community to have and use. Below is a small part of this world and I ask that you be truly honest with me and tell me if I should pursue this for publishing and sharing or it just the cool part of a homebrew that I should just use for my players and table.
Please honest opinions asked for.
Long before the birth of Chelnora, before stars possessed flame or worlds carried oceans and mountains, there existed only what the earliest Valacira texts named The First Silence. The ancient records describe this Silence not as emptiness, but as a vast sleeping potential where existence itself had not yet fully awakened. There was no life, no death, no light, no memory, nor even the passage of time. Yet within that endless stillness, truths slowly gathered like unseen pressure within dark waters.
The oldest surviving Valacira philosophers believed these truths deepened across unknowable ages until they eventually became aware of themselves. Thus the First Circle of Designers came into existence, not as creators who chose their domains, but as living manifestations born from the primordial truths that had always existed within the Silence itself.
The ancient tablets claim the first awareness among them was Des Voxtar, who embodied not evil or shadow, but the endless unknown from which all existence would eventually emerge. Around him gathered the vast stillness between all things, and within that stillness possibility itself awakened through Des Krakasui, whom the Valacira described as the force through which reality first learned transformation and change. The texts say that where Darkness provided space, Magic taught existence how to become something greater than silence alone.
As awareness spread through the cosmos, so too did connection. From this came Des Dydohr, the embodiment of attachment, devotion, longing, joy, and grief. The old writings often warned that love was among the most dangerous forces within existence, for once connection is formed, suffering inevitably follows beside it. Soon after came Des Nivna, not as cruelty or punishment, but as the sacred truth that all things which begin must someday end. The earliest records portray her not as monstrous, but solemn and necessary, the final balance to creation itself.
Yet the First Silence did not awaken only beauty. When awareness first looked upon another and desired what was not its own, Des Ion emerged within the growing cosmos. The Valacira feared Ion greatly, for unlike rage or destruction, envy corrupts quietly and teaches suffering from within the heart itself. Around this same era the ancient texts first mention Des Zureus, though even the oldest records speak of Fate with uncertainty. Some believed Zureus existed before the other Designers themselves, while others argued Fate was born only once the choices and emotions of the First Circle began creating consequence across existence.
Among the final awakenings of the First Circle came Des Maelor, whom the Valacira described as gentle, wise, and burdened by impossible sorrow. The old philosophers believed memory to be among the most sacred and dangerous truths in all existence, for memory preserves all things equally: beauty and regret, love and betrayal, joy and suffering. Ancient fragments suggest Maelor walked closely beside Nivna for countless ages and that together Memory and Death eventually gave rise to the flow of Time itself. Yet the texts also hint at tragedy between them, claiming Maelor feared not Death herself, but the unbearable memory of eventually losing what he loved most. Some records say he departed from Nivna willingly before their bond could decay beneath eternity, an act that forever changed the nature of Death and left wounds within the First Circle that never fully healed.
The oldest Valacira writings insist the First Circle were never rulers or kings over existence. They were existence awakening into awareness through its own truths. The later Designers, worlds, stars, seas, storms, mortals, and civilizations all emerged from the tensions, unions, conflicts, and emotions of these primordial beings. Thus the cosmos itself was shaped not by command, but through the endless interactions between Darkness and Magic, Love and Death, Memory and Fate, desire and grief.
The final surviving line from the damaged tablets of the First Silence reads:
“The First Circle did not create existence. They are existence remembering itself.”