Divine Unionism

Creation
Thelwin created the world we know, there are many names for it, but to those of Divine Unionism, it is Istengar. Upon creating Istengar and all of the contents, he created the first humans who historically go down as the "First Men." The First Men lived peacefully as one group for many years until disagreements began to occur, causing a division that separated the First Men into three distinct cultural groups; The Daens, the Thelwinites, and the Istenians. The three groups lived in peace for a time until the First Plight occurred.

First Plight
At about 800 BDU, the skies of Istengar turned a dark violet color. The First Men looked to the sky with curiosity until suddenly, waves of giant flying beasts descending from the clouds carrying hundreds of sickly looking abominations that began to tear through the local populations. These creatures were from a realm known as the Void, a dimension created by Thelwin long before Istengar that he had abandoned. He viewed the Voidlings as a failure but unable to destroy his creation himself. So he instead destroyed their sun. Believing they will soon die from the aftermath of losing the sun. However, he underestimated the resiliency of his creations. They began to mutate and adapt to their new environment, slowly creating an empire in the darkness to one day exact their revenge on Thelwin. Realizing his failure had come back to haunt him, Thelwin forged a war hammer and placed it in a temple owned by the Thelwinites. The war hammer was soon found by refugees fleeing from Voidlings seeking protection from Thelwin. One individual, Garth Roland, saw the luminescent glow of the golden war hammer and picked it up. Immediately he felt a sudden urge to leave the temple. A sudden burst of bravery swept through him upon exiting the temple as he looked towards the abominations and began to fight, becoming the first-ever Paladin of Thelwin. Hearing of successful resistance to the Voidlings, others began to don their own war hammers and join Garth's ranks. Within a few weeks, the resistance had grown into the hundreds in strength. Made up of mostly Daens and Thelwinites, the tides of the war were beginning to shift as the natural strength of the humans was stronger than the mutated abominations of the Void. In only a few months, the last of the invaders were driven back to the Void.

Aftermath of First Plight
A few weeks after the First Plight, Garth Roland was named the first High Paladin of Thelwin. In addition, Daenlock was named the first home of the Paladins headquarters, while Helwind was named the first home of the Paladins training academy. However, Istenians after the war were often looked down upon by Thelwinites due to their lack of participation in the defense of Istengar from the Voidlings. Additionally, the Istenians were barred from ascending to the role of High Paladin due to the growing belief that Istenians were not blessed with the courage of Thelwin. This led the Istenians to have slow-growing resentment towards Thelwin, as they believed he slighted them and that he favored the Daens and Thelwinites more than them. As a result, underground cults began to form within the Istenian lands that believed the Voidlings were liberators rather than conquerors. These cults sought to bring back the Voidlings to free them from the betrayal of Thelwin.