Layer 1 (Prelife) hosts primordial beings whose portfolios are tied to the substrate itself rather than to personal worship. They are belief-shaped, but by a belief older and more diffuse: mortals will always hold reverence for the elemental forces themselves, regardless of which named god they invoke. A sailor may pray to Shuun and still fear the storm and the water in their own right. A smith may pray to Komo and still know that fire is fire before any god named it. That older, undirected awe (for the wind, the stone, the flame, the void) is what created them and is what sustains them. Their relationship to the Primordial Six (the six Grand Gods who shaped Prelife) is unknown.

Each primordial grants its element's cleric domain to faithful who reach the substance directly (Suzar → Fire, Urzar → Water, Lurzahar → Earth, Haizar → Air, Indazar → Healing, Hutzar → Nothingness, Iturima → Soul). The primordials do not judge: they impose no moral anathema beyond what the element itself imposes. Think a fanatic of fire: the worshipper who taps Suzar gets fire, regardless of what they intend to burn.

Seven of the nine primordials reside here on Layer 1. Two reside on Layer 2 instead (Zurzar in Feyworld for Wood, Burdinzar in Shadowplane for Metal); their cards sit in the Layer 2 group below.