To trap the First Doom, the New Gods split part of his being into nine pieces and tasked nine mortals with hiding the soul shards so Kudamat could not reach his full power.
But they should not have given such a paramount task to mere mortals. The nine riders took the shards as far from the mountain as they could manage and buried them in the arid earth, but it wasn't far enough. Over the centuries, Kudamat reached out through the dirt and stone to find them. Over time, the godly strife of the Earliest Age and the hidden resting places of the soul shards drifted out of memory and into stories and legends — legends most sensible folk ignored or forgot.
Source · Drylands History