In the
Well of Souls sagas by
Jack L. Chalker, the
Markovians are the
elder race that created the current universe.
The Markovians achieved utopia in their universe, only to realize that they were not happy. The Markovians had mastered energy to matter conversion; each Markovian planet had a computer embedded into the planet's crust which would instantly fulfill a Markovian's desires.
Having achieved a dead end existence, the Markovians created the Well World, and used it as a laboratory to design a new host of sentient races, in hopes that a different evolutionary path would lead to nirvana. Having done so, they created a new universe, overlaid on the older, Markovian universe, controlled by the Well of Souls computer. Each Markovian was converted to one of the new races by a Well Gate, and used to seed the new universe.
At least one Markovian was left behind as a guardian of the Well of Souls; this may or may not have been Nathan Brazil.
Markovians appear to be giant hearts, with six evenly spaced tentacles.