[continued from part 2]
The Dark Demons of the Archai
The gods of the Archai have never been their allies. On their homeworld of Roa the Archai were enslaved to the cult of a deity calling himself the Celestial Lord.1 Their time on their homeplanet was, as a result, marked by a war against the forces of a god to win their freedom. That they did so is a testament to the spirit undaunted of their people.
On Terminus, the only Archai god to have surfaced on the world stage was the goddess Haethus-Krevgejl.2 One of the High Mortals of the Ravaging Lord's retinue, she led the assault on the Frozen Sanctum, and as a consequence on the Archai themselves during the Deicide War. In the year 481 she fell upon the Southern armies on the frozen tundra of their adopted homeland. This proved to be unwise, for the Dwarves and Archai were able to successfully obscure their base of operations for years.3 Unfortunately, the pernicious High Mortal was able to eventually ascertain its location, prompting an extended siege. In 484, 4 years into the war, the combined armies of Dwarf and Archai were relieved by the coming of the War Wizards. Haethus-Krevgejl was outmatched and, fearing death, fled the field of battle. While it is possible she yet lives, as do many High Mortals alive centuries ago, she has faded into such obscurity and seclusion that no one can say for sure.
Despite such an antagonistic pantheon, the Archai remain a race defiant in the face of adversity. Unlike the similarly enslaved Skar, who have turned even more violent and self-destructive as the result of their struggles with divines, the Archai celebrate their freedom, and their culture has grown stronger for it.
The Verdant Elves
The chief Elven immortal to have impacted the history of Terminus is not truly a deity at all. Elven culture is intimately intertwined with a enormous tree which, on Terminus, is called Lucent.4 Its full title is Lucent, the Third Dawn. On S'iolaen, their homeworld, this title was chosen because it represented the third light of hope to Elven culture. The first light was their halcyon era of civilization, before what is called the "Age of Pestilence". The second light was Lumos, the first planting of Lucent. Lumos was called the "Second Dawn", because it represented a new hope to a people ravaged by civil war and strife. The Elves carried Lucent's seed, called the Heartseed of Lumos, from their homeworld. It is a symbol of hope for the Elven people, even more so because it survived all efforts by the Ravaging Lord to destroy it during the Deicide War.
Besides Lucent, the two chief deities of the Elven people are named Aellos and Dythiir. These gods led a refugee Elven population across S'iolaen to the lush cradle of their people where grew Lumos. After Lumos was razed and the Elves yet again had to flee, Dythiir pulled the Heartseed from the husk of Lumos so that the Elves could start again. For this Dythiir might be considered to be a symbol of hope to a people so often bereft of its light.
It is Aellos, however, whose relevance to the future of Terminus is yet to be decided. Upon the presentation of the Heartseed to the Elves the deity proclaimed a two-pronged prognostication: that the Heartseed would take root in a foriegn land, and that there would be a "Third Inferno" for the Elven race. Whether this "Third Inferno" described the Ravaging Lord or some other catastrophe is as yet unclear, and only with time will the truth out.
The Changed Dark Myr
To be a deity of the Dark Myr seems a cruel fate. The race owes their very existence to the sacrifices of their gods, and yet too often it seems the entire species utters their names with a bitter aftertaste. Of their pantheon, the gods Issul, Nythir, Ermos and most importantly Syronai have had lasting influence.5
Syronai might be considered the mother of the Dark Myr twice over, and Issul their grandmother. To save their world from being overrun by monsters the goddess Syronai prayed to Issul and received the power to create a singular life. She created the Dark Myr, who drove back the leviathans plaguing the seas of Issul and saved their world.6 For this the Dark Myr were exalted, and for the Myr Syronai was a goddess of Bounty.7
Upon their arrival on Terminus the Dark Myr were unable to breathe our ocean's water. Nythir sacrificed himself in a last attempt to save his people, creating a pocket of native Issulian seawater out of his own body. Unfortunately, the water soon disappated leaving the Dark Myr to drown. Syronai, not content to see her people exterminated chose to bargain her Descention to High Mortal for the chance to reshape the Dark Myr. For this, Nythirian loyalists (who were content to die with their god of Battle) massacered her on the shore where she lay exhausted.8
To this day, the rift in the Dark Myr between the Nythirian Red loyalists and the remainder of the Dark Myr runs deep, with Syronai both reviled and exalted in turn. There is but one thing both sides agree on: Ermos, the god who stood by and did nothing as they drowned and Syronai died is a true villain who must be slain.9
The story of the Dark Myr pantheon is not a happy one (as is so often the case for the races of Terminus), but it seems now as if their fate is in their hands. Their most important gods are decidedly dead, Issul is gone, and the only deity they know acts (or, more accurately, chooses not to) upon Terminus is an antagonist to their people. How they shape events to come will be fascinating.
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We turn now to two sets of deities and demigods who, despite not playing a part in the modern world for various reasons have nevertheless impacted Terminus profoundly. The Infinite Union of the Ginto, composed of the fallen god Ittero and Bride Queen Ginavi were the creators of the dark Revenant and the light Remnant out of their people. These two seeds precipitated the greatest conflict in the history of Terminus, the Deicide War, whose fallout is palpable to this day. It took the coming of the second group discussed herein, the enigmatic War Wizards, to put an end to the fighting, though not without help from an even stronger source: the Celestials. It behooves a scholar of the history of our world to have some understanding of these factions, for their influence is pervasive to this day.
The Tragedy of the Ginto
Every schoolchild in Kingsreach has heard stories of the Ginto and their gods Ittero and Ginavi. The Ravaging Lord plunged Terminus into a chaos which would have consumed the whole of the world had it not been for the intervention of the Celestials. Even still, five hundred years since that auspicious day the scars of war have not healed. There are no dark divines quite like Ittero, nor warm lights quite like Ginavi.
During the Collision that brought the Ginto to Terminus Ittero, the Groom King, was corrupted by a monster of terrible and awesome power lurking in the darkness beyond the worlds.10 Ittero, suffering from unhealable injury approached a death unspeakable. It must have seemed fortunate to Ginavi that in ages past the Dragon King had established the Dragon Accord, and with it the chance to save her beloved.11 Forcibly Descending Ittero would, Ginavi must have hoped, allow his power to stem the flow of the corruption. And it worked, at least partly, for Ittero did not die directly of his diseased essence. The encounter with Semina's "eyeless face of the eclipse", however, could not so easily be forgotten. The wounds bled deep and, now freed from the bonds of the Celestial Boundary Ittero was twisted into what the races of Terminus came to call the Ravaging Lord, or sometimes as "The Ill Watcher".
It is here that the true tragedy of the Ginto begins, for the first act of the new dark Lord was to twist his people into what we call the Revenants, monstrosities which coalesced into a malevolent horde.12 Naturally this attracted the attention of Ginavi, who looked upon the twisting of her people with despair. The goddess confronted her husband, who revealed his twisted nature to her and promised only a future of violence and blood.13, 14 To spare her people, Ginavi sacrificed herself (for she had as much of the power of creation as Ittero) to instill within her remainin unchanged people the light of her being, a ward against the dark corruption of the Ravaging Lord.15 These instilled ones are known now as the Remnant, and have since that time stood watch over their dark Revenant bretheren.
The Ravaging Lord, as is well known, plunged the whole of our world into the darkness of the Deicide War. He tempted and corrupted many of the dark deities of other pantheons to his side.16 His forces washed over the world, destroying and pillaging all in sight.17 A longer description of the entire war is not appropriate for what is a primer on deities, however, so I shall only say here that the damage the Lord caused was so dire it required divine intercession. Indeed, this action was forseen by Ginavi, although perhaps she did not know the form it would take.18 At the climax of the Deicide War, the miraculous arrival of the War Wizards allowed the combined armies of the Sacred Six races (to wit: the Dark Myr, Ogres, Dwarves, Humans, Archai and Elves, although there were many weaker races attending) to first break the Ravaging Lord's forces and then his lieutenants spread across the globe. The Ravaging Lord himself was slain by the Dragon King in a fit of rage, but not before killing Rhy'Kafiros, a princess among dragons. This essayist remains skeptical whether such a feat will ever be repeated, such was the Lord's strength.
The Ginto as they once were are no longer; like their pantheon, they have fractured into the few remaining Remnants and the broken horde of the Revenant, who have festered out of sight since their defeat so many centuries ago. Time will tell if they can regain their strength, and the knowledge of the certain death of the dark god is of little comfort.
The Suns of Terminus, or the War Wizards
Ginavi's prophecy of the armies of the Raving Lord "[breaking] beneath the Suns of Terminus" was a reference to this fellowship of 6 High Mortals who appeared during the height of the Deicide War. The histories describe these "Six Suns of Terminus" as originating from the pantheons of the Sacred Six races.19 It remains unclear to this day whether they were actual Descended gods or manifestations of the will of the pantheons. What is clear, however, is that they sided with the Six and against the Revenant tide. Within a year their asssistance allowed the mortal forces to push out from the Sanctums built to defend against the dread horde. The War Wizards were instrumental in countering the power of the fallen High Mortal generals of the Ravaging Lord's army.20 With their forces leaderless, the Ravaging Lord himself was faced with the impossibility of facing the combined might of the Six Suns and the mortal armies led by Khazas.
Undaunted by the apocalyptic nature of the battlefield that was Ka'Druhorr, the Ravaging Lord's stronghold, two of the War Wizards engaged him in combat. This proved foolhardy, as one was quickly slain and the other imperiled. It took a literal act by the true gods of Terminus, the Dragons and the Celestials, for the remaining War Wizard to be spared.
It is a testament to their seemingly pure and earnest nature that in the aftermath of the Deicide War the War Wizards chose to withdraw into seclusion. The void of their absence is described as one of Mercy, for they could have rulled us all. Like Haethus-Krevgejl, none of the five remaining Suns has surfaced since the War, and it is currently unknown whether they live. Let us hope we should be so fortunate in the future to have their assistance in our time of need once again.
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The entities described in the passages above are but a handfull of the gods and goddess that make up the pantheons of the refugee races of Terminus. Their true numbers are uncountable, unknowable. The ones above are simply those of such ambition as to make their mark upon this world and her people. In the coming years we may hear more names take the center stage of our shared future, and should they do so I hope to write an addendum to this humble primer. I should hope to be so fortunate as to chronicle the events of the celestial wheel.
And now, dear reader, do we come to the close of this primer. I hope it may be of some assistance, as our world is vast and its depths arcane. I implore only that, if these pique that uncynical spark of interest in your heart that you seek out the histories of Terminus and her people. This is a beautiful, portentious, wide and frightening second home for so many who have been displaced, and her story is worth knowing.
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1. More specifically the Archai were constructed by destroying another race of pure energy, the Aoeyn, for the purpose of slave labor. This dark cult was eventually overthrown in much the same way as the Skar, although the end result was clearly markedly different.
2. She is known as the "Dead Heiress", but the specifics of how she obtained such a dubious appelation remain a mystery.
3. Khazas himself remarked that Sanctum's defense was to be "Tenebrous, and Tenebrous alone", the Tenebrous Tundra being the inhospitable construciton site of the Frozen Sanctum.
4. Enormous is hardly a fair description. From the histories:
"From each of the four chief limbs fell the fruit of a season: leaves made of snow; blossoms of drifting rain; blooms of tangible heat; drifts of reds and golds that swirled like sands on the valley floor. There was a storm cloud caught between two branches, flashing glints within its folds. Through the knuckles of the cavernous roots below flowed the emerald river N'yleen, anchoring the four resplendent regions in fertility. This was Lumos, the Second Dawn." - Sepher S'iolaen
5. It is important to note here that, while the description of Ermos in this primer is current, his actual existence is of considerable debate. The only accounting we have of him is from testimonies of a figure who, while the Dark Myr lay drowning in the air Terminus, stood by and laughed. Hardly conclusive, altohugh certainly probative of a malevolent force. The Dark Myr seem to be convinced of his existence, however, as he is a favorite pejorative in their vernacular, as is discussed below.
6. This description is rather fanciful, but a longer explanation is too tangential to the purposes of a description of the gods and goddesses of our shared world.
7. Syronai is primarily referred to as a goddess of Bounty in the recountings of Dark Myr history on Terminus, but not in the history of their kind on their homeworld. It is possible the nature of her worship changed as a result of the events of their landfall on this planet.
8. Of all dissident factions of the races of Terminus the Nythirians who killed Syronai, dubbed the "Nythirian Red", are the most unnerving. Their chief aim seems to be to seek out the same types of monstrosities that eventually led to their first birth in an attempt to undo Syronai's gift. This seems like a suicidal endeavor in more ways than one, and I shudder to think of the consequences for the Dark Myr should they succeed.
9. The hatred for Ermos cannot be understated, to quote from one of the testimonies of the events of the landfall:
"...there he stood far above us, hovering in the sky. A Thing unlike any I had imagined before, a Creature who may have never been made. High in the air he watched us writhe, the strange salvation of 'air' filtering through our quivering bodies, heaving out the poisonous liquid of Terminus’ oceans. That Thing we call Ermos, he and his world Terminus gouged us of all we love, turning even the waters against us. Our own people have slain their Lady, and before our very eyes he watched it unfold. Though her blood ran over the sands and even under our very bodies, we could not lift ourselves up from the crimson pools for many hours."
That is why “Curse Ermos” is our hail, and “Ermos be cursed” our depart. For though he departed with not a word, we speak his name to accuse him and testify of his crimes.
- From the Testimony of Vethos Ravica
10. Semina, High Priest of the Infinite Union (a theocratic institution at the center of Ginto religious life) described this monster as the "Eyeless Eclipse" in his famous "Confession of Semina". This monster was, of course, discussed in greater detail in this primer, supra. Needless to say its power apparently far outstrips the members of the pantheons of the races of Terminus.
11. The Dragon Accord, High Mortals, and Descention are themselves all ill understood concepts. A short summary does them no justice, and I implore the reader to seek out further essays on specifically these topics. For our purposes here it is only important to know that Descention allows a god or goddess to exchange their immortality for some flare of their former power, usually at great cost.
12. Ittero is commonly attributed with the power of creation, and more specifically as the god who, along with his Bride Queen, created the Ginto race. How cruel that this power would be twisted to dark ends by darker entities.
13. This confrontation produced what is commonly known as the "Prophesy of Endless Night", the prelude to the Deicide War.
14. It is not clear precisely when the Ravaging Lord came to full power, or when the Descention happened. The Ginto arrived in the year 450 during the Third Collision, but Ittero was still a god then. The year 470 is commonly called the Year of Outbreak, as the Revenant began to move against the other mortal races then. However, the Deicide War did not begin in earnest till the year 481, so there is some matter of debate as to whether appeasement of the initial actions led to greater bloodshed.
15. The descriptions of her passing are beautiful and terrible. If for no other reason, the avid reader of footnotes should seek out these descriptions as I have not the soul to do them justice.
16. The most notable of such fallen ones were Ossari “He Who Rages” of the Humans and the “Dead Heiress” Haethus-Kevgrejl of the Archai, the latter of which may still live on in disgrace and exile.
17. The Kinosai and the Lost Sidryth are the most notable races to be extinguished by the horde. A notable mention should also be given to Lucent, the sacred Elven tree, although of course its Heartseed survived the razing.
18. Her precise prognostication was, famously, that her husband "would break beneath the Suns of Terminus", now commonly considered a reference to the War Wizards.
19. Full disclosure requires me to make mention that some histories even dispute the very existence of these entities. These skeptics describe the War Wizards are too fanciful a notion, too convenient a solution to the hopelessness of the middle years of the Deicide War. I find the idea of High Mortals perfectly reasonable, considering a living, breathing High Mortal who fought during that same war now governs the Dwarven people.
20. Ossari was slain after wounding one of his two War Wizard assailants in open combat. Haethus-Krevgejl fled the field of battle, and as has been discussed above went into hiding, forever branded a coward.
Thanks for the compliment, man. Been pretty rough at work (a lot of seasonal people were let go so me and my boss are doing the work of 5 people in our department) so I haven't been able to put time into hobbies for the last few weeks, but I want to do more lore stuff for sure.
Also, you probably don't want my brain, it's full of useless facts and gear spreadsheets from 2 decades of RPGs. I'd take Sagan's any day.
Jimmayus said:Also, you probably don't want my brain, it's full of useless facts and gear spreadsheets from 2 decades of RPGs. I'd take Sagan's any day.
LOL ! and spreadsheets ! I love those.
If you had told me in 2003 when FFXI first came out that people would make crazy ass spreadsheets like this one for Tales of Berseria: Tales Spreadsheet, or that such a thing would even be possible I would have laughed in your face. Now I'm just constantly amazed and impressed by the depths to which people will plunge for knowledge for their hobbies.
edit: I would have laughed in your face because at the time as a 15 year old it still felt like so few people around me played video games at all, so the idea of so much time being workedo n fan stuff seemed outlandish.
