Cosmology Excerpts of the Library at Valon

[Kaez]

The following texts are a collection of four excerpts from "An Introduction to Basic Cosmology", composed 3.586 by Balthor Fallows and Denrik Cairn III, and supplemented by footnotes authored by Sipha Fallows in 3.591. The book was written at a time when Western politics were undergoing significant upheaval, not least of which was the Schism of the Rock which threatened the Orthodoxy itself. The Baksami Empire had pushed its borders to the southeastern edge of Fennish lands for the first time, religious violence in Rodhgal was on the rise, and the conversion of Tirban to Era Patros had been firmly established despite Sundrian pressures on Apero. Fallows and Cairn's publishing of "An Introduction to Basic Cosmology" in Amostine followed an extended stay of both men in Ponse, where they had seen much of these developments first-hand and understood the pressures the Orthodoxy would soon be facing. Perhaps they saw this moment as opportune for quietly publishing their small guidebook to the stars as the Church was undoubtedly occupied with far greater threats than one small paper-bound volume being passed amongst eclectic scholars and magi in urban Rosia. The book made no splash and sounded no alarms until, five years after its initial publication, Sipha Fallows, daughter of Balthor, published a revised edition in Aneyce. This Sundrian edition included additional footnotes designed to introduce foreign readers from Baksam or beyond to the topic, and supplemented the text with further quotes, including three from Myrad the Frog, a well-known figure whose support brought this edition a great deal of credence and popularity. Since its publication nearly 50 years ago, "An Introduction to Basic Cosmology" has sold some 5,000 copies and remains a notoriously taboo subject amongst the Orthodoxy who have never publicly acknowledge the book's existence.

These excerpts were selected by the Librarians of the Clergy of Lions, under the authority of the Golden Channels, in Valon, Kingdom of Sundria, 3.631.

Excerpt One, from Chapter One, “Metaphysics”.

Several attempts have been made to summarize our knowledge of the metaphysical nature of Qarzeth. None of these is in agreement with any other about the definition of the term "Qarzeth", let alone the qualities and properties it possesses. This is, admittedly, not a straightforward topic, and perhaps it is best that the authors, from the very beginning, make their biases clear. The historically dominant view, which has been validated by the Orthodoxy¹ and has remained prominent in Amostine for the past several centuries, is based on a few core premises: that there is a single, true, linear history of our world, that there are no beings "metaphysically higher" than the Gods, that the reality we experience is valid and real as we experience it, that there is a world apart from our minds made of physical material which existed before we came into it and persists after we die, etc.

Since the Thrice-Prophet's final manifestation as the Prophet Kythos², and the subsequent arrival of the Voyagers³, this view has been, in the minds of certain individuals, altered, expanded, and to a degree, rejected. The authors of this introduction to cosmology present the linear-time, physicalist, gods-centric worldview as one of two perspectives one can adopt when discussing the nature of reality. Each of these, most troubling of all, is equally true, though they may seem (and possibly, in fact, do) contradict one another. At this point readers of certain religious or philosophical dispositions may be disinclined to proceed, but it must be emphasized that this is an established truth, supported by both empirical and testimonial evidence indisputable. For the purposes of this Handbook the paradoxical nature of our cosmology is regarded as a natural fact and the official stance of the Orthodoxy is largely disregarded. The authors nevertheless express their solidarity with those who find this truth to be somewhat unsettling. The validity of the physical world, the impossibility of paradoxes and contradictions, and the absence of utter facts about the nature of reality is not easily embraced.

The first of the two true perspectives can be described as “transcendental solipsism”. This view originated in the philosophy of Leonerhu's Canon⁴ and was expanded upon in the Enchiridion Oneirosophy⁵ and, most explicitly, in the Book of Flight⁶. It can be rightly claimed that existence is an undifferentiated oneness without distinction or division. This might be most easily conceived of as a world which is examined at ever smaller and more precise detail, further investigating the constituent components of reality, until it is discovered that all things are but elements, all elements are but micro-form, and all form is but one uniform substance, manifesting in complex ways within itself so as to give the appearance of distinction and form. The conscious experiencer, like yourself, reader, is in every and equal ways also composed of this same substance, and therefore the conscious experience of awareness and the apparently-physical world are also without differentiation. Mind, body, consciousness, physical form, and all other conceivable phenomena of any variety, are reflections of just one thing. This is sometimes compared with a dream, in the sense that a dream is just one thing (i.e. "a dream") but appears to be filled with nuanced and complex distinct things.

“Awareness beyond time, unbound by space, containing all latent memory and future capacity… the dreamer who dreams himself… the paradox self-told, the one-sided nothing, equally void and limitless, a shapeless orb of infinite potential… beyond all words and imaginings.” - The Prophet Kythos, Book of Flight

“The highest gods and the lowest amoeba are equal manifestations, are they not? The eye playing with its own reflections, some big and some small. Nothing is gained in size or might, nothing much, at least. Escaping the whole charade, casting off the bonds, penetrating the eternal with utter abandon. All else is masturbatory.” - Archmage Pelyon Gaethwile, Transcendental Arcanum

Elaborating on the commonly-used dream metaphor, of further note is that it is not the conventional self, the individual mortal being, the “you” who you feel yourself to presently be, who is dreaming the world into being, but rather a Self beyond and behind all. Just so, then, it is no truer that some all-powerful God dreams of a lowly amoeba than that the amoeba dreams the Gods: each of these is a manifestation of the same highest Self; both are equally dream-beings. Reality is an interdependent web of conscious beings manifesting one another in perpetuity and even these beings are, at some level, identical with one another.

The authors do not expect the reader to find this perspective particularly compelling or even instinctively plausible, but this is the account of reality given uniformly and independently by all Voyagers who have spoken on the topic, including each manifestation of the Thrice-Prophet, the Venerable Archmage Pelyon Gaethwile, Myrad the Frog, the Knight of Stars, and (arguably) Huivena himself⁷. Until, or unless, such a time when an explanation for dimensional travel can be given while maintaining a more conventional and less radical metaphysical picture, this view must be granted validity on the premise of the undeniable validity of the supernatural acts of its supporters. To dismiss this worldview for being against one's intuition, altogether unnatural, or somehow insufficient, is to also call into question the Thrice-Prophet and the Voyagers, a position the authors of this particular text are uncomfortable with adopting.

The second of the two true perspectives can be described as "relational idealism". This perspective is captured by the Oneiromanticum Den’s adage, “I dream of the gods who dream of me."⁸ Reality is illusory and unbroken (see the previous perspective) but it is not deprived of any validity for being so, for the illusion itself is real if anything is. Gods and amoeba may be equally “false” as the Archmage has noted, but for all practical purposes, unless one transcends conventional boundaries, as very few ever will, these boundaries are (by definition) intact. Gods and amoeba function in this evidently-dreamt world in very different ways. There are many beings with many perspectives on reality, divided by both space and time, and some are more privileged and more powerful than others. In this way the power of the Gods, and the existence of linear time, is given a sort of "faithful reality". Ultimate truth notwithstanding, they are practically and pragmatically true in the same way that, while one might claim the events of a dream are not "real" events, surely none would claim that the dream itself was not real and that, for the dreamer, the experiences were not fully valid.

Many goals are noble to he who adopts this second perspective: some seek power, some seek knowledge, some seek happiness, and some seek experiences. This is the perception of the mage, the priest, the wise king, the scholar, and the learned man: he who has heard tale that the world is illusory, indivisible, both dreamer and dream, but for him, illusory or not, this world and its limitations don't merely suffice as real, but absolutely and entirely are real. It is vital to emphasize this point: while the first perspective, being true, claims that the physical world and its divisions are illusory, the second perspective, being just as true, claims that they are not illusory. This contradiction should not be escaped by dismissing the second perspective as merely embracing an illusion -- in the second perspective, there is no illusion and it remains a metaphysically valid worldview. The authors could go on at a great length elaborating on this mystery, but it suffices, for now, to simply state that there is no means of avoiding this paradox.

“I, for one, have never and will never doubt the claims made by Kythos of the true nature of reality. But the Gods, or something more mysterious still, have kept me from seeing this with my own eyes and heart. With respect for this, I contend this world, whatever its ultimate nature might be, is real in the way that I perceive it to be real. If that picture is different from that of a wiser man, the picture is not changed for it.” - Lord Feyglen, Pragmatic Lessons

These two perspectives are sometimes referred to as the Eyes of the World, the first being the left eye, the second being the right eye. The Prophet Kythos, therefore, adopted the title “of the Left-Eyed Vision”, and soon thereafter arose the common phrase “right-eyed” as synonymous with “practical” and “utilitarian”.⁹

The natural question may arise: can we, with either eye on the world, describe the origins of reality and the very beginning of existence as we know it? Unsurprisingly, here, too, there are two perspectives to take. The first cannot be expressed in detailed, careful explanation and hardly so in prose, either. The following excerpt is as sufficient an explanation of the origins of the cosmos as can be found amongst the left-eyed and the Voyagers.

“All patterns contrast the unpatterned; all form distinguishes itself from aether; all motifs course through a void; all themes arise from disjointed phenomena. In what space can there exist an eternity? What time is there for the limitless? An imprint cannot make an impression on itself just as a voice cannot speak but to an ear. At first there was naught and void, and thus was the universe a contemplation: Is there nothingness or am I? From whence Zero and One arose. And noticing this, it was discovered that there were twice-One things, and so arose Two, and it was discovered that there were Two-and-One things, and so arose Three, and forever and ever until the countless dew drops on the numberless webs all glistened with the freshness of the Dawn of Numbers and were all and everything, pristine and fathomless.

“Geometric shapes, form and pattern, motif and theme, all grew like the seed of a salt crystal, like the roots of a tree, and were salt, and were trees, and the all-ness of creation became lush and vivid and gained myriad dimensions. A complexity unbearable to fathom birthed unavoidably from the void as in sleep the black which isn’t soon unravels in color and imagining. Our world is such: dreamer and dream, foreground and background, light and shadow, birthing and dying at once. Does such paradox not tempt nor torment you? Nothing arises but in contrast to its not-ness, its void of being, and yet its void of being is such as well. Is there not both light and shadow? Do we not die having been born? All things dance in time like the flickering of fireflies or the sweeping of sea waves, arising and passing, giving way to their unexistence and becoming again.

“There is no hope for that which attempts to grasp a fleeting thing. The horse cannot be tamed. No greater value can be possessed than flexibility. No greater merit can be attained than the embrace of contradiction. No greater wisdom can be cultivated than the understanding of the impossibility of all definitiveness. No truths hold in all places, at all times, yet where and when they hold are they not rightfully said to be true? Faith in the impossible, flexibility toward the intangible, and a lightness, a gentleness, a heart free of all that is stern and serious: these practices are nutrients for the starving mind, mad, gnawing its own tongue, seeking in the wrong direction, blind, backward, fast asleep. I cut a path through the thicket and usher you along: this way home.

“I have read the laws of science, of the measurements and motions predictable and invariable. I have observed the methods of magical practice, in all their passion and grace. I have seen the metal cities, where the smallest constituents of reality are themselves reforged and where lightning rides silken threads through boxes of knowledge-light. I have seen stars and star-trees and the music of the heavens in orbit around me, bodiless, adrift in the mind of God. I come to you having beheld a hundred worlds, a thousand kings, a hundred thousand saints, shamans, sages. The only whole truth is that no truth is a whole truth. Reality does not grimace at contradicting itself. God does as he may. You are set apart only in that you don’t.” - Myrad the Frog, Restless Songs

From the second perspective, it is somewhat simpler. The origins of reality as we know it occurred in three phases: the creation of the Gods, the creation of the myriad realms, and the Fraying.¹⁰ Before one begins to speak of the Gods, it might arise, given the left-eyed perspective, whether one can speak of the Gods as truly existing. To speak of whether anything exists or not is to take the right-eyed perspective -- the left does not draw a differentiation between real and unreal -- and this perspective may be seen as lacking ultimate authority by certain mystics and spiritualists. For conventional purposes, one certainly can speak of the existence of Gods, and even those who are disinclined toward the usage of real-unreal dichotomy speak of the Gods, conventionally, as existent. Mortals going about their daily tasks, even the most spiritually inclined among them, ought to adopt the basic assumption that the world they experience is real in the way that they experience it, and therefore so shall we. The Gods exist and they do not; the gods exist.

How many Gods are there, then? Inexhaustibly many. The realms of existence are countless and the beings who occupy them are in no short number. Those who were invested in the creation of the Tor, however, are much more limited in number. This group of deities, the Divines, can be observed in one manifestation or another in nearly every pantheon and system of worship across the Tor. In this sense, there can be said to be eleven "active and relevant" Gods.¹¹ This excludes those who did not participate in the Tor’s creation, the Diviles, though this exclusion is not entirely appropriate as the worship and acknowledgment of the Diviles is not altogether rare in the Tor and, certainly, Qarzeth-wide, they make up the vast majority of deities. Further complicating the matter is that many Gods, both Diviles and Divines, in practice, overlap with one another, given different names and depictions by different cultures despite representing the same being.

The Gods exist within realms, sometimes called planes or planets, and simultaneously are these realms. Some realms are infinite while others are finite, and both infinite and finite realms manifest themselves to conventional eyes as spherical. The Tor, therefore, is orb-like in shape, and being finite, it is conceivable that one could circumnavigate its width. An infinite realm, like that of Huivena, appears spherical to the eyes of mortals because of the impossibility of its full manifestation being apparent within the limited dimensional confines of our space (this is not unlike a sphere appearing to be a flat line if viewed through a narrow slit).

How many realms are there? Perhaps a few beings in all of existence could say for sure. The boundaries between them are, at times, vague, and their relationships with one another are generally not easily decipherable. While those which can be observed from the Tor, the five realms of the Gods and two others, can be measured in their orbits, those more distant realms are far less easily tracked and can be imagined like a spider’s web, massively complex and difficult to maneuver. The expanse beyond the Tor and its neighboring realms exists outside of the dominion of the Divines and is, instead, governed by the Diviles. This space is an immensity indescribable by any words. For most of our purposes, we will discuss just a few realms, namely the Tor, its neighbors, and those more distant worlds about which we have anything reliable to say.

1. The Hufzig Church of the Divine Eleven, far more commonly known as the Church of the Divines or the Church of Orthodoxy. It remains the most prominent religion throughout the entire West although its popularity has waned over the course of the past century. Its official stance on Kythos, the Voyagers, and this text is one of (complex) disapproval. While neither the Thrice-Prophet nor the author of this text has in any way spoken against the validity of the Divines, their metaphysical interpretations and lack of hostility toward the so-called Diviles has created a significant cultural division between the Orthodox and those who would find this text philosophically agreeable.

2. The Prophet Kythos, born 623 years before this writing, is the third incarnation of the Thrice-Prophet, whose apotheosis marks the beginning of the Third Epoch by the Magi Calendar. His contemporaries regarded him as an eccentric polymath, but he is today best known as the founder of the Cult of Jene, the inventor of "intentional, as opposed to incidental, travel between planes", and is regarded in equal parts as a prophet and a blasphemer. He is the first Tor-born being to have undeniably left Tor and returned purposefully, is the first Tor-born to write accounts of other realms including those of the Gods, and is the originator of the term "Qarzeth" to describe the multi-planar cosmos. In his native region of Rosia, many commonfolk, Orthodox regard him as representing divile-worship, dark magic, blasphemy, and disinformation. The previous two incarnations of the Thrice-Prophet, Hauraza, the author of Leonerhu’s Canon, and Vesava, the author of the Enchiridion Oneirosophy, were born 1933 and 1485 years ago, respectively. They are divisive and controversial but widely, and increasingly openly, embraced by academics, scholars, and the mystics of the Eleven Cults alike.

3. The Voyagers are the followers of the tradition laid out by the Thrice-Prophet who have either attained apotheosis themselves or have managed to attain the capacity for departing and returning to the Tor at will through one of a variety of more obscure methods. Since Kythos wrote the Book of Flight 591 years ago, between 200 and 300 Voyagers have been identified (the exact number is a subject of tremendous controversy which will not be elaborated upon here). It is generally accepted that, today, there are at least 3, and no more than 6, Voyagers alive on the Tor.

4. Leonerhu’s Canon is a collection of 33 lines said to have been composed by Hauraza himself, the first incarnation of the Thrice-Prophet. Given their brevity, I have taken the liberty of including them for the unfamiliar reader:

One: Roads you should walk unchallenged by walls, lest you forget that you predate flesh.
Two: I will show you how to hold a stance that men have seldom suffered.
Three: Wakeful remain in the midst of all dreaming, moving or still.
Four: Trust in the First Mother to catch you from falling; make Her a shrine and sing it awake.
Five: You are not the sole dreamer; forget not that all hearts have each a separate cure.
Six: Trust in the Moon's Steersman to deceive you with love; dance His way in slant.
Seven: Tie firm a breath-skein to your flesh before you walk outside your skin.
Eight: Chant without humility and your visions will put a knife through your heart.
Nine: Wisdom alone is the purpose whose honor is without question.
Ten: Go to no god unsummoned, save Stongun: but prove your strength against His perilous house.
Eleven: Murder illusion.
Twelve: Do not seek to walk as I have walked, nor hope that you can bear my mantle.
Thirteen: Walk as you must walk, wear a mantle you have made alone.
Fourteen: The weave without measure: dare not to seize more than one thread.
Fifteen: Pay the ferrymen with lavish love, or they will give your thoughts a harsh schooling.
Sixteen: I will show you how to earn a name that sheds its skin.
Seventeen: Oaths are as armor.
Eighteen: The Aerei hate a man who denies them their idles.
Nineteen: Take nothing with you that is soulless.
Twenty: Blood is a happy toll, and a downward-coiling road.
Twenty-one: Let no man say what you can and cannot see, but let the gods decide.
Twenty-two: The peace of the Shadow-City is infectious: flee from its blessing.
Twenty-three: No man without a lover should walk this fearful way.
Twenty-four: No man without a people should walk this deep-cut way.
Twenty-five: Make no record of fate-tellings, not even in image: their knowledge is yours alone.
Twenty-six: Music is as a mapmaking and an offering in equal measure.
Twenty-seven: Call me and I will come, even unto the end of wind and rain.
Twenty-eight: Call me and I will require three things of you, and each will be a terror.
Twenty-nine: Hail to the All-Tree, holy in its long-bending boughs and deathly roots.
Thirty: Hail to the Lord of the Dead, and He will show me no mercy.
Thirty-one: Hail to the First Dreamer, Who taught me the blood-rites of a hallowed field.
Thirty-two: Hail to Great Reksar, and my spear will bear His image until my memory should perish.
Thirty-three: Hail to my Father, Who is as my forethought, and for Whose sake this book came into being long before it ever was written. BY THE HAND OF HAURAZA IT IS WRITTEN

5. The Enchiridion Oneirosophy was written by Vesava, the second incarnation of the Thrice-Prophet. It is a short tome of a few hundred lines in the spirit of Leonerhu’s Canon but considerably more elaborate and, in the opinion of some, simultaneously more cryptic. It is the only of the three principle texts of the Thrice-Prophet (the others being Leonerhu’s Canon and the Book of Flight) to be officially dismissed as blasphemous by the Orthodoxy.

6. The Book of Flight was written by the Prophet Kythos, the third incarnation of the Thrice-Prophet. It is far more accessible (at least in the early chapters) than the previous two texts and nearly five times longer than the other two combined. It is, in the author’s own words, an instruction manual on apotheosis, the ascension to godhood, although it hardly resembles a conventional step-by-step guide. It is widely cited by Voyagers as being the most important book in existence and an example of a divine object. While certain passages from it are widely known in academic circles, the book’s final few chapters are considered by even erudite readers to be extremely challenging and there is considerable debate over the precise meaning of much of the terminology.

7. The Venerable Archmage Pelyon Gaethwile was the founder of the Academy Arcanum and, later in his life, widely acknowledged to be a Voyager. The Knight of Stars was a prominent figure in Tirbani culture and politics from 3.359 to 3.414 who, besides being a Voyager, initiated several important reforms and is still a widely-revered figure in Tirban today. “Huivena himself” here is in reference to the book “Dialogue with the Gods”, anonymous published two decades ago which controversially claims to be a collection of authentic conversations with three of the Divines. Myrad the Frog is one of three living Voyagers about whose status as such there is no debate. He currently serves as a special advisor to the High Apoothecary of the Cult of Jene.

8. The Oneiromanticum Den, colloquially called "the Den", is an usual structure on, around, and beneath the central island of Lake Eprion and is the only major temple of the followers of Leonerhu. While his followers are typically referred to as the Moonchildren, this name is rarely, if ever, used to describe the devout sect of the Den and instead applies exclusively to the travelers, gypsies, and impoverished who take up sanctuary in his moon turrets. The Den's inhabitants are the members of the Cult of the Imminent Luminosity, formally called Oneironauts, but more commonly referred to with the epithet "the Wakeful" (e.g. Ysbramast the Wakeful). The Cult, like the Den itself, is difficult to describe accurately and specifically, and its origins and founder (The Astronomer) are surrounded by mythology and folklore.

9. An Elaboration on the Eyes' Paradox is here provided courtesy Myrad the Frog:

"Let us say that I go to sleep tonight and dream that I am the richest man in the world. In the course of the night I fall into a comatose state, unwaking for months or years, and so my dream is perpetuated for this long. I dream a years-long dream in which I live the life of the richest man in the world. Within the dream I wake, sleep, eat, bathe, and go about all of the daily events which any waking person undergoes. I, in the dream, of course, haven't the slightest idea that I am asleep and that all of the events around me are but imaginings of my dreaming mind.

"The question, then, which is at the heart of the Eyes' Paradox (the proposition by Kythos that there are two equally-valid metaphysical stances) is this: while dreaming, am I really experiencing the life of the richest man in the world? The two possible answers are: No, I am not, because it is merely a dream, and true reality is taking place outside of this illusory world, or yes, I am, as whether it is a dream or not is irrelevant to the fact that it is a genuine experience that I am undergoing. The question, importantly, is not whether dreams are real. We all know them to be. The question, rather, is whether the experiences undergone in dreams are real experiences, or if by their nature, they are somehow less real than those experiences had while awake. Many people claim that they are, in fact, less real, while others argue that they are simultaneously real and, in another sense, unreal. There is no obvious answer and we shouldn't expect to find one.

"If Kythos and the Voyagers claim that they have seen the lives we ordinarily perceive as wakeful as, in fact, an elaborate dream, then naturally, if we accept their claim, there ought to be two perspectives on our own reality: that our world is somehow without validity or total reality, or that it is valid and real while also being, simultaneously, invalid and unreal. These are not, however, the two perspectives taken. Those who view dreams as invalid, instead of viewing our reality as invalid, instead reject the entire metaphysics put forth by Kythos and argue against his claims that this world is comparable with a dream in the first place.

"So there arise three major philosophical perspectives. There are those who fully embrace Kythos and comprehend the paradoxical nature of reality, of whom there are few. There are those who partially embrace Kythos (sometimes unknowingly or even while claiming that they do not) without comprehending the paradoxical nature of reality and, instead, simply adopting one of the two equally-valid perspectives (invariable the right-eyed perspective). And there are those who reject Kythos and embrace a physicalist view in line with the Orthodoxy."

10. The Fraying, which separates the First and Second Epochs, is a to-date unexplained phenomenon which was in some way related to, the result of, or the cause of, the collapse of nearly all known civilization up to that point. It is marked by accounts of both destructive natural and supernatural phenomena, highly conflicting and contradicting accounts of even regionalized sources, and a significant rise in the levels of ocean water. This mysterious bit of history is elaborated on far more extensively in Jorthan the Elder’s excellent book “The End of Everything Before”.

11. Adaruin, Leonerhu, Rigna, Huivena, Thanri, Jene, Stongun, Therkeya, Agrali, Yernati, and Reksar.

[Kaez]

Excerpt Two, from Chapter Two, “The Eleven”.

If we can speak of the Gods, what can rightly be said of them? How was their becoming? What came before them?

Though we have agreed that we can speak definitively about the existence of the Gods by adopting the right-eyed perspective, it is hard to speak with much certainty about their nature. The following is a summary of the origins of the Gods in accordance with the words of the Thrice-Prophet and the Voyagers:

In the Before, prior to the Secret Knowledge, there was no definite thing. That is to say that all was void and nothingness, but so too was all flux and changing. There was only a oneness which vibrated with a boundless potential and contained within it all of existence. It pertained to the future and to the past, to all of space and to each mind within space. Amongst its infinite capacity, amongst the numberless possibilities it contained, was the possibility of being unlike itself -- of being constrained and restricted, of expressing itself in limitation, and of being spread and divided. The void dreamt itself as creation and so from it sprung every conceivable thing.¹

At first, this division was strange and violent. There were only a few definitive things in creation and each contained such multitudes, like geometric reflections of the initial void. Each of these, in turn, was divided, and divided still, until there were many things and they were each clear and defined in their contents. So was formed the world, the cosmos, all of reality -- space full of things, definiteand real, stable and certain in their character. In so being, the world of things was instilled with the Secret Knowledge, that knowledge from which all of history was birthed, Time. So ends the Before and so begins Time.²

In the first moments of Time, the world began to move and develop structure. All of the forms and manifestations of reality were set in motion and moved about the cosmos in relation to one another, like music or dance, moving without destination but for its own sake. And for a great expanse of Time, the world spun in its motions and orbits, dancing the song of time and creation, growing and changing and returning again. And eventually it came to pass that the sentient beings, the Gods, those elements of the cosmos which were aware and awake, were not in harmony with one another. Being imbued with the creative force, these beings were shapers and creators, who forged worlds and enlivened beings on these worlds. Some of the Gods made worlds which were rigid and structured, which served their will exactly, while others made worlds which were flexible and independent and had wills and movements of their own. Of the first group the Gods said, "Surely we are the truest and first, the rulers and the creators, and we may do what we Will." Of the second group, the Gods said, "Those beings we create are but reflections of ourselves, small creators of small worlds, and we must make them like ourselves, free to obey or disobey and with Wills of their own.”³

The orderly worlds of the first group and the chaotic worlds of the second group were in sharp contrast to one another. Everywhere a world was made structured and exact, the counter-Gods came and brought will and independence and disrupted the order. And everywhere a world was made chaotic and unruly, the counter-Gods came and brought order and structure and organized the chaos. And so it came to pass that all worlds were in contention and were chaotic and orderly in turns. But this satisfied neither side of the division of the Gods and soon there was a great conflict and the distinction between the two sides became clear, with all Gods taking one side or the other and spiting their enemies.
One group of Gods sought to create an artificial world, one forged in secret, unknown and kept safe from those who would seek to instill their Will on it and prevent its denizens from having Wills of their own. But they knew not how to go about achieving this. It was not until the mysterious arrival of Leonerhu, a strange figure the others had never encountered before, that the Gods were given the Second Secret and learned to create a realm of their own.⁴ And so the Divines gathered together and made a great Sacrifice and each offered a piece of themselves, some more and some less, and the Divines created an entirely new realm, perhaps the first since the first moments of Creation, and thus the Tor was born, the earthly realm, the home of the mortal races, the World-Egg of the Divines.⁵

The Tor bears the mark of each of the Divines who contributed to its formation: the stars, the sun, the moon, and the planets were each reflections of the Divines. On the surface of the Tor, the mortal home, here too could be seen the contributions of the divines: water, fire, the seasons, all of the natural laws, and so on. Because each of the Divines gave a part of themselves to the creation of the Tor, they were lessened in power and dominion and eternally bound, in part, to the Tor -- but the Tor became a world of immense beauty and magic and remained a secret from outside forces who sought to manipulate it. Whether it remains a secret is not known.⁶

Contemporary metaphysics are therefore as follows: There is the Tor, the mortal home, the central plane on which we exist, made and inspired and overseen in every way by the Divines, and then there is Qarzeth, the perceivable world, the realm in which Tor exists, full of countless realms, some free, some under the exact Will of Gods, some in contention between them. Historically, many denizens of the Tor have regarded those Gods apart from our own creators as “the Diviles” and have seen them as hostile threats. Of course, we have no reason to believe that the Divines are the only benevolent deities in all of creation and that all Gods beside them must be feared. This is, however, the position of the Orthodoxy.⁷

The Eleven Divines are as follows:

"It was the Divines who gave themselves to our creation. It was the Divines who took parts of themselves to make a comfortable and suitable world for us to exist. The morning dew, the bountiful harvest, the pink clouds at sunrise, the wolf's howl -- the Divines are there in all of them. They bound themselves to this world in its creation; we owe them never-ending gratitude." - Abbot Sjendor

Adaruin, the Pale Boy, He Who Reigns in Silence, Lord of Talvarsh, God of Death
Adaruin is unequivocally male. He often takes the form of a young boy, pale of skin and dark of hair, usually cloaked in simple rags of ash-grey or bone-white. His demeanor is silent, his communication is solely telepathic, and he often communes fully-formed thoughts without any physical action whatsoever. His eyes are usually described as downcast, his mouth frozen in a subtle frown. He’s generally said to be seen at a distance, half in shadow, and often both appears and saippears silently and suddenly. He is the only child of the Earth Goddess and Sky Father: stillborn, his soul went into the realm of the dead where he would shape his home, the City of Death, Talvarsh. In a sense, he is the peacekeeper between all factions – for death is impartial and inevitable. While he is rarely invoked in his rule as judge (owing to his vicious punishments), when he is, his rule is final. Adaruin has neither consorts nor mortal lovers: as such, there are never claims of descent from him, but those who have barely survived childbirth are considered to have Adaruin's Mark on them and are frequently sent into the Black Priesthood, making up nearly the entirety of the rare and sporadic order. His servants are known for their taking of vows of silence for much of their lives.

Adaruin’s temples are hush and often appear neglected, allowed to remain in states of physical deterioration even when in frequent use. A seemingly-abandoned building of rotten wood and overgrown vines may, in fact, be a oft-frequented temple to Adaruin. While temples of other gods are often secularized and outspoken, his crypt-goers are given a wide berth by other folk. There are many tales of lay people misconducting themselves in his temple (often younger people who utilize an apparently-empty house for antics) having vivid nightmares of being still, white corpses, alive through their own deaths. Holy sacrifices in his name are often done at dusk and especially near the Winter Solstice. Funeral services, especially for children, may be held at or near his temples. The dying and those mourning the dead may actually find sanctuary and peace in these unsettling holy places, and in some regions it is common for pregnant mothers to offer sacrifices there dedicated to the well-being of their unborn.

The Black Priesthood is Adaruin’s cult and, as mentioned, is largely composed of those given up by their mothers after barely surviving childbirth or an early childhood illness (sometimes seen as “cursed” by Adaruin after this and given up very willfully; sometimes pried from them by traditional obligation). These individuals are made as apprentices of elder Black Priests and will grow up with a grim and intimate familiarity with Adaruin, meditating on corpses and overseeing the mourning families of dead children at their temples. Black Priests are known to have access to death magics, able to smoothly release the spirit of the sick or ill into the city of Talvarsh with a single touch (and therefore are called on for "pity suicides" by the chronically suffering), and may be able to see the means and time of death of those who they come into contact with. A secondary class of Adaruin’s cult are warriors and soldiers who have become intimately personal with the God of Death through direct contact. Warriors who have come very close to their own deaths, or who have caused the deaths of countless others, often find themselves drawn to prayer to the God of Death. These “Black Knights” are fierce to behold, their armor often decorated with bones, their faces painted with crematory ashes to resemble skulls, vials of blood and ash hung round their necks. Their blades are said to bring death more swiftly and readily than most, spreading pestilence in their wounds, fatal with a mere cut.

Leonerhu, the Grinning God, Spinner of Dreams
While the other Divines are either ascended from mortal races or born from the interplay of natural forces at the moment of creation, Leonerhu is Other. He is described as having been a rogue force, weaving through the void of the aether, and when he saw the would-be Divines discussing the creation of a new realm, he emerged from a portal in the void and taught them the Second Secret (the first being the Secret Knowledge of Time), which allowed them to create the Tor. Why and how he did this, or for that matter how he learned of the Second Secret, is known to none but him. A strange and liminal shapeshifter, he is androgynous in humanoid form and is known for taking the shape of various serpents. He steers the moon across the sky, but otherwise is the most spontaneous and unpredictable of gods and devotions to him range from the highest temples to the dens of thieves. His consort is Rigna, the love goddess, but they are both flexible deities and do not consider their bond to be monogamous. When profoundly amused, he does not laugh but grins widely like the crescent of the moon. He is a walker through hidden places, the god of dreams and visions, the protector of sleepers, and though a trickster and hedonist he may be, he has a profound knowledge of intuition, destiny, and change.

The devotees of Leonerhu, the Moonchildren, have been known to claim that their perceptions dissolve, shift, and alter unpredictably. Nothing in Leonerhu's world is a solid, set boundary and such is the way of his worship, highly individualized and in praise of spontaneity. Though there are few formal altars to Leonerhu, those that exist typically take the form of stone turrets in sparse woods where followers may climb above the treetops and view the moon unhindered, mediating on indefiniteness and change. Leonerhu has few formal cultists or devotees apart from the Oneiromanticum Den’s ancient order (elaborated on in our chapter on “Structures”) and those who count themselves among the Moonchildren are often travelers, gypsies, the homeless, and free spirits who take sanctuary in his scattered moon-viewing turrets and who dislike conventional order and society. A few strange souls have attempted to study Leonerhu's ways so as to learn the Second Secret themselves, and there has been some literature on this matter, but the only definitive account of success in this matter was Hauraza’s, the first of the Thrice-Prophet.

Agrali, the Water Maiden, Queen of the Seas, Lady Tide
Agrali is the daughter of the Mother Goddess, born of the seas. She is the goddess of oceans, rivers, rainstorms, and lakes -- and she is as temperamental and uncertain as they are. Gentle and calm then cold and merciless in turns, Agrali is wild and harsh but also flexible and healing. Agrali was once one of the most favored gods and her temples were widespread, but the last centuries have seen Agrali worship decline in popularity, for no specific reason. Agrali's remaining temples are those in port towns and on cliffs near the sea. Her cult, the Church of the Waves, is favored by sailors, ship-makers, those who live near oceans and rivers, as well as some farmers. Her popularity varies wildly geographically, with some coastal towns having several altars to her and other large cities having none at all. Her likeness is a common figurehead on ships.

Rigna, the Love Mother, the Harvester, the Leaf-Sung Queen
Rigna is the goddess of cultivated romantic love, the arts and music, lighthearted joy, and the autumnal harvest. She is pure in the sense that she had not existed before or apart from the Tor, born only as the first dawn rose on Tor. A motherless daughter, Rigna arose from the red light of the fire god as it danced across the virgin world. She took Leonerhu, who also did not conventionally take part in the Tor’s creation, as her spouse so as to formally bind the both of them into the consort of their fellow Divines, cementing their role in Tor forever thereafter. Despite this marriage, the two are not monogamous and have a great many mortal lovers. She is known for her association for romantic love and recreational sex and as such is sometimes seen as too deviant for public display. A relationship with Rigna is more personal and intimate than that with most of the Divines and it is more common to see a bedroom altar than a large statue to her. She is often depicted with a crown of red and gold leaves or grape vines. The crops raised by the Earth Mother and grown by the Fire God are in turn plumped by Rigna – red fleshy apples, plump purple plums, and golden high wheat are her emblems.

The cult in Rigna's name, the Sorority, has few public temples. Those that do exist are generally centered on her role as the goddess of the harvest and the arts, but these are infrequently visited outside of harvest time (when they are actually very frequently visited and the center of festivals) and maintained by the Sorority as a tradition and obligation. The major gathering places of the Sorority, all members of which are female, are often kept secret, infrequently and quietly organized gatherings at individuals' homes or at Rigna's temples in the depths of the night. These gatherings emphasize Rigna's role as the goddess of romance, sex, and joy and one can easily speculate as to what may take place. Members of the Sorority are often not outspoken in their role as members and membership has come to be an act of deviance and rebellion on behalf of its most common members, teenage girls. Indeed, despite not being an original aspect of Rigna's nature, the disobedience, secrecy, and lust associated with the Sorority's most common members has become a de-facto hallmark of her cult.

Huivena, the Sky Father, the Astronomer, the Architect of Fate
God of the stars, the heavens, fate, and the future. The primordial companion of the Earth Goddess, the Sky Father maintains the proper motion and structure of the cosmos. Never represented in an anthropomorphic manner, the dome of the heavens is his very body. The knowledge imparted by Huivena is impersonal and subtle: a vast, cool understanding of tremendous depth. He does act upon the world of mortals except lightly and quietly, and so he is sometimes considered the most distant and least accessible of the Divines. He is by far the most difficult Divine to request intervention from, though he does allow some members of his cult access to his tremendous knowledge. It is uncommon to see temples dedicated specifically to him, but instead small altars are made to him anywhere there can be found astrologers, psychics, scryers, or soothsayers.

His disciples are members of the Orrery, monastic and celibate astrologers and priests. The most elder among them are said to be able to view the flow of all cosmic becoming, thus gazing through the stars into both the past and future. Orreries are almost exclusively built on mountaintops and high hills, and for this reason are generally inaccessible and remote. Orrers devote their lives to meticulously cataloging the movement of the stars, transcribing history, and prophesying the future. Rarely seen by most, Orrers are best known for their intricate and elaborate robes decorated with star maps and for their conical hats beneath which are said to be complex structures of precious metal that allow them communion with the heavens. Whenever a child is born to an important family, especially royalty, Orrers may be summoned to the child to predict its fate in this life and their ritualized journey, complete with incense and bells, as well as their eccentric appearance, is often a spectacle for onlookers.

Yernati, the Mother Goddess, the Earth Goddess, the Womb of the World
Yernati is unquestionably the most popular goddess and the most widely worshiped deity worldwide because of her role as a guardian and caretaker. She is the father of Stongun through fire, Agrali through water, and Adaruin by Huivena. She is the only of the Divines sometimes worshiped monotheistically as the one, true, and only god. She is a widely-reaching goddess, representing springtime, gardens, the earth, forests, mothers, guidance, disenfranchised people, and at times the entirety of the natural world. Her cult, the Children of Yernati, is possibly the oldest continuous organization anywhere, having originated long before language or history. They continue to this day, widespread and with many temples just outside of cities and towns the world over, consuming her sacred herbs, offering food sacrifices, and bathing her altars.

Thanri, She of the Burning Mane, the Fire God
Daughter of the Earth Goddess, Thanri is often seen as synonymous with the sun, light, warmth, fire, and high energy. Whereas the light often associated with the God of Kings is the light of righteousness or holy guidance, hers is the burning vitality of the wild horse. She is the lady of dancing flames, summer, and victory. Her idles depict her as being wreathed in mullein and fire. The God of Kings was her disciple, once, and became her consort following his ascent to Godhood. She is often linked with the lifeforce of the world (as opposed to individual lives) and her most holy bonfires are built in the Winter Solstice to aid her and sustain her through the extent of the winter.

Thanri's cult, the Flamewardens, is one of the largest. Her followers maintain large temples to Thanri which center around large hearths and often contain a central, open courtyard for ventilation. Besides these temples, worshippers of Thanri are involved in several seasonal festivals, particularly those during the summer, but also the winter festival of the eternal flame when a fire is ritually kept burning for the entirety of the winter to sustain Thanri through the cold months. Flamewarden membership is not rigid and most members are not lifetime devotees but rather adopt the roles as required of them. The result is that many whole families take on the duties of Flamewardens during festival season and Thanri's festivities often accommodate children well.

Reksar, the Wrought on High, God of Kings, the Apotheoth
In the First Epoch on the Tor, in ancient days before the Fraying, Reksar lived as a mortal man. Most agree that he was a great warrior and king, but it is also thought that he was a loyal and fierce devotee to Thanri the Fire God. His conquests were made in her name, his victories were complete and widespread, and the empire he built in Thanri's name was the greatest the world would see for centuries. Whether by his incomparable feats or his unwavering devotion -- if not both -- he ascended to godhood and took the character of a booming man with the roar and ferocity of a lion bearing a great braided beard and golden earrings and grasping a king's spear and a book of law. Upon his apotheosis, the first known example of such, he and Thanri were wed and they are devoutly monogamous with one another.

The newest among the Divines, he represents the comparatively newest ideas: law, governance, order, civilization, faith, and human ambition. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Reksar is one of the very most popular of the Divines, hailed as an accessible hero and idol worthy of praise at all times and by all people, uniting commoners, kings, and priests alike. His temples are often large, sturdy, and extravagant. Worshipers of Reksar, the Clergy of Lions, include a class of warrior-priest justicars who bear polished plate armor and flowing white cloaks as well as a great deal of lay followers who attend bi-weekly masses in his honor.

Despite his general popularity, Reksar has also been a fairly divisive figure -- his conquests are looked on favorably by some and far less favorably by others. Those whose histories depict Reksar as an enemy or an invader tend to view Reksar as a false god -- some of these groups have claimed another in his stead, usually a local champion or historical hero, but most simply dismiss the claim his followers make that he has ascended to godhood at all.

Jene, the Witch-Goddess, the Mad Woman
Before the creation of the Tor, Jene was unstable and unpredictable, seemingly stricken with the best of good fortune and the worst of bad luck. Her tumultuous and mysterious life made the Tor’s creation a deeply troubling and difficult experience for her and just as the new realm was made, her mind seemed to shatter. For the first eons of Tor’s creation it is said that she wailed and shrieked both prophecies and nonsensical babble. The other gods, seeing how she had been made mad, shackled her with great rings (as can still be observed when her realm is seen from the Tor through an Orrery telescope) and, in time, she began to calm. Jene now cares for the mad and the freaks, those undergoing cataclysmic ecstasy or despair, or those otherwise out of their normal mode of consciousness. She is depicted as having the features of a young woman but wrinkled and darkened as though aged far beyond her years, blind with cataracts, nails long and broken, face contorted in the throes of prophecy.

Temples to Jene are few, and her formal cult only began through Kythos a few centuries ago. Most of those who worship her are those with family undergoing episodes of mental instability and a statue of her is always to be found in asylums. She has also been favored by some magi, who seek her guidance through abnormal mental states and attempts at apotheosis, and it is said that she may be responsible for opening the corridors of the cosmos to the realm of the Tor. She was long the only Divine without a cult of her own. Jene's worshippers believe her to bestow them with alchemical secrets and have since become equal-parts franchise apothecary and religious cult, selling potions and elixirs all across the West.

Stongun, the Stormcloaked, the War Screamer, the Snowbringer
Son of the Earth Goddess, Stongun is said to have been birthed from the lava of a volcano which cracked like an egg when he emerged. Celebrated by warriors, Stongun is ferocious and blatant, more like a force of nature than a man. Stongun is often associated with powerful and supernaturally large animals and his cult, the Legion of Bears, has been followed by warriors since time immemorial like the Yernati’s fertility cult has by their wives. In ancient days, devotion to him is known to have included self-mutilation to appear more bestial and less civilized, though this is rarely, if ever, practiced today. He takes some warriors as his mortal lovers, but does so in a dominant and violent fashion and demands much of these individuals. He also fulfills the roll of the God of Winter. Frostbite, scarcity, and a late spring are said to be avoidable via animal sacrifices are made to an altar of Stongun.

Another of the ancient practices of Stongun’s followers is to march straight northward during a blizzard proclaiming themselves as sacrifice in order to bring an end to the worst of winter storms. Times of civil war and disorder are still referred to as “years of the bear” to display the difficulty they represented to those who lived through them. Stongun is not chaotic, however, but destroys stagnant structures and moves the wheel of time. He is considered a necessary force and the wars and winters that he brings are thought to be necessary for the natural progression of balance and harmony. Neither is he always depicted as a brute, and even the most tactical and trained warriors call on him as their patron and statues in Stongun's honor adorn every warriors' guild hall.

Therkeya, the Withered One, Tester of Men, Lord of Plagues
God of pestilence and medicine, Therkeya is the son of the Mother God. Pestilence, decay, chronic illness, and time are his domains. The opposite side of his mother, he represents rot and deprecation, his sacred animal being the vulture. He is not a god of death like his stillborn half-brother, but rather suffering and strife in life and of the detriments of old age. He is often depicted bearing a large, curved, downward-facing blade in one hand and an hourglass in the other. Despite this seemingly ominous nature, he is also the god of healing and recovery. He is therefore the patron of doctors and healers, his knife cutting away sickness and tumors, his hourglass turning to grant more time to live. Unsurprisingly, he often appears to healers as a difficult figure: paradoxical, cruel, but aiding and cooperative. He is a god of inevitability and necessity, but takes no delight in prolonged pain.

Therkeya's cult, the Good Sentinels of Therkeya, is perhaps the single most widely spread cult in the world, though not the most numerous. The Sentinels can be seen in nearly any city the world over, clerics, white mages, doctors, and healers of any sort may apply for membership to the Sentinels. Temples to Therkeya are synonymous with the Sentinels' Chapels, where his altar is also a place for healing and medicine. Small idols of Therkeya, generally a bronze hourglass, are worn as necklaces and kept by the bedsides of the ill and the pain-stricken.

1. This is a relatively narrow perspective on the origins of the cosmos. An excerpt from the Book of Flight, on the question of how Tor “fits” into the greater Qarzeth as a whole, may shed some light on the nature of the Tor from a less traditional perspective:

“Qarzeth” picks out the entirety of experience. In this way it can be likened to an amalgamation of the terms, “world”, “universe”, “reality”, and also, “consciousness”, “life”, and “perception”. Qarzeth is a term which describe that experience which is approached by these terms without, as they do, taking any specific and narrow angle. It describes the breadth of all perspectives as well as the potentiality of perspectives not presently manifest.
How does our world, the Tor, fit into Qarzeth?

There are three ways of answering that. The first is from your perspective, the second is from the perspective of the Gods, and the third is from my perspective, which isn’t a perspective at all. From your perspective, the Tor is like an island to which you’ve anchored your ship, only you have forgotten entirely that you have a ship and, if shown a ship, you wouldn’t be able to identify its capacity as a vessel. From your perspective, the Tor is like a servant whose instructions you provided and whose actions correspond precisely with that which you have commanded him to do, and yet you have no recollection of having provided these instructions and see his actions as hostile and beyond your control. From your perspective, the Tor and Qarzeth are synonyms. It’s only once you see beyond the Tor -- and by that I mean the Tor with its physical laws, its mortality, its duality, its constraints and divisions -- that the term Qarzeth is of any use to you.

From the perspective of the Gods, the Tor is like a sphere which is one side of a cube. Each side of the cube is itself a sphere, with all of the dimensions of a sphere, and yet itself only one face of an object with dimensions which extend entirely beyond the depth of the Tor. If that cube had ten thousand faces and each face was met at each edge by all other faces -- then that is what it is like to see the Tor through the eyes of the Gods. If each event, each phenomenon, each arising on the Tor was a carefully planned brushstroke of an improvised painting, a painting whose final image was unknown even to the artist, yet each stroke was deliberate -- then that is what it is like to see the Tor through the eyes of the Gods. The Tor exists like a hologram, a reflection, the moon as seen on the surface of a pool, vivid and illusory all at once.

From my perspective, the Tor is both what it is for you and what it is for the Gods, and it is also neither of these things. From my perspective, the Tor is like one flame in a dancing firepit, of a fire I lit, and in whose beauty my eyes are mesmerized, and in so being I forgot all else, and was quiet and still, and became merely the watching. From my perspective, the Tor is like a theatrical stage, upon which there are myriad puppets, each performed by a sleeping puppeteer, and which I can enter or exit as I please, and which I can change as I will, wakeful and alert. From my perspective, the Tor is like the world which one enters in a dream, as though in one’s dream one came to know that one was merely dreaming, and in which one could not only do as they wished, but also move between dreams, and manifest new dreams, and also awaken.

Somewhere in-between these two perspectives is a slightly distinct take on the more traditional cosmology as written in the Pslams Without End:

Yernati axed Leonerhu through the navel to halt his mutations of the Materium that she had Dreamt into being through the Oneirurgy. Leonerhu's mutations of Yernati's Dream made him and her the principal agents in the dawn, albeit one as a creative force and the other as alterative. Huivena was "standing outside the boundary," observing and recording what occurred as time began to take shape.

The others (Thanri, Adaruin, Therkeya, Agrali, and Stongun) each assumed an element and took its pattern into their being, thus making them the Five Aeons who stabilized the primordo by transforming its Shadows (Frenzy, Death, Decay, Hunger, and Ruin, respectively) and resolving them into a reintegrated divinity.

When Leonerhu attempted to cause yet more alterations after Yernati warned him to stop, his alterations coalesced into Madness, who became Jene--and at this, Yernati struck a mighty axblow into Leonerhu's gut, nearly cleaving him in two. Therkeya stitched him back together, but not before giving Yernati the trickster's gallbladder, which she keeps in her sanctum to give Leonerhu an attack of bile whenever his trouble becomes Dream-cracking.

A critical part of Yernati's Oneirurgy was awakening the Tree of Worlds into being. It should be understood by anyone seeking to stay free from the chains of confusion that the Tree of Worlds is not a single, unifying cosmic force, but is rather a particular manifestation within the Otherworlds, the realms of spirits and gods, that was brought into being by the will of a goddess. Yernati called a soul from parts unknown and asked that soul to bind itself, and it ensouled the Tree that she had desired to bring forth from the Quiet Water, the ocean of deathly darkness that lay in a place that most mortals will never understand.

When the Tree of Worlds was awakened, Yernati dreamt five worlds, and the first was Huivena, realm and world and celestial god as one totality, zenith, absolute, and the fifth was Talvarsh, silence and shadow and cold nadir. And in between these two, three worlds were made: and one reached up towards the heavens, and one reached down towards the depths, and one was set in the middle of them all, at the centerpoint of the Tree. Thus the Fivefold Spiral coiled, winding around.

2. This first Secret Knowledge is the Secret Knowledge of Time, sometimes called the Secret Knowledge of Fourth Movement, which marks the beginning of all causality and temporality. The curious may find useful an elaboration given in “Leonerhu on High, in Praise and Study”:

What is the First Secret?
It is the Secret Knowledge of Time. It can rightly be said that: Before the Secret Knowledge of Time, the All is liminal and flux, becoming and unbecoming in perfect unison, a boundless orb without edge, apart from itself. It cannot rightly be said, however: Before the Secret Knowledge of Time, the All was liminal and flux, becoming and unbecoming in perfect unison, a boundless orb without edge, apart from itself. Do you see?

Before the Secret Knowledge of Time can only mistakenly be thought of as having been a temporal event which occurred in the distant past. BSKT cannot be described as a temporal event at all because its existence, necessarily being non-temporal, is indescribable in temporal terms. Inquiring as to whether BSKT "happened" before, during, or after the present moment is akin to asking whether an flute's sound is green or what flavor is had by the movement of clouds. This is a category mistake. This is difficult to capture appropriately in language, as language and descriptions imply temporal states. Bear with these and attempt to see through them with the knowledge that BSKT is entirely without temporal description.

What can rightly be said about BSKT? It can rightly be said that neither the Tor nor the Diviles nor the Divines exist BSKT. The acts and deeds of our world, and of the Gods, are temporal and causal in nature. What does exist BSKT? We can merely speculate, and even then, it is difficult to put into words. BSKT can be thought of like music or dance, without cause or purpose, achieving no end goal, not moving toward a target or intention, but simply happening for its own sake, self-contained, playful, purposeless, spontaneous.

The Secret Knowledge of Time is only one of two Secret Knowledges. What is the other? The other is the Second Secret Knowledge of Leonerhu. What is the Second Secret Knowledge of Leonerhu? When the Divines gathered in commune to make plans for the creation of the Tor, a realm protected from the influence of the Diviles, it is said that there was much uncertainty:

"The Gods beheld one another and praised each in turn and were glad to be present in the company of each who came. But there was anxiety, also, and Therkeya spoke of this: HOW? And each beheld one another and inquired, but none among them knew the answer. So they rested in the vastness, in strife, pondering creation." Aos the Peacemaker, The Book of Swans

The details of what happened next are debated, but what is known is that Leonerhu presented himself to the Divines and offered them the Second Secret Knowledge.

"Leonerhu was rogue, adrift, unbound, weaving through the voids like a serpent through the rocks, ungraspable and other. He had stolen a Secret from a small and hidden place and presented it as a gift to the Divines." Jofris Pelburo, The First of Things

"And from an empty gateway, from beyond them all, came slithering another, Leonerhu, who was otherwise than each present before, and came bearing an answer to their question." Aos the Peacemaker, The Book of Swans

3. This is importantly not the same division as the division between the “Diviles” and the “Divines”, but rather a division between those deities who sought their creations to have Will and those who sought to create through their own Will. It is also useful to note that, according to Kythos, when questioned about the possibility that they were the only creators, and only benevolent deities in existence, the Gods found this “almost embarrassingly implausible”.

4. The Second Secret is the Secret of Apotheosis, sometimes called the Secret of Flight. This was realized by Reksar, Huaraza, Vesava, Kythos, and many Voyagers since. It is the secret which allows one to will the Fifth Movement, or the movement through and between all realms and time.

5. How many of the other realms of existence, like the one most likely to be familiar to readers, the Golden Warmth, are also “artificial” in this way is unknown.

6. The sudden ascension of the Voyagers into other realms has been called, by some, a mistake, for it has drawn the attention of Will-asserting Gods to Qarzeth. Others argue against this, while a third group suggests that the Four Plagues are, themselves, manifestations of these malevolent Gods.

7. Evidence continues to build that this dichotomy is unlikely.

[Kaez]

Excerpt Three, from Chapter Four, “Realms”.

Realms of special relevance to the reader, excluding the more-distant world like the Golden Warmth, the Delving, the Jeweled Waters, etc. are the following:

The Tor: The authors assume the reader is relatively familiar with the character of the Tor, as is explained in much detail in many places elsewhere. The home-plane of this book’s writing.
The World Tree: A collection of five planes which appear as the five brightest star-like features in the Tor's night sky. The World Tree has been compared to a great oak, a feature which towers over the much smaller, nearby trees but which, if seen from a distance, is but one of many towering oaks in a great and endless forest. The five realms which compose the World Tree are as follows:

Talvarsh: The dominion of Adaruin, it is the 'root' of the God-Tree. It is a silent and waveless sea whose water is death for mortal to drink. The dark expanse of ocean is cast in perpetual dusk, a place of profound and heavy stillness permeated by a numbness and strange peace. Beneath the surface, souls sleep for untold ages awaiting to be born anew. In the center of the waters arises a great, bone-pale city haunted by spectres in hooded cloaks and faceless spirits in the fog. At its heart is the Palace of Onyx and Marble, the home of Adaruin. Though there are no obvious threats -- no terrible beasts, no vicious wildernesses -- there are few known places more hostile to intruders.

Khanzu: Stongun, Jene, and Therkeya's realm, and the core trunk of the God-Tree, above Talvarsh, below Dani. Being gods of violence, madness, and decay, Khanzu is a cold and difficult place. It is dominated by a long winter and a mild summer, befitting its firs and pines. It is not a wicked place, but a ruthless one, suitable for only the most hearty and formidable of beasts and beings. The animals here are dire and ferocious, the inhabitants' faces painted with woad and their necks strung with bone. Twisting spruces curling toward an overcast sky -- a distant bonfire and a shrill cry.

Dani: The Dreaming Tor, at the height of the trunk and center of the God-Tree. Dominion of Yernati. Dani eludes a logical, straightforward, encyclopedic description. It is the most dream-like plane on the God-Tree. It may have definite denizens, an orderly progression of seasons, and even a stable geography, but it is soaked in mystery and refuses to be grasped in whole. It is the dream of a goddess, and while she appears as an incarnate woman within the confines of the realm, this is a reflection of her approach: tangible and intangible, solid appearances and ethereal substance. Her angels, garbed as fertility maidens and stone priests, are a mix of native residents and those who were her servants in their mortal lives. They flank her halls and cast petals wheresoever she goes. Dani is also the most popular residence of Leonerhu (who generally wanders the Tree in his lunar ship) as he enjoys its oneiric nature. His residency is held, of course, only at Yernati's sufferance.

Vaudui: Above Dani and below Huivena's zenith, Vaudui is the center of the God-Tree's canopy. Home to the gods Reksar, Thanri, Rigna, and Agrali, it is a bright, vivacious, and thrilling world full of vitality and sparkling energy. Reksar and Thanri have a joint hall here, a place fit to burst the hearts of mortals, cast in perpetual midsummer. Thanri can only be found here at night: during the day, she's flying through the cosmos in her Sun Chariot, sending light all over the Five Worlds and beyond. Beneath the idyllic waves, at the bottom of a breathtakingly beautiful lagoon, is Agrali's palace of rainbow coral. Rigna's keep is afloat in the sky, a large cloud that she sculpted into something resembling an art museum and a pleasure garden which floats lazily on the winds.

Huivena: The zenith of the God-Tree, Huivena and the realm itself and inseparable: the God is the Plane, the Plane is the God. Pathways of stars and labyrinthine halls of constellations move without reference, ceiling, or floor. Just being here is a psychedelic experience, for good and for bad, and induces motion-sickness, madness, and awe in equal parts. The reckless astral projector who goes barging around idiotically, Huivena simply reveals his mysteries to without hesitation (inducing a week of pupil-dilated screams). It is deeply tied with the fate and fortune of the whole tree and serves as the clock by which the other realms tick.

The Sun: The Solar Chariot is a great disc of metal and flame which is pulled by the Spirits of Day. The disc itself was forged by Thanri in the early days of creation. In a frenzy, she separated a part of her Self and formed it into a physical object. In a mountain on Vaudui aligned with Huivena, she poured this piece of her heart from her chest like molten lead and it immediately expanded to a gargantuan disc of fire. The mountain exploded, leaving behind a great crater, and from the smoke came racing the Spirits of Day with the Chariot in tow. Each day thereafter, Thanri has taken the Chariot in its orbit, where it passes near Vaudui, Huivena, and and the Tor, and slightly more distantly from the other realms, nearly unseen at the distance of Talvarsh. It is said that each morning, Reksar and Thanri walk hand-in-hand at dawn as the Chariot approaches and she soon departs for the day's ride as Reksar attains the Flame-White Throne. The exact nature of the Spirits of Day is a matter of some disagreement: they are variously depicted as horses with fiery manes, golden dragons, ethereal spirits, and a flock of aflame canaries.

The Moon: Sometimes called the Nightship or Leonerhu's Ferry, the lunar object is the vessel which Leonerhu rides nightly, picking up the souls of those dreamers that he finds especially wonderful and giving them a ride for the night. Unlike the Sun, the Moon is always in flux, waxing and waning. Leonerhu made a concord with Agrali, who uses the ship to push and pull the Tor's tides, and when she has, once monthly, full command over the Ferry, the tides are strongest and its light is brightest. Leonerhu's personality and appearance also alters in touch with the lunar cycle. At waxing crescent, he appears to mortals as an adolescent - exuberant, playful, lighthearted, absurd - whereas at waning crescent he appears an aging, wrinkled man - cryptic, grim, and unsettling. It is said that whenever the Nightship passes in front of the Solar Chariot, this is something of a joke played by Leonerhu, who finds Thanri and Reksar's obsession with honor, duty, and justice to be tediously misguided. When the Tor passes directly between the Nightship and the Solar Chariot, which only occurs on nights when Agrali has full command of the vessel, this is considered to be a time of special balance, spiritual union, and harmony as Thanri, the queen of fire, and Agrali, the queen of water, dance in unison around the Tor.

Stars: When the Solar Chariot has set for the evening, the realm of Huivena, the only plane never seen in its orb-form at night, enlarges and expands, casting its starry fields out across the void and aether, illuminating the night sky, from Tor's perspective, with myriad stars and constellations. The perspective from which the Tor observes these stars, said to be the center of Huivena's labyrinthine corridors, allows their magical influence to penetrate the Tor itself. Being the God of fate, time, and the future, the orientation of Huivena's projection is widely thought to influence the character of events on the Tor, especially so when these events occur in correspondence with constellations. Constellations are phenomenal collections of stars which are correlated with strange and subtle influences. Generally, a constellation is considered to be actively influencing Tor during the period of the year when the Solar Chariot is oriented to its division of the night sky, but the complexities of certain astrological practices are far more nuanced and complex. Astrology is officially acknowledged by the Orthodoxy and is spoken of as mysterious but valid by the Voyagers.¹

"The planets are not as they appear, that is, heavenly bodies, orbs, spheres adrift in space or emptiness, liquid void. This is the manifestation they take so as to be comprehensible to mortal eyes, yes, but it is no more than an illusion. We're not equipped to experience infinities within infinities, not capable of calculating the interwoven dimensions of true reality, and so we perceive them as without border or geometry but still somehow constrained and contained. Spheres are impossible; planets are impossible; space is impossible. These are reflections on a flat surface, mirror images, dreams and mist." - Archmage Skemtis Ali

"The ordering of the stars is no more an accident than is the rising of the sun in the morning or the cycles of the moon. The precise position of the stars is as random as the laws which move the rivers and govern the winds. Nothing done by the Divines is an accident and the constellations are no exception. The constellations are, if anything, one of the most intentional hallmarks of creation. The sign of one's birth is no happenstance -- do well to keep it in mind and make special accommodations with regard to it, lest misfortune befall you all your days." - Orrer Bathros III

1. Months and Constellation Correspondence:
Hibernal - Hearthkeep (First Moon)                                    The Torch (Unpredictable, Intuitive, Visceral)
Hibernal - The Bitter (Mistress' Moon; Craftsmens' Moon)      The Vessel (Sensitive, Charming, Selfless)
Vernal - Dawndays (Daughters' Moon; Mages' Moon)            The Fox (Creative, Adaptive, Insightful)
Vernal - The Rains (Mothers' Moon; Hunters' Moon)              The Hammer (Balancing, Just, Righteous)
Vernal - Greenling (Peasants' Moon; Thieves' Moon)             The Snake (Mischievous, Cunning, Intelligent)
Estival - Seedsew (Grandmothers' Moon; Queens' Moon)       The Ship (Flexible, Calm, Stable)
Estival - Midyear (Priests' Moon; Fathers' Moon)                  The Tome (Philosophical, Organized, Impatient)
Estival - Sunglow (Dogs' Moon; Servants' Moon)                  The Bull (Strength, Stamina, Perseverance)
Autumnal - The Reaping (Goddess' Moon; Sons' Moon)          The Tower (Expanse, Power, Will)
Autumnal - The Harvest (Kings' Moon; Grandfathers' Moon)   The Warden (Life, Family, Tradition)
Autumnal - Duskdays (Gods' Moon; Ancestors' Moon)            The Tortoise (Subtle, Cautious, Rational)
Hibernal - Frostset (Traders' Moon; Lovers' Moon)                The Bird (Social, Romantic, Greedy)
Hibernal - Hearthkeep (Last Moon)                                     The Torch (Unpredictable, Intuitive, Visceral)

[Kaez]

Excerpt Four, from Chapter 9, “Cults and Others”.

The Higher Apostasy, also known as Rezdayism

Rezdayism was founded by the Rezdai Twins, identical brothers, some 800 years before the present.¹ The Rezdayites are the largest religious body in reverence exclusively to the Diviles (in their case, Embra and Leyavir) and have a history of severe persecution.² They have been led by a sequence of skilled strategists in multiple defensive wars and have successfully thrown back several attempts at extermination by the orthodox men of the West. The result of these conflicts was a long period of exodus wherein the descendants of the Rezdai Brothers lead their followers to a remote mountain valley where they built a complex defensive network.

The perimeter of their home consists of natural barriers supplemented with large fortified walls. The interior is composed of three small city-states, distinct and relatively independent from one another, united by the Rezdayite religion and the large cropland shared between them.³ They are not authoritarian and members of the sect are in no way prevented from traveling outside of their home, although the persecution they would likely face prevents many from doing so. Outside of their country, holy war against the Rezdayites has become an old-fashioned concept (in part due to the several failures at exterminating them) and nowadays there is some fairly friendly contact between the "heathens" and the orthodox outside world, but this is a recent development and the Rezdayites remain fiercely anti-proselytism within their territory.

Less than a thousand of the Rezdayites alive at the time of Ulnaekh the Redeemed (nephew of brothers Lijir and Orshahiin)'s rise to power survived and made it to the Sacred Land. There were as many as five thousand before the exodus and slaughters, with thousands having been killed, died during the travel, or abandoned the cult completely ("the faithless"). Those who survived were weathered enough to beg Embra to completely conceal them from the outside world (which is, according to their teachings, why they remained successfully concealed, and then defended, for as long as they had). Rezdayites only became formal henotheists dedicated to the Two alone well after the Sacred Land was sealed against the outside world, but they have since recanted this and, today, claim that they've been strictly henotheistic since the time that Lijir and Orshahiin had their first religious experiences. Those of the Rezdayites that have direct experience of Embra and Leyavir, and realize the untruth of this traditionalist doctrine, have faced abuse and often abandoned the sect.

Rezdayism has a holy book, the Canon Rezdai, which is composed of two texts: the Canticles of Mystery, poetic scripture dedicated to Embra, written by Lijir Rezdair, Voice-of-Embra, the founder of the Rezdayite school of magic,⁴ and the Canticles of Ecstasy, a channeled script written by Orshahiin Rezdai, Voice-of-Leyavir and founder of the Rezdayite prostitute-presthood.⁵ The prostitute-priesthood is one of the more well-known aspects of Rezdayism outside of their home as their attitudes toward sexuality are largely unrecognizable to most surrounding cultures. Outsiders stereotype the Rezdayites as depraved and incestuous, with mental illness caused from the sexual depravities that they participate in. In truth, Rezdayites have taboos against bestiality and incest, as well as most activities that pose a danger of bodily harm -- but that is about the full extent of it. In truth, most Rezdayites are monogamous heterosexuals. The exception to this is that sex with a priest or priestess of Leyavir is not considered an infidelity, so their definition of monogamy varies in this way.

The Tribe of Rezdai remained one of the few enclaves unclaimed by major powers into modern times largely due to their hostility toward any attempt to enforce religious doctrines upon them. It remained, by its own records, a fully independent state from the time of its founding until it formally agreed to fall under the reign of the Fennish, a treaty signed without even threat of bloodshed, by the revisionist Emperor Waynon II. Worship of Leyavir and Embra is not entirely unprecedented in the West, and while not Orthodox, their ideology is not entirely alien to the Fennish people, especially in the area. Nevertheless, this acceptance and acknowledgment by a Fennish emperor, and thereby a sign of tolerance from the Church itself, remains a controversial point to this day and conspiracies are abound which the authors will not elaborate on further.⁶

Only in recent years, since the signing of the treaty, have signs of turbulence began to arise in the Tribe. Societal disparities, seen most clearly by the hidebound religion in which priests have become increasingly elite and lay followers have been mitigated, has left the younger generations suspect that the days of the Tribe's self-governance and stern traditionalism may be coming to an end.⁷

The Rezdayites are henotheists. They acknowledge the Eleven as gods, but nevertheless repudiate Orthodox divisions of Divine/Divile and believe that only Leyavir and Embra are "Royalty", that is, the reigning gods of the Tribe of Rezdai. The Rezdayites equally acknowledge the other Diviles as equivalent to the Divines: powerful and reverent, but non-royal. The word they use to refer to these secondary deities is synonymous with their word for "aunts and uncles", as they are seen as elders worthy of respect and obedience but indirectly related to their daily lives. This is one of their most controversial views, unsurprisingly, given the Orthodoxy’s stance on Divile-worship.

The Rezdayites see the Diviles as being highly misunderstood and victims of religious propaganda. Whereas the Orthodoxy sees a Divile as being a rapist and violator, the Rezdayites see the same being as representing spiritual-sexual union and a healthy comprehension of dominance.⁸ Whereas the Orthodoxy sees a Divile as being a murderer and slaver, the Rezdayites see him as being a passionate holy warrior. This said, the Rezdai do not worship any of the Diviles (or Divines) besides Leyavir and Embra (in fact, it is explicitly outlawed), but simply view them as complex and little-understood figures and strongly oppose any portrayal of them as evil or villainous.

The Rezdayites are much more likely to deliberately invite Aerei⁹ into their part of the Tor than the Orthodox are, and the Aerei are much more likely to accept their offer. This has resulted in some of the Aerei's magical influence mixing into both the Rezdayite population as well as the land they live in. The period of twilight, at both dawn and dusk, unaccountably lasts longer than it should, and both midnight and noon are shorter -- which is confusing for outsiders. The Rezdai themselves no longer view these phenomena as unusual, and those Rezdai who journey outside of their home valley tend to find the world offensively bright and dark in turns. There are a few Rezdayites that are Aerei-blooded, and they tend to come across as much more eerie and disconcerting to outsiders than the average Rezdayite, but blend in fairly smoothly with Rezdai society. These individuals are quite rare, perhaps one in one hundred -- any given village or hamlet may have two or three. These individuals are given distinct status: their psychological abnormality means they need to be raised by people who understand the Aerei and the Warmth. Raising Aerei-blooded children is a part of the formal duties of the mages-of-Embra and the prostitute-priests of Leyavir alike. Come adulthood, most of these individuals become more like wanderers and healers, like monks on pilgrimage, and are fed and housed through the churches and by alms.

1. They official record their founding as having been quite a while earlier than this, but this estimate stands as historically valid for the founding of their specific tradition. Despite the brutalities faced by the Rezyadites, there are actually quite a lot of rural people in Hufzig, outside of the reach of urbanized priesthoods, which worship Embra and Leyavir as part of traditions that predate organization of the Orthodoxy. Local folk mythology includes tales of Embra as Rigna's sister and Leyavir seducing Leonerhu into teaching him how to walk through dreams. Embra and Leyavir were worshipped as part of normal practice in these regions in distant antiquity, and were slowly stigmatized during the conversion to Orthodoxy. The Brothers Rezdai were, to a degree, merely reviving a dying branch of Western religion rather than making something brand new.

2. This persecution has actually been fairly well documented by both the Rezdai and their enemies. From the “Memories of the Tribe”:

The men of the Eleven as hounds did range and howl, and they branded us with the mark of desolation, to fill us with horror that we might recant the Royalty of the Two. The faithless among our fellowship broke away and returned to the gods of their youth, and the Two smote them with misfortunes, and they were as a branch cut from the trunk, and they withered, and we remember them not.
The greater number remained faithful, and they did proudly name themselves the Tribe of Rezdai. But foolish is the faithful man who lets himself be slain for his allegiance; the Tribe of Rezdai is the Tribe of Sighing-Twilight, and we are not to be captives singing at the gallows. Thus, we fled through wilds and over ranges, silent as the hunting owl. The hounds of the Eleven sought us, but Embra deceived them, and Leyavir sucked the passion from their hearts, and they fell behind us, whining for their fear of shades and whispers.

And where a few among the hounds did succeed to find us, we bared iron against them for the sake of our children, and left their eyeless corpses swinging from the trees. In terror the hunters faltered, and they dared not the shrouded roads that omen showed the Tribe of Rezdai. At last was revealed to us the Sacred Land, prophesied by Lijir and longed for by Orshahiin, and we set walls about its boundaries.
By the grace of Embra were we shrouded in gloaming of cloud and drifting mist; by the grace of Leyavir were our loins warmed and countless children brought forth to people the joyous valley that is ours. Men and Aerei-Kindred sang, and dawn-gold grain and dusk-red fruit burst forth from the dark earth. Thus did we escape the vision of the men of the Eleven, and for many a generation thereafter were we unknown to them, in the embrace of Sighing-Twilight. Glory and adoration to the Two, Who reign in Star-Crowned Royalty!

And from their enemies:

"Verily, these False Men are an offense in the eyes of Reksar, as a crack in the pillar that will bring the whole of the palace crashing to earth. You have heard it said that you shall sheathe your sword in the sight of a babe at breast, but I say to you that you shall not rest so long as the voices of the blaspheming brothers are not stilled. May their memory be obliterated. We are coming for you in every one of your quarters, Sons of Rezdai. None shall survive." - Father Anvurthas, warrior-priest of the Clergy of Lions, upon hearing of the deaths of Lijir and Orshahiin Rezdai and the ascension of their nephew, the prostitute-priest Ulnaekh Rezdai, as leader of the Rezdayite movement.

3. Located in mountainous Hufzig near the Tsveri border.

4. Included, for a better understanding, is an excerpt from the Canticles of Mystery (which were not easily found by the editor). “We Are As Her Outermost Thoughts”:

Behold Embra's omens:
Know how to feel them
Know how to seal them
Know how to send them
Know how to send them
I drank from the wine of wisdom
So pure it turns men sober
And I'll wander as Her devotee
I'll sail upon Her seas
Shade-haunted at last
Behold, Her veil is as Her face.
The more I race to find Her
The more that horror rises
Her voice as crashing darkness
Her name as blackened stars
And I cannot help but wonder
That every spark of Mortal
Is as a moth-wing city
A lie, a maddened fancy
Against Divinest Vision
More and more consuming
And yet the I emerges steadfast
Against the Goddess-hunger
And this is the Wonder
That I bring the world of Man
The only claim of glory
My empty name can tell
This man without a reason
Is but a passing figment
But I assert mySelf
Against the drowning sea of Shadow
Not in spite but knowledge
For Self cannot abandon Self
This is how I do not vanish
But shine with holy darkness
And make that Self an offering
As a jewel upon Her crown


5. An excerpt from the Canticles of Ecstasy’s first chapter, “Animations”:

Our delicate sphere, fragile crystal, weightless and afloat in the starry dark
spatial womb of void and vastness, what voice sings such nectar
to entice life arising from bare unblemished glass? How can it be that green growing
blossoming leaves should sprout so wild and lush beneath a paw?
How could it be that a heart could beat neath warmth and fur, here, alone, on the cold and hollow orb?
How became the amber eyes of a tigress aflame
and the texture woven in the towering bark of the slumbering woods?
Could such a thing be planned or ordered like an architect a house, a mathematician a formula?
Could the spectrum aglow on the dewy dragonfly's wings at dusk,
or a morning's birdsong after the break of winter,
or the dancing tide of the playful flock of starlings?
The Goddess held this small and fragrant orb like a babe coddled
laid at the warmth of the mother's breast and rocked softly in its lyrical orbit,
hushed and petted, lulled to sleep, to dream, where beauty ran
free and rampant as the scattering of ripples, the dart of deer,
countless drops of cool rain, starlight on leaves in ponds and pools.
The Goddess hums and our delicious globe dreams in music,
of sprouts and elks and glowing things, of each grain of sand, each freckle and each hair.
Her voice announces each thing, from blooming babe to decaying oak, dreamt or thought or felt,
and in each moment of each day, forgotten or lost, near or far.
Every point of light, each smallest arrival, pale and green and new,
dreams the melody fresh and bright in every moment of its waking,
and for every smallest leaf that is born or arisen or dreamt in this world, the dream is made anew,
forever resplendent and clear, never aging, never dulling,
bright and bright while She sings us softly, "All is well, all is well."

6. Such conspiracies tend to involve Emperor Waynon II and his personal ambitions, be they for conquest in spite of his cowardice to actually expand his borders with warfare, or the love of a Rezdai maiden.

7. Since this book’s original writing, this fact has only become increasingly apparent. See the “Journals of an Outcast”, written by Jiratha the Neo-Heretic, who fled the Rezdayite homeland upon tribunal condemnation to wash his mouth and hands with lye:

They unimagined anti-miracles into the fabric of the Dream, asserting additional and needless convention for the sake of sneer-glory that has no delectation. Where there were Many they asserted that there are only Eleven, and outside of that number lie Eighteen-Who-Are-Torment, as if they could calculate the precise soul-weight of every manifester's atom, and thereby calculate the precise circumference of Law. Now, with the boundaries that they have erected, two Clans have been mal-prophesied as being Dipoles, one of Salvific Parenthood and the other of Malignancy alone. Behold the work of the 'Orthodox'! Is it any wonder that they dashed even infants against the rocks?

But I shall not halt at that point. The aforementioned is all very popular among the Tribe of Rezdai, and populism is the death of Dream-soaring. We Tribesfolk of Rezdai are at this point none the better, for we have turned the love of Royalty into paranoia of every other oath imaginable, and woe betide the venture-mystic who says his heart is going yonder when first he has kissed the hem of Embra's gown. He might as well rub rock-oil on his backside and set it aflame, for somehow we have turned the honey of Twofold unconvention into tar pitch.

When Lijir Voice-of-Embra said that he beheld that "the I emerges steadfast", he certainly did not mean the steadfastness of taking every discernible lore-scrap, weaving it into a rotten quilt of a predetermined paradigm, and squealing to the mountaintops whenever a man with half a thought of unconvention poked a hole through moth-delightful fibers. If you want to live on the level of a barnyard bullock and fill our ears with noisy bellows, then at least have the decency of Leyavir's Whisperers to put a ring in your nose to warn the rest of us!

Alas that I am thus compelled to act a surrogate for the Royal Two's instruction. I reek of wearing the self-congratulating robe that is best known as "Polemicist". If I were still a cherry-farmer, maybe I could sleep at nights without fear of assassination.

8. The dominance-submissive relationship, or the “holy-mortal union”, is a very important teaching in Rezdai philosophy. The basic principle is that self-discipline and self-improvement arises from intentionally submitting to a dominating, aggressive, and even violent force as long as one submits under one’s own will. This is regarded as a highly spiritual endeavor, as is most Rezdai sexuality. Rezdayite prostitute-priests are known for their body piercings, often of the lip, nipple, navel, and genitals, which appear to outsiders as alien and shocking, but which to the Rezdai, are intended to direct the flows of sexual energy throughout the body.

9. The Aerei, for those unfamiliar, are tall, slender, beautiful humanoids on Tor (purely shapeshifters in their home of the Golden Warmth) who are very skilled at an alien form of psyonic magic. They are at times, as they were by Kythos when he first encountered them, regarded as highly spiritual beings. They recognize their own rebirths and karmic fates, they are able to read the movement of the realms in the stars, and they retain a certain degree of knowledge through their lifetimes. Since Tor-born have become increasingly familiar with their nature, this view has been somewhat shifted. Aerei are prone to clever deceit, arrogance, and the superficial, favoring beauty, grace, and etiquette over conventional morality. For a far more in-depth understanding of Aerei culture, see the Knight of Stars' recently-published travelogue, "The Warmth and its Guardians".