The Graven Pact

Purpose

To end The Triad Wars permanently.

To bind the three species in mutual guardianship of their world.

To unite against the common peril of the Forgotten Fourth.

Clauses

Unity Clause: The three shall act as one in times of external threat.

Non-Domination Clause: None shall rule over the others.

Clause of the Bound Grief: None shall forge sorrow into power again; the Chains shall remain broken, and grief shall belong only to the living.

Shared Stewardship: Sacred lands and resources shall be tended jointly.

Graven Promise: The stone is the keeper of peace; as long as it endures, so shall the pact.

Never Again: No hatred shall feed them again nor shall their name be spoken again nor written anywhere. They have no future.

Caveats

To destroy the stone was to betray not only the Triad but the world itself.

References

Later echoed in children’s stories as the “Stone of Three Voices.”

Publication Status

Only fragments survive in oral traditions. Humans have never found the stone itself, though expeditions continue to search.

Legal Status

Considered binding myth rather than legal fact. Among human scholars, it’s treated like a hybrid of constitution and holy relic.

Background

Decades of ruin and betrayal drove the three species to the brink. Only by setting aside hatred could they survive — and defeat The Forgotten Fourth. The pact marked not just the end of war, but the birth of a new shared identity.

History

The pact is remembered as what made the Triad victory possible. Without it, the Forgotten Fourth would have consumed the world.

Public Reaction

Among the Triad: overwhelming relief, mixed with awe at the pact’s permanence.

Among later generations: pride in a golden age of peace.

Among humans today: either a beacon of lost wisdom or a mythic exaggeration.

Legacy

The Graven Pact is remembered not as a fragile peace but as the foundation of Triad civilization. Even after the species’ extinction, it stands as a symbol of what unity could achieve.

Excerpts

“No river runs alone. No root grows in solitude. We, the three, bind ourselves in living stone.”

“If one breaks faith, the stone shall wound and weep, and all shall know peace is broken.”

“Together we cast down the Foe. Together we stand, lest the Foe rise again.”