Folklore:

In Everwealth, folklore is more than just fireside fables, it is mortar between the stones of civilization. Myths are not just remembered; they are lived with. A child may grow up believing their shadow walks faster than them because of an old tale about a soul outpacing the body. A village might burn its wheat a day early every harvest, not for weather, but because once, long ago, a spirit in the grain field demanded it. These stories may not be true in the way scholars desire, but they are true enough for the people who carry them. They bleed into daily life: encoded in lullabies, stitched into quilts, painted onto waystones, and etched into the side of blades handed down for generations. Yet, not all folklore comforts. In a land as scarred and magick-touched as Everwealth, stories can shape fear just as easily as faith. Whispers of the Bone Lantern that hunts oathbreakers have led entire units to desert rather than risk marching under a broken command. The wrong song sung at the wrong hour might wake something old beneath the hills. Some legends are cultural glue, passed along to preserve values. Others are arcane traps, accidentally true, accidentally dangerous. As with much in Everwealth, the trick is never knowing which is which until it's far too late. Born from tangled bloodlines, cracked tombstones, and the soft gasping prayers of those too afraid to speak them aloud, myths are everywhere. They seep from the earth with the fog and hum in the bones of the gods. Myths here are not merely tales; they are scaffolding. They build belief into structure, caution into culture, madness into meaning. Sometimes they’re history, distorted through loss. Sometimes they’re prophecy, ignored until it's far too late. No one knows if the myths came first, or the gods they shaped. Some say the gods were born from mortal fear and wonder, sculpted into existence by prayer and repetition. Others insist the myths were the gifts, or curses, of those same divine forces, dreamt into the waking world to test, tempt, or teach. In truth, all may be correct. For myths in Everwealth do not just survive, they change the world when enough people believe in them. Some sprout tulpas. Others twist the fates of entire bloodlines. Most lie dormant, waiting to be remembered by the wrong child at the wrong time.