Preface
Some time later, Caltha enters into the library, the sun having long fallen behind the distant horizon. Tendrils of smoke rise from candles and incense as Vorothruun sits, engrossed in his work. The familiar, near-silent footsteps do not disturb his reading. Nor does the equally familiar, satisfying thud of Caltha placing a new tome on his central working table, where he hunches over the tomes of Ragnalla once more, scouring for further elucidation amongst the labyrinth of words.
Instead, it is the tome itself which brings Vorothruun’s attention away from the sacred text before him. A book of dark leather, as if bound in shadow itself, a silver chain sealing the covers together. In the center, a skull embossed, surrounding by a dark sun with purple tendrils extending from it, almost giving the appearance of moving on their own volition.
The Cyrinishad, he recognizes at once. And though he knows the legends of its power and will to corrupt, he does not fear this tome nor its text. For his will is resolute, his mind steadfast. He is the Chosen of Ragnalla, the Seeker of the Skies, and he will not be lead astray by Cyric, the paltry deceiver ever again.
And so, with a decisive snatching of the chain, he unlocks the tome and cracks the binding. Whispers, some soothing and sweet waft up to him, like a melody or fragrance so sweet as to enchant and enthrall. Then, screams of ruination and promises of terrible violence, an unsettling discord. He ignores them all. Instead, he sets himself to work unraveling the words, deciphering the meaning behind the madness scrawled into the pages before him.
And with time, hidden within the mad ramblings of the god of lies, Vorothruun discovers the Truth.
1. Prelude
I, Cyric, the Thrice-Crowned god, Lord of Madness, and sole surveyor of the primal Truth of this finite world, through the willing hands of my devoted faithful, pen these words so that others may learn and understand not only that which is The End That Is To Come, but our role in saving the universe from Her terrible, ravenous hunger.
I, like you, Oh Reader Mine, was once a mere mortal, searching for purpose and Truth. In the end, I found more of both than I could have ever expected. But now I carry this Truth as my resplendent responsibility. And so shall you, if you are willing to bear this great burden for the sake of the world’s salvation.
Allow me to illuminate the path before you with the light of my own journey, so that you, the eclipsed moon to my dark sun, may reflect the Truth upon the world we serve.
2. Mortality & Adventures
When my winding journey began, I was not so different from you. Truly. A brave soul in search of truth and purpose, I wandered the lands fighting the forces of destruction across the realms. I traveled with friends who would become like a family with me as we crusaded against the gods made mortal whose interference would ruin our world were it not for our intervention.
And just like you, I put my faith in a greater power. And this faith, like yours, led me to not only power, but truth. I rose in prominence and privilege among Her followers, eventually reaching the pinnacle position as Her will made material. I served dutifully, unquestioningly, with resolve and reverence.
However, this is where our paths diverge. For I came to see that my faith, unlike yours, was misplaced in a being beyond my understanding who cared not for our world. In fact, She meant to see everything I dedicated myself to protect ruined beyond recognition.
As Her will became clear to me, the truth beyond comprehension like visible threads woven around existence itself, I could no longer stand by and allow Her will to come to pass. Though I became the Chosen of the Dread Queen, I forsook my pacts, a heresy of the highest order, in hopes that I might redeem myself and save the world from Her ravenous destruction.
And so began my path towards a new destiny. Many steps a long the way you have already meditated upon, I am sure.
My saving of the realms from the wandering gods. My ascension to godhood. My great sacrifice, taking the life of Midnight, my love. My false trial and my unjust imprisonment.
But amidst it all, I have only served towards one grand purpose. One of which you shall henceforth be an integral component. But first, you must come to understand the Truth beyond truth that I alone have witnessed and share with you here in these very pages. Yes, I will show you the way, Oh Reader Mine.
3. The Truth Itself: Existence
And so at last we come to the truth itself. The very nature of the world, laid bare before me, irrefutable and irreversible. But not irredeemable!
No, no, in fact, it is this Truth that has set me on my grand journey to save the realms from the Truth about the End That Is To Come.
So what is the Truth? We must first start with Existence.
Magic. Reality. Time.
These forces, these Truths, constitute all of Existence. All of creation, forged from the swirling chaos of these forces combined. And I saw them, embraced them with arms and eyes open wide, like a rushing wind swirling around me, lifting me to heights above the stars and beyond the realms of this finite layer of this world.
Magic, for how intimately I have experienced the Weave, I can say, without reservation, it is still a phenomena of which mortal scholars and wizards know frighteningly little. Fools be those who claim to master the art. The sheer magnitude of the power, the raw chaos of unbridled Magic, would bring the world to its knees. The Spellplague, as the mortals call the result of my great sacrifice, is nothing compared to what I have seen of Magic’s true nature.
But where wizards are fools, the so-called holy clerics are blind. Through their fleeting prayers and desperate petitions, when the petty gods deem them worthy of answer, they shift Reality itself. Yet, so unaware of their own place in the world, they look upon this power and assume it is but Magic by another name. Were it that instead more would place their faith in the Truth I share and see the world as it truly is. Alas, they live on in ignorance. We are to pity such lives.
And finally, Time itself. That primordial force all mortals feel and none see beyond. For even the souls that pass on into the afterlife or worse, into the service of the gods, are still bound with the shackles of existence. Their very souls forfeit to ruin ever since the day of creation. For all shall face The End That Is to Come and none shall endure. But to understand such truths, you must first understand the infinity that exists outside of space and time, the nature of paracausality itself.
Do not fear, Oh Reader Mine, I shall illuminate in due time.
4. The Truth Itself: The Paracasual Three
What you must understand, what is crucial to this Truth that the world has kept from you, is that there are beings beyond this realm mere mortals cannot fathom. Beings to whom the other gods are nothing more than wearisome children wailing to have their way.
These beings have no beginning. Supposedly, they have no end. They are forces beyond comprehension. They are masters of all matters of existence. They rule over Magic, Reality, and Time in their very nature. Beyond the confines of these causal energies, they exist beyond existence itself.
They are effect without cause.
The conclusion without reason.
The beginning, the end, and the reprise.
They are Paracausal and they are Three.
Ao, of whom you have surely heard. Creator. Allfather. Overlord. LIAR.
Ragnalla. The Seeker of the Skies. The Slumbering Consumer. The End That is to Come.
Thren. The Present Traveler. The One Among Many. The Shepherd of Balance.
And they shall pour out upon us utter obliteration.
5. The Truth Itself: The Cruelty of Creation
To understand the End, we must journey back to the beginning.
Before the realms, before any of the realms, the Paracausal Three existed.
In my quest for Truth, I discovered the first world began with a question.
“What is to exist?”
Ao, with his steadfast belief in potential, argued that existence should be an ever-expanding opportunity, bursting with promise, hope, and chance.
Ragnalla, countered, claiming only the premiere power in the universe deserved to exist, for all else would be worth nothing but supplication.
Thren, ever the peacebroker, posed a way for both to make their case.
Ao brought forth Reality, to render worlds out of the void.
Ragnalla drew forth Magic, to bind the world in a struggle for power.
Thren set Time in motion, to set a rhythm to life and death.
And so, Existence became. A question became a challenge. A challenge became a test.
Yes, Oh Reader Mine, we are, and have never been more than, a grand experiment, doomed to a predetermined destruction. The End That Is To Come.
6. The Truth Itself: The End to Come
Born unto the world by Ao. Shepherded through this painful existence by Thren. Served on a platter to Ragnalla.
We would endure countless hardships and decades of suffering to live and die as nothing more than sheep to the slaughter, shed for wool in the cruel tests of beings beyond the world’s conception.
For make no mistake, the world shall end with Ragnalla’s waking, her arrival, and her feasting.
Yes, for when she wakes, she will shatter the cosmos to consume all of creation, to prove that only the strongest should survive.
And there is no mortal who can stand before paracausality and endure. Such is the End That is to Come.
Now you share in the Truth Itself. The reality the gods have kept from all of creation for millienia. The truths which they marred as falsehoods and cast me out for speaking. The secrets for which I have suffered and from which I will save us.
Which brings us at last, to my grand purpose, and to your role in saving all of existence, Oh Follower Mine.
7. The Grand Purpose
So now surely you must see, Oh Reader Mine, the path leading to my noble, grand purpose. I am, as has been true since the unfolding of this world from Ao’s form, the defender of these realms who must defeat Ragnalla once and for all.
As such, it is an inevitable and irrefutable truth that I must Ascend. Though mortals have become gods many times over, there has yet to be a god ascended beyond the coiled restraints of these existential forces that bind us to helplessness. Mere divinity shall be woefully insufficient in the face of our destruction. To fight paracausality, I too must become paracausal myself. And I shall Ascend.
It is the only way I may save our universe from being utterly destroyed down to the last vestige of existence, snuffed out in a void of nothingness stretching beyond eternal horizons.
The gods who have trapped me here, Tyr, Bahamut, and their ilk, in their short-sighted, vainglorious, self-righteous folly, have thwarted my efforts to save them and their followers from certain doom. When I murdered my beloved Mystra to prevent Ragnalla from ever waking and thus prevent our looming devestation, they labelled me the God of Lies. This nomenclature is of itself, however, a deception.
I am, and have always been, the God of Madness. For my domain is not for those of sound mind who see the world as it appears before them. No, my devotion is to the world beyond, the forces unseen, that which few mortals can imagine and even fewer comprehend.
But fear not for my thwarted efforts of the past. For their is another way. An arduous path. A plan decades in the making that teeters on the edge of a knife, should its secrets not be guarded with the upmost discretion. So delicate this tangled web, I cannot press the ink to parchment to reveal the machinations here, save to say that to seek out paracausality is to bind together such a concentration of the forces of existence into a singular entity as to not be denied nor bound by the confides of existence. Such a ritual exists, and even now, power coalesces, bringing to fruition my desperate desire to save this universe from utter annihilation.
Do not fear, Oh follower mine, I have not set you to aid in this task alone and without guidance. Among you walks the most faithful of my flock, my foremost champion, my Chosen. Draxhar. The Demon of a Thousand Faces. He is a manifestation of my will upon the material plane and he will instruct you in walking the path necessary to fulfill our grand purpose.
But steel your heart and mind against that which would tear you away from this truth. For there is no shortage of those who misjudge my destiny as self-aggrandizing madness.
If only they knew. If only they believed. If only they were more like you, Oh Follower Mine.
You will face many tribulations as you fulfill your purpose in this glorious venture to protect all that which we love and cherish from the unremitting appetite of the Dread Queen whose dreams are planes unto themselves.
So hold fast to your faith and cling to this Truth in all you do. You will prove the false believers wrong and will shepherd in an era of unprecedented possibility and potential in the new world we shall remake together in our victory.
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