An Dia Liath (ən ˈtʲiə ˈʎiə)

"In the fogs of Beinn Neimh, what you know is forgotten, what is certain dissolves, and your very self can unravel. It is the place where any change is possible - although most often, it is the change of unmaking."

— Aodh MacLachlan, Avatar of An Dia Liath

An Dia Liath is the god of Beinn Neimh, the highest mountain on Ynys, located on the border between Cait and Rheged. His name in Eileanach means The Grey God, while the Albidosi of Cait call him Iomghaothair, the Unraveling Path. He is the master of the mist-creatures known as the Fir Dorcha, and one of the most feared of all the Ellyll. The mountain's name translates as Mount Malice, and those who live in its shadow close their doors and hide when the mists roll down upon them.

Ancient and Inhuman

The earliest tales of An Dia Liath are part of the Cailtram myths of the Albidosi. These stories tell of a time long before the Clarati came to Ynys, when the island was under the rule of King Cailtram. According to these legends, Cailtram bound An Dia Liath to the mountain in order to protect the people from him, lest he obscure all truth and certainty in their lives. In those days, you could still go to the mountain to ask for some memory or trait to be erased, or to be undone in some way. It is only after the intervention of Solis that the Grey God moved from an indifferent force of dissolution to an active and malicious entity.

Like her fellow Clarati, Solis sought to understand the Egregoric Force. She claimed the northeastern quarter of Ynys as her laboratory, and used the minds of its people as her experimental apparatus. While she conducted many experiments, there are two which have endured to this day.

In the land of Cait, she sought to explore how far the human mind could delve into strangeness, and what consequences their unusual beliefs would have on the world around them. Today, the land is one of shadows and cunning cats, and leaves most outsiders unsettled. It is a place where any oddities a person might have are accepted without judgement, since it rarely rivals the strangeness of the Albidosi themselves.

To the south in Rheged, Solis was less kind. There, she experimented with fear, creating a self-perpetuating cycle of terror which has consumed the land for millennia. The people's fear of the monsters in the dark empowers those spirits, and their depredations feed the people's fears. Many have sought to break this cycle, but none have yet succeeded.

Sitting on the border of these two regions, An Dia Liath has been influenced by both. The beliefs of the Albidosi have made the god stranger than before, while the fears of Rheged make him fearsome. His Fir Dorcha emerge from the mist as agents of malice and confusion, seeking to impose an incomprehensible plan upon the world near the mountain, if indeed there is any plan at all. They murder, horrify, and build strange mazes on empty hillsides, and they never explain their choices or their crimes.