An Index of the Archive of Ys Talovar
As arranged by Arch Scholar Anneas, aided by scribes, scavengers, and the occasional decent ghost
Civilizations That Rose from the Ashes — The survivors. The re-inventors. These are the cultures that clawed their way into the light after the dark. Some rebuilt what they had. Some became something else entirely. Start here if you want to understand the world as it stands.
Those That Fell — Not all falls make a sound. Some of these civilizations collapsed in fire and war. Others just... stopped being mentioned. If you dig into this section, do it gently. There’s grief in every page. Those That Are Trying to Be Forgotten — These ones scare me. Kingdoms that scrubbed their own records. Orders that burned their own books. Places that keep their past locked underground and throw away the key. I don’t know what they’re hiding—but I think we should find out. Those That Haunt Us Despite That — You can’t bury everything. Not completely. These are the ghosts. The echoes. The things that keep returning no matter how often we pretend they’re gone. Some are literal. Some are worse than that.
Start anywhere. Just start. And if you find something I missed—or something I got wrong—write it down. Tell someone. Tell me, if you can. I just want to know what we lost. I want to know what we still have. Please. Leave a trail.
This collection preserves what we know of Ver’Domnir’s geography, ruins, cities, and regional histories. Borders shift, towns vanish, mountains fall inward—but we map what we can, while we can. Here you’ll find records of old kingdoms and new coalitions, wildernesses that resist all names, and the cultures that shaped them—be they still living or long fled. Some entries are annotated with oral history, others with half-burned maps. All of it matters. If you are a surveyor, settler, or exile, this section may hold echoes of where you’ve been—or warnings about where you're going. Here lie the remnants of our people, our factions, our kinlines and strangers. Every face we can name, every creed we can verify. And the creatures that stalk alongside us—some born of the world, some let loose by what cracked it. The records include the cultures of the beastfolk, the chants of seafolk, the treaties of goliath tribes. Watchlogs of mercenary bands. Sightings of stewspawn and calamity beasts. Testimonies, rumors, personal letters. What lives, fights, loves, or eats within the bounds of Ver’Domnir belongs here. If you remember someone—truly remember them—send that memory. Their name deserves to remain. No one agrees what this section means. Some say it contains only gods and rituals. Others say it includes the cursed, the divine, and the merely misunderstood. I say it contains everything that outlasts reason. Here are the ink gods of Lacliosa, the antlered spirits of Auclan, the oaths that bind a name across generations. You will find relics that speak and those that scream. You will find stories meant to be forgotten, preserved here anyway. Some entries have been redacted for safety. Some redactions have been… circumvented. Proceed with care. And if you dream something strange, write it down. Dreams go here too.
There’s a silence where the Calamity should be. Ask a hundred elders what happened and you’ll get a hundred answers. Fire that swallowed the sky. Oceans that screamed. A clock that ticked backward until time broke in two. But no one remembers the moment itself. Just the aftermath. The hunger. The ruins. The strange ways people changed. It wasn’t just ruin. It was forgetting. Whole cities didn’t just fall. They got rewritten. People unmade, then put back together and told they’d always been like that. Paper turned to ash. Ash became rumor. Rumor settled into law. People wanted to look away. And the ones who didn’t? They looked away. It's easier to move on than to sit with regret. Easier to start over than to go digging through bones and broken memories. But I can’t let it rest. Some of us can’t. So I gather what I can. Half-faded property deeds. Stew recipes that changed every generation. Songs no one sings anymore. Names that got carved into stone and then scratched out again. Lies. Truths. The stuff in between. Some of it was buried on purpose. Some of it just slipped. Dances no one taught. Gods we stopped calling because they stopped answering. This archive isn’t perfect. It never will be. But it’s something. It belongs to me. It belongs to you. It belongs to Ys Talovar, or what’s left of her. We’ve done our best to sort what we find. Stories about the places that raised us. The people still hanging on. The things that don’t make sense yet but might, if we keep looking. If you’ve got anything—scraps, clippings, dreams, diary entries, weird little songs—I want it. Please send it. No story is too strange. No detail is too small. Let them lie beside each other. Let them be remembered. Ys Talovar cracked. Maybe, if we’re lucky, some light still shines through.
Where to Start if You Want Answers
Excerpt from a loose page, folded into the back cover of the Compendium. Written in ink that’s smudged at the corners. If you’re holding this, I hope you’re ready to help. Or at least to look. The archive’s a mess, and it always will be. Too much was lost on purpose. Too much changed while we weren’t looking. Still—if you’re searching for the shape of what we were, and maybe still could be, here’s where to begin: People Displaced or Lost — Not everyone died. Some just... didn’t end up where they were meant to. Villages that moved in the night. Names with no homes. Families born of places that no longer exist. This section is for them—for the ones the world forgot how to place.Civilizations That Rose from the Ashes — The survivors. The re-inventors. These are the cultures that clawed their way into the light after the dark. Some rebuilt what they had. Some became something else entirely. Start here if you want to understand the world as it stands.
Those That Fell — Not all falls make a sound. Some of these civilizations collapsed in fire and war. Others just... stopped being mentioned. If you dig into this section, do it gently. There’s grief in every page. Those That Are Trying to Be Forgotten — These ones scare me. Kingdoms that scrubbed their own records. Orders that burned their own books. Places that keep their past locked underground and throw away the key. I don’t know what they’re hiding—but I think we should find out. Those That Haunt Us Despite That — You can’t bury everything. Not completely. These are the ghosts. The echoes. The things that keep returning no matter how often we pretend they’re gone. Some are literal. Some are worse than that.
Start anywhere. Just start. And if you find something I missed—or something I got wrong—write it down. Tell someone. Tell me, if you can. I just want to know what we lost. I want to know what we still have. Please. Leave a trail.
This collection preserves what we know of Ver’Domnir’s geography, ruins, cities, and regional histories. Borders shift, towns vanish, mountains fall inward—but we map what we can, while we can. Here you’ll find records of old kingdoms and new coalitions, wildernesses that resist all names, and the cultures that shaped them—be they still living or long fled. Some entries are annotated with oral history, others with half-burned maps. All of it matters. If you are a surveyor, settler, or exile, this section may hold echoes of where you’ve been—or warnings about where you're going. Here lie the remnants of our people, our factions, our kinlines and strangers. Every face we can name, every creed we can verify. And the creatures that stalk alongside us—some born of the world, some let loose by what cracked it. The records include the cultures of the beastfolk, the chants of seafolk, the treaties of goliath tribes. Watchlogs of mercenary bands. Sightings of stewspawn and calamity beasts. Testimonies, rumors, personal letters. What lives, fights, loves, or eats within the bounds of Ver’Domnir belongs here. If you remember someone—truly remember them—send that memory. Their name deserves to remain. No one agrees what this section means. Some say it contains only gods and rituals. Others say it includes the cursed, the divine, and the merely misunderstood. I say it contains everything that outlasts reason. Here are the ink gods of Lacliosa, the antlered spirits of Auclan, the oaths that bind a name across generations. You will find relics that speak and those that scream. You will find stories meant to be forgotten, preserved here anyway. Some entries have been redacted for safety. Some redactions have been… circumvented. Proceed with care. And if you dream something strange, write it down. Dreams go here too.
Contribute to the Archive
If you possess a scrap worth saving—a letter, a recipe, a memory, a curse—submit it to the scriptorium. Label what you can. Date what you remember. Let us gather before it is all scattered. Some things must be preserved. Even now. Especially now.* * *
Comments