When the transgressions of man against the Divine seem to have become irreversible and evil has managed to consume and corrupt every living being, She creates a new slab of earth on top of the old one, burying everyone and everything and creates a new iteration of Her beloved, but sometimes neglected Creation. As far as we are concerned this has happened nine times, creating in the process nine circles of Hell.
Evil however does persist, despite the Divine's efforts to bury it. Each time a new Creation has been added, banished outcasts from Heaven and earth add to the ever-growing hordes of evil that govern the discs of the underworld. There, the history is unbroken, the hatred is ever-growing and the power of anger is unrelenting and fresh.
~ Firebrand Silas of Anatolia
Current State of Affairs
For almost a century now, since the slaying of the last redeemer, no sanctified emissaries of the Divine have shown themselves on earth. No prophets, no redeemers, and no new saints have been revealed and only the occasional rumors of far away manifestations of the divine have been reported. The seat of the Holy See remains empty, all the great kingdoms of the heartlands have crumbled and lie in waste and ruin. The fabled monasteries founded by Oroael the sixth redeemer have been robbed and deserted and the great paladin strongholds of Armozel the fifth redeemer have been lost, only legends remain, rumouring of their whereabouts. Has The Divine forgotten her children?
No one knows for sure, but what is obvious to all is that Pax Dei, the protection of the Divine, has shrunk more and more, leaving ever larger swaths of land open to the ever growing darkness creeping in from the Rimlands and the agents of the Dark Lord grow bolder every year. In fact, the only civilized place that still stands is reportedly Axis Mundi itself, or so we hope. No one has been let in there since the murder of Loios, and besides that, a handful of nearby settlements.
Creation is crying out for salvation, crying out for able bodies and minds to stand against the encroaching darkness, to pick up the banner of light and once more drive the forces of evil whence they came. In order to accomplish that, old fields must be broken anew, trees cleared, roads rebuilt, villages erected, and industries created. The lost wisdom of centuries past must be rediscovered, relics and holy sites unearthed, churches built, and the will of the Divine once again transformed into proud bastions of faith both at home and in the furthest reaches of the world.
~ Sages Annals, the final chapter
The Tower
The tower beckons and at midnight I join with eternity. My watch will be relieved for the last time and my Master will reignite the insatiable gnawing desire that kindles my mortal body.
A promise is fulfilled.
Ere I was called. My visitation gifted me the call of hunger, the delightful emptiness which never fills, a thirst that is never quenched, an appetite that saw an end to my neighbors and my family. My children. Ended the story of Forest Green and its people, everyone I ever knew; Those who knew me as their brother. And gluttony never rests. Before I found my place here, I found many farms and villages where today no one remains to remember.
It is bliss.
As these last hours of my earthly unfulfillment pass, I close my eyes and look around the Mire. Soothing and delicious sounds of devouring, of gnawing, of gnashing and grunts from men and women engorging themselves to their withering soul’s desire. My nostrils are filled with a noxious scent of rotting meat, putrid greens, mould and damp.
It is Elysian.
The tower. It flickers. The wriggling bugs and beetles slithering all over my skin, glow with new excitement. The deep, soft, wet and snappy sounds of drudges' bodies being slowly pulled apart can be discerned through the cacophony of sweet and soothing screams. The tower is alight. Duke Lamalon walks this earth once more.
It is time.
Gatekeeper Montel ~ The night before the Night Eternal
Harvest of Sorrows
Gaeune, Grand Inquisitor, the burning edge of God's wrath, servant of Papess Gloria II, Ad futuram rei memoriam. In pursuing the will of Papess Gloria II with great ardor as pastoral solicitude requires, the Congregation for Extinguishing Heresy has examined the nature and recent rise of the Sethian heretical depravity within the kingdom of Anatolia and their role in the diabolical events leading to the disgraceful and cowardly murder of our ninth redeemer, Loios.
Through this pious desire, we have strived by our toil to root out any and all errors we have come across among these lost souls and employing the hoe of a wise laborer, zeal, and devotion our faith gives us, to wrestle back the scorched hearts that have been lost to this abomination.
Through these examinations and not without great pain to ourselves, the egregious facts about the existence of this order have come to our ears. All across Anatolia, its provinces, cities, territories, regions, and dioceses, many persons of all sexes, heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the Pax Dei, give themselves over to incantations, charms, and conjuring, and other abominable superstitions and sortilèges, offenses, crimes, and misdeeds, ruin and cause to perish the offspring of women, the foal of animals, the products of the earth, the grapes of vines, and the fruits of trees, cattle, and flocks and herds and animals of every kind, vineyards also and orchards, meadows, pastures, harvests, grains and other fruits of the earth; that they afflict and torture with dire pains and anguish.
I do therefore desire, as is my duty, to remove all impediments by which in any way my inquisitors are hindered in the exercise of their office, enabling them by any means necessary to prevent the taint of heretical pravity and of other like evils from spreading their infection to the ruin of others who are innocent, the zeal of religion especially impelling us, in order that the provinces, cities, dioceses, territories, and places aforesaid in the said parts of Anatolia may not be deprived of the office of inquisition which is their due. To that end, I seek a decree from the hand of the Holy See and by virtue of her apostolic authority, that it shall be permitted to the said inquisitors in these regions, that they exercise their office of inquisition without prejudice and may proceed to the correction, imprisonment, and punishment of the aforesaid persons for their said offenses and crimes.
~Gaeune´s report to the Holy See in the spring of 3899 AC, one year after Loios the ninth redeemer perished at the hands of the princes of Anatolia and at the beginning of the great downfall.
