Myth of Dheghom

The Sanctuary

The Aos Sí of Ryhoreiral pass down a story that is more myth than memory, a tale told in fragments about the gods who brought them to this world. It is said the gods fled from realms consumed by chaos, their homes shattered beyond repair. They spoke sparingly of what came before. Some described a vast war that broke the heavens, others described a reality-ending entity, but many said nothing at all. The Aos Sí do not claim to know the truth of these stories. What they know is that the gods arrived as survivors, carrying with them the remnants of what little could be saved.

Dheghom was not crafted from inspiration or vision; it was born of fear and necessity. The gods, weary and broken, labored to create a sanctuary in the void left by what had been. From the fragments of their lost realms, they shaped a place that might endure. To protect what they had made, the gods sealed Dheghom from the rest of existence, isolating it from the forces that had driven them to the brink of annihilation. Whether this sealing was an act of prevention or desperation remains unclear, even in the oldest accounts. Though they called it safety, whispers tell that the gods themselves had nowhere else to run.

The mortals brought into Dheghom were not created anew but taken from the wreckage of their dying worlds. They were refugees, like the gods who had saved them, subject to the same horrors they had fled. These mortals were shaped by war, hunger, and fear, carrying those burdens into the sanctuary that the gods had built for them. The Aos Sí remember that the gods spoke often of balance and harmony, but such ideals meant little to those who had never known peace. Survival had defined these mortals, and no refuge, no matter how carefully crafted, could erase what they had endured.

The gods said little of their intentions. The Aos Sí recall fragments of their words, stories of sanctuary and survival, of a place where the chaos could not follow. If the gods doubted their creation, they did not speak of it openly. They spoke of safety, of a refuge where gods and mortals alike could rebuild. Whatever else they might have thought, their silence left much to be interpreted.

Although the Aos Sí remembered their old world, they were delighted with the realm the gods had crafted for them. The sanctuary was crafted from ruin and remade into something safe from the horrors of worlds beyond. For a time, it thrived. Mortals rebuilt their lives, and the gods rested from their labors.

The Age of Bloom

The Bloom Age began with silence. Dheghom offered safety, but it could not erase what had come before. The gods, still raw from the destruction of their former realms, responded in different ways. Some stood among mortals, teaching them to till the land and build shelters, their presence a constant reassurance. Others retreated into solitude, their wounds too deep to share. Among mortals, the response was no less varied. Faithful lineages offered prayers of gratitude and built shrines to honor their saviors. Others, shaped by bitterness and fear, treated the gods with quiet suspicion, their devotion fractured by the memory of what had been lost.

Perhaps still grasping for stability after the chaos they had fled, the gods instinctively tied themselves to specific places like mountains, rivers, and forests, becoming one with the land they sought to protect. Amavasya, the goddess of the Kadhir Sea, anchored herself to its depths, her presence keeping its waters calm and fertile. Váttkorr, the deity of the Glisméri Lake, poured his strength into its still waters, which became a source of clarity and purity for the surrounding lands. These places, sacred and enduring, became reflections of the gods themselves.

Mortals, in those early years, revered these locations. They built shrines along riversides, left offerings in the forests, and spoke of these places in hushed tones, fearing to disturb the balance the gods had woven. For a time, this respect held. But as settlements grew and generations passed, the line between reverence and necessity blurred. Trees were felled to build homes, rivers were diverted to feed crops, and mountains were mined for stone. The gods, tethered to these places, felt the strain of these changes, reacting with everything from quiet resignation to flashes of rage. Their strength, already fragile, was tied to the integrity of their chosen sanctuaries. And as mortals pushed further into the land, the gods began to falter, not all at once, but piece by piece, like cracks forming in a glass too thin to hold the weight of the world.

Some gods withdrew entirely, retreating into their sanctuaries as their power waned. Others remained present, watching in silence as the balance they had once maintained began to shift. Mortals, for their part, saw little of this fragility. To them, the gods were still powerful, their blessings still evident in the abundance of the land. Yet, unknowingly, they were sowing the seeds of their own undoing.

For a time, the connection between gods and mortals remained, each domain a reflection of the god who sustained it. But as generations passed, mortals forgot the weight of those bonds. For the gods, immortal and reluctant to change, many struggled to comprehend the vacillation of mortals.

The Bloom Age, for all its beauty, was built on unsteady ground. As gods faltered and mortals grew blind to their sacrifices, the sanctuary began to fray. Yet, even as the first cracks formed, neither gods nor mortals could see the full scope of what was coming. They lived, as survivors do, blind to the precipice until the ground beneath them gave way.

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Most mortals believe that gods can die because they have seen their physical forms destroyed. To them, a god struck down in battle or consumed by calamity is no different from a mortal slain on the battlefield. They see the absence of miracles, the silence of the divine, and they assume the god is dead. But others, scholars, priests, and those who have studied the old ways, argue that divinity is immutable. A god may change, may retreat, may become something unrecognizable, but it does not cease to be.

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The Age of Blood

The Blood Age began with death. A death that sent ripples through time. Slain on the shores of the Kadhir Sea, the goddess Amavasya, once a symbol of balance and serenity, faded from the world. Her absence went unnoticed by most, lost in the noise of daily struggle. Only the devout whispered of her silence, but no answers came. In time, her name vanished from mortal tongues, her sanctuary fell to ruin, and her purpose was forgotten. What began as a missing presence would, in time, be felt as a loss too vast to mend. The Blood Age had begun, and its wounds would spread, slow and relentless, through every corner of Dheghom.

Mortal ambition drove the first scars of this age. The nascent kingdoms of Humans and Bromans laid claim to lands no god had granted them, waging wars that turned rivers red and salted the fields with corpses. Some gods answered their followers' pleas, taking up arms in defense or vengeance. Others turned away, unwilling to be drawn into mortal conflicts. Yet the divine were not immune. Some fell, their lifeblood sinking into the soil, while others suffered wounds that diminished them. Mortals, too consumed with their own struggles, paid little heed to the damage they inflicted upon their gods.

In time, war turned its gaze beyond mere land and borders, nations began targeting gods themselves. Some rulers saw divinity as a weapon to be broken, believing that a weakened god meant a weakened enemy. Shrines were desecrated, holy places burned, and temples razed. The gods bound to those places suffered deeply.

And then, something changed. The first of the Tatarigami emerged, monstrous remnants of once-divine beings. At first, they were rare, their appearances shrouded in confusion. Some were mistaken for wrathful gods, others seen as omens of ruin. In truth, they were neither. They were wounds made flesh, divine sorrow twisted into rage. But mortals did not understand this yet.

Then the world itself began to unravel. Strange phenomena plagued Dheghom. Rivers swelled without rain. Forests wandered. Food stores spoiled overnight or multiplied beyond reason. In the halls of Celtumpra, scholars argued over these signs. Some saw a pattern, a sickness within the world’s bones. Others dismissed the concerns as paranoia. Some spoke out, but many held their tongues, fearing the weight of their own conclusions. When information did emerge, it came in fragments wrapped in speculation and doubt. This only fueled the confusion, as the people of Dheghom were left with half-answers and whispered fears. Among the common folk, superstition took hold. They blamed magic-users, unseen curses, and vengeful spirits. What could not be explained had to be feared, and what was feared had to be destroyed.

The world, once sealed from the multiverse, began to crack. Rents in reality tore through Dheghom, allowing entities from beyond to seep in, things of fire and shadow, of hunger and madness. These intrusions shattered what little faith remained in magic. Entire regions outlawed its use, not merely out of fear but as a desperate act of control. Magic-users were hunted, imprisoned, or exiled. To wield magic became a death sentence in many lands. In the great nations (Bethune, Ibunor, Marcia) power shifted. Some states grew stronger, swallowing the weak. Others crumbled under the weight of war, their lands left to ruin. The Tatarigami stalked the edges of civilization, feeding on suffering and blood.

As the age dragged on, the world grew colder, more brutal. The sight of Tatarigami no longer inspired panic but grim acceptance. The distortions of magic became a fact of life. As the chaos escalated, the reliable divine presence mortals once knew shattered, replaced by a spectrum of responses ranging from complete withdrawal to volatile, direct intervention. Some few mortals clung to faith, guarding their shrines with a desperation bordering on madness. Others turned their backs on the divine, treating the gods as relics or, worse, as threats no different from the Tatarigami. The bonds that had once tied mortals, magic, and the divine unraveled.

Celtumpra, once the seat of magical understanding, fractured under the weight of mistrust. Scholars turned on one another, some retreating into secrecy, others fleeing before they, too, were branded as threats. Those who remained grew insular, hoarding knowledge, offering truths only when it served their survival. Magic had become synonymous with instability and destruction. What was once a place of learning became a fractured ruin of half-truths and silence.

The old nations dwindled. Some solidified their rule, crushing all who opposed them. Others turned inward, abandoning the wider world to its fate. In the grandest cities, the gods were nothing more than myths. Only in the wild places did pockets of devotion remain, stubborn in their rituals even as the world turned to ash. Magic had become a curse, its practitioners hunted. Celtumpra, broken and hollow, faded from the world stage.

The Blood Age had begun with the slow unraveling of gods, mortals, and magic. It ended with a world divided; faithless, fearful, and standing on the precipice of a far darker age.

The God King

I was Ashmaka, the unmoving, the eternal. A stone among stones, weathered by time and tide. Yet, I was more, for upon my form lay Amavasya, the serpent of the Khadir Sea. Her coils pressed smooth the jaggedness of my surface, her weight a comfort in the long hours of the day.

She was my warmth, as I was hers. The sun kissed her scales as she slept, her silvery form gleaming like starlight fallen to earth. By night she swam, and I waited, my surface cooling as I watched the ripples she left behind. Her return each dawn was a promise, unbroken.

The voices of men spoke of her movements, the tide-maker, the night-huntress. But to me, she was neither deity nor beast. She was my world.

Her end came with the tread of men, armored and armed, their blades thirsty with hate. They came while she slept, blind to her beauty, their wrath making them cruel.

I could do nothing. I am stone. I am stillness. My strength is the strength of patience, not of action. They struck her as she stirred, their weapons biting deep into her flesh, biting deep into mine, but I could only feel her pain, not my own. She fought, her coils thrashing, her cries splitting the air like a storm. But even she could not overcome their numbers.

I felt her blood, warm and heavy, running into the cracks of my form. They took parts of her and left the rest to rot. Her body grew still as the sun fell, and I was left alone beneath a crimson sky. Her light was gone, her warmth faded, and I—immovable, unchanging—was made to bear the weight of her absence for all time.

Time passed, though I felt it not. Her blood lingered, seeping deep into me, filling the hollow spaces within. It was not decay that I carried but something worse, grief turned to rage, loss to hate.

The day I rose was not of my choosing. It was her voice that broke me, her cries that had lingered within my cracks. I tore free from the earth, a thing no longer stone, no longer Ashmaka. Her blood had made me more. It had made me monstrous.

I walked, and with me came the plague, a sickness born of her pain, my hate. It spread like her ripples once did, but where her tides brought life, mine brought death. I am no savior. I am wrath unending.

The world will wither as I have withered. They will feel what it is to lose all they hold dear. For I am Ashmaka no longer. I am the God King, and I will not rest.

The Age of Blight

The Blight Age began with sickness. The Great Plague spread unchecked, claiming kings, generals, and the nameless poor alike. Entire bloodlines vanished in days. In Bellegrad, the royal family perished, leaving the city leaderless. Faith wavered as prayers went unanswered, yet in Bethune, a new figure rose to power. The one who would become the God King emerged from the chaos, consolidating rule under a singular, divine authority. What had once been a kingdom became a theocracy, and belief in the divine did not fade, but hardened into law.

As nations fought to rebuild, the world remained fractured. Some gods had faded, while others persisted. In Askara, Gialar, and Gane, faith was not only present but central to life. Yet the scars of the Blood Age remained. The remnants of Celtumpra, once the seat of magical understanding, now existed in isolation. Magic itself became a force of contention. Some saw it as dangerous, others as sacred, but no one saw it as safe.

For centuries, war remained unchanged. Steel, cavalry, and siege engines still defined the battlefield. But then came black powder. First used by Ibunor against Gane, it marked the beginning of an irreversible transformation. Muskets and cannons did not replace the sword overnight, but war had changed. Armies once built on the strength of individual warriors now relied on supply lines, firearms, and powder stores. Some nations resisted, clinging to traditional combat, but the shift was inevitable.

As the nature of war changed, so too did power. The rise of black powder and industry gave way to a new kind of ruler. Not kings or warlords, but those who controlled the mines, forges, and trade routes. Colderyn grew into a mining and forging giant, supplying the weapons that fueled the next generation of wars. Navtog, once a maritime guild, expanded into a trade empire, controlling the flow of goods across the seas. Navrow followed, turning smuggling into an organized network, thriving in the spaces law could not reach.

By this time, industry dictated more than just warfare, it dictated survival. The Ironpenny Poke, formed as factory lords and industrialists rose to power, turned cities into factory-states where labor became currency. But industry did not lift all men. The workers, crushed beneath the weight of industrial expansion, found their champions in Zaharmak, a revolutionary faction that fought against the Poke’s unchecked power.

Some wars were fought with powder and steel, but others were waged in silence. The world entered a new kind of conflict, one where direct battle was no longer the only path to victory. Nations turned to debt, trade, and resource control to weaken their enemies. Marcia fought for dominance over mining operations while Gialar fought to preserve ancestral lands. Meanwhile, Bethune’s expansion into Zwerge territory sparked a war over industry and sovereignty. For the first time, nations could be conquered not by armies, but by economic collapse.

But while nations fought, the plagues never ceased. Sickness spread through city streets and countryside alike, some striking quickly, others lingering for generations. Just as industry shaped the world, so too did disease, forcing populations to adapt, migrate, or perish. Some sought salvation in faith. Others placed their trust in medicine, though cures rarely came.

Now, at the height of the Blight Age, the world has settled into its new order. The Withering spreads through Bellegrad, testing the faith of those who still believe in the God King’s protection. War has not ended, but it has changed. Magic has not vanished, but it has become feared. The surviving gods persisted, but their connection to Dheghom became idiosyncratic; some remained sources of local faith or fury, while others were perceived only through silence or the unsettling legacy of their suffering. Where once divine will shaped the world, now it is industry, economy, and war that dictate the fate of Dheghom.