Lore – Legends 1: The Gods and the Dark Age

Vigil and Inanis, the Righteous and the Unprincipled. Light and Dark.

They are often depicted as enemies, on a never-ending chase for the other, just waiting for an opportunity to strike them down. Locked in an eternal war for supremacy over the heavens. Using mortals as nothing more than pawns in a game between the Gods. 

Personally, I find this idea to be laughable. Yes they are opposites, but they have to be. Balance must be preserved. One cannot exist without the other; there are no shadows without light and no day without a night. They are a duality that the world needs to function.

In the past our peoples have warred over these Gods, trying with ferocity and righteous belief to remove any trace of Gods other than their own. Only the 'true' deity was destined to be above others.

We now know that this belief is false and even heretical. But the wars lie in the past, a relic of different times.

We have some records that date back to the Dark Age. Fragmented and brittle, their pages speak of a time where prayers went unanswered and the unjust ruled with an iron fist. To think such heinous acts would befall the world just because our Gods – our creators – were silent. 

I believe it is best to leave that thought alone, the Dark Age is over and our prayers no longer fall on deaf ears. But that begs the question: Why are they back? We ask again and again but the gods never grace us with an answer to this query. We will possibly never know. Even the ever knowledgeable Roots-Beneath-All remains silent on this topic, and while people might argue that it simply never bothers with mortal affairs, I beg to differ.

It has always helped in times of need. It is true that it only ever answered the questions of people it liked but for those people, it answered everything they asked. Everything, except the reason why the Gods left.

I have personally sought an audience with Vigil himself a great many times – he always has time for one of his Priests – but whenever I inquired about their disappearance he remained quiet. Sister Vehnerfell reported similar findings; just like Vigil, Inanis was unwilling to answer.

There are some clues we can follow, however. We know that what- or whoever forced the Gods into silence was on Vetus during the Night of the Second Sun. Many assume that the continent was cleansed by the combined efforts of the Gods, an effort to return to their children. Others say it was the deed of Ferio, who summoned the second sun to purge heretics where its first could not.

I believe that those assumptions are false. There shouldn’t be a need to hide heroic deeds from your believers. That means that it's possible that, instead of the gods, the common people found a way to banish whatever had come to the world. Either that, or it left of its own volition.

But these are just the ramblings of an old man who cannot begin to understand the world as our Gods do. However, I still see it as a duty of sorts, an obligation for the devoted to find answers on their own if the Gods do not provide.

I firmly believe that they know what transpired. Do they want us to learn, I wonder, or to forget lest we repeat our mistakes?

– Excerpt from the Book of Legends –

Written by

Volynoph Endera, [High Priest of Vigil]