Prologue

[…]

"Just as we mortals cower in fear from the revengeful, spiteful, or simply chaotic acts from the gods, they too, fear the retribution from a higher being in turn.

For there are reasons beyond mortal comprehension, trying to understand realms above those who most think supreme in our world becomes an exercise in futility.

You ask, then, who the Nameless God is?

The answer is both overwhelmingly complicated yet simple at the same time.

All gods, in a sense, have their basis on phenomena those who have eyes can see, those who have bodies can feel, those who have noses can smell, or those who have souls can think.

The Slanes to the far west, for example, with their Great Gods explain the world's great events, both good and bad. Their Great Gods, as their followers proclaim, preside over the key phenomena from where the nature of the world unfolds, with those who govern over The Fire, The Water, The Earth, and The Wind as manifestations of pure nature, and those who govern over Life and Death more inclined, as it is evident, on the matters of the living. Those six, in turn, have a plethora of other minor Gods under their command, each governing over more and more mundane facts of this world.

Depending on which priest or philosopher one converses with, the title of most important God falls on one or another of the Six. Sometimes it is said that there were originally four. These, in turn, gave Life its meaning, and this one did the same to Death in turn. In other accounts, Life is the source from which everything sprung forth. I dare not say which is true, if one is truer than the other, as their beliefs are exceedingly foreign to one such as me.

Does that mean that their existence is a falsehood, then?

Of course not. They are as true as our Sovereigns are, and just as true as the Gods from the Empire and the distant Kingdoms to the far east.

They all are, after all, a reflection of the reality we live and experience every day. Just like the Lord of the Sun and the Lady of the Moon represent in an idea of that which exists, so do the Gods of the Elements, of Life and Death, of Love and Hate, of War and Strife, of Prosperity and Tranquillity.

Which turns back to the earlier question, who is, then, the Nameless God?

As we established, the Gods are the manifestation in people's minds about the effects of the world. What idea, then, mortals can have that manifests into something that is almost completely unfathomable?

The answer is: none, as the Nameless God is not one from the minds of men.

Some clergymen when asked with this question resolve the issue stating that it's a dark being, tainted by demons or some other unholy precedence. I don't believe that to be the case, however.

The Nameless God doesn't seem to interact much with the world we see at large, or at least, as far as we can see.

But after passing long years studying all that there is to be known within the walls of this sacred Library, I think I finally reached a tentative answer to this question.

Is it a Deity of the Dragons, then? It is unlikely, as far as we know, they didn't give an idea an abstract entity, but they gave it to themselves, and so for each idea that there is, there was a Dragon Lord which corresponded to it.

No, the truth is, the Nameless God is not one of Man, but of the World at large.

Whether it is the creator of this world is unknown and ultimately irrelevant, or at least in our eyes.

What made me reach this decision, you ask?

As I said before, by rummaging through these vast archives. The knowledge from centuries upon centuries of great scholars and mages rests within these walls, even dating back to the times before the Heavenly Usurpers. Written upon the pages of uncountable tomes are things like the great deeds of historical figures or the spellcraft of powerful wizards, but more importantly, the accounts of the world itself.

It would surprise a great many of you to know that, for example, there is not even the slightest mention of the undead some four hundred years ago.

Or, that the seas to the west had receded dramatically in the last two centuries, leaving multitudes who depended on it to die of starvation, just as a whole Kingdom was drowned by it to the east.

That the land whereupon the City of the False Kings Eryuentiu sits now, wasn't always a dry, unforgiving desert. And like the powerful beings who once ruled the lands from there, there is no Kingdom that had existed forever. No, not even the Slanes as they proclaim, as they were also conquered by the Usurpers, however short that time had been.

It was then that I had realized the true nature of the Nameless God.

It is not, as it may have occurred to many of you that it is of Decay, or at least, not entirely. I have debated upon this topic with my fellow scribes, and after long days we agreed that there is something more behind such a mysterious deity.

And it is there where the nature of the Gods come into play – this Nameless God is one who governs an idea which scope no mortal could possibly fully comprehend, and was in turn, not represented from the ideas of Men, but of the Gods.

The Nameless God is, in a sense, the God of the Gods, reigning supreme upon something the Gods of the Mortals can't possibly control.

Weaved with the knowledge of the slow decay of the world as the centuries pass, suddenly the purpose of this slippery deity was clear.

Just as the Slanes have their Gods of Life and Death of Mortals, so there is a being whose sphere corresponds so something similar, yet different, at a scale that boggles the mind.

The Nameless God is one of few actions, but each of great consequence, as it is the one who brings a New World to fruition when an Old World spoils and starts to rot.

Just as Kingdoms rise and fall, only for others to take their place, Worlds prosper and perish all the same, though most of us mortals never see it come to pass.

The Nameless God then burns the decomposing mockery that the Old World becomes, until nothing but ashes remain – ashes from which a New World springs forth, not unlike the myth of the World Tree from Eryuentiu.

So the mystery of its nature is uncovered as the God of Ultimate Life and Death, the Great Supervisor, or the God of Ash or True Resurrection, whichever denomination you prefer, as they all amount to the same idea.

The origin of this Deity, however, is another matter.

Are they perhaps, the unified remnants of the Gods of the Previous World, or are they an entity that exists completely over the cycle?"

[...]

Extract on the Nature of the World by the Sage Adartos of the Great Library of Inveria.