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CONTENT WARNINGS: UNREALITY, POSSIBLY VISUALLY JARRING TRANSITIONS
I do not know who you are, nor why you seek the knowledge contained in this most private of tomes. I can only hope you choose to use it for the furthering of my personal mission.If you are reading this, I am dead, and my line has died with me. This is my only legacy, the only remnant of me that will exist in Spyre is this story, and I beseech you, seeker of knowledges forbidden and arcane, to read it fully, even if it teaches you nothing.
once upon a time, there was a family, and the family was devoted to the night. for generations, those born to parents of the line took up the mantle of guardian of the night and knight of the shadows and we were proud to lead our goddess's worship. there was no greater honor and there never will be.once upon a time, our goddess left us and she left us with nothing.it pains me that even the memory of her love for us is gone to me. the only reason i know it ever existed is the hole it's left behind in its perfect outline, deep in my chest. all i can do is continue to perform the rituals that i remember my mother performing, and her mother before her. the last time i managed to successfully complete one, a fragment of our goddess's power came to me and spoke to me, just as she did my great-grandmother and my ancestors before her. I can only take this as a sign that our goddess yet lives, and it is my duty as her final follower, the savior of her worship, to do as her fragment commands and spread her essence to as much of Spyre as I can.Sylvaire will call me traitor, blasphemer, the moon's most disgraced. History may call me revolutionary, rebel, or whatever else it wishes to paint me as. I care not. All I care for is the return of my goddess.
A TREATISE ON SPYRE'S FORGOTTEN GOD AND MAGIC
A dissertation submitted to the Department of Conjuration
Fallinel University of Arcane Arts
In Partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of ArcanumAbstract: The existence of the gods of Spyre is uncontested, for who can contest the existence of beings that truly speak through their followers and mold the earth through their whims? The gods are known to be as petty as they are powerful, bending our Material Plane from their Divine ones in order to most support their followers, rather than for any purpose that could cosmically be deemed Good. Many gods' followers ascertain that their gods are powered by a widespread belief in them, both from those who follow any particular gods' practices and from those who might read a piece of divine literature for entertainment. The question remains: what is the impact of a god who has been forgotten? Some clerics would say that there could be no greater horror, but historically such an incident must have happened, whether through purposeful neglect or some sort of crusade against a body of worship. To pursue this line of inquiry, I believe I have uncovered the last remaining traces of a goddess once worshiped in Sylvaire who has since fallen out of common knowledge. Though her name remains lost to history, some of what her followers once practiced is still recorded in a few remaining artifacts.In the following dissertation, I will discuss the ancient practices of the followers of the as of now Unnamed Goddess and explore the rituals that she once instructed her following to perform at every new moon and eclipse. I will tie the current knowledge of lunar and syzygial rituals to the known potency of these ancient rites and break down the arcane processes that powered them, as well as proposing some revisions to rituals currently practiced by followers of Galicaea through the knowledge gained by these analyses.
COMMITTEE NOTE: This dissertation was rejected on the grounds of being based on knowledge forbidden by Sylvaire's Court of Elders. Where Candidate Abernant found the data included in this is a mystery to the board reviewing this submission, but as it stands we cannot state that the included materials are anything more than conjecture without consequence to Fallinel as a country. Perhaps the most troubling is the inclusion of an interview with someone allegedly still attached to the "Unnamed Goddess" posited here, a figure that has never been documented before. Candidate Abernant has been asked to begin a new course of study, and this document is to be summarily destroyed under purview of the Departments of Evocation and Abjuration.
[AUDIO STARTS]This is Agent Gukgak, recording at twenty-three thirty-seven and-- honestly, I don't know if I'm going to be able to submit this at all. It's not like anything actually happened, but-- I don't know. Something strange happened, something not actually strange enough to report. But it happened, and I'm led to believe it's evidence for a case I won't touch with a ten-foot pole, so I might as well document it for whatever investigator is braver than I'll ever be.I've known Agent Shadowcat for two months now, and I thought I knew her as well as I ever would. She's a strange agent: loyal to herself over Fallinel, known to almost none despite her contributions to the safety of her country, and uncaring of what little reputation she has despite how prideful she is.But-- she's been. Not weirder, per se, but acting much more erratically than before. Lately, I've seen her staring at the night sky during the new moon, and while that by itself isn't really strange, I don't think she sleeps on those nights. And I've caught her staring through me, as if I'm made of glass, and it frightened me. I don't say those words lightly. And now that I'm saying all of this, it feels so-- stupid, I guess. None of this would be a red flag if it wasn't Agent Shadowcat, and that's not fair to her but I can't shake the feeling that something's wrong.I don't know. I haven't told Kalina that I'm having a kid yet, but it feels like she already knows, somehow. She always just seems to know things that I haven't yet told her. Earlier today, she stared at the stars and told me life should say when it's going to go to shit, and all I could think about was Sklonda, at home, waiting for me. I don't think it was a threat. Maybe it was.I've just been rambling, haven't I. Maybe I'll just delete this recording. It's probably nothing.[AUDIO ENDS]
This is so fucking weird. I haven't directly prayed in years, and I'm doing it now that I'm more unsure of my faith in you than I ever have been. I don't even know if you'll hear me, saying all of this, blatantly thumbing most of your followers.Kristen told me that gods are what we make of them, that what I think of you directly impacts who you are to the world. I get it, I think. I'm not fucking stupid. But it's-- it doesn't feel natural, y'know, to say that just because I think you are like me, and I like me, that you. y'know, actually are like me. A lesbian. A werewolf. A symbol for a group of people seeking empowerment in something. I dunno.This religion shit is hard. This was so much fucking easier when I could just think of you as the moon, y'know. Some untouchable shit.I've met so many of your shithead elven followers on this-- I guess it's a mission, huh? I'd hate for it to be that; that's the kind of thing Helio would ask his fratboy dickhead followers to do, but here I am, going around to all of the people who used to worship the moon but not the full moon's beauty the way your worship has turned into and persuading them that you're more than a shallow self-hating mess. It's not working, by the way. They're all still being huge dicks about it.... I know about your sister. I know what you did to her. I know what it turned her into. I saw what she did because she was forsaken, because her followers stopped seeing her. And as much as I hate you, I can't let that happen to you.For the longest time, you were some lynchpin of stability for me. Now, I don't know. I don't know how to un-become your follower. But I don't know how I would become your follower if I found you now. I'm trying to figure it out. Maybe that's all I need to do.So it is said, amen, and all that bullshit.
(it's one thing if fucked up shit happens because my friends are hurt and i chose to let fucked up shit happen to me. but it just happened. and it happened to them too, but why did it happen to me? what did i do?)(i don't know honey. i'm sorry.)
» hey, kid.
» don't hey, kid me
» ha. prickly, aren't you?
» oh, you know it
» are you shaking?
» shut up
» what's wrong?
» shut UP
» oh, are you scared? are you scared of me, kid?
» i'm not scared of you. i've never been scared of you.
» i should hope not. i am you, after all.
» what?
» oh, you can't think that the voice in your head is someone else just because you've never had a voice before. no one's just born with voices in their heads.
» no. no. i don't recognize your voice, and brains can only copy what they already know. they can't create new identities.
» that's faces, kid. the thing that all of the people you see in your dreams are people you've seen before in real life. that's nothing on voices. mortality's always been good at coming up with voices.
» ...
» ohhhh, you're shaking now, aren't you?
» ........
» c'mon kid, where's that fighting spirit of yours? please, enlighten me: prove to me how i'm not just a voice you've made up to personify your deepest, darkest secrets.
» ............
» well?
» ............ i can't do that.
» it's okay, kid, we can't be right all of the time.
» no, it's not that i don't think you're something besides just a voice in my head, just-- i can't prove it. and i can't think of how to prove it.
» you're a stubborn little fuck, huh.
» see, that! that's not something i'd say
» who's to say the voices in your head have to sound like you do?
» i say that. it makes you far more foreign. it turns you into someone else that's somehow in my brain, someone i don't recognize
» you don't recognize me, little detective? surely i'm not so unknown to you. i've known you since you were young, since you were born, since you weren't even a thought in your parents' heads. i've known your dreams, i've known your desires, and i've known your pains and hatreds and angers. i am more you than you are yourself, and you eschew me.
» get out of my head.
» if only i could, little detective. if only i could.
» get the FUCK out of my HEAD.
» ooh, profanity? who taught you that?
» what do you even want from me?
» what do i want from you, specifically, riz gukgak? nothing. absolutely nothing. you have nothing to lose and everything to gain from me being here.
» so you admit it! you admit that you're not just a voice in my head!
» so clever and yet so short-sighted! you really are your parents' kid. i really am just a voice in your head, and i have been here from the moment you were born and i will be here until you die. i will see who you become and i will see if you become something more than what people expect from little goblin know-it-alls from some random corner of Elmville. moreover, i have seen and will see every little corner of your mind until i could replicate you, word for word, mannerism for mannerism.
» ...what does that mean?
» it means... well, your friends are quite adorable.
» leave my friends alone.
» oh, i could do that, i definitely could, but that wouldn't be quite as fun, now would it?
» don't you dare
» i'll see you around, kid.
read between the lines,
for if there is one thing that life should say, it is that
there is no no greater honor than being the final remnant of something larger
and no greater horror than being undone by that which you are.
it is one thing to become. it is another to un-become. and though i mourn tonight, perhaps tomorrow i will become once more.
*end.
*
First and foremost, a big thank you to Sam, Eames, and August for running the d20 zine jam! It's been amazing watching so many projects start from nothing and become something all in the span of just a single month. If you'd like to see the other zines created for this event, please check it out here.Secondly, a big thank you to the cast of Dimension20 for creating a character that I have loved for so many years now. Kalina's story has always been fascinating to me, primarily her transformation of familiar to plague, a friend to an anathema. It's been so much fun creating this for the sheer purpose of thinking about who Kalina is to a much deeper scale than I already had, and I hope some of my love for her has imparted itself onto you.And finally, thank you for checking out this zine and getting to the very end. I know it's a weird one, not just for the choice of medium, and I hope seeing something as bizarre as a zine made with Carrd has at least made you consider making something buckwild for yourself. It's been a really fun process of using all of the tools Carrd provides that I might otherwise have never touched!I hope you've enjoyed READBETWEENTHELINES as much as I've enjoyed making it.All the best, Eren (@chromathesia on Twitter + Tumblr)