Tomes of Chalanna

The Bedrock of the Holy See's Religion and Aims to Preserve the Great Dance

Written by David_Ulph

Saint Chalanna, blessed be his name, departed this Mortal Realm leaving more questions than answers. His unrecoverable death occurring mere days after his final work was completed must not be overlooked as mere coincidence. The entire life of one who bears the Crown of Thorns is significant, down to the minute detail. This is how Fate works in mysterious ways.
His final piece. "Destiny". A painting which hangs in the splendour of Helden and shows a Great Shadow ascending from the darkness and into light. In this darkness, one can make out the husks of the Gods, the Dragons, and the Archfey, devoured and empty. The Shadow is not one colour, it is split down the middle one side white and the other black. In the hand of the black half, the Shadow holds an orb of white and the opposite in the white half. There is light in darkness, and darkness in light.

— On the Saint of the Holy See

Introduction

THIS ARTICLE IS HEAVILY WIP. In terms of Article, we have no Article

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Well, not fully right now. The Tomes are collections of short stories that for most I just have the skeleton notes for or just a vague idea. The Third Tome was always going to feature the end of the world that already happened but in the future (yeah, Chalanna's story is.. weird, very timey wimey, and I apologise for not developing him just yet) concerning the battle between Celestials and Fiends on the Mortal Realm and the collapse of all reality with only a Nightmare remaining. Whenever I flesh out the other Tomes, or change/add to the Third Tome I'll make the article private then ping it again. Please, enjoy the first written one of my apocalypses! (it is written in the read document section, below is the context and in-world commentary)

First Tome

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Second Tome

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Third Tome

The Third Tome describes the events of the Great Dance from a different perspective during the Great Collapse. It goes on to describe after the point in which time was supposedly reset into the current timeline of the Realms. The Holy See draw upon this Third Tome to strike divine fear into the faithful, to warn all inhabitants of this Mortal Realm to fear the end. To fear the outcome that will most certainly be repeated if Saint Chalanna's Holy See are unsuccessful in saving the Great Dance as intended.

It's true author is unknown, and is not attributed to Chalanna himself. In one tale, the Crown-Bearing Chalanna made a solitary expedition along the Silver Mountains in order to find the holiest artefact required to complete his plan for the future; the Wheel of Fortune. Throughout this journey, on four trials spoken of in the Second Tome as a means to describe the troubles which will arrive in the future, Chalanna uncovers a scroll at the end of each. If there was any knowledge of who wrote these scrolls, and left them on the Mortal Realm, Chalanna does not describe in any of his known works. Some believe perhaps Chalanna's final work, the painting known simply as Destiny holds the true answer to this query somewhere.

The Wounded Hand

The "sign of the Wounded Hand" creates many schools of thought within the Holy See. Between those who view it as a sign of the end to come, that there is no hope in going back, or something consisting of a completely different metaphysical view.

Those who claim it will be a new constellation in the stars placed by the Sleeping God when it ascends as a mark of the Great Collapse. Those who state is simply the symbol worn by those who bring about this end. Those most faithful to the Pontifex Maximus within the organisation of the Holy See have criticised their opposition faction led by the Archbishop of Doldrei.

This faction wears the symbol in a view that they must take any and all action to prevent this outcome even if it causes the end of the Holy See itself. The Helden Loyalists claim their instigations of violence will break apart the See and the ensuing rift would lead directly to this apocalypse.

The Sleeping God

The Sleeping God is mentioned extensively throughout the Third Tome, and has led to much belief that it may be connected to the Nightmares all on the Mortal Realm have been suffering from recently. The Doldrei Orthodox Faction claim the Nightmare will feast until it is full and only then will rise up as depicted in "Destiny", leading to the end of the Great Dance.

Twisted Tree

The Twisted Tree once again appears in this Tome as it has in almost every other Tome. Its description often changes, such as in this Tome it is supposedly bleeding but provides more description of the Great Owl which roosts atop it than the Tree itself. The sense that being in the presence of the Tree allows someone to recall or retain the knowledge of the previous timeline, and therefore explaining the existence of the scrolls has led to the frantic search of this tree.

While the Holy See internally argues this, the best held theory is the Twisted Tree sits at the heart of the Ironwood due to many raiding Wood Elves leaving the forest wearing effigies of this Tome's description of the Great Owl.

Fourth Tome

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Fifth Tome

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Read the Document

Tomes of Chalanna

Third Tome of Chalanna

First Scroll

...but in those days the Great Dance seemed to be dying. Holy men proclaimed doom, the Gods' displeasure with the sullied ways of all who crawled upon the Mortal Realm.

On the last night of the world, the shroud covering the sky broke. For a brief time we could see stars again. It seemed like ages since last the night shone like that. There we stood, under the sign of the Wounded Hand. The sky cracked open and flooded the land with tears of light and fire. None survived unchanged. The Great Sorrow had arrived, and the Realm was bathed in chaos.

The smoke and screams still haunt me. Every city was visited, gnashing teeth and crimson robes inseparable from the smoke and screams that filled the Realm. The procession of red-robed angels filed back, the droning bell toll turning their return into a funeral march; thinner maybe because some of those below had fought valiantly, but more likely because of those that stayed to watch the Great Dance unfold. In the times following this glorious sundering, new abominations spread in the Realm. The solid barrier between Mortis and Magus had grown ragged, and upon the Mortal Realm there came horrors what none had ever before seen.

Some said that the north was eaten by the coiling void, its jaw dislocating from Nivuk to devour more and more land, the great weald and wold of the northern expanse vanished and occupied only by wind and ghosts. Some said that in the south a feral current had struck through the wilderness there, that the black earth had become strange and the animals unfamiliar. The Realm was forever changed, as were those in it. The veil was rent and holy men heard Gods again, terrible and awesome.

Second Scroll

The Realm was dying then, I know that much now, and in these old bones I craved the same. I spent my days staring into the forest, that howling green abyss, of ancient monuments to the God-That-Slept. I saw things there, moving in the mist. In the outer reaches where the sky still sometimes showed through the canopy, I would find marks of humanity; crumbling cabins occupied by boars and ghosts.

Back home, there were rumours. Humans with animal masks, worshipping the Sleeping God, hanging entrails from branches by the light of bonfires. A distant sound, like church bells, echoed through the branches and I pushed deeper into the trees, away from that dreadful sky. For the first time I saw the woods stir in their slumber, and behind me, silhouetted against the sickly light, the beasts of the wood watched me with new eyes.

In the heart of the woods I found the Twisted Tree. The Twisted Tree bled and a great, watching owl roosted upon it, four eyes and three faces screaming in unison to shake the woods awake. All above we howled in our final extremity and below howled the God-No-Longer-Dreaming, and in that conflagration all perished and all were born again. They stood before us, vague and bestial in the haze, towering among the trees. They spoke in a language of grinding stone and cracking wood, and they told us of their dream, of blood and black earth.

Third Scroll

Once there was a king, and like many kings before him he had become quite mad. Most kings had at this time, and the people by and large assumed it was the normal state of kings to scream at empty suits of armour in the small hours of the morning. In their madness these kings ushered forward an age of sharpened axes and splintered shields.

His name was *~*~*~. If any of his compatriots had lived long enough to grant him an epithet they would have called him "the Tired." The flags were up, and the thread broke, men and horses pounded screaming into bloody combat as arrows flocked overhead. As quickly as the battle had begun it was over, as this small field and the lands beyond it were awash in golden flame. None survived, and the battlefield was transformed in that moment into a mass grave with none to mourn or sing canticles for the dead.

The Tired rose up under stars. The field around him was black, encrusted with burnt bones and charred armour. He came slowly to his feet, shaking off the detritus which had been soldiers, comrades and foes alike. On a hill overlooking the field stood a small chapel. It had been spared by the flames, by what divine provenance none could say, especially now because everyone was dead. At the altar the Tired stood before a statue, a blindfolded woman with arms outstretched in beckoning warmth. The closer he drew, the heavier his body felt, his bones dragging forward into the stone embrace. He let himself settle into those arms. The day had been long, and he wanted so very much to sleep. And sleep he did, n the arms of the woman wearing the Crown of Thorns.

Fourth Scroll

Though the Gods be unknowable in their motivations, though their purposes be obscured, we are shielded. The intermediary of the Church's Body grants us refuge upon the road. Walk in faith, knowing that with you, silently, walk the watching red-robed angels, who relinquished the Heavenly Realm to stay by our side.

The dwellers in those ruins are afraid of all in the Great Dance, worshipping at primitive shrines where the first angels of our Lords roosted and ate and defecated upon the land. Those who abide upon this frontier are feral and unfamiliar, and even the villages reek of wilderness. Tarry not among those boughs, the angels do not tread there. Mile after mile of gravesteads, catacombs piled upon one another, this land belongs to all the faithful who have fallen to dust.

In this land the great thrones reside, and ye will travel to those churches built to house vessels of the gods. The first throne itself still stands, where was called upon us our reckoning. The dwellers in the gulf range there, in spaces vaster than our world can hold, in great rivers of time and thought! In that place be anointed for thy pilgrimage, though it may never end.

For all roads onward, ye will walk with the illumination of the black gulf. Though thy path lead even through death, thou shalt never perish. Messengers of the New Aether have been known to materialize spontaneously among groups of wretched ascetics. As such, in some places the land is pocked with enclaves of such mendicants who spend all of their time wailing and not washing themselves.

When the trees bleed on the black earth, the dreadful gods draw near. The holy men of the woods invoke their bestial names that they may gain transformation. The dreadful New Gods. The Spawn of the God-Who-Has-Awoken.

Close

Type

Manuscript, Religious

Medium

Papyrus

Biblio-Codex

When the Serpent meets the Crown, the Great Beast will rise. Churches will be ablaze, graves that never were asleep will rise, all craving to be deemed worthy of His cardinal gaze.