Shroud Worship

"The Shrouds created the universe, whether they intended to or not. For an infinite amount of time they existed in this world, and without it. Every great creation done by the gods, every battle against good and evil, and every woe of each man is as ephemeral to the Shrouds as a spring breeze is to a mountain. They are as concerned with us as much as a blind man is concerned with the colors of a rainbow, or the position of the moon. Those who praise, wish upon or curse them are like gnats who offer droplets of water to a child who has spilled a glass. We, not they, are a mistake of nature, a fluke, a coincidence. We are the anomaly. They are not alien, we are simply too weak and too new to this world to grasp them."

-An excerpt from the Notes of The Beholder

The shrouds are mysterious beings that are believed to have been created, formed from primal forces, or arrived in the universe sometime during Prehistoria. Those who worship them believe they are in fact the progenitors of the universe, and all things in it.

Myth

"The city was bathed eternally in an approaching dusk, with overcast clouds. Such was the darkness [...] that the great pendulums(?) could not be seen unless one stood close to the towers of Na'andri. Of the twenty-two towers eight stood [...] not taller. The heavens could be seen for infinity in the right place, unmoving for eons at a time. The greatest jewel of the city was the Dome of [...] whose eyes saw in all directions of space and time. From each point in the city one could get to know themselves [sic] and achieve peace(?). Though the years of Zandrael were endless, the end of infinity had been reached, and [...] chorus of the age until the city had ended[sic]."

-Inscription of the Second Manos Stone, which gives an account of the mythical city of Zandrael

According to the mythology of the shrouds, they are beings that purely represent the fundamental forces of the universe. Either the forces themselves manifested into the Shrouds, or the Shrouds themselves created and live through those forces. Each Shroud is thought as being omnipresent and immanent through that force. Worshipers of the Shrouds believe that they intentionally or unintentionally created the universe. As enough time went by, they either worked together to create the world around them, or the interactions of the forces they embody passively crafted the universe, including the planes and the gods. As the more active and vocal gods took over, the Shrouds were slowly forgotten by the vast majority of creation.

Each Shroud is believed to have an opposite, which operates in a symmetric way to the other Shroud. This means that, though the total number of Shrouds is unknown, it is by these rules an even number. The most widely accepted number among scholars is eight, as it is a number mentioned repeatedly in the Notes of The Beholder, and all but one of the Manos Stones. The typical eight are composed of the Shrouds of Life & Death, Light & Dark, Space & Time, and Material & Physical. However, others have argued for ten, adding in Order & Entropy. Still others argue the need for more, with some saying there should be thirty to forty.

Some time after the creation of the universe, the Shrouds are believed to have created their holy city, or the closest thing to a holy city that is known. This city has been recorded as Zandrael, an ancient and bizarre city that holds within it monuments to the Shrouds. The most famous accounts come from both the Manos Stones and the Notes of The Beholder, though neither are externally or internally consistent. Little is known about where it could have existed or when it was built. In recent history Malik claims to have been from Zandrael, though he did not talk of the Shrouds.

The name, "shroud," is derived from both ancient artwork and primordial language of which the Shrouds are written in. From each account, they are written as, "beings of a mysterious, unknowable, and formless nature." What little art from Prehistoria that remains also depicts the Shrouds as beings with different colored cloaks or cloth wrapped over them, with no discernable features. Both of these has lead to the modern adoption of the term. Apart from their titles, each Shroud has no name.

Apart from Shroud worship, though related, is the Children of the Black Sun, who believed in and worship a deity known to them as Monolith. According to his worshipers, Monolith is the ultimate creator of the entire universe, and the Shrouds are merely aspects of him that will one day annihilate with one another to cause the universe to return to it's singular, homogenous state. Due to worship of Monolith being associated with the Shrouds and the Children of the Black Sun, his worship is almost entirely outlawed. Other Shroud worshipers see his inclusion as a complete contradiction of the philosophy and purpose of the Shrouds.