Lore/Story Twilight of the Ageless Battle

Orphion lies. The ancient deities of Light and Dark are immortal... but they are not invulnerable.

The two forces are deadlocked in a fight that neither can win. A battle in which one can cripple, but never truly defeat the other. An external force is required to tip the scales. In the case of the beast of Dern, may [?] name be forgotten, the crippling force came from the fact that The Eye was toppled near the entrance of [?] domain, blinding the "ancient seer", and stopping [?] from exerting [?] will. Orphion was crippled long before The Eye fell, having only recently been saved from being corrupted by a dark parasite.

But the truth is... they are not the true embodiments of Light and Dark.

Light anointed the ancient beast, an ascended aspect of nature, to become its face - Orphion, born from the cosmic forces of Light, became the leading figure, a god, of the forces he bears. His fatesworn nemesis, the beast of Dern, likewise was shrouded in the hadal darkness of the cosmos, bent on plunging all that stood in [?] path to darkness.

The two forces may clash, and never touch... but they can't truly defeat each other, either.

So long as they exist, the conflict between the two will exist. The primordial forces of Light and Dark cannot be stopped - only directed somewhere else. The two of them could not bear the cataclysmic annihilation of conflict within the planes of influence, so they directed their fury and animosity towards each other somewhere else: the Material Plane, where Wynn resides.

The conflict betwixt Light and Dark, spilling over to Wynn, is a cosmic disturbance. An anomaly. One that should've never happened, but did. And as a result of their direct conflict, the Abyss - a realm that lies between the planes of Existence and Influence - is starting to leak. The Nether is but a tiny fraction of the Abyss, the realm itself residing in a relative speck within that exerts an ancient, corrupting force that consumes the minds of those who enter, turning them into agents of entropy that threaten to burn all that exists and revert it to a state of chaos.

Their direct conflict has only served to stoke the furnace of Nether, through which the entropic Abyss can exert its will upon the weak minded mortals. Bak'al was one such casualty, who surrendered his life to become an agent of chaos, affiliating himself with the Dern Beast, in order to act as [?] eyes and ears in the material plane. His allegiance may be to Dern, but his true loyalties remain questionable in regards to the showdown that happens before the eyes of the mortals, yet lies hidden under their sight.

To understand this conflict, is to understand the necessity to stop the ancient forces' clash. And to stop this clash, one must first understand the power of the four crystals, representing the four cardinal aspects of cosmos. Together, they grant limitless cosmic power, but it also makes them susceptible to the corrupting Abyss, threatening to consume their minds, reducing them to a mindless beast (if Amadel's demise is any indication). A fifth crystal, hidden deep within the heart of a by-gone society, was erected by Wynn itself, to dampen the cosmic powers of the crystals, but also siphoning the souls of those who dared touch them, making them bereft of life in an instant.

The crystals hold incredible power. To unlock their potential, one must first see the greater picture. Only then... will the mortals stand a chance at stopping the conflict eternal.

In 4 AP, I recall that a prophet said "a young person, from the home of humans, shall be the great arbiter of the ancient deities of Light and Dark, to stop the relentless conflict between the two, and to avert the world ending cataclysm that follows in their wake". To this day, I have never gotten my head around who could that person be... until I found them.

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As is the norm, this serves as a brain dump and a bit of lore excerpt for later use for a giga-project I'm working on. Take from this what you will - none of this is canon.

*[?] - *insert pronoun here*
I'm deliberately keeping the Dern Beast's pronouns hidden due to a lack of confirmation regarding gender.

 

To reiterate:

• The cosmic disturbance itself is referred to as "an anomaly" - The Nameless Anomaly is nowhere mentioned in this text.
• betwixt (Cambridge Dictionary)
• Dern Beast is not referred to with any pronouns, "them" refers to the player.

As mentioned, since this is a tease for a mega-suggestion I'm working on, the player will also play a big role in the events.