Okay, a new project. We're going to start collecting and piecing together the Lore of Haldon. It won't help us until we each individually have every piece, but I want to see what the whole thing looks like and everyone can help. Post your fragments of lore, together with their number, and we can see what we get.
1 - I sit to write this, Haldos the Deathless, Haldos the Diseased, A Great Recording of my experiences and Testament to my Power, I, who have challenged Death Itself and Have Struggled Through.
2 - Read Deep and Learn Well, for great power awaits he who can unlock the secrets I keep within my writings.
3 - CONCERNING THE ELDER POWERS AND THE STRUGGLE THEY PURSUE
4 - Argument: The Powers are Nine in Number and are the Great Custodians of Existence. They are the Eldest, but not the eldest, for time is slippery. They are not eternal and have both a Beginning and an End.
5 - Once there was the Maker, that whom fools call 'god'. (a more inept description i cannot fathom for the maker thinks not of what he makes, no more than i lend thought to the sweat i produced in life)
6 - The Maker is Eternal Without Beginning or End, and the Maker is its own Reason For Being. Being Eternal, it sleeps in an unbroken harmony, assured of its own existence
7 - (those of us who sense the passage of time are forever denied this unreasoned and cold peace, forever fighting with who we were and who we will become)
8 - The Maker creates and destroys universes as single breaths, both creator and destroyer, never aware, never caring.
9 - From the Maker's mighty lungs flow the Wind of Creation and Chaos. But this Chaos stuff does not remain Chaos; nay; it quickly cools into existence, only to eventually burn itself out in a great conflaguration. It can be shaped.
10 - The Powers are extensions of The Maker. They are the Pneuma, the Breath of the Maker, and they are the Maker's schizophrenia, aspects of an Eternal, Self-Aware Dream. They have taken upon themselves the Roles of shepherds for the Universe and Yet they cannot Agree. The Elders Number Nine, and they are named
11 - Marquai the Constructor, Time's Keeper
12 - Alonai, She-Who-Walks-With-Grace, Love and Innocence made flesh
13 - Agh-za-Haru the insane, Lord of Nightmares
14 - Namm the Vigilant, Guardian of the Weak, Lord of Law
15 - Tholaghru the Gnasher, Master of Chaos, Destruction and Disease
16 - Hashaa, Record Keeper, Death Incarnate
17 - Tlacolotl the Violent, Master of Hatred
18 - Goros the Gatekeeper, the Runner, he who creates and drives all things physical
19 - Baraas the Laughing, who creates societies
20 - Wherein lies the Roots of the Great Struggle? I know not; my Master would reveal nothing of this Time in his Violent Glory.
21 - They are Capricious entities, and Greedy (but what True Power is not? The Truly Powerful seek and take power whereever it may be found).
22 - So perhaps it is nothing more than greed that fuels this fire? I think not; Tholaghru is incapable of understanding the power he weilds, Alonai cares more for ants than cosmic might.
23 - Argument: The Nine Powers represent spokes of the Greater Consciousness. They are in conflict, though to my eyes now it appears this conflict carries no more weight with them than a game of dice.
24 - They play dice with the universe, scoring points, perhaps, the more times their particular ethos drives ascendency in the Nexal Struggle.
25 - Argument: When the Breath is Expended, the Next Universe awaits. The Elder Powers then force the Nexal Conflict to determine who has the honor of (and power inherent in) Guiding the Next Breath.
26 - I believe that the Midwife gains Cosmic power throughout the Lifetime of a Universe. Thus, they seek to both give birth to as many as possible as well as extending the time that their Own Universes float In the Eternal Dream.
27 - The Black Three, Tholagru, Tlacolotl, Ahg-za-haru - they are inept. A universe born by their hands is a stunted and deformed thing, quick to burn out and die. But they are victors most often in the struggle.
28 - My Master revealed to me that the previous Victor starts Ascendant in the Nexal War, a privilege of advantage. In my Time, my Nexal Struggle, we birth as stilted, deformed things, gibbering with poisoned mouths - Children of Tholagru - how I hated that form, (and thus my effervescent struggle towards a far less loathesome corporeal existence). Master was Amused. He cares not for form, only function. And blood.
29 - Argument: From this I determined that Chaos is Not the Dominant Factor in the Nexal Birth. There were Rules. And if there were Rules, they could be Broken. Further, I reason, The Nine Can Be Destroyed.
30 - CONCERNING THE LOST THREE
31 - Argument: I have determined that there were once a total of Twelve Powers but that Three are now Consigned to Oblivion, destroyed or forgotten. At least, Evidence suggests.
32 - The Deciever and Corruptor, Azazel, in all his glorious hatred was destroyed, was thrown by some deep Magicks through the Core of Stygia. Where he fell, on a chasm remains, a Ruin that Smoked for a Thousand Years.
33 - Of the other two, I know not what fate befell them. Perhaps they were absorbed back into the Breath? I do not know, and my Master did not Elaborate.
34 - CONCERNING THE NEXUS AND THE PURGATORIO
35 - Argument: The 'Nexus' floats outside of the existence that is normally experienced by mortals through the senses, though sometimes they will cross into that Valhalla in dreamtime. Examinations into its origin are circular. The Nexus existed before, after, and during, and yet in all timestreams fails. It is tied to the Great Cycle and Struggle, which I have managed to move beyond. (What dark and pitiful machinations the Powers play at when the answer to the conflict lies bleeding before them)
36 - The central nexal plane is and always has been the Battlefield which I call Valhalla. However, despite its lynchpin nature the Powers see fit to reshape and remold the land over each iteration of the Great Struggle while The Core Planes remain constant.
37 - Evidence suggests that The Purgatorio was perhaps Once a Battlefield, or several Battlefields, now forgotten, though I cannot discern era or age. Some elements are perhaps pulled from some unforseen, yet-to-be-born future era. It is of no matter now - only the endless, howling void and floating rock surround me.
38 - Argument: The Purgatorio is dying; that much is obvious, though some dread and powerful surgeon (Marquai?) has made an attempt at tying it together.
39 - How successful this remains in future aeons is indeterminate; in fact, I do not know for how many more Breathes the Borders will exist. Portals open and close daily on the rock.
40 - Argument: The Nexus Planes Remain during Times of Universal Breath. This I know; my Struggle Time has ended, Death Ascendant, Hashaa victorious.
41 - Through links in the Deadlands I can see through to the Mortal Realms. Through my Power I have Remained while All others Have ground to Dust. This shall be a short-lived (deathed) Breath.
42 - Is there a way for me to return to the mortal realms? I do not know. The Death Servitors are certainly capable of it - flitting here and there through the dustland, ferrying souls for use in the next war. I have yet to determine their method of planar locomotion, however.
43 - CONCERNING STYGIA
44 - Argument: Stygia is the Back of the Gnasher, a vile landscape of Hate and Iron and Rust populated by the mechanist Juggernaut Army. It has a deep history preserved by the cold of its hate and memory of betrayal, a history which sears to the soul of lesser beings
45 - My Master spoke to me once, saying that before the fall of Azazel, Stygia was a land of smoking volcanoes and lakes of Fire. However, after he was thrown down, the force of his hatred spoiled the land, cooling it to the temperature of his heart. Now it is a frozen waste. Recent travels there have shown me that the once mighty Juggernauts are standing idle, their joints frozen. Many have begun to crumble into rust.
46 - CONCERNING PARADISE
47 - Argument: The fields of Xanadu, or Paradise, are the home of those who believe that the Morality of Men should be Shackled to the Betterment of Society. They have obscure codes, these winged angels. They are full of Grace in Step and Power in Action, but Poison in Ideal.
48 - For while Alonai and her sycophants curse Tlacolotl and his Lot's desire to Enslave openly, they would Ensure Compliance to Good just as readily.
49 - However, despite their faults, it is to the credit of the Good Powers that their tactics of co-operation have led to a greater overall power - if one measures power per individual.
50 - A great percentage of the Good Powers is spent maintaining the lushness of Xanadu. The land is populated with quaint cottages and small villages, all empty.
Waiting. Waiting for what, I wonder? Do the fools believe that someday a host of cows will come to populate the fields and eat of the grasses, tended by mindless, eternally happy citizens who never speak a negative word?
