Only your vigil remains...

[ouldrith]

We must reach for the sword at the Heart of Oblivion and become the Fear that the beasts do not yet possess.

—Liturgy written in blood

[ouldrith]

Let crow fly,

Let dog howl,

When even the worm has fled,

You’d do well to follow.

—Old Proverb

[ouldrith]

On marksman training: Seek not the greatest hand, but the wisest teacher.

—Manual of Elegant Violence

[ouldrith]

“The night consumes. Grip the edge of twilight, gaze at the failing of light—but we all fall in the end. Try not to worry yourself so...

—Honest Pith, Merchant of Drowned Arden

[ouldrith]

The wolf and the hound are nothing but a chain apart.

Desire then, is a curse of the free.

—Vicar Ariandore

[ouldrith]

Pray not to any God, for even adrift, they may yet hear you. Seek not their mercies, any more than one might seek warmth from the wildfire.

—Mathis the Perceived

[ouldrith]

Man and beast are both formed in the dark solitude of impenetrable waters. What terrors the vast Deep must collect then, where neither can be seen, yet both are at once.

—Page of a sodden diary

[ouldrith]

What Road wept you here, Vigil Keeper?

From whence did you come, and are you still more than a thing that has walked for a brutally long time?

[ouldrith]

Desolation is not empty. I have seen the hollowing of nations; the broken can be beautiful, the unfinished can be romantic.

That which is destroyed is art.

—Page torn from a journal

[ouldrith]

Saint Stanislaus cut out his own heart after the Battle of Tiernal and threw it into the lake where so many of his soldiers drowned.

Even now the waters heave with each beat of his bloodless organ.

—Page torn from a journal

[ouldrith]

Look how the blood beats around this city. Enough to slip in, to wallow in—but not enough see.

—Whispers from beneath the streets

[ouldrith]

Burn soldier, burn spire

revel in the fire

the rats go leaping

the crows cry woes’thee!

Burn pilgrim, burn saint

hearts grow faint

the rats go leaping

the crows cry woes’thee...

—Fragment of a nursery rhyme

[ouldrith]

The railways of Ouldrith wind around the jagged landscape like wrought iron sigils burnt into the stone.

Screaming locomotives arrive when they will, and only those at the brink of desperation willingly ride to their unknown destination.

—Page torn from a journal

[ouldrith]

Beast is a title earned in blood. Beware, for a beast may yet be beautiful.

—Scrawled note

[ouldrith]

Terrors do not wait

your soul agape

pours venom

and you, the fool

tread such foul waters

willingly.

—Old verse

[ouldrith]

The discarded dogs of bombed streets sleep where witches are buried. That’s how a man may know. A living witch, the vile thing, is a mystery, and judgement fulfilled only after the execution is through. So we must end all we can, to keep that which remains safe from the vicious whispers of the bestial.

—Speech of Warden Kamillra

[ouldrith]

The rose is the augur of priests above all others, regardless of their calling. Beauty marred with thorns. Beauty, that withers when taken for petty display. Willingly do the holy bleed, hands clenched around dark, hungry stems.

—Ethanodes, 25:03