People have talked about the 'return of the gods' since the birth of Oriath. It's a gambit, employed by charlatans to fleece the weak minded and morally desperate.

Or so it seemed.

Avarius and his Templar drones now greet the dawn filled with power and glorious purpose. Kitava has risen from whatever ethereal cesspit he's been hiding in for the last few millennia.

So what let the cats out of their proverbial bags? I'm a scholar, not a prophet, yet there's one occurrence that absolutely reeks with evidential causality.

You killed the Beast.

I shall put this simply, for in truth, everything comes down to the simple act of planting a seed in the ground. The gods are rising because you slew the one creature that prevented them from doing so. Your name for it is "The Beast."

It was I who planted the seed in the rich soil beneath Highgate, who nurtured it, who watched it bloom into maturity, even as I succumbed to its mollifying powers. We gods, we were driven into slumbering darkness, to dream away eternity whilst the gentle Beast watched over us.

I would desire that we return to that blissful state, but my brothers and sisters of deism shall never submit to banishment. They have tasted freedom once more and they shall not let go of this world until it is pried from their cold, dead hands.

Old red eyes. He's been quiet for a long time. Just like Kitava... and Tukohama. All of the old gods. Now Innocence has woken up, and with him, power like I've never seen the Templar wield before.

It's alright though. We slaves, we've got our own god looking out for us now. I can see him in the eyes of my brothers and sisters, smell him in the blood we've spilled, hear his call in the screams of the fallen.

I don't rightly know where the gods have been or what's brought them crawling back. Nor do I really care. All I need to know, my friend, is that we're not alone anymore.

Well... I know his other names. The Black Spirit. The Cannibal King. The Ravenous One. He was all of those things, before Tukohama slashed out his eyes, before Valako drowned him in the sea, before Hinekora whipped him and condemned him to immortal darkness.

Kitava has learned from the suffering inflicted upon him. Learned what cruelty is from his own flesh and blood. Learned what it means to be a slave.

Now he hungers for freedom. Not merely for himself. For all of us who have suffered under whip and shackle.

Kitava is the Tormented One, destined to rise up from the darkness and banish cruelty from this world. And we, his children, rise with him.

The time nears. At the appointed hour, I will open the gates... all the gates.

You really don't have a strong grip on cause and effect, do you. Things replace other things, it's the most fundamental of laws. The larger the thing you remove, the bigger the rush to fill the space it's left behind.

Innocence was the nexus of power in Oriath. Remove him and something of equal or greater power was always going to take his spot. Any idiot could have predicted that Kitava was going to be that something... unless, of course, you thought it was going to be you.

Relish hunger, dear faithful. For hunger is the one true state of spiritual abundance. When one is hungry, they desire more, and therefore align themselves with the will of the mighty Kitava. Beware, my followers, of the satisfied man, for he is the very pattern and image of blasphemy.
- The Holy Book of Hunger by High Priest Utula

This is how it shall end. Kitava will rise, and a great cloud of black smoke will cover the sky. The glorious smell of cooking flesh shall entice even the most ardent of unbelievers to the faith, and together we will celebrate and eat at Kitava's table.
- The Holy Book of Hunger by High Priest Utula

I'd not believe you if I had not witnessed the boats lurching onto the shores of Wraeclast myself. So... The gods have returned, and Oriath has fallen. This complicates things, to say the least.

Exile, I believe the Syndicate has been planning to form a new government. The Templar were cruel, but at least they were mortal. If the Syndicate's power continues to grow, they will be able to rule Wraeclast and beyond without fear of reprisal, and we mere mortals will have no choice but to serve, or fuel their cycle of death and rebirth.

With Kitava now stomping around Oriath, it seems mythology is fast turning into reality.

Then again, the gods didn't just spring out of some poet's head. I certainly couldn't pen an ode to the God of Eternally Flowing Ale and then just stick me mug out to catch the free brew.

No, I imagine the gods once dined, danced and defecated just like you or I. Now they seem ready to take another stab at it... at life, I mean.

Take the Karui Father of War, for instance. Old Tukohama. All comfily tucked up in Kaom's holdfast and playing war like a few thousand years was only a quiet weekend for him.

Come to think of it... perhaps it was!

Seems Tukohama's raised up a host out of whatever afterlife the Karui believe in. I feel for those poor bastards, if I'm to be honest. The Karui haven't had an easy history. Colonised, enslaved, used as pawns in many a war, and now abused in death by their own bloody god.

This is why I don't follow any deity. They're all as bad as each other.

Though I know little of my natural heritage, I know enough to understand the implications of your victory against the Karui God of War. Did his long slumber weaken him, or have the gods been greatly exaggerated through the evolution of myths? In either case, this undoubtedly means we will find no divine help against the intrinsic darkness. They are not the keepers of mankind many believed them to be.

I've another deity in mind who could be persuaded to donate a little essence to your ongoing edification.

Abberath, a deranged old goat with a thirst for human souls whose cloven hooves now stand astride the old prisoners road.

Have you ever tasted a soul, Beast Slayer? No, I imagine not. The poets all speak of sweet souls, bitter souls, enlightened souls and twisted souls. You know what most of them taste like, really? Regret, with a lingering aftertaste of 'should've known better'.

Another damned god, you say? Yeah, that figures. A primitive deity from a primitive time, crawling up out of the dirt with a view to enslaving us all with its creepy bloody offspring.

I think we could all do without gods like that. So here, take something for the road ahead. The way things are going, it'll be a tough one.

Yeah, I know the Brine King. What pirate doesn't? Drowned me fair share of mutineers under the full moon... to keep the old king's slumber when storms threaten, you see.

If he's been roused from the depths, it be nothing but ill tidings for those of us with air in our lungs.

He'll be getting back to raping and eating us ocean-going folk soon enough. Stealing wombs in which to spawn his slithering offspring.

Aye, that blasphemy is out there somewhere right now, I'd wager. And to think there still be folks needing transport from Oriath... more commissions to be had. But a lecherous sea god, now that complicates things.

If God wills it, the final account of First Mate Piken, castaway on the rock somewhere off the Twilight Strand.

Near as I can tell, the rest of the crew, along with Captain Caruso, be dead... or worse. What happened? I'd not have believed it myself had I not seen it with me own two eyes.

At dawn, a light, green and dark, rose from 'neath the waves and into the sky. While most of us stood back in awe, I heard a cry rise up from the lower deck. Casting me eyes in that direction, I saw the waves upchuck, and a swarm of ocean crabs cover the vessel. Ravenous and of countless numbers they were, making quick work of the sailors about them. Nothing but bones and tatters of cloth!

We fled to the longboats as fast we could, hoping to leave them ungodly crustaceans behind us, but lo, from within that green pillar of light, I saw him! The Brine King, like a bloated whale he breached the familiar waters and turned the ship beneath our feet to match-wood. I was flung into the sea, yet managed to cling to some flotsam and make my way to rest on this damnable rock.

Seems that ancient Tsoagoth has a mind to take dominion of these seas once more. Captain Caruso was right to drown those mutineers in the old king's name. A shame we'd not found more. For now, beneath the waves, I hear the whispers of me own passing in a thousand clicking pincers. May God have mercy on me, and may someone benefit from this warning.

...I beg of you, Mercutio, if you have any care for the friendship we once had, grant me this one favour. It is true I have my own boat, but that is for hauling in fish! It is not fit to travel the waters I must navigate. My wife needs me, my friend. I know it reeks of madness, but Abi has been taken, kidnapped by the King of Brine himself. I fear too that he intends to make her one of his fishwives, just as the old stories warned us!

Please, Mercutio, I've heard tell of your success as a merchant in recent years. Surely you can spare one ship? Let me voyage out and rescue her, or at least, bring her body back to rest on dry land. Help me silence the insanity in my own mind.

Every night, I dream of pale, slime-slick creatures that pursue my boat through the thick, dark waters. I try not to look at them, but I also do. And they look back, their eyes wide with sadness and longing. They are not eyes born of the sea, Mercutio. God help me... they are Abi's eyes.
- Benric of Gulton

O' Lord of Salt and Scale, your servants attend to thee.
Praise thee Tsoagoth!
Without life yet living, the Brine King sleeps.
We send our prayers to thee, so that you might eternally slumber.

O' great one, we offer up this human soul as slave for you in your drowned city.
Take this life and bid the seas be calm and plentiful.

Woe to the Sailor who does not offer tribute to thee!
Such a man is cast off from our ocean kingdom!
He shall be made pariah, with neither captain nor commission.
Judge us not by unworthy sails,
Look to us as your servants.
Your kin of salt and scale.

O' praise thee Tsoagoth, praise thee!

High Lord Ralakesh, I am but lowly outlaw scum, yet you, a god of a thousand faces, have looked at me and deemed me worthy of your cause!

I've offered willingly my flesh and blood. You shall now have my thoughts to use as you see fit. I only ask that you let me serve forever as one of your Holy Claws. Allow me to bring the light of your belonging to this whole bloody continent. My greatest desire is to see your ancient kingdom remade and your enemies cower at your feet.

Even as our courageous Arakaali forged the foundations of a new empire within the ruination of the old, a fresh threat was born in the shadow of the mountains. A creature so devoid of divinity, so beyond humanity, that it drew the very essence from Arakaali as the spider imbibes the life of the trapped moth. Our Queen's medicines had once sustained us. Now famine and plague ravaged what little remained of our lands.

As the Beast of the Mountains grew, our Arakaali waned until, helpless as a child, she lost even the faith of her most devoted, the Temple of Decay. I feel the shame for my ancestors as the spider's venom burns in my belly. When our Queen needed them most, her people betrayed her, bound her in silk and left her to languish in the bowels of a pyramid, just as Arakaali had done to Gruthkul so many years before.

Now she has returned, but it is not vengeance she wants. She is no mindless Gruthkul. Arakaali, Goddess of Love, wishes only to embrace the world as she wishes she had been embraced.

The Widow

Your soft whispers beneath earth tingle my skin, like breath of lover against my loins. I sleep not. I hear your name inside my skull. Arakaali. No name tasted so sweet on my tongue.

Stories I have heard, tales of cursed beauty. Visage of woman, jewel that walks the streets in final days of a great empire. Heard tell you sought victims, but I know truth. You sought man to love you, to break spell. You hoped true love might allow you to shed eight-leg body, to become goddess of love once more.

I pledge myself to you, my lady of Vaal. I promise love, for I am that man you have waited on. Corrupt corpse-lovers claim to worship you, call you Spinner of Shadows, but you have spun only shadows of desire about my heart.

Sweet Arakaali, I have found your altar. I will speak the call. I will return you to beauty. I will raise you from black pits of despair and together we shall rule Wraeclast in glory... forever.

Good to see you in Sarn once again. I wish that we could be greeting under fairer skies, yet this city remains clouded in strife.

Lunaris, Eternal goddess of the Moon and her sister, Solaris of the Sun, have risen to reclaim what was once their own. Siblings equal in strength, mighty twin rivers converging, sweeping all before them.

We are cornered animals, awaiting the deluge that will surely drown us. Yet there exists a pair of ancient treasures, the Sun Orb and the Moon Orb. They are our hope... our desperation.

I've been keeping a close eye on that exile-turned-sycophant who calls himself, 'The Dusk'. Dusk carried the Moon Orb into the Lunaris Temple and has not returned with it, not as far as I have seen.

No doubt he clings to that orb like it's his adopted mother's own nurturing breast. If you were to wean him from the teat, and place that orb at the bereft mother's feet, we may yet see the moon itself fall.

We approach the zenith of our divine hunt, upon the bridge that chokes the great, wet throat of Sarn.

Lunaris, in her cold fury, has forgotten that the warming sun of morning is as life-giving as the cooling damp of evening.

The empire Lunaris dreams of shall be lit by moon and twinkling stars, and life itself shall wither away in the perpetual night.

When I received my first flower of blood, I was given to the ritual of womanhood. All young Maraketh women have to dance with the scorpion, to prove themselves worthy of carrying the dekhara's spear.

It is no easy task, to catch a black Maraketh Scorpion. Their tails are swift, their stingers sharp, their poison lethal. I made my way through the trial unscathed, but my sister... We shared a womb, came into this world together. She left it, thrashing and foaming at the mouth.

Since that day, I have slept with one eye open, for fear of the scorpion's sting. And now Shakari, the mother of all black bugs rises from the sands!

Find that scuttling bitch and kill her for me... and for every child, every little girl who has suffered and died by the barb of her countless poisoned tails.

In the Maraketh desert, an Oasis lies to the east, its waters shielded from prying eyes by a preternatural storm. The sand will rip the very flesh from your bones, should you be so foolish as to enter into its dark shroud. Yet, enter you must.

The goddess Shakari hides within that golden blizzard, festering with revenge as she resurrects and rebuilds her ancient army - an army that once threatened to shake the very balance of these lands.

Should she be allowed to revitalise her troops, the whole of Maraketh will finally fall under the cruelty of her selfish reign. The storm is impenetrable for now, even to the likes of me, but there must be a way in.

These Highgate locals, they have an affinity for the desert and harsh weather. One of them may know of a way to disperse the storm.

Aside from my own presence, I no longer feel the vibrations of other gods. Though there may yet be more out there, for now, Wraeclast can breathe a sigh of relief.

However, we must turn our sights to Kitava who still gorges himself on those poor souls trapped in Oriath. You have drunk your fill of my kind, the essence of deity courses through your veins, waiting to be expunged upon a chosen victim. We can only hope it will be strength enough to face that demoniac of a god.

Seems enough was enough. The Vanguard undertook the largest evacuation in history... hundreds of ships... and Oriath has been abandoned. After the domination of the Templar, then the crackdown under Innocence, then the slaughter at Kitava's hands, and finally the ruination by Sirus, it's clear our little island is no place for men to live. Even cursed, one could say, though we are not entirely blameless for those disasters.

No small irony that the Oriathan people now depend upon the Karui we once enslaved. I always said that if you kick a rhoa in the arse, one day, it'll kick you in the head, but I underestimated the honour of our new hosts. They're different after the death of their gods... and we are, too, after the departure of ours. I wasn't a believer, but I can feel it. We're on our own now.

We're going to have to work together to face what comes next...