Prologue. Epitaph to the Gods
"From the Void we came, to the Void we return. And let our light be but deferred darkness."
Listen, you who still search for meaning beneath the fallen vaults of Hallownest.
I am the Chronicler, keeper of faded truths. My pen scrapes across dead stone, and the ink flows, as if the Void itself yearns to speak again.
I will tell you of how gods were born and died, of how masked men created a kingdom of dreams—and how their faith turned to dust.
I. About the time before light
Before songs, before memory, before form itself—there was the Void .
Nameless, breathless, it lay in the depths of existence, where dreams mingle with darkness.
And when the silence became too oppressive, from it emerged the Worms , the first of the gods—embodiments of the very will of the universe.
There were two of them, equal and opposite:
the Pale Worm , bringer of reason and order, and the Black Worm , guardian of chaos, power, and passion.
They met at the beginning of time and together created the land beneath the sky— Hallownest , a world for those who wore masks to hide their fear of the gods.
But, like all living things, the divine abhors balance.
And one day, the Pale and the Black clashed—not out of hatred, but out of the very essence of their existence.
The world shook.
Mountains cracked, rivers faded, the skies turned to glass.
Both Worms fell, fighting each other to their last breath.
Yet death is not the end for the gods.
Their bodies rotted, but their souls did not vanish:
the Pale One was reborn as the King of Hallownest , bearer of the light of reason.
The Black One rose as the King of Fools , lord of the Arena, master of passion and madness.
Thus the circle continued—light and darkness once again shared the throne.
II. About the other gods
When the earth took on flesh, others emerged.
From the depths of the waters rose Unn , the Mother of Life, who breathed dreams and nurtured green forests.
From the branches and roots arose the White Lady , a queen whose soul glowed with a quiet peace equal to eternity.
From the dreams of the masked men was born Radiance , the Winged One, Goddess of Light and Truth, bringer of boundless knowledge.
And above them all slept the forgotten Lord of the Void , he who was before the beginning, before the light, before the gods.
For centuries, masked men worshiped them all.
Candles burned in their temples, and songs sang in their names.
But memory is weaker than dust.
And over time, the names of some became legend, and others, heresy.
III. On the Wrath of the Void
The Lord of the Void slept longer than anyone else .
When people ceased to remember his name, when his last prayer faded into silence,
he awoke.
Not as a god, but as an abyss yearning to reclaim the world.
The void rose like a tide from nothingness itself.
It enveloped the cities, filled the streets with a black breath, and turned temples into vortexes of darkness.
Masked people, once proud and intelligent, drowned in it, becoming pale shadows.
The remaining gods—the Pale King, the White Lady, Unn, even Radiance—united.
They converged against him, and the battle lasted for days and nights no one could count.
Lightning bolts of light and waves of darkness tore the sky.
The Void swallowed three of their number.
But in the end, he, too, fell.
The Lord of the Void's body dissipated, but the Void itself did not vanish.
It merely lurked beneath the earth, deeper than dreams, beneath the heart of the world—awaiting the day when his name would be remembered again.
IV. On the Birth of the Kingdom
After a great battle, the surviving gods swore to wage no more war.
The Pale King created Hallownest , a realm of order and will.
The White Lady became its queen, granting a union between roots and reason.
Masked people lived among stone and light, built cities, and celebrated reason as a new faith.
But the light, as before, is not eternal.
The forgotten radiance rekindled itself.
From the dreams of those who still remembered its appearance, the Infection was born —a shining plague that robbed people of their will, restoring their ancient instinct.
In despair, the King turned to the one his kin had once slain.
He summoned the Void, the very one that had been before all else.
And from it, he created Vessels —silent, devoid of self—to imprison the Radiance.
Among them, one became perfect— the Void Knight , a child of the Void, born to save what could no longer be saved.
V. On Silence
The knight was sealed.
The infection subsided.
Hallownest froze, like the world after an exhalation.
The gods have vanished.
The masked men have fallen asleep.
And only the Void stirs below.
"And if you hear her call, do not answer.
For anyone who remembers the Void will become her voice."
- From the Chronicles of the Fallen Scribe, Bardun, the last of the witnesses.