Galian, Skin Eater, former Nansur Columnary.

Pokwas (Pox), Skin Eater, disgraced Zeümi Sword-Dancer.

Oxwora (Ox), Skin Eater, Thunyeri son of Yalgrota.

Somandutta (Soma), Skin Eater, Nilnameshi caste-noble adventurer.

Moraubon, Skin Eater, former Shrial Priest.

Sutadra (Soot), Skin Eater, rumoured to be a Fanim heretic.

Xonghis, Skin Eater, former Imperial Tracker.

Ancient Kûniüri

Anasûrimbor Celmomas II (2089–2146), High-King of Kûniüri and tragic principal of the First Apocalypse.

Anasûrimbor Nau-Cayûti (2119–2140), youngest son of Celmomas and tragic hero of the First Apocalypse.

Seswatha (2089–2168), Grandmaster of the Sohonc, lifelong friend of Celmomas, founder of the Mandate, and determined foe of the No-God.

The Dûnyain

A monastic sect whose members have repudiated history and animal appetite in the hope of finding absolute enlightenment through the control of all desire and circumstance. For two thousand years they have hidden in the ancient fortress of Ishuäl, breeding their members for motor reflexes and intellectual acuity.

The Consult

The cabal of magi and generals that survived the death of the No-God in 2155 and has laboured ever since to bring about his return in the so-called Second Apocalypse.

The Thousand Temples

The institution that provides the ecclesiastical framework of Zaudunyani Inrithism.

The Ministrate

The institution that oversees the Judges, the New Imperium’s religious secret police.

The Schools

The collective name given to the various academies of sorcerers. The first Schools, both in the Ancient North and the Three Seas, arose as a response to the Tusk’s condemnation of sorcery. The so-called Major Schools are: the Swayal Compact, the Scarlet Spires, the Mysunsai, the Imperial Saik, the Vokalati, and the Mandate (see below).

The Mandate

Gnostic School founded by Seswatha in 2156 to continue the war against the Consult and to protect the Three Seas from the return of the No-God, Mog-Pharau. Incorporated into the New Imperium in 4112. All Mandate Schoolmen relive Seswatha’s experience of the First Apocalypse in their dreams.

What Has Come Before …

What Has Come Before …

Wars, as a rule, fall within the compass of history. They mark the pitch of competing powers, the end of some and the ascendency of others, the ebb and flow of dominance across the ages. But there is a war that Men have waged for so long they have forgotten the languages they first used to describe it. A war that makes mere skirmishes out of the destruction of tribes and nations.

There is no name for this war; Men cannot reference what transcends the short interval of their comprehension. It began when they were little more than savages roaming the wilds, in an age before script or bronze. An Ark, vast and golden, toppled from the void, scorching the horizon, throwing up a ring of mountains with the violence of its descent. And from it crawled the dread and monstrous Inchoroi, a race who had come to seal the World against the Heavens, and so save the obscenities they called their souls.