I re-read all the entries and took some notes about things that sounded interesting or strange. Some others we are already discussing in other threads.
Aulyanau the Conqueror (895—950)—Legendary ruler of the Cond who defeated Cel-Ongonean at the Battle of River Axau, leading to the Breaking of Ûmerau and the beginning of the Cond Yoke. His subsequent campaigns would unite the Norsirai for the first time since Uskelt Wolfheart. Since references to Aulyanau typically signalled pan-Norsirai sympathies among Middlenorth caste-nobles (particularly the Tydonni), Anasûrimbor Kellhus declared an Excision in 4128, striking all record of his name and famously executing several notables who continued to pretend that such a personage had ever existed.
Byantas (2463-2515)—A near antique writer of the Ceneian Empire. His Translations, an account of all the varied customs of the peoples making up the Empire, would render him famous to later generations. The precision of his observations remain unparalleled. The death of those customs in the intervening centuries has had a profound impact on Three Seas thought, embuing it with a historical self-awareness it had not possessed before. Before Byantas, Men were blind to the fundamental transformations wrought by the passage of time. A far smaller fraction of the soul belonged to the realm of the Immutable after him.
Byantas was Excised by Imperial Authorities in 4121 for perhaps this very reason.
The first Excision I can understand its political reasons but the second? And 4121 again? These are the only two Excisions that we know of.
Excuciata—Famed fresco of the One Hundred and Eleven Hells in the Holy Junriüma, and perhaps the most well-known of the countless artistic renditions of perdition. Apparently inspired by ancient, pre-Arkfall Nonman statuary, the grand image—the product of the legendary “Ten Simpletons” to commemorate the Scholastic Wars in 3800—is the first depiction of the hells that defects from spatial and associative norms, bringing the chaos of damnation to the fore. As a ceiling fresco, it is sometimes referred to as the Hanging Hells or the Inverse Fire.
No idea what it means.
Nausk Mausoleum—The Far-Antique temple in Kelmeol where, according to legend, the bones of the Meori High-King Aratrula the Mad are interred. Convinced of his own damnation, Aratrula fairly enslaved his nation attempting to build a Mausoleum, allegedly lined in plates of lead, that might keep his souls safe from the Outside.
So the Gods are Supermen?
Pa’bikru—“Warring Glimpse” (Invitic). Known as “Cage-carvings” in the Eastern Three Seas, Pa’bikru are the product of the peculiar spiritual sensibilities of Nilnamesh. In the twilight preceding the ruin of the Ceneian Empire, a nameless monk translated Memgowa’s Celestial Aphorisms into the Invitic dialect of Sheyic, thus inspiring the famed “screen sculpture” of Nilnamesh. The techniques evolved wildly over the centuries, but the premise was always the same: the sculptor would carve miniature scenes, many of them drawn from the Tusk that they then placed in a so-called “peering box” or behind some other obstruction. The original idea was to recreate Memgowa’s conception of the “Blind Beggar Soul.” Like Ajencis, the famed Zeumi sage was forever arguing the folly of Men, but unlike the famed Kyranean philosopher, he argued that it was the inability of the soul to know itself, and not the inability of intellect to grasp the World, that was the origin of the problem.
In Celestial Aphorisms, the Sage continually returned to the Rebuke of Angeshraël in The Chronicle of the Tusk, the famed story where War, dread Gilgaöl, upbraids the Prophet for “peering through cracks and describing skies.” He also uses the legend of Ilbaru, a Zeumi folk tale about a man who spies his wife through a cracked shutter, and confusing her attempt to save his wounded brother for an act of passion, murders her, and then must watch his brother die. His argument, refracted through the smoked glass of his aphoristic style, is that the soul is that which sees, and therefore can scarcely be seen.
Thus the aesthetic of screen sculpture: the creation of scenes that utterly contradicted the way they appeared when seen through some fixed aperture.
Historically, the most famous of these was Modhoraparta’s “Dance of the Demons,” where the face of the God of Gods viewed through the aperture became a group of demonic monstrosities viewed from all other angles. The rumour of the work so incensed Shriah Ekyannus IX that in 3682 he outlawed all art works that “blaspheme the Simple, the Pure, and the True with foul Complication.” At his trial in Invishi, Modhoraparta claimed that he wanted to show the how the myriad evils suffered by Men find themselves redeemed in the God of Gods. Indeed, all the sculptor’s acts, let alone his work and his claims, argued that he was as devout as any who would presume to judge him. He would be burned for impiety nonetheless: reason counts for naught in matters of outrage—truth even less so. In those days, the Thousand Temples was always eager to display its authority in Nilnamesh, where the scalding sun and indolent air seemed to engender heresy as regularly as harvests.
All you Fanim rejoice.
Sadu’waralla ab Daza (4084—)—Ordealman, Chieftain of the Low Imit, General of the Khirgwi contingent in the Great Ordeal of Anasûrimbor Kellhus. A sufferer of the apoplexy, he is famed across the Three Seas for visions confirming the identity of the Aspect-Emperor, even though the Khirgwi are renowned for refusing to relinquish their ancient forms of devil worship.
People worshiping Kellhus because they know he is a demon, not in spite of it.
Sack of Sarneveh—One of several Orthodox Ainoni cities plundered by the Zaudunyani during the Unification Wars, noteworthy for the subsequent dissemination of the Toll, and the knowledge that some five thousand children had been butchered. The historian Hem-Maristat notes that following the infamous pamphlet, Kellhus ceased his meticulous account of lives lost.
Toll—Orthodox pamphlet circulated during the Unification Wars, containing the Imperial Appraisal detailing the numbers of dead woman and children counted following the Sack of Sarneveh in 4120.
Those years again.
That's it, I wanted to leave these clues here hoping someone smarter than me will know what to do with them.
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