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Aldowẻ
Cast adrift in the vast, directionless void of the Endless Depths, our fragile world is home to many wonders. The forces that hold sway here vie with one another, while those who make use of them constantly seeking to uphold or upend the laws that give delicate balance to existence.
Call them what you will - spirits, gods, nature, science, magic, or just random chance. Each has their own realm of influence in the unfathomably complex weave of reality, from the gravity of the sun and the earth, to the destructive power of untethered fire, to the miraculous feats of medicine attributed to wise healers.
For most they are a fact of life. Sometimes boons, sometimes bothers, but beyond all control except for prayer and hope. To others they are a source of power, allowing those with the skill or the luck to change the course of history.
Many attempts have been made to catalogue and understand the source of these powers. Many lives have been spent in pursuit of this knowledge most esoteric.
I have counted myself among the latter for most of my not insignificant lifespan. Recently, however, my mind has been occupied by a question even the most learned scholars and most daring explorers have yet to answer.
Where do they come from, these humours of the arcane? What is their provenance? Was it design or chance that thrust them into being so long ago, that they might one day drive us mad by holding the truth ever beyond our reach?
These volumes represent the distilled knowledge of the finest minds to have graced the libraries and repositories of Gnossos. It is my great pleasure to present them for your perusal, after many gruelling years of curatorial labour. Let not the knowledge contained herein go to waste!
-- Archivist Gandeem Brindle, Professor Emeritus of the School of Fundamental Arcana of the Most Illustrious College of the Honourable Fellowship of Distinguished Minds of the University of Gnossos.
