Scripture of Ash

Ember I

1:1
And In the beginning, all was one, Gods and Man, Angels and Demons, Life and Death, all existed together. Then, a flame burst into existence, and its heat burned all equally. The flame could not be extinguished, for the flame was part of all, and all was one, and to extinguish one was to extinguish all. Yet the flame burned brighter and hotter, and all could not remain one without burning, so all was split, and all the realms and its denizens were born.
1:2
And thus each realm was born of a thought of the whole, and each denizen an aspect...

Such begins the first Ember of the Scripture of Ash, as transcribed by Saint Anso. The remainder of the first Ember speak of the creation of the planes, detailing in depth the Realm of Angels, Realm of Devils, Maelstrom, Arcadia, Realm of Gods, and the Realm of Cinder.

The descriptions given here are said to corroborate with the writings of spellcasters of legend, which some say lend credibility to the truth of the Scripture of Ash. The First Ember is the longest of the three Embers, with the second half going into detail about all the denizens of each plane for multiple rolls of canvas.

Ember II

2:1
And those in the Realm of the Gods felt it first. Their bodies withered and the force of their magic killed the soil. And it was known that the flame which had split the realms wished to join them back together, as the flame took their homes and turned their dead against them. And thus the realm where the divine tread turned to Fields of Ash.
2:2
And thus the gods united in one again, but the one was not as strong as that which broke the all...

Such begins the second Ember of the Scripture of Ash. This ember introduces the Fields of Ash, another plane of existence which was the flame which broke everything apart in the beginning and now permeates all the realms. Descriptions of the Field of Ash match descriptions of what was previously called the Ethereal Plane by magicians in times past.

The Second Ember goes on to describe how the forces of magic as we know it are drawn from the 'heat' of the Fields of Ash, and how the Realm of Gods was the first to experience the effects of the Fields of Ash due to the large amounts of magic which their kind naturally possessed and used frequently.

The Second Ember ends with a story of the gods rallying for battle against the Fields of Ash in an attempt to halt its progress, only to fail and be consumed back into the fire. This portion contains long descriptions of the death of each god and easily stretches across 5 rolls of canvas. Of particular note is that the text says that as Vraccas, Lord of the Dwarves, began to succumb to the Fields of Ash, he used the last portion of his magic to steal the ability to use magic from the dwarves in an attempt to save them from a similar fate.

The final lines of the Second Ember speak on how an unnamed goddess reached into the mind of Anso as he slept and relayed all of the info retained in the Scripture to him as she died in the Fields of Ash, begging him to guide the people of Cinder to a better fate and showing him glimpses of that which was to come and is documented in the Third Ember.

Ember III

...
3:28
And the pox of tears shall spread like fire across the lands of Cinder and the sickness of elves shall be that of the heart.
3:29
And from the North, a frost shall freeze blood and cover all.
3:30
In the land of Broken Men hunger shall come among them. The soil and mothers milk shall turn to ash. The gaunt shall prey upon the gaunt, and the great shall be made poor and the poor poorer still.
3:31
Look to the South. Forth comes the ash, and from it a horde, and the Kingdoms shall burn.
3:32
The lake and brook shall blacken and the water become tar, the trees shall shrivel and die, and birds shall fall dead from the sky.
3:33
You shall know the last day is come, the sun shall set and never rise, Ash will engulf the world and all will become as one.

The third Ember speaks of the fate of the world after the time of Saint Anso and the death of the Realm of Cinder. The uncovering and distribution of this manuscript caused an unprecedented uproar in society due to the interpretation of the events described within the Scripture as fitting well with previous global events.

Theologians still argue the Scripture of Ash to be a simple religious text and that followers should not take its teachings literally, only using it for spiritual guidance, but public concern is growing with the arrival of The Weeping Pox in the cities of the north...