Valarauko
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a long, highly-unreadable religious treatise written by Neryn Ka
- Image Credit: N/A
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Media Name: Music of the Apocalypse; Or, Commentaries on The Ashen Crown
- Format: Hand-written paper notes
- Distribution: Rare: One completed manuscript, though a number of abridged editions have been hand-copied for the use of Neryn's underlings.
- Length: Long
- Description: A lengthy ramble on the supposed nature of the universe and the author's place within it.
- Author: Neryn Ka
- Publisher: N/A (Currently unpublished).
- Reception: Highly adored and viewed as sacred by members of the Ashen Weave, almost entirely unknown and unlauded to anyone else.
FORMAT INFORMATION
Structure: This is a very long, very incoherent, and very insane document. It was clearly written without the benefit of an editor, as the narrative goes off on regular tangents, devolves entirely into written gibberish, or spends entire dozens of pages on repetitious proclamations of doom. It possesses neither chapter structure nor any other form of traditional organization.
Primary Language: Primarily Galactic Basic, though some portions lapse into other languages for no apparent reason. Archaic Sephi, Ancient Sith, and other languages are utilized abruptly and without warning.
Media Condition: Copies are guarded with the zeal of a fanatic. While ragged and dog-eared from regular re-reading, they are mostly clean, legible, and unmarked.
CONTENT INFORMATION
Music of the Apocalypse is one part philosophical document, one part commentary. Rather than split one section apart from another, the commentary is central to the philosophy portion, and both are woven together with frustrating regularity.
The author begins by explaining his fascination with a certain obscure, near-lost Sephi theater play, then goes on at length about his theories regarding said play. Most prominently, the author believes that The Ashen Crown is not merely an antiquated theater piece, but a complex allegory written by some unknown past visionary.
When viewed through this lens, the author claims that the play's fanciful and oft-confusing language is a ploy, designed to screen the prophecy within from the eyes of the unworthy. The play's true purpose (so the author claims) is to prophesize the destruction of all that is. This final, all-consuming cataclysm (repeatedly termed the "Approaching Fire" or simply the always-capitalized "the Fire" by the author) is heralded by the appearance of the play's primary antagonist.
Going further, the author believes himself to be the physical incarnation of this impending cataclysm, the supposed fiend responsible for the play's events. It is his purpose, so the book claims, to eventually bring about the collapse of the physical universe.
The author goes on to explain that many of the play's versions make clear reference to a supposed cycle of destruction and rebirth to the universe. In the author's view, the universe as it currently stands is clearly rotten, dying, and past its prime. Thus, the Fire is not to be feared, but celebrated, as it will finally put a senescent galaxy out to pasture, allowing something new and beautiful to replace it.
The author makes little secret of his pride, as far as his central role in the coming doom is concerned. He views himself as both destroyer and savior, an inexorable force of cosmic correction that has come to set the cycle right. The text posits that this future upheaval can be achieved via the destruction of certain key persons, places, and objects. These so-called "Vertices", so the story goes, uphold the structure of the universe like the anchoring threads of a spider-web.
It is therefore the duty of the enlightened to hasten this dissolution whenever and wherever possible, no matter the cost.
It goes without saying that little in the book has any basis in fact whatsoever. These pages are the rambling of a seriously diseased mind, drowning in messianic fantasies and apocalyptic nonsense. Nonetheless, their author believes them with the utmost sincerity, and speaks of his intent to recruit others to his cause.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Penned by the hand of Neryn Ka a few months after his creation, Music is essentially his personal manifesto and mission statement. As Sith manifestos all too often are, it is long, wordy, and insufferably self-congratulatory.
The work was gradually pieced together over a few weeks' time, and during varying states of lucidity. This likely accounts for the volume's shaky legibility (and sanity) throughout. Nonetheless, the primary copy can be actively dangerous to read, riddled with mind-subverting runes and mentally-corruptive language. Most copies extant are abridged, but also penned by Neryn's hand. These are exclusively the province of high-ranking members of the Weave, and are utilized in the various profane fire-rituals performed by that shadowy organization.
Neryn currently views Music as a deliciously transgressive, subversive work of biting social commentary and existential revelation, and one that would land him in very hot water indeed were it to be discovered by certain persons. Nonetheless, he is a Ka, and Kas are authors, prophets, and leaders.
Nonetheless, it is (in his view) the truth, and the truth must always be embraced, no matter how terrifying or difficult to stomach.