"Which god are you talkin' 'bout, I read 'bout them, and none of them sound like the kind t'hide in a sewer."
What pains would you ask of us?"
The Old Man 'looked' at each of the pair in turn, a strange, searching expression on his face. He waited a few moment before replying.
"Prudent questions both, deserving of full and honest answers. To do that, however, requires an understanding of the very core of our being. So, I hope you're sitting comfortably, for we are about to go back a very, very long way indeed...
You are aware, I'm sure, of the Chantry's doctrine on creation? The Dawn of Time and The Rending of Dus? Well, most of it is true enough. Dus, whatever form that entity may have taken before, bound all the energies of the universe into order, and in doing so destroyed itself, ripped itself to pieces just as it ripped the sea from the sky, the day from the night, the magic from the mundane. According to the Chantry, Dus was split into 6 fragments, who became the Gods. Juiniss, Northos, Maeverniss, Denissa, Zapatos, Gilliajlia. Each has dominion over a certain, familiar group of aspects crucial to the preservation of order, which they sit in government over from their respective realms of Seldus, the immortal and ethereal plane.
This is a... limited interpretation. Not a lie, as such, we'll get to those later. However, what you must understand is that Dus was divided into far more than just six pieces. The Gods may be the most powerful remnants of Dus, but Dus exists within all of us. Every being, beast or man, mortal or immortal, carries within them a fragment of Dus' power, for Dus is life itself. This fragment requires no physical location, but is present nonetheless, and without it there would be no rhyme or reason to your being. It is the marker that denotes your ethereal status, and it will endure long after your flesh has decayed. Though it is not an exact parallel to common tales, as shorthand we can henceforth refer to this fragment as your 'soul'.
That knowledge is crucial for later. Now, however, we come to the great lie of the Chantry, which has driven our God and those who serve him out of common knowledge with its campaign of terror. The Gods you know have one more sibling, the Black Sheep of the family if you will. His name is Mylaviss, and he is who we serve.
I have dedicated the greater part of my life to understanding the nature of Mylaviss, and still I feel that I have barely scratched the surface, something that is of constant amusement to Him, I assure you. So, take my retelling of this tale for the layman's interpretation that it is. If you wish to know more, you need to ask Him yourself, and cross your fingers that he sees fit to be honest. Anyway, the key to making sense of Mylaviss' theological exile lies in Him being created without a purpose. He has no official sphere of influence over the mortal world, nor any realm of Seldus pre-prepared for him. As many of you are vagrants, He is the Vagrant God. A being of extraordinary power, unbound. Now, this might seem a small matter to us. Mortals spend our entire lives trying to figure out where exactly we belong within our space. In this, however, the Gods are fundamentally different. They are defined entirely by their purpose. It is the only reason for their existence, and they are eternally aware of it.
Imagine you ran into another human being, who's very existence ran contrary to everything you understood about your world. Perhaps they are immortal, can see into the future, defy gravity at will or else exists simultaneously in a thousand places at once. Every rule that determines what a human being should be capable of, they defy. How you would see a person like that, is much the same as how Mylaviss is viewed by His brothers and sisters. They revile Him, reject Him, and most of all, are profoundly afraid of him. You see, in many ways, you might think Mylaviss' unbound nature makes Him weak. He cannot summon a great swell of the seas, to purge the land of his enemies, as Denissa is wont to do; nor does He command vast legions of eternal warriors, as is the privilege of Northos. However, His power is entirely his own. Where other Gods are unable to leave or alter their realms of Seldus, Mylaviss, recognising that there was no room on Seldus for him, went and fashioned a new realm, all of His own making, in the space between the mundane and ethereal planes, a feat not done since the Dawn of Time. He calls this realm The Shroud, and we are its adoptive Children. The very fabric of The Shroud can change entirely on His whim, and it serves no purpose to bind Him upon a set path. It exists where nothing should, where nothing could according to all laws of reason. Through The Shroud, and through us, Mylaviss is able to influence the mortal realm in ways that make His siblings seem tragically handicapped.
Every initiated Child of The Shroud has been drawn from a pool of outcasts; people who, like Mylaviss Himself, have no place within the hierarchy of the other God's influence. For most of us, this means we have grown up surrounded by persecution and neglect. I would not call Mylaviss charitable, yet He sees worth where the other God's see only vermin. He does not require any of the ceremonial tributes and prostrations that form the culture of traditional 'worship'. However, those who would agree to serve Him must place his will above all other things. This does not mean that you must relinquish all hold upon your old life. The Children of The Shroud have no long list of strict tenets. Outside of this Sanctum, your life and choices are your own. However, we have two, and only two, rules for those who would join us. When The Shroud calls, you come at once, and when Mylaviss speaks, you obey without question. To disobey is death, and service is forever. In exchange for your service, Mylaviss does not promise you contentment, nor wealth, nor vengeance against those who have wronged you. What He promises, is power. Through his blessing, those who follow him may channel the energies of The Shroud in a more direct form than any other mortals could possibly hope to do. You will get the chance to re-write the rulebook, as it were, and what you do with that chance, outside of Mylaviss' express commands, is entirely up to you."
From there, The Old Man turned more specifically towards the Marked one, peeling off the white glove on his left hand as he did so, to reveal his own tattoo. Like all the others, a skull on the palm of his hand.
"This mark is made with more than ink and needles." he said, the tone of his voice now somewhat darker. "Therefore, do not expect a simple sting and soreness if you agree to where it. You remember what I said before about the soul within you? Well, here is where I hope you remembered...
There are many wise and talented scholars in the Chantry, as well as the respective Temples of each God. The elder and most learned of them spend decades studying the mysteries of Seldus, and yet even they, the favourite of their Gods, can achieve nothing more than the slow, drip-feed of knowledge, allowing them to create technologies, vastly diluted from the true magic of their origin, that allow those few to rise a step above other mortals. Mylaviss has no qualms about imparting power more, directly. We each possess within us a fragment of something immortal and ethereal, which can act as a 'bridge' between Faldus and The Shroud, turning your mortal body into a conduit for true magic, which you will, with practice, be able to control at will. I use the term 'bridge' specifically, for a bridge must be anchored on both sides of the crossing.
Should you wish to accept the pact with Mylaviss, and become a Child of The Shroud, your soul must be split in half. One half will remain within you, in Faldus, while Mylaviss takes the other half back to The Shroud with him. According to the Chantry, such corruption of the purest part of your being is the single greatest heresy that it is possible for a mortal to commit. I, personally, would not be here explaining this to you now if I much cared what the Chantry made of it. However, it is what you care about that matters here. Regardless, there is no denying that this ritual fundamentally changes the very foundation of your being, and comes with two practical side effects. The first, is that after you die, the remainder of your soul must travel to where its other half is already being kept. You will spend your afterlife in The Shroud, serving Mylaviss in some other way than you did in life. In this, you have no choice. The second is more abstract. What you may feel at the moment of initiation, and any effects that linger after, will be as unique to you as your soul itself. Thus, I cannot tell you exactly what to prepare for. In my time, I have been present for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of initiations, and in that time I have seen people experience agony and ecstasy alike. You may be dulled to sensation, you may even enjoy it... or, you may experience pain beyond endurance. I cannot say."
