Approved lore · A collection of uncertain witnesses
Remanence &
The Leaves of the Unmade
Approved by Mark on 28 October 2026.
Canon and the limits of knowledge
The Higher Entity and Avarun are sibling seeds born from the founding love of two creator entities. The creators sacrificed themselves for Avarun, and their child oversaw the world entrusted to him. Their names and the exact nature of their sacrifice remain unresolved; the names and transformations in The Vow of the First Dawn remain a popular traditional telling.
An ancient civilization summoned and contained a portion of the Higher Entity in the Athanor and used it as energy. That portion was separated before the Breaking. Repeated warnings went unheeded. The Entity cast destruction and curses across Avarun, dividing its single land into five continents and changing its peoples. During the catastrophe, the remaining Entity fragmented and spread across the world. Whether the fragmentation was voluntary, a consequence of the destruction, or an attempt to restrain it remains unknown.
His relationship to the creators provides a possible motive for anger. It does not settle whether his punishment was justified. Inhabitants have genuine grounds to question collective punishment.
Remanence
Remanence is the current scholarly term for the power left across Avarun after the Breaking. A divine fragment need not be a physical shard. It may become a conscious being, an object, a place, a recurring effect, or a manifestation whose nature no one recognizes.
- Each fragment retains an inherent function or desire. A fragment of preservation may resist fire, decay, or departure: different applications of one principle.
- Power is easier to borrow when an action aligns with that function. A protective manifestation may shield someone and resist being used to imprison them. Local interpretations can be mistaken; a fragment's function must be learned through consequences.
- Forced use changes its vessel. A body, object, or place may gradually take on the function imposed upon it. The cost is not necessarily paid by the person operating it.
- Fragments leave imprints. People can work with traces in land, materials, learned practices, or inherited bodily changes. A magic user need not possess a divine fragment. Traditions develop differently across environments and generations.
- Fragments may change when brought together. A relic may fall silent or a conscious manifestation may recognize a place. Reunion is not established as healing, restoration, or safety.
False relics and mistaken identifications exist. Similar powers alone do not establish a shared fragment. Bodily transformation does not measure guilt, virtue, or inherited moral worth. The peoples formed after the Breaking have histories and cultures beyond the catastrophe.
A conscious fragment can be sincere yet incomplete. Compassion, judgment, memory, or the capacity to release something may no longer coexist in one being. This is a basis for investigating a particular patron, not proof that every local god is a fragment.
The Leaves of the Unmade
This is a modern collection of unrelated records, not one ancient book intentionally divided. Its documents have different authors, purposes, and dates. Their existence and stated contents are approved setting material; their narrators' claims are not automatically author truth. Continent I–V are editorial placeholders, not approved geographical names. Attribution remains uncertain wherever the description says so.
L01 — The Cradle Leaves · Continent I
Six thin metal leaves were found in the foundations of an ancient nursery. The signature Esen may identify a caregiver or copyist. A lullaby describes two seeds: “One shall be the garden. One shall keep its waking.” Readers dispute whether this means siblings, duties, or metaphor. It supplies the first clue to the relationship between world and guardian.
L02 — The Steward's Book of Small Things · Continent I
A notebook recovered from a dry well is attributed to field recorder Oren Tal. It records rain, animal movements, and settlements needing water. The recurring line is: “He asks what they need before he asks what they have done.” It suggests an attentive guardian before the catastrophe, but the author's status as a direct witness is uncertain.
L03 — The Account of the Unspent Flame · Continent II
Quartermaster Dareth's accounting tablets were recovered from the Athanor's service chambers. They list workers' food, cooling water, and repairs alongside continuing energy output without new fuel. A sign for the source resembles a sign beside the second seed in the Cradle Leaves. The correspondence connects the records; it is not sufficient by itself to prove their interpretation.
L04 — Seven Notices to the Keepers · Continent II
Safety scribe Namar signed copies of incident reports hidden inside a maintenance manual. Warnings arrived through changed gauge inscriptions, shared dreams, and a voice from a cold furnace. Some incidents are ambiguous. One page says a warning was stopped before reaching the rulers; other pages bear their acknowledgments. The records expose disagreement and uneven access to information within the civilization.
L05 — The Last Interval · Continent III
A timekeeper's strip bearing the name Sereth was found in a collapsed observatory. It records damage to the Athanor, stars disappearing in some directions, and the land cracking. A missing interval prevents it from establishing whether the Entity fractured before, during, or after the release of destruction. Precise chronology remains unresolved.
L06 — The Book of Unfamiliar Faces · Continent III
Healer Vessa's survivor register follows the same families before and after their bodies changed. Similar changes appear in distant places, while members of one household develop differently. The records challenge accounts that assign each transformation to an individual's sin. They document lives continuing after the catastrophe rather than defining the resulting peoples by punishment alone.
L07 — The Inventory of Impossible Inheritances · Continent IV
Clerk Oth Mer copied property disputes involving a cloak that would not permit abandonment of the sick, a room that protected its occupants even from escape, and a bell that rang before a name was forgotten. Related marks appear in early post-Breaking records. These are recorded claims and disputed inheritances; a mark alone cannot authenticate a fragment.
L08 — The Fieldbook of Lesser Thrones · Continent IV
Skeptical temple examiner Arel Sen compared local gods with similar limitations. The fieldbook reports that two rival shrines lost their power when a relic was carried between them. Their patrons may be connected, or the examiner's account may be wrong. The record supports investigation rather than a universal declaration that all gods are fragments.
L09 — The Hearth Recitations · Continent V
Village recorder Meren wrote down the versions of three elder storytellers. The manuscript was recovered beneath a public oven. Each tells of a child watching over his sleeping parents. In one he broke from anger; in another he tried to stop his own punishment; in the third he never broke and instead hid. Meren preserved the disagreements. This is a written record of oral tellings, not direct evidence that any one ending happened.
L10 — The Concordance of Returning Names · Continent V
Thalen Vey's later research notebook was recovered from a buried archive. It compares older copies of the lullaby, Athanor terms, survivor records, and shrine inscriptions. It proposes that new powers are separate continuations of a formerly whole being. The last folio is missing, including the patron who funded the study. Thalen's relationship to Saren Vey has not been established; a shared name is not evidence of kinship.
Reading the evidence
The discovery sequence moves from the guardian's identity to Athanor captivity, the Breaking, emerging powers, and the possibility of continued divine life. No manuscript supplies the whole answer. Connections depend on independently matching details, context, and surviving physical evidence; resemblance alone can mislead.
Tavin Or can investigate the maintenance records; Ilen Marr can preserve oral variants; Saren Vey can confront the possibility that patrons he reveres are parts of the Entity whose judgment he defends. These are approved future story connections, not events already completed in the published books.
Approved illustrative line for a later notebook passage: “The shrine tells the truth when it says it loves us. We have not yet learned what part of him was capable of letting go.” Its speaker has not been assigned.
Lore review and provenance
The central strength is the link between family, stewardship, and moral responsibility. Fragmentation gives different powers a shared cause without requiring one culture or theology. False relics create evidentiary disputes; bodily changes do not define moral worth; sincere but incomplete conscious fragments create difficult choices. Approved limits preserve uncertainty about reassembly, the Entity's exact motive, and the mechanism and timing of his fragmentation.
Source AV-S01: Mark's account and approval in this conversation, 28 October 2026. User-authored fictional canon: sibling seeds, the creators' sacrifice, Athanor captivity, destruction, and dispersal of the Entity. The Remanence rules, manuscript titles, fictional writers, excerpts, and their relationships are original worldbuilding approved in this conversation.
Source AV-S02: Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Object Monday: Cuneiform Tablet Messenger Text, 24 April 2023. Museum object MMA 67.134.3; transcription and translation credited to Andrea Seri. The consulted museum page describes provisions for state couriers during the reign of Shu-Sin of Ur, around 2000 BCE, in Mesopotamia. URL: https://maxwellmuseum.unm.edu/maxwell-at-home/objects/object-monday-cuneiform-tablet-messenger-text
Adaptation: ordinary logistical records can preserve evidence beyond their immediate administrative purpose. The Account of the Unspent Flame applies that mechanism to Athanor maintenance and energy use. Its divine implications are original fiction. This historical source supports the documentary form, not Avarun's supernatural history. No claim of access to an unrecorded Earth oral tradition is made; Meren and the Hearth Recitations are fictional.