Textus Numantius, fragment one

He was born at a certain place, at a certain time, to certain parents.

There were three in his litter, born in the last years of the Last War in the dusty wastes of Anequina. What became of his parents we do not know, only that these three grew in the tent of the Clanmother, orphans of an unknown calamity.

Kaasha, the eldest, was given to beauty and the making of beauty: carven wood, chiseled stone or woven braid. Wisdom sat like a star upon her brow and many whispered that she would ascend the mantle of Mother. The youngest, Vaaj-na, sought beauty of another kind. Many were the maids who received his blessing and many were the pleasures he sampled. And if his treasures were once those of another, many simply whispered of Rajhin, and Vaaj’na’s roguish krin.

But Ra’zhiin sat at the Mother’s feet, listening to her stories. When he was older he was wont to roam, losing himself amidst tree and vale, dusty warrens, and ancient caves; he tested the borders of Thalmor-held lands under Moons’-lit skies, learning their patterns. On some nights, he would sit at hunter’s-fires, hearing tell of beasts hunted or heroics in times past. Never long did he stay, and in morning light his place was always empty.

We do not know how they came to Rimmen, these last three of a tribe lost, only that they came. Kaasha sought the auteur’s halls, Vaaj’na the pleasure houses, but Ra’zhiin the heart of the city, listening to its pulse. The Moons came and went; a year, another, before the Thalmor found them.

Kaasha was the first to join the Elven dream, envisioning what could not be put into words. Ra’zhiin went in search of he knew not what. Only Vaaj-na stayed, laughing as he haunted skooma-dens and the wealthy skirts of lonely wives. So the three were sundered and two entered into darkness. Five years they served the Thalmor poesis and their long honing in Anequinan deserts made them deadly knives in Elven hands.

But then: the Prognosticator, and the Razing of Rimmen.

Ra’zhiin heard what the Elves had done and returned to his shattered city; many were the tears he shed into red-stained canals. He swore a terrible oath on the blood in his veins and became a wraith to the Justiciars who still dared the north of Ald Elsweyr.

It was in far Bruma that Kaasha learned of Elven duplicity, and gave up their mistruths. There she met the Dunmer, Telvanni Kalas Sul Saren, and his master Taltheron. Together they fought the rising tide of the Last War, challenging madness with reason…and blade. When stories of the Ghost of Rimmen reached their ears, Taltheron crossed the miles to find Kaasha’s brother in a camp of corpses. Long days and nights passed in their colloquy until Ra’zhiin foreswore vengeance and grew into a better way.

In those days, there were seven of them: Kaasha the Blade, Vaaj-na the Fool, Taltheron the Wise, Sul Saren the Fire, Jassa the In-between, Alduwae the Repentant…and Ra’zhiin, who would become our Prophet. Together they sought the Third Way of Making, the Path Outside of Aggression. Many they saved and many they failed and still the War went on. The hatred of Men and Elves fell into the deepness of a single voice, uttering denial, until the Paladins of the New Faith found the Heart they sought, and with it summoned their final Refutation.

Librarian’s Note: from the Textus Numantius, believed to be written sometime in the 7th Era. It was discovered in the remnants of a Void-temple during the Creatia Wars and appears to be the work of the Disciples of Zhiin’ra, a sect sworn to the Prophet of Azurah. The exact history (untold thousands of years in the future of our own When) is uncertain. Lumenocentric analysis reveals the Textus bears marks of Era-erasure.