Appendix I: Divine Fragments – On the Old Names

  Collected from scattered sources, surviving verses, and one whisper too persistent to forget.

  Dānessa, the Mind Eternal

  In the dawn-sung tongues of the east, the word dānā meant wise, learned, one who knows. It shares root with the Sanskrit dnyāna, knowledge, and the Persian danesh, intellect — all rivers leading back to the same spring: understanding.

  And is that not the shape of Her?

  Dānessa — once called Danā, the Keeper of What Is Known — is the Goddess of Knowledge. But knowledge, as her oldest followers warn, is not always gentle. Her truths cut. Her gaze burns. And when she asks questions, the gods themselves tremble to answer.

  Her temples stood without statues, for who can sculpt thought? Her worshippers debate in the dark, transcribe dreams in silence, and bind answers in chains of ink.

  She does not smile often. When she does, it is because someone has said something terrifyingly true.

  Some scholars say that Dānessa does not merely record knowledge — she edits it. She decides what is worth remembering, and what must be forgotten. In this, she mirrors death itself.

  It is said that the winds of Luthvar whisper forgotten truths to those who invoke her name with a question on their lips. Her high priestess wears no crown, only a band of silver etched with symbols so old they no longer appear in any lexicon — save her memory.

  Her worship is not comforting. But it is always honest.

  Verethragna, The Wound-Giver

  Verethragna — drawn from the ancient Avestan V?r?θraγna, meaning "smiting of resistance" — is the god of victorious struggle. In the Zend texts, this name is linked with ferocity, force, and unstoppable movement. Not the elegance of strategy — but the raw will to overcome.

  He is fury made divine. Victory not as justice, but as survival. His form changes across centuries: lion, bull, blade, storm — all faces of conquest.

  He does not wait to be challenged. He challenges. His followers bleed in his name and thank him for the chance. His prayers are battle cries. His miracles are broken gates and unbroken wills.

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  There is no virtue in stillness, only hesitation.

  There is no truth in mercy, only delay.

  He does not kneel. He does not stop.

  And yet, when he dreams, it is not of war.

  It is of the moment before war — the silence where he still believes peace is possible.

  A forgotten hymn once claimed Verethragna was born in the roar of the first avalanche, and that his cry shattered the bones of silence. His temples are few, but his altars are countless — a cracked shield, a broken sword, a scar that still aches.

  Ahrimanos, He Who Waits

  Where the blade cuts and the mind learns, Ahrimanos watches.

  Not a god of war. Not a god of peace. The God of Death.

  His name echoes the old Persian Ahriman — known as Angra Mainyu in Avestan texts — the destructive spirit, the adversary. But Ahrimanos is not destruction. He is finality.

  A shadow not cast by malice, but by inevitability. A conclusion to all stories.

  He does not rage. He does not resist. He ends.

  He does not chase. He does not strike. He receives.

  Dānessa wrote: “Death is a library. Each soul, a book. He is not its master — only its custodian.”

  His temples are not built — they are discovered, already waiting beneath graveyards, beneath forgotten cities, beneath the things no one speaks of.

  The dead do not pray to him. But sometimes, the dying do — not to plead, but to acknowledge.

  Verethragna calls him a coward.

  Dānessa calls him necessary.

  And Ahrimanos says nothing at all.

  But sometimes, you will forget a name you once loved.

  And in that breathless absence — he is there.

  There are rumors of a cult called The Dustbound, who claim that forgetting is a holy act — that by erasing names, one brings them closer to Ahrimanos. Whether he listens is unknown. But the silence they leave behind is deafening.

  Astraxian, the Paradox Incarnate

  (???????? ???????????? — Aθra Mainyu)

  Astraxian is not a god.

  He is a celestial being — older than the cycle, older than worship. A creature of balance and contradiction, of unseen strings and silent corrections. You do not offer prayers to Astraxian. You offer consequences. The bringer of Paradox. Balance. Counterforce.

  His name echoes the ancient Aθra Mainyu — not the fire that burns, but the concept of fire, the flame that judges. In some interpretations, it means "mind of fire" — and like fire, he consumes what cannot hold its shape.

  He brings balance not through peace, but through cancellation. Not harmony — equilibrium. His flame does not warm. It judges.

  Dānessa once said: “There is only one being I fear to understand. Because if I do — I might lose the will to disagree.”

  Some say the Wardens serve an ancient order older than the gods themselves.

  Others whisper that they were shaped by Astraxian, carved from paradox and purpose — not chosen, but authored.

  The truth has been lost, or perhaps buried on purpose.

  But if one listens closely to the silence between the Wardens’ oaths…

  They speak with echoes of the same voice.

  Verethragna tried to strike him once, and forgot why.

  Ahrimanos regards him like an old riddle he never solved.

  And the rest? They simply don’t speak of him.

  Perhaps because they remember what he did.

  Or perhaps because they don’t.

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