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~ IV. Songs, Proverbs, & Histories ~

**For the sake of embedding this lore within Gielinor, I open it with a letter from Thormac.**

IV.1 A Letter from Thormac

(1) Dear Attila Square,

(2) I'm glad to share with you some of the texts I've collected from the old Armadylean tradition. You know, I have felt close to the old mystics of Lesarkus all my life - growing up in Kandarin and so close to the Temple of Ikov; I never felt quite at home with the Saradominist teachings of my youth. Anyway, here is what I have.

(3) First, there is the Epic of Ikov itself, the founding text of the whole Armadylean tradition and the best resource we have for understanding human magic in the Age of Sorcery. It was probably composed soon after Ikov's departure. The text itself should be relatively easy to understand. It tells of Armadyl's arrival in Gielinor at the court of Tumeken and of his subsequent journey with Ikov across Gielinor to the land of modern-day Kandarin.

(4) After the prologue, the first seven parts tell of their quest to banish evil spirits sent by Zaros to subjugate the peoples of Misthalin, Asgarnia, and Forinthry. These included a nation called the sea-folk who lived on the southern coast of Misthalin between where the Wizards' Tower and Port Sarim stand today, as well as near modern-day Rimmington; a nation of Asgarnians, ancestors or predecessors to Asgarnians today; and a nation of woodsmen living in Draynor forest and in the cities of Hevel, Aidos, and Kathekontos on and around Ice Mountain. In later years these lands were divided between Saradomin and Zaros. It also tells of the slaughter of populations of possessed troglodytes and of a Fremennik cult on the arctic coast of Forinthry, as well as of the return of many Fremennik pioneers to their homeland west of Ghorrock. One detail of the story is worth noting here - Armadyl does not fly from place to place but walks with Ikov, in order to learn the ways of humans.

(5) The eighth part tells of Armadyl and Ikov's time among the Fremennik - it is unclear whether they met V during their stay. This explains both why many Fremennik still honor Armadyl today and why there was so much similarity between the Fremennik and Armadylean schools of mysticism. I'm sure the Fremennik have stories of the journey of Armadyl and Ikov that we here in Kandarin have never heard.

(6) The ninth part tells of Armadyl's return to Abbinah to retrieve the Aviantese and of Ikov's fight with the dragon, called Hubris in the second Ikovian Hymn. By banishing Hubris, Ikov drove out Zaros' last influence in Gielinor, prompting Zaros to seek an army from Infernus and winning his respect for humans forever.

(7) The tenth part is a little confusing. Ikov travels around Kandarin, seeking out further spirits. He avoids the spirits of Circleblade Bog, or modern-day Hemenster - these spirits are addressed in the Song of Lamanda, composed during the 3rd age. He reflects on Guthix and visits the worldgate. He fails to discern what drove the dagannoths to migrate over land. He senses Seren during his second southward journey along the Galarpos Mountains. And he ends up leaving Gielinor through a strange portal at the mouth of the Dougne.

(8) The last part of the story, of his departure, comes from the skavids. They recognized him as a holy man as he passed them by, and the few of them that remain still honor him and the river delta as the place of his departure. They also retrieved for us the satchel that he left behind and the writings he left in it.

(9) After Ikov's departure, many things changed. Armadyl returned with his Aviantese. According to legend, Lesarkus was elected successor to Ikov as 'lord of the palace of the capital,' and he founded the Armadylean mystical school, later called the School of Lesarkus. Saradomin also established his empire in Asgarnia and on Entrana. And Zaros returned to Gielinor, this time in the light, in the land of Loarnab, accompanied by legions of demons. Zaros conquered all of Forinthry and much of the woodland, destroying the cities of Hevel and Aidos around Ice Mountain and replacing the fortress-town Kathekontos with Lassar.

(10) The first text attached to this letter is called The Writings of Ikov - it is the text retrieved by the skavids from Ikov's satchel. It is a brief and somewhat cryptic reflection by Ikov on his own experiences. It's given scholars a series of concepts and proverbs to consider and to explain for millennia.

(11) The next texts come in a group of three. These are the Ikovian Hymns. The latter two were composed very near the time of Ikov, maybe even before the destruction of Hevel and Aidos. The first was composed in Kandarin relatively recently, during the 4th age, as a summary of the Epic of Ikov, in order to serve as an introduction to the latter two. The location of its composition is betrayed by an awkward reference to 'here,' and the time of its composition is known because the latter hymns were preserved by the School of Strite, about which I'll say something in a moment, and only came to the west in the 4th age.

(12) The second hymn - the first to be composed - fills in a gap in the Epic of Ikov. It tells of Armadyl's battle with the earthen giant Humus before the slopes of Ice Mountain. It is important to note, Humus is not the same spirit as Vorago, but Humus might have inhabited the very same earthen body. The second hymn also gives us the names of the earthen giant and the dragon Ikov slew in Kandarin, Humus and Hubris.

(13) Finally, the second hymn explains the origin of an ancient custom among Asgarnia's indigenous population - to stack or to stand stones upright in order to indicate a problem to be addressed. This recalls Armadyl's defeat of Humus and his subsequent command to the woodsmen to keep the land level, symbolically interpreted as a command to keep peace in their lands and homes and hearts. Once the problem indicated is solved, the stones are leveled. This explains the mysterious standing stones northeast of Falador - unfortunately we do not know what problems they were meant to indicate, nor what their markings mean.

(14) The third hymn is a sequel to the second. In the second hymn, Armadyl wonders whence Humus' power comes and whether he will find an answer in the north. The third hymn provides an answer, recounting Armadyl's reflection on the spirit that haunted Forinthry's northern coast. The moral of the story goes like this: if one does not attend to what is most important first, then one is likely to misjudge the value of other things. In a one specific context: if one does not seek understanding of oneself, and does not come to understand one's own weakness, one is likely to be vain. In the second hymn, Humus suggests that both gods and sorcerers are susceptible to vanity - a fault exemplified by earth and stone, which should lie low, rising up.

(15) The third hymn also provides us with most of what we know of Hevel, Aidos, and Kathekontos. Beyond the poem, we know that these were destroyed by Zaros. Despite their destruction, their names lasted through the 3rd age, translated into the infernal tongue. The southern slope of Ice Mountain, where a dwarven settlement stands today, was called Vana. The eastern slope and the forest stretching to the Lum were called P(u)dor.

(16) It is also said that a remnant of Aidos hid themselves in the forests of P(u)dor and endured there for thousands of years. These re-merged in the 4th age in the village of Strite. The mystical School of Strite preserved for us the second and third Ikovian hymns, as well as much of the magical scholarship of the 3rd age, a lot of anti-Zarosian sentiment, and some of the oldest memories of humanity in Gielinor. The mystics of Strite played a significant role among Gielinor's human populations during the 4th age before their destruction by the dragon Garak.

(17) Because the School of Strite endured in hiding for so long, its re-emergence enriched the Armadylean tradition with several new legends, mostly related to the third part of the Epic of Ikov - the part about their homeland. Unfortunately by the 4th age there was little left of the Armadylean tradition at all - Armadyl had departed and the School of Lesarkus was suppressed by the Saradominist Academic School. The texts we have are scant, and many of the legends that re-emerged with the School of Strite were lost again at the time of its fall.

(18) One of these legends speaks of four governors who ruled over the villages of what is today Draynor forest. These governors were weak-hearted; each had a desire that the Zaros's vampyres promised to fulfill, so each chose to cooperate with their tyrannical rule. One desired to be feared; another to be desired; another to make others happy; another desired sympathy. These governors were overthrown after Armadyl and Ikov broke the illusion that hid them and the villages of the woodsmen. Unfortunately, all further details of the legend have been lost.

(19) The last two texts come from the 3rd age. First, there are some Mystical Proverbs. These nicely reflect the sober tone among mystics in the late 3rd age. All of them indicate a loss of confidence in the possibility of working out solutions to the conflicts of the Godwars together. In short, the mystics had come to believe that people possessed desires and knowledge that could not be articulated and that magical knowledge would never give them peace. They are provocative but not entirely clear, like many proverbs.

(20) The last text tells of an event that occured in the late 3rd age. Since the time of Ikov, Armadyleans had respected the region called Circleblade Bog, so called for its dangerous vegetation, for there Ikov had sensed two powerful spirits locked in battle above the lake. When Bandos learned of the legend, he sent his army to burn away the bog and his shamans to enslave the spirits and press them into his service. While many knew of his plan, only a local sorceress named Lamanda, trained in the School of Lesarkus, had the courage to make her way through the bog in order to warn the spirits. Her song is also called The End of Circleblade Bog; it is the dialogue between her and the two spirits.

(21) This legend gives us some explanation for the geography of modern-day Hemenster - it had been a bog for millennia - and indicates that Bandos had taken interest in this area long before the battle of goblins upon the Plain of Mud. Perhaps his previous experience here aided him in reaching Hopespear during the battle in the 4th age.

(22) Two more sources from the 3rd age deserve mention. First is a text that was lost with the collapse of the Fremennik School - a fictional dialogue between Ikov and a mystic from another world, set in the other world after Ikov's departure from Gielinor. The dialogue offered an explanation of why there was a mysterious portal at the mouth of the Dougne, why Ikov was led to it, and what he found on the other side. The discussion largely concerns itself with pocket dimensions, called 'dead worlds' in the dialogue.

(23) The dialogue suggests that pocket dimensions form when the work of spirits in a particular soul cannot unfold as it ought within the realms of light - the soul retreats to a pocket hidden in shadow so that the spirits can complete their work there. Whatever further work Ikov had to accomplish, so the legend goes, he could not accomplish it in Gielinor, and was therefore led to a world in shadow where the spirits in him might complete their work. The details of the text have been lost. Hopefully a surviving copy will be discovered some day.

(24) The second is a cycle of drinking songs from the region of Yanille. These tell of a conflict between the Bandosian forces entrenched in the Feldip Hills and a walled town responsible for the defense of Armadyl's southern frontier - a town very much like Yanille today. The heroine of these songs is considered one of the greatest sorceresses of all time. Unfortunately I do not even know her name. I have never come across these songs written down. My only knowledge of them comes from having heard them sung as a boy.

(25) According to the legend, in the late 3rd age, Bandos used the Feldip Hills as breeding grounds for his armies but rarely visited there himself. The ogre shamans who oversaw the territory on his behalf often led small raids against Armadyl's southern frontier but they thirsted for battle and yearned for a leader who would lead them in war. So eventually they summoned a spirit for the purpose. The spirit they summoned took the form of an ogre like themselves - he is considered one of the cruelest creatures that ever walked this plane.

(26) Immediately the shamans recognized their error - for the spirit killed several of them. At the conclusion of the spell that brought him into Gielinor, it is said that a ring fell from the portal whence he came - two bands wound together, one of gold, the other silver, not smooth but faceted all around; each band had a sharp edge where it met the other. He picked up this ring and handed it to a goblin soldier. Then he took charge of the armies there. He decimated them again and again, forming those orgres and ourgs and orks and goblins and trolls into a fearsome force and biding his time in the hills.

(27) Another song of the cycle begins with a desciption of a human family fleeing violence along the southern shore of what is today Misthalin, an old father and mother and their young daughter. They came to the walled town on Armadyl's southern frontier - at the time governed by an old and wise mystic called Lord Dunce - seeking work. Because the old father had no son to compete with his own, the local smith employed him.

(28) The young daughter was beautiful and soon caught the eye of another local mystic, the chosen successor of Lord Dunce. Although few married young in those war-torn years, the mystic asked the father for his daughter's hand in marriage. The old father accepted and said something like, "Take this ring to give to her for the engagement - it is beautiful and must be magical; I found it in the pocket of a goblin slain during the last raid." The two were wed, and the rest of the song describes the beauty and intellect and spiritual sensitivities of the young bride and ends with a prophecy by the groom that together they would overcome their enemies, an ogre and a basilisk.

(29) In order to understand the next song, we will need a little historical background. On the old Armadylean calendar, there were several feasts commemerating events from the Epic of Ikov. We know the dates of some of these feasts with certainty: the feast of the seer on the 36th day of Rintra (**2/5, see V.7**), the feast of the dragon on the 11th day of Moevyng (**2/19, see V.9**), the high feasts of summer, beginning with the feast of Ikov on the 30th day of Pentember and ending with feast of Armadyl on the 36th day of Pentember (**6/22 & 6/28, see V.8**), the feast of the giant on the 3rd of Fentuary (**7/3, see V.3**), the feast of fog on the 6th of Novtumber (**10/23, see V.4)**, and the feast of the ghost on the 11th of Novtumber (**10/28, see V.1**).

(30) We are less certain about the following: the feast of shadows around the 23rd of Rintra (**1/23, see V.6**), the feast of the knight around the 16th of Moevyng (**2/24, see V.2**), and the feast of troglodytes around the 33rd day of Wintumber (**12/28, see V.5**). It is likely that arrival of Armadyl in Gielinor and the 'blessed night' of the Epic's Prologue were also celebrated as a ten day summer vacation in mid-Fentuary. Finally, the people of the southern frontier also celebrated a feast called 'dragon's shadow' sometime in Novtumber. The Novtumber feasts probably bookended a period of celebration after the harvest and before the onset of winter.

(31) I took this digression because the third song of the cycle opens some years later on the feast of fog, just after the harvest. The harvest had been poor because of heavy rains. On the day of the feast, the countryside was uncannily covered in thick fog. When the meal was finished, and most of the townsfolk were gathered for song in a field just outside the walls, the Bandosians attacked. It was no raid but a full assault, with separate battalions approaching from multiple directions. Hundreds of townsfolk were cut down in the field; maybe the whole town would have been wiped away had the Bandosians pressed their advantage. But the Bandosians did not cut off their retreat. Many made it back within the town's defensive walls, and the Bandosians returned to the hills.

(32) Lord Dunce doubled the watch and reinforced the walls. The fog remained, as well as frequent driving rain. The next feasts were held within the walls, but they was no joy on those days. On both the feast of the ghost and dragon's shadow, the Bandosians launched assaults on the city walls, killing archers and damaging towers - the main defenses they left alone. After the third attack, Lord Dunce suspended the calendar of feasts.