Lament of Morrow, or the Mourner's Verse

 The Lament of Morrow, also known as The Mourner’s Verse

By Maireth of Kel Valla, Ritescribe of the Weeping Isles, Archivist under the Ashen Choir

I have not set these words to page to convince our opposition.
This is for those of us who honor the truth buried beneath their imperial canon.

We in the Weeping Isles do not forget what Morrow was, nor what was taken.
We do not sit idly as tales of Sharandar saviorism tear at the minds of our youth.

Their scholars call this verse apocryphal—fragmented, emotional, false.
But we know better than to trust the words of conquerors.

The Lament of Morrow was not written, at first.
It was remembered in song, a keening tune native to the Isles.
Only with the founding of the Ashen Choir were serious efforts made to preserve and weave its memory into form.

It was etched into the breath of the Ashen-Years,
Wailed into salt winds by countless peoples who stared westward toward the empty sea,
And felt their stomachs turn with knowing.

I am a ritescribe of the Ashen Choir.
My task is to make the past speak,
to keep it from falling into that profound silence called forgetting.

During the Shattered Era, a shadowy network of cultists dedicated to the revival of Morrigan brought cataclysm to the Shattered Lands of Midir. Driven by the embers of ambition and the fog of nostalgia, the Hallowed Order sowed chaos and division among the sister cities of Morrow. Their opposition grew weak—dull with stupid hate. The Order felled them with the sickle and reaped their victory from the fields of ruin.

In a sea of war, the Order mastered Chaelam’s Wound as a vessel for the rebirth of their young goddess. The ritual of descension reverberated through the Weave that holds the Real. And so, the echoes of Morrigan’s ascension became a beacon—a declaration of divine imperial ambition. The call echoed far—deep into the gut of the blackest of nothings. There, in the Far Realm, the ancient things stirred. They opened their ten thousand eyes, stretched their disastrous appendages. Space itself recoiled, bent and warped around their hideous bodies.

Then came ruin for the planes. Like glaciers of sickly teeth, they etched across a sea of worlds, carving rivers of gore in their wake. At last, they wandered upon Midir, drawn to the godly beacon that had stirred them.

The skies emptied themselves of light.
Monsoons of brackish water and ash sealed a forsaken world.
And below, the earth wept.
Black ichor coursed through rivers.
Wells turned to tar.
The oceans foamed.
The lakes offered up their surface, bloated with dead things.
Cities tore at themselves in madness.
Order collapsed beneath the galactic weight of the Kindred’s indifferent entropy.

Her holy crown still juvenile, Morrigan’s arrogance burned in fiery shame.
Frantic, she clawed at the Weave—abusing its threads, stealing what was not hers.
This astral hellfire would not be dimmed.

She sought salvation among the ruins of her restored empire.
She braided celestial magic with bloodied hands, a field of eyes shaped around her in wretched curiosity.

So it was, for a time.
Until she opened her hands to the Kindred.
To the end.

They met her.
And she closed her hands.
Some say she stole their power.
Others say she offered herself.

But when her body turned inward, her lands followed.
They spiraled forever into the Space Between Worlds.

And for a hundred years, the Kindred watched.
Midir, ensnared in a cage of horror, lingered beneath their alien gaze.
Until, with unknowable indifference, the Kindred receded—
Back to the lightless void.

Thus is Morrow remembered.
Thus do we speak her name into salt and silence.
Let none forget the weight of that vanished land.


[My campaign nosedived into oblivion after going through a break-up (my partner was a player and most of the other players were their friends), and what has been my passion project for the last two years came to feel sharp and heavy. Upon reflection, I've come to the conclusion I want to continue future campaigns in Midir, to honor and deepen this wonderful world I've built. However, I feel that the island of Morrow only has a place in this world's history. I wrapped up the campaign by writing an epilogue of sorts to the first campaign set in Midir. I've thrusted the timeline farther into the future and have shaped its new timeline around this great cataclysmic event that occurred (and possibly wouldn't have happened had we continued to play). It's way, then, of allowing the dynamism of this world play out, of it asserting its own motion in a kind of gentle indifference to previous table. I spent a whole afternoon and evening on this, and I love how I've tied up my grief with the lore and created something that feels thematic and cool. Thanks for reading. :) 

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Lament of Morrow, or the Mourner's Verse

  The Lament of Morrow, also known as The Mourner’s Verse By Maireth of Kel Valla, Ritescribe of the Weeping Isles, Archivist under the Ash...