Expanded Entries

Geography & Environment – Expanded Entries

● The Whisper-Clefts

Narrow chasms lined with soft, echo-sensitive stone that transform wind into near-speech. Aevori children are brought here to learn silence, listening for “the words of the mountain” which emerge in dusk winds. No two clefts ever speak the same sounds twice.

● Frostpetal Rise

A high ledge near Veu-Nahra’s northern face, layered in snow-fed flora that bloom with crystalline white leaves only when touched by moonlight. Its elevation makes it treacherous, but the rare Kaelune Petals used in blessing rites grow only here.

● The Breathless Pools

Stillwater basins in the lower Velun groves. The air here is unnaturally still and scentless. Breath taken in this zone feels thinner. Aevori consider it a place for releasing emotion and naming griefs—names whispered here are believed to lose their weight.

● Veilstorms

Localized celestial storms triggered once every several cycles. Veilstorms twist wind, light, and mist into spiraling forms above the forest. They pull memories to the surface of nearby Memory Stones and cause temporary song-glyph illumination on stone or skin.

● Threadmist Season

Occurs briefly every cycle, when invisible strands of mist glide through the upper canopies and leave behind trails of scentless moisture. Aevori use this time to gather high-clinging mosses and meditate on what cannot be seen.

Aspects-in-Stillness & Language – Expanded Entries

● Known Aspects-in-Stillness

• Tae’laih of the Hollow Word – Known for crafting glyphs whose meanings shift when spoken versus sung. Her tattoos never grew past infancy, yet she deciphered thousands of combinations using only reflection and breathwork.

• Mirae-Sel the Fathomless – Blind since birth, her skin carried inert lines that bloomed into resonance under rain. The glyphs she shaped were never carved, only traced into damp air.

• Yurenna of Nine Threads – Her glyphs mimicked weaving patterns. Considered a rare bridge between tattoo-speak and song-glyphs, her forms are studied still in secret.

● Rare Glyph Classes

• Suul’theh Glyphs – Known as Silent Recursions, these symbols can only be “read” when vibrated through bone or sung with alternating breath rhythms.

• Nested Glyphs – Glyphs within glyphs. Outer shapes appear meaningless, but reveal internal resonance patterns when activated by humming or touch.

● Linguistic Practice: Song-Revealed Meanings

• Some glyphs only release their full meaning when sung in harmonic layers. One may sing a glyph’s top contour while another hums the stem. These are used for binding promises or translating grief.

Combat Philosophy – Zah’laun – Expanded Entries

● Named Forms of Zah’laun

• “Crescent of the Low Veil” – A low-to-ground, spinning stance meant for forest duels that never strike. Designed to entangle, disarm, or redirect intent without harm.

• “Open Limb of the Listening Root” – Performed with a Rai’len Rod. Used to catch momentum and redirect force into the ground. Used only in defensive ceremony.

• “Breath of the Empty Shell” – A full-body stillness that makes the user undetectable by most wildlife. Trained Wardens use it to avoid conflict altogether.

● Historic Ritual Use

Zah’laun was once a form of spiritual confrontation, used not to win, but to mirror the soul of one’s opponent—showing them their reflection through movement. These “Mirror Encounters” were held in sacred glades and always ended in silence. Such rites ended centuries ago after a duel between twin Aspects revealed a mirrored glyph of corruption on both.

The Varashin (Corruption) – Expanded Entries

● Known Behavioral Forms

• The Echoed Self – When one begins repeating their own thoughts aloud involuntarily, often with reversed meaning or tone. A precursor stage.

• The Still-Tongue – A complete loss of speech, not from fear but refusal. The afflicted withdraw and their tattoos begin to pulse faintly in silence.

• Fractured Echo – The Varashin mimic others’ voices perfectly, but say things those people never would. Aevori avoid eye contact when this form begins.

• Vein-Script – Lines appear crawling beneath the skin like glyphs, but they are illegible and ever-shifting.

• The Mirrorbound – The corrupted can only walk paths they’ve already walked. They cannot break new trails. This behavior is often the last sign before complete spiritual unraveling.

● Whisper-Lore Origin

According to silence-lore, the Varashin were born when a single Aevori tried to carve a glyph that could contain death itself. The glyph could not hold it. Instead, it sang the shape of despair into her skin—and she vanished. Since then, any soul who carves memory without humility risks echoing her fate.

Sacred Songs & Spiritual Practice – Expanded Entries

● Instrumental Practices

• Resonance Flutes of Hollow Thunel – Carved from the roots of Thunel plants grown in solitude, each flute harmonizes with its player’s breathing cycle. Played only during moon-passage rites.

• Vehlune Bell-Chimes – Small, hovering crystal orbs attuned to light and sound. When placed around a ritual site, they create layered overtones that guide memory-flow and dreaming.

• Threaded Bones – Bone fragments from ancient dream-creatures, woven with hair and moss. Used to create low-hum resonances during Song of the Forgotten rites.

● New Song Practices

• Song of the Unbound Thread – Sung in triadic breathwork to unravel griefs tethered to past choices. Only performed once per individual’s lifetime. Ends with silence that lasts a full night.

• The Fifth Tone Beneath – A rare harmonic pattern discovered only in deep forest silence. Requires five singers, each holding a dissonant tone that creates sacred dissonance, revealing glyphs hidden in stone walls.

• The Vein-Song – Used in corrupted zones to draw out fragmented memories. Its syllables crackle and distort, sometimes drawing Varashin echoes toward the singers in a passive, spiraling motion.

Flora, Food, & Sacred Substances – Major Expansion

● Sacred and Rare Plants

• Elya’murr Vines – Sky-reaching vines with bioluminescent edges. When dried and burned in ritual spirals, they produce smoke that reveals forgotten glyphs suspended in air.

• Sulira Bloom – A deep-crimson flower that grows in moon-soaked clearings. Its nectar induces slow, lucid dreaming and is used for Veil-walking initiations.

• Ilshara Moss – Grows in the Breathless Pools. It hums faintly when touched by grief. Used in mourning ceremonies to absorb sorrow and carry it into soil.

• Glassroot – Clear crystalline tubers found near fault-lines beneath Veu-Nahra. They shimmer with faint glyphs and are ground into powder for rite-based marking of the face or palms.

● Practical Flora

• Nahlun Bark – Used as a binding resin for Rai’len Rod harnesses. When boiled, it becomes soft and flexible. When dried, it hardens like bone.

• Drevi Berries – Small blue-black fruits that numb the tongue. Used in truth-rites to still speech and prepare the heart for confession.

• Tanu’sek Ferns – Long-leaved plants whose fiber is spun into thread for ceremonial clothing and memory-weaving.

● Sentient Flora (Singular Region)

• The Listening Hollow – A hidden grove where plants respond to emotion, shifting color and form. The flora here is partially aware, with vines that lean toward music and retreat from fear. No animals live here. Even insects avoid it. The Aevori believe it is watched by an ancient song-being that never sings.

Notable Locations – Deep Expansion

● Taboo & Corrupted Sites

• The Blackmouth Basin – A crater filled with still-black water. No memory stones grow here. The few who’ve entered speak only in backward syllables for a cycle afterward.

• The Groaning Arch – A bent root-bridge said to be the last remnant of an Aevori who fell to Varashin. It hums at night with the voices of those she once protected.

● Micro-locales within Veu-Nahra

• The Hall of Spines – A chamber lined with old Rai’len Rods of the dead. Their dust remains along the walls. Only Wardens may enter.

• The Stone Loom – A resonance chamber where weavers spin memory-thread across bone structures embedded in the wall. Used for encoding whole lives into physical form.

• Moonwell Gallery – An elevated glade-ring high within the mountain where moonlight filters through natural crystal. Used for pairing ceremonies and glyph-births.

● Mobile Sacred Zones

• The Drifting Court – A glade that appears once every two cycles, always at a different point in the forest. Marked by floating Vehlune Spheres and a fragrance that triggers memory in waves. Its location cannot be predicted, only felt in advance by Aspects-in-Stillness.

Objects & Concepts of Meaning – Expanded Entries

● Weaving Bones

• Taken only from dream-creatures found lifeless beneath Veu-Nahra’s interior. These bones are etched with spiral-glyphs and strung into weaving tools by the Aspects-in-Stillness. Each bone stores a pattern of movement and memory. When woven into cloth, the result carries emotion as texture—grief feels coarse, love feels soft and heavy.

● Symbolic Objects

• Mourning Stones – Small, pale rocks wrapped in hair-thread, placed in sacred alcoves after someone dies. They are silent until the third cycle after death, when they hum faintly for one night. If they do not hum, the spirit has not passed fully.

• Hollow Marks – Rings of bark or thread placed around the wrist to indicate an unresolved memory. Worn only during healing rituals or dream-guided journaling.

• Unspilled Cups – Ceremonial cups filled with rain caught during silent walks. Never drunk, only offered to the soil during forgiveness rites.

● Tattoo Forms (New Types)

• Echo-Marked – Small, spiraled tattoos placed behind the ear, designed to record whispered truths. They darken briefly when their bearer speaks something deeply remembered.

• Skein-Trail – Tattoos that do not follow the body’s contour but move across it in strange arcs. These are said to mimic the shape of soul-paths.

• Memory-Reversed Glyphs – Used only once in life, these are carved backwards onto skin during a night vigil and then mirrored through a still pool. They are not for the bearer—but for those left behind.

Core Beliefs & Sayings – Expanded Entries

● Sayings & Ritual Expressions

• “The root does not weep when the leaf falls.” – Spoken to those mourning, honoring the depth of unseen life still beneath them.

• “Sing me what you cannot say.” – An invitation for someone to express grief or truth through resonance instead of words.

• “Some paths are made of silence.” – A phrase said before taking a vow of stillness, often during healing or rebirth cycles.

• “Let it spiral, and it will return.” – Used to reassure those releasing painful memories to the mountain or to water.

• “We hold light not in our hands, but in our echoes.” – A statement of how Aevori do not seek control but resonance.

Additional Notes – Expanded & Updated

● Cultural Taboos

• Breaking a Memory Thread in Silence – Snapping a woven memory-thread without ritual is considered an invitation for Varashin echoes.

• Waking Another During Vein-Sleep – Deep restorative sleep cycles that may involve unconscious song-muttering or dreaming glyphs onto skin. Interrupting this process is feared.

• Eating Thunel Root without Offering First – The root must be shown to the soil, breathed on, and then consumed. It is considered a spirit-root.

● Games & Cultural Recreation

• Lanek’thil (Echo Steps) – A shadow-based game played only during Veilstorm nights. Players must mimic the shadow-steps of others in total silence.

• Thread-Mirror – A challenge between weavers where one begins a memory-weaving and the other must respond in mirrored pattern, revealing the truth beneath a story.

• Vehlune Drift – A meditative sport using slowly drifting Vehlune spheres and guiding them by breath alone through a shifting stone maze.

● Seasonal Observances

• Cycle of the Hollow Wind – Marked by long dusk hours. Stories are told only in glyph-form and food is eaten cold to preserve silence.

• The Listening Tide – Occurs when deep spring melts flood forest streams. Songs are offered to water and old paths are washed clean. Many Aevori move homes during this observance.

Summary: Themes of Velun – Final Expansion

Velun is a world where memory is substance, silence is language, and the body is both temple and text. Its themes spiral deeply through cycles of grief, resonance, identity, and transformation—not as linear progression, but as layered echoes that rise and fall in rhythm with unseen tides. Every glyph carved into skin is a promise; every silence a form of truth.

The Aevori embody the belief that to live well is not to control—but to remember, to release, and to resonate with what cannot be fully known. Here, life is not a conquest but a listening. The corruption of Varashin is not a darkness imposed, but a misalignment—a failure to listen deeply enough.

The Spiral of Cycles—life, silence, memory, loss, song—is not a doctrine, but a living field of meaning. No story is final. All echoes return.