The God of Life and Death

By Wormtongue

Section I: Grinneal

Death has existed since the beginning, but for death to exist, there must first be life. Grinneal, god of the land and the cycle of life, guardian of the soul, has been present in our lore since the dawning of Aosda and the golden age of Hy-Brasyl. While some claim that Grinneal is dead or lies dormant, like Danaan and Chadul, I propose this is only partially true. Grinneal has not vanished, but transformed, reborn through death itself. In this new form, he is known as Sgrios, god of decay and the end of all things.

As god of the land, Grinneal is intrinsically tied to life itself, for from the land all things grow, and to it all things return. His dominion was not merely over soil and stone, but over the natural rhythms of birth, growth, and death. To be god of the land is to be god of the living world, for it is the land that nourishes the body, sustains the breath, and receives the remains. In this way, Grinneal presided over the cycle of life, not merely its beginning but its progression and inevitable end. Within such a cycle, the soul is not an afterthought, but a central element: an animating spark that passes through life and beyond, where death is not rupture but return. The Seanchas Excerpts tell us that in the days of Hy-Brasyl, the elders did not fear death but welcomed it. When their time came, they heard an angelic voice and “simply slipped beneath the waves of Hy-Brasyl and drifted on fond memories in Grinneal.” Though no scripture names Grinneal directly as guardian of the soul, such accounts suggest a deeper truth: that he not only governed life, but tended to the soul at its departure, receiving it with care and memory. He was not merely god of the land, but god of the living soul, the one who bore it home.

Section II: Divine Fracture

In the earliest age, before temples were raised and divine dominions divided, Grinneal's power may have appeared complete, encompassing land, life, and the cycle of all living things. Yet even then, he was not alone. The ancient realm of Kadath teemed with silent shadows: nameless, formless deities whose ambiguity rendered them distant and inert. It was not their absence but their unknowability that left Grinneal's influence unchallenged. In time, however, some among these shadows took shape. Those who were once silent and obscured claimed name and form. Glioca took love and compassion; Ceannlaidir, strength and the will to act. Luathas claimed the realm of intellect, Gramail the balance of justice, and Fiosachd the ever-turning wheel of fortune. With each emergence, a new god stepped into a domain once encompassed by Grinneal’s broader stewardship. His wholeness began to fragment, not through war or betrayal, but through slow erosion, as reverence and purpose were drawn elsewhere.

Then came the breaking of Hy-Brasyl. The great civilization of Aosda, built on the reverence of nature and the balance of life, was swallowed by the sea and lost to time. In that cataclysm, Grinneal's final connection to the world, the land he once nurtured, was drowned. With the fall of Aosda, he fell with it, his worship scattered and his relevance fading into obscurity. But the wound was not yet fatal.

Section III: Descent Into Darkness

In the age that followed, as Aosda was rediscovered and the world once again turned its eyes to the divine, it was Danaan, mysterious and radiant, who appeared to the ancient folk. She did not create the rift that doomed Grinneal, but her arrival completed it. In revealing herself to the remnants of Aosda, she brought with her a new vision: one of light, renewal, and transcendent beauty. Her radiance stirred awe, and with it, devotion: devotion that once belonged to the land, now turned toward the heavens. She did not speak of Grinneal. She did not seek him out. And in that silence, the final thread of his divinity unraveled, not by violence or denial, but by overshadowing, as the living world’s reverence shifted from the quiet rhythms of life to the brilliance of light.

In losing that light, the vital essence that once illuminated his domain, Grinneal lost more than worship. He lost the animating force that had made life sacred. Light, once inherent to his stewardship of land and soul, had passed into the hands of another. And in its absence, only shadow remained. Whatever spark of the life-god lingered was drawn into that deepening dark.

This transition may be interpreted as more than coincidence. In the absence of worship and relevance, Grinneal, once a god of land, life and the soul, enters a state of dormancy or metaphysical death. Yet this death is not marked by oblivion. Rather than vanish, Grinneal may have descended into darkness: a space of unmaking, yes, but also of potential. From this descent emerges a new god. No longer the guardian of life’s cycle, he becomes the end of that cycle itself: Sgrios.

Section IV: The Appearance of Sgrios

The earliest accounts of Sgrios place him within the realm of the Dubhaimid, a people deeply associated with death, transformation, and shadow. The Temuair Timeline does not describe his birth, but rather his manifestation. This is a subtle but critical distinction. While Chadul is born, Sgrios simply appears, already whole, his nature fully formed. As the scholar Nitro TFD observes, “Mortals had just realized his existence and believed for a very long time this is when he awakened (untrue, he sat back for a long time embracing the death in the world).”

But if Sgrios appeared, then from what did he emerge?

In the age following the fall of Hy-Brasyl, Grinneal, once the god of land and life, was cast into irrelevance. His dominion fractured, his worship forgotten, and his role usurped by younger gods, he sought to preserve what remained of his essence. In an act of desperation, or perhaps adaptation, Grinneal turned to those who still lingered in the twilight of the world: the Dubhaimid. They were all that remained, for he too had descended into shadow. To them, he offered his wisdom of the Cycle: of life, of death, and the soul’s journey between. This understanding is reflected in the Seanchas Excerpts, which describe the Dubhaimid as knowing the secrets of life and death. But this knowledge, shared in shadow, was received not with reverence, but with hunger.

Among the Dubhaimid was one who took Grinneal’s gift and reshaped it to his own ends. This being, later known as Chadul, corrupted the teachings, twisting clarity into madness and balance into entropy. In doing so, he did not merely rise to power; he accelerated Grinneal’s decline. The divine essence that had once nurtured the land now festered through misuse. With each distortion and each profane ritual, the god who had once shepherded the soul through birth and death was unmade.

What remained was no longer Grinneal.

Sgrios was not born in that moment, but it is there we find the final fracture. Where once there had been a god of growth and return, now remained only the divine embodiment of endings. Where Grinneal preserved the cycle, Sgrios affirmed its end. And though the Dubhaimid still clung to fragments of the old teachings, they did so in ruinous form. In this way, Sgrios became their silent teacher, not by intention but by consequence. His truth, twisted through their shadowed lens, was stripped of renewal and remembered only as ruin.

Chadul, for his part, is better understood not as Sgrios’ successor, but as a symptom: an echo of the unraveling. His rise signals not the beginning of a new pantheon, but the final decay of an old one.

The Temuair Timeline marks this moment clearly: the decay of Grinneal.

Section V: False Origins

In tracing the emergence of Sgrios, various alternate theories have arisen, each proposing a different genesis for the god of death and decay. While these interpretations have gained traction among certain scholars and faiths, they ultimately fall short in light of the theological patterns, metaphysical implications, and historical accounts examined thus far. Here, we address three of the most prominent: the Mortal Theory, the Dubhaimid Metamorphosis Theory, and the Chadul Manifestation Theory.

The Mortal Theory appears most clearly in History of Sgrios, where Dryst writes: “Sgrios was in fact a mortal whose lust for power induced him to enter into a pact with Chadul… in exchange Sgrios would gain the immortality of a God.” A similar claim surfaces in The Bane of Light, which describes Sgrios as a decaying priest who, through devotion to darkness, is granted godhood and control over the Dubhaimid.

While compelling as a cautionary myth, this theory falters when examined within the greater metaphysical order. The role of Sgrios, as steward of death and the cycle of souls, is too fundamental and too elemental to plausibly originate from a single mortal life. Unlike other deities said to have ascended, Sgrios does not simply preside over a virtue or concept. He governs the very passage between life and afterlife. To suggest that such a critical cosmic function was granted through a mortal pact not only trivializes the role, it also undermines the structure of the divine itself.

The Dubhaimid Metamorphosis Theory, proposed by Daravon in Treatise on the Nature of the Dark Masters, suggests that Sgrios evolved from a lesser Dubhaimid entity. Daravon writes, “Sgrios...has been a mere Fiend Pupa, lucky and capable enough to accumulate the vast amount of energy that is certainly necessary to transcend into the final stage of its life cycle.” This biological interpretation treats divinity as a result of spirit-energy accumulation, suggesting that Sgrios is simply an adult form of Dubhaimid rather than a god of ancient lineage.

However, such a theory misinterprets both the nature of the Dubhaimid and the nature of Sgrios himself. While the Dubhaimid are creatures of darkness, they are not gods. They lack permanence, stewardship, and cosmic function. Though Sgrios is named among the Dubhaimid gods, his role within the divine order, as shepherd of souls and metaphysical force of decay, suggests not a monstrous evolution but a divine transformation. He is not the product of ascension but of unraveling. The theory fails to account for his influence beyond the Dubhaimid and his thematic entwinement with the Cycle.

The Chadul Manifestation Theory holds that Sgrios is not an independent god at all, but rather a product or servant of Chadul. While this idea is never stated directly, it is implied in theological surveys such as The Gods De Temuair, which claims Sgrios “is believed to have been born through Chadul,” though this is later retracted in parenthesis. Despite the internal contradiction, this view has gained popularity due to Chadul’s prominence during the Shadows War and his association with death and entropy.

However, such a claim reduces Sgrios to a pawn. This is a role that contradicts both his autonomy and the fear and reverence afforded him. Sgrios does not serve. He does not speak. He is not the extension of another’s will. He exists as a cosmic principle, as an end that comes to all, even to Chadul himself. To equate him with a subordinate denies his mythic gravity and the deeper truth that he may predate Chadul altogether, as a fallen form of Grinneal. Even in The Gods De Temuair, Nitro TFD admits that “all we truly know about [Sgrios] is that he is feared.”

Each of these theories is tempting in its simplicity: a tragic man, a mutated fiend, a shadow’s puppet. Yet none hold when examined in the full light of history, theology, and myth. They offer compelling fables, but not truth. The god known as Sgrios did not rise from below, nor was he raised by another. He fell from the heights of life into the depths of death. In that descent, he was changed.

Section VI: The Birth of Cail

With Grinneal’s essence diminished and ultimately transfigured into Sgrios, the divine sphere he once governed, the land, and by extension life in its ordered cycle, was left unguarded. The rise of Sgrios signaled not merely a shift in power but a rupture in cosmic balance. Where once there was stewardship and renewal, now there was only death and decay. And while the other gods had claimed their domains, including war, love, wisdom, and wealth, none took up the mantle of the natural world: the pulse of life itself in harmonious flow with the land.

Thus, a new god was born: Cail, son of Ceannlaidir and Glioca, born not of death and transformation but of union and necessity. Unlike his divine predecessors, Cail did not ascend by drawing from Grinneal’s waning power, for there was nothing left to take. Instead, his existence points to a new form of divine emergence, born of the gods rather than forged from the fragments of a forgotten one. In this way, Cail represents not a continuation of Grinneal but a correction to the imbalance left in his absence.

Cail’s domain, nature and harmony, is not merely a passive echo of Grinneal’s former governance over land, but a direct response to its loss. Where Grinneal presided over the cycle of life and death, Cail guards the continuity of nature. Where Grinneal's legacy ends in death, Cail’s begins in life sustained. The two cannot coexist in balance; one’s rise necessitates the other’s fall. In this light, Cail’s very birth may be understood as a divine rebuttal to the existence of Sgrios, a god not of land’s decay, but of its renewal.

This distinction places Cail in direct ideological and cosmological tension with Sgrios. Their opposition is not merely thematic but elemental: harmony versus unmaking, growth versus rot, life sustained versus life concluded. And unlike the older gods who inherited their spheres from the ruin of another, Cail is born of creation itself, making him the first of a new generation and a symbol of the world’s ongoing attempt to restore what was lost.

Section VII: The Aisling Spark

The culmination of these divine upheavals is most clearly seen in the events of the Shadows War, a conflict not only of gods, but of allegiances, ideals, and cosmic direction. At its heart lies the pivotal betrayal: Deoch, once the disciple of Chadul, renounces his master in favor of love, Danaan, radiant with promise. This defection marks a turning point, not only in the war, but in the structure of divine influence upon the world.

In the wake of Grinneal’s transformation, many souls continued to follow Sgrios, drawn to his domain of finality and release. But in his descent into shadow, these souls found no peace. Instead, they fell within reach of Chadul, who tormented them so terribly that, it is said, their wails pierced the veil and could be heard by those still drawing breath. Seizing upon their suffering, Chadul turned their agony into a weapon, instilling fear and driving the world further into chaos.

In response to this anguish, Danaan sought to intervene. She endeavored to create a new spirit, one unbound by the cycle that continued to pass through Sgrios after Grinneal’s dissolution. But her work was never completed. Whether by divine limitation or the chaos of war, the effort remained unfinished: a fragment of possibility adrift in the unseen currents of the world.

The fall of Chadul and Danaan signals the end of the dominion of pure entropy. In Chadul’s waning, the oppressive shadow that had smothered meaning and growth is lifted, giving rise to something unprecedented: the Aisling spark. But this spark is not born from balance. It is born from abandonment. Deoch, forged by the influence of both Chadul and Danaan, does not uphold their opposing ideals. He casts them aside. Where Chadul offered madness and corruption, and Danaan brought radiance and restraint, Deoch sought something beyond either extreme. In turning away from their binary pull, he opens the way for something new.

Thus is the Aisling spark born, not merely as a union of opposing forces, but as the failure of duality itself. It is a gift of choice, potential, and spiritual evolution, an awakening that no god of order or chaos alone could bestow.

And with this awakening, a new role for Sgrios emerges.

Section VIII: Death and Rebirth

No longer merely the god of decay dwelling at the edge of being, Sgrios finds purpose once more, not as a simple end, but as the necessary phase through which all life must pass. In the age of the Aisling, death is not final; it is a passage. The spark grants mortals the chance to transcend, but that transcendence still passes through death. In this, Sgrios reclaims what was once Grinneal’s: the care and guidance of souls beyond the veil.

But his role is no mere repetition. Sgrios does not offer comfort; he offers truth. He does not preserve life, but ensures that it ends with meaning. In a world now shaped by divine fragmentation, rebirth, and choice, Sgrios becomes the shepherd of Aisling souls, ensuring that even in death, the spark is not lost. What was once Grinneal's stewardship of life has been transformed through darkness, through forgetting, and through war into a more profound understanding of death's place in the divine order.

Thus, the god of death becomes essential to life. The cycle, once broken, is made whole again, but in a form neither Grinneal nor the ancient folk could have imagined.

Taken together, the evidence suggests that Sgrios is not a god wholly distinct from Grinneal, but rather, his final form. He is reborn through darkness, reshaped by necessity, and returned to the divine order through the rise of the Aisling spark. While direct proof remains elusive, the patterns of divine succession, conflict, and rebalance point to this transformation as not only plausible, but theologically resonant. In Sgrios, we do not witness the arrival of something new, but the endurance of something ancient, a god changed, yet enduring. Who better to guide us through death than one who has endured it.

Works Cited

• “Temuair Timeline.” Dark Ages Official History. Nexon. ((https://www.darkages.com/community/his/Timeline.html))
• “Seanchas Excerpts.” Dark Ages Archive. Accessed via Internet Archive, June 25, 2001. ((https://web.archive.org/web/20010625234135/http://www.darkages.com/community/his/purity.html))
• Nitro TFD. Gods de Temuair. ((https://www.darkages.com/community/phi/Nitrotfd_Gods/index.html))
• Daravon Ragnar. Treatise on the Nature of the Dark Masters. Loures Library. ((http://loureslibrary.aisling-spark.de/phi/daravon_darkmasters.html))
• Dryst. History of Sgrios. Dark Ages Lore Compendium. ((https://www.darkages.com/community/his/Dryst_Sgrios.html))
• Katrionah Rosalette. The Bane of Light: Chadul & His Minions. Loures Library. ((http://loureslibrary.aisling-spark.de/his/katrionah_death.html))

Acknowledgment

I offer my deepest and most sincere thanks to Paramour, my High Priestess and closest confidante. Though the theories and words within this work are my own, her insight, presence, and unwavering support were integral throughout its formation.

((Special thanks to my mentor, Phever, for assistance with web design and implementation. And to ChatGPT, OpenAI’s language model, for support with generating digital artwork.))