Despite my apprehension at reading about the deaths of so many of Golarion’s gods and my continuing belief that these Godsrain Prophecies cannot be taken at their word, I still feel a bit wistful about reaching the end of my analysis. While it is certainly possible that there are other prophecies in this vein, this is the last that I will read before delivering the collection to my Lady.

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As I near the end of my review of the Godsrain Prophecies, I’m reaching the part of any research project that’s the most daunting—the conclusion. While it will of course be up to my Lady to decide what, if anything, to do with these prophecies, I plan to present her with the two or three reasons for their existence that I believe are the most plausible (other than them all being true, which I maintain is nearly impossible).

One of the theories that I intend to run by my Lady in my compilation of these so-called Godsrain Prophecies is that they may be warnings of some kind. This is a relatively new addition to my admittedly large list of potential reasons for their existence, which range from sensible hypotheses to outlandish theories, including one recent concern that this has all been a test by my Lady to discern whether I am trustworthy and analytical enough to handle some of her more complex research needs. I know she would never do such a thing, in truth, but after a particularly vivid dream (involving my being back in one of Lorminos’s classes and asked to deliver a talk about a research paper I had somehow forgotten to do), my anxiety briefly took hold.

Something that I have been mulling over for some time (but have yet to mention in these annotations) is the naming of the Godsrain Prophecies. By the time I first heard of them, they had already been given that title, but nothing I have read so far has given me any indication as to how or why. Personally, I would never presume to name a collection of this potential impact and importance without a very clear reason, lest I end up in a repeat of the Fatal Four disaster. (To think that one scribe’s decision to include a bit of wordplay in their recounting of a minor historical prophecy would lead to not one but two assassinations is truly beyond the pale!) Issues like this are the reason that Lorminos insisted I read Notorious Names and Narrative Novelties: Navigating the Nuance of Nomenclature early on in my studies (a book that could easily have been 150 pages instead of over 700, in my personal opinion). While I must make reading these prophecies a priority, I will also endeavor to track down the origin of the word Godsrain. For one thing, it is possible there was a mistaken transcription somewhere along the line. Perhaps they should instead be known as the God’s Reign Prophecies, alluding to the end of a specific god’s reign? It is something to at least consider.

As I continue reading through the Godsrain “prophecies,” I have begun to develop a troubling new theory about their origin. I will admit up front that this idea may seem more in line with one of those Another Absalom tales of spies and skullduggery than a scholarly review (though I have always believed that those tales should be studied for their ability to keep the reader’s attention, something we researchers often do not do as successfully as we would like!), but I’ve noticed that several of the prophecies seem to strike at the core of what many think about the divine. This is not to say that gods cannot die, or falter, or fail in some way, but the more I read these documents, the more I can imagine negative outcomes that I might once have dismissed as distant possibilities. What if this is deliberate?