It may seem odd that I have not made any notes within the margins of the prophecies themselves. It is certainly not for lack of opinions, but out of an abundance of caution; some of the most heated debates that I have ever witnessed during my studies dealt with the supposed impartiality of the researcher, with some believing that we should be as unbiased as my fellow psychopomps in their judgments of souls in the Boneyard and others noting that our beliefs influence everything we do, and should be acknowledged and even used within the way we work. The arguments grew heated more than once, and while it cannot be said for sure that they led to what some call “The Dueling Quills Incident,” they certainly caused plenty of frayed nerves.
This particular debate has taken on new meaning for me now, though, in reading of one supposed divine death after another. Maybe it is something I will grow out of one day, but it is hard not to be affected by these, whether I am mourning the potential loss of the Lady I serve or learning of the potential demise of a god I do not care for. I’m not sure I would ever want to view them and feel nothing but analysis. Passion drove me to this work and passion should be part of it—for all I know, that may even have been what brought me to my Lady’s attention. Still, I will present the prophecy with no further comment, and fear that once I have read it fully, even my small bit of glee will dissipate. As always, momentary gains bring unexpected consequences.
—Yivali, Apprentice Researcher for the Lady of Graves
The Death of Urgathoa
The feast is a sumptuous spread of delights if that’s the sort of thing you like. Piles of sweets and meats and cheeses, decadence on decadence, to celebrate a distant plague gone better than expected. Urgathoa is smiling as the undead shovel down the food, the flavors barely noticed in their urge to sate their hunger. It would all make Arazni sick, if that was still a thing she felt, and if she wasn’t steeled by something greater than revulsion. For all the gods Urgathoa hates, and all who hate her in return, she hasn’t even bothered to secure her own protection, relying on the undead to sniff out any intruder. Except they know Arazni’s scent. A tiny boon from all her years forced into undead servitude, now sharpened to a weapon to take down the god who dared to bring undeath to the unwilling.
Arazni moves in shadow, and if the diners notice, they barely pause their latest gulp to see her blade unsheathe. Urgathoa dies easily, falls lengthwise on the table, face-first into a centerpiece of something rich and juicy. As panic and dismay begin to spread throughout the Bloodrot, Arazni leaves the way she came, a vengeful shadow baring teeth in something like a smile. Divinity is still a thing she’s learning to inhabit, but this almost makes everything she’s suffered seem worthwhile.
Arazni waits, for…something—some rest for those trapped in undeath, some halt to necromantic work, some alteration in what had been a truly loathsome status quo. And there are places in the world where she can see the fruits of her handiwork—the Whispering Way is driven back, Geb’s Blood Lords struggle for control—until the undead start to rise from any perished soul. Not all, but some, begin to turn without a necromancer’s aid, and stagger from their resting places trying to fill their hunger. Without Urgathoa to lend some order to the chaos, some dead stay locked inside their graves, while others now reanimate with no real rhyme or reason, rising from their tombs and slowly crawling off battlefields, horrified and terrified and sometimes all too eager to see what unholy agenda their new bodies can pursue.
In places where undead have always been a threat to life and limb, the champions against them try their best to hold the line, not looking at the faces that are suddenly familiar, comrades-at-arms turned into bodies cut down by their blades. Some look to magic to protect the bodies of the newly-dead, but magic has its limits, and others fall to the horror they once tried to quell. At least they know how to respond, unlike those who are wrapped in grief, only to see a loved one rise as some new transformation. Do you love or do you fear? Do you watch or do you help? Do you wait or do you run and run and keep on running?
Some families go missing now. Some villages are overrun. Some cities bar their crypts and add guard shifts to every other street. Some call undeath a blessing, see the change as nectar from the gods. Some view it as a threat to something they once lived and died for. Others search for patterns, narrow in on who or what is to blame, let something they don’t understand consume their baser instincts, and rain fire down on those they think have brought this new world forth.
Arazni owns what she has done, seeks out the help of other gods, but they know just as little and have found themselves just as besieged, as undeath spreads like the diseases Urgathoa once held dear, refusing to contain itself to one singular plane. And as the numbers slowly rise, a flood that grows by sodden inches, one undead soul at a time from Axis to the Boneyard, some say the Pallid Princess watches from some place beyond undeath, relishing the moment like a feast to truly savor.
The severity of this prophecy ensures that even I, a loyal servant of the Lady of Graves, take no joy in the foretold destruction of the Pallid Princess. May that these prophecies prove untrue!
That was, to say the least, unexpected. While the horrors of undead potentially coming from every grave are one thing (and something that I know my Lady will not enjoy, no matter how untrue this prophecy may turn out to be), Arazni’s direct role in this cataclysm is not something I am quite sure how to parse. She has broken free from her centuries of servitude as Geb’s unwilling lich queen, and in so doing attained true divinity, a risen herald. With her newfound power, is she capable of slaying a fellow god? Is this merely one facet of the unreliability of these prophecies? Perhaps I should begin watching Arazni more closely, as some sort of harbinger, a sign that this alone among the prophecies is true? Does she have knowledge of this prophecy, and if not, is this something to warn her of? I will be dusting off my copy of What the Future Holds: The Ethics of Prophecy immediately. In the meantime, my Lady will know what to do with this. All I must do now is move forward.
About the Author
Erin Roberts has been thrilled to be able to contribute a few small threads to the fabric of Golarion in the pages of books like Lost Omens Firebrands, Lost Omens Highhelm, and Lost Omens Travel Guide. In addition to her work for Paizo, she freelances across the TTRPG world (and was selected as a Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program Winner in 2023), has had fiction published in magazines including Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and The Dark, and talks about writing every week on the Writing Excuses podcast. Catch up with her latest at linktr.ee/erinroberts.
