“Divine Library” huh? A collection of all available lore, mostly written text, that is found in Divine Mortality.

According to the “About” section of this website, this site is created by a newly formed lore community that gives a place for people to read in-game lore or post any lore which hasn’t been archived yet. Most of the users are of course regular people/players.

The website is mostly community-run, but it’s technically semi-official because there are several lore-related Divine Mortality developers who are part of this website’s management team. Apparently, the game developers are here just because they want to be, but also because they can help verify whether the lore is legitimate or answer some questions lore questions to help clarify everyone understanding.

The website’s basic goals are to “Discover, Enjoy, Learn, Discuss, and Record all the lore that is found in Divine Mortality within a strictly enforced space of pure objectivity when it comes to discovering and recording the lore.”

Sounds good to me!

The website is basically a literal online library. Currently it’s at its early stages of development so I’m sure it will look and operate a bit better in the future…but I do see already that a lot of Players have already submitted pieces of lore. Ranging from a variety of topics and the type of source it was found in, such as letters, books, posters, NPC lore dialogue, etc. The Players who are posting this information are either taking a screenshot of what they see in game, or they manually write/type down the text itself and then later copy it to this website. There is also a mini forum, but otherwise this website has a pretty simple but effective objective.

I might as well (quickly) create an account for this website just to have one for the future. You don’t need to have an account to see everything, but with an account, I could post lore related information into this website and maybe later even participate in this community’s lore discussions. But I don’t see what kind of discussions they could have right now since I bet everyone is still busy just playing the game.

Alright I’ve created this account. I’ll customize it later. Right now, I’ll just pick something to read from one of the “main lore” sections of this website.

Let’s see… oh this sounds like a good place to start…

“A Short History of the Kingdom of Graypine, Part One”

By Lord Aeron Highgate, Royal Historian at the University of Leancia

Written and published in the 1st year of the Second Age.

Before the rise and the (recent) fall of the Lunar Empire, and before the driving out of the maritime Snowmellian tribe that were once known as the “Inveshi”, the lands below the modern Elm River and our dear Sacred Lake were united by a great lord who had managed to strengthen a group of villages into a powerful and independent dutchy. I am, of course, refering to the founder of House Narin, the current Royal Dynasty which has formed, developed, and ruled the great Kingdom of Graypine. No historical tale about this great Kingdom and its rulers, would be complete without the mention of Karl Narin the First Duke of Graypine and founder of House Narin.

This is the first part of a series of short books which will be providing a relatively brief yet useful account of each major person and event that has helped shape the existence of the Kingdom of Graypine in modern day. A kingdom which is righteously proud to have dueled against the passing of time, with the aid of the High Gods, and has triumphantly continued into the Second Age after the end of the Great War.

Recently, a grand meeting took place between the many important figures of our world, where news has it, that they all called upon the Great God to quickly mend the instability and suffering that took place during the war. And the Great God responded for the first time in an era of history by deciding to send down “Divine Spirits” into our world in about a years’ time. While this historical account about the Kingdom of Graypine shouldn’t delve too much into the present, it is worth mentioning the latest accomplishments of this amazing kingdom. For it has played an important role in the meeting between the modern factions to which the Great God responded to. The Great God likely chose to respond to our greater realm because of the successes which the Kingdom of Graypine has been achieving since it’s dawn. Our history must make the High Gods proud. And so, we should honor the High Gods and all the people of the past who have positively developed this kingdom to allow it to flourish into what it has become today.

The name “Graypine” has become synonymous with house Narin ever since the Dutchy of Graypine was founded by Karl Narin. Which was around 500 years ago. The Kingdom of Graypine has existed for a little over 300 years, and the dutchy had existed nearly 200 years before it was transformed into a proper kingdom. According to all the sources available and the royal family themselves, Karl Narin is not only attributed to the beginnings of both Graypine and House Narin, but also laying the foundations for the future of both his house and country. It is for those reasons he is regarded as a great figure here in the Kingdom of Graypine. It is also argued that every successful future ruler of Graypine that came after him had keenly followed the advice he left for his descendants, which soon was transformed into Narin’s house motto. It tells to “rule the domain with strength, stability, and most of all patience”.

During Karl Narin’s time, the territory of the today’s Lunar Empire was separated into several large kingdoms. The northernmost kingdom extended from the northern parts of the Lunar Empire to the center reaches of Graypine’s modern territory. This kingdom was called Kata. And right above Kata’s borders were many small political-power entities. There were various tribes of different races, would-be thriving city-states, and powerful barons. They often squabbled amongst each other, but only rarely did any of them go to war. For they perfectly knew that a kingdom south of them could easily swallow them all up with force or simple socio-economic influence if any of them were too weak.

Karl Narin was part of one of those many small tribes, however, unlike the tribes of the Snowmels or the Lumens. Instead, they were particularly centralized clans. Karl Narin himself was likely part of a Lumenian clan that had maybe mixed with an Elf clan.

Karl Narin was born in a region where infighting and petty squabbling was commonplace. When Karl Narin was a young man, he had become the next clan head and village head. He spent his youthful years becoming a master diplomat because he was often attempting to become closer with many neighboring villages.

Over the course of Karl Narin’s life, he had gained respectable power in his village and outside of it. In a rare instance where a baron broke out into a fight with an autocrat of a neighboring town, many local leaders decided to stay out of it in hopes of not escalating the conflict further. However, Karl Narin impressively chose to enter the center of the conflict by attempting in mediating it with his excellent diplomatic skills. And he was successful. He managed to make friends with both sides as well as formulate a fruitful compromise. He spent around a decade willingly and successfully mediating arguments and solving issues not only in his village and neighboring villages, but also across all of the neighboring local powers around the borders of the Kingdom of Kata. Perhaps it was a stroke of luck, a miracle, or a direct blessing from the gods. But when the Kingdom of Kata had a war break out between them and another kingdom, Karl Narin managed to successfully call forth an alliance between all the local powers. From the average autocrat of a town to the barons within their forts, and even all the nearby tribes and hamlets, he had managed to form a temporary confederation. He cleverly pointed out to them all, that many of their issues stemmed from the unfair trade practices and predatory behavior of the Kingdom of Kata. So, this conferation was formed into a temporary alliance led by Karl Narin. They had declared war upon the Kingdom of Kata while it was already preoccupied with another war. The alliance managed to successfully capture large swaths of lands (to the south them) very quickly, especially before Kata could properly react. That land today is now known as the Lesser Midlands of today’s Graypine, and of course the layer where the capital rests is known as the Upper Midlands. The army of this confederation had not even suffered a single loss in battle because the proud kingdom below it did not expect that they’d ever get attacked by a seemingly disunited group of small powers. With that level of administration here was nothing the Kingdom of Kata could do right away so they cut their losses and agreed to this confederation’s demands.

This successful and very unusual turn of events had rapidly boosted the prestige and renown of Karl Narin. However, this alliance was temporary, and so was the confederation. In the coming years, through necessity, convenience, or suspicious plot actions, some of the local powers fell and some were merged together, and some of course rose higher. Indeed, the territory which Karl Narin now controlled and was responsible for was one of the local powers who had obviously risen far higher than anyone expected. The “civilized” powers in the area, those who were comprised mostly out of large settlements, slowly grew more distant from Karl Narin over time. However, on the other hand, the small tribes and the many other villages who were either friendly with or simply geographically next to his domain had all essentially joined him. These tribes and villages were all mostly alongside the Elm River, they also all likely shared a similar culture to that of Karl Narin’s home village and clan, despite possibly being comprised of different races.

The lands that were captured after the war from the Kingdom of Kata were divided between some of the members of the confederation, including Karl Narin. Because of that he gained a much larger personal demesne size than he ever had before, it was also conveniently land directly south of his primary villages. The people there were mainly Himenians, a foreigner race. Now they are absolutely common in modern Graypine, making up the majority of us. But before, they were newly settlers who had traveled to their north for more opportunity and personal freedoms. In time, the small towns inside of Karl Narin’s newly acquired territories quickly started to accept their new ruler. But that could not be said for the other local powers who had also gained the new lands after the war, for them tensions were regular between ruler and those below.

By the time in which Karl Narin became a middle-aged, the village which he first started out from, and the surrounding neighboring villages all began to rapidly grow in population and production. They also began to slowly over time connect with each other. These villages were the precursor settlements to the now modern capital city of Graypine, called Leancia. It is commonly thought by the locals of Leancia that some of the districts that exist today, especially the oldest ones, are the result of the foundations of those old villages. Meanwhile outside of Karl Narin’s domain, squabbling and greater levels of conflict began to appear once again. However, this time he would not intervene as much as he used to. Perhaps he thought of it now to be too dangerous to interfere with the other powers, or he simply had no use for them any longer. But what we scholars can now see from this period of Karl Narin’s life, is that the foundational principles which guided the later rulers of his dynasty had started to take root in his domain after the war with Kata. These foundational principles are the objectives to remain strong, stable, and patient. After the war, it seems like Karl Narin had the option to quickly unite much of the confederation, by force, if necessary. If he wished to. But for whatever reason he seemed to have postpone that thought or never sought something like that. The likely case is that Karl Narin knew that he could not handle keeping what he could’ve conquered under control.

It would not be until Karl Narin was in his late middle age period of life, that he’d officially create the Dutchy of Graypine. Yet before he could become the Duke of Graypine, it is said that Karl Narin received a dream from a High God in which he was suggested to acquire the (now famous) “gray pine” tree. This pine tree did not naturally grow in the southern or middle parts of today’s territory of Graypine. Instead, it grew farther in the north on the hills below the Icerock mountain range that separates our region from the Far North. So, Karl Narin had begun a military campaign that would last for many years. By the time this extensive campaign period of the early Dutchy of Graypine had ended, Karl Narin himself would pass away not too long afterwards. The campaign itself costed much of Karl Narin’s resources and power which he had amassed over several decades of an almost constant prosperous rule in his domain. While the expenses of the campaign began to slightly strain Karl Narin’s domain’s local prosperity and stability, he made sure to never let his domain become unbalanced enough for it to be under threat of any of its neighbors. So, in order to keep the balance in check at home while conquering and holding onto wild and semi-civilized land abroad, he had to carefully wait many years before he gained full control over the land north of the Elm River to the Icerock mountains.

In the last years of Karl Narin’s life, he had announced that he had finally obtained the “gray pine”. Some say he had actually transformed into a madman in his later years of life because nobody understood why he had wanted to obtain the gray pine. However, scholarly research from my own predecessor historians have finally obtained the truth of this mystery. The realistic reason for why Karl Narin started a campaign for the gray pine, was not because Karl Narin was mad or that he had directly received a message by from a High God (a controversial part of this theory). Instead, this explanation states that Karl Narin had nearly perfectly looked into the future and saw what needed to be done to secure his realm’s future success. This explanation makes sense because since the beginning of Karl Narin’s rule until his end, he had carefully and specifically planned the formation of his own dynasty. He did that by setting up special rules for his family to abide by. These quickly became part of House Narin’s traditions. And these rules and traditions have surprisingly remained consistently followed by the royal family and have mostly remained unbroken for the past 500 years. The theory also states that Karl Narin knew that he wouldn’t have had enough time to either peacefully, fruitfully, or violently subjugate all the other local powers. Because the cultural (and racial) distinctions between these powers, including his own domain, were too distinct from each other to remain as loyal subjects under one entity. It can also be proven and seen, that Karl Narin intelligentially laid out the future schematics of how he thought it would be best to grow his realm in the future. We still have copies of these schematics in the royal library, it shows his plans of how he’d develop his villages, towns, and all the other pieces of the territory he had influence over. Either he prophesied the near exact future, or his successors likely adopted his plans and continued working on them (perhaps modifying them along the way). However, Karl Narin did seem to follow some of his ideas which he had written down. Primarily, his plans on having the military continually develop and steadily grow. It seems that part of the reason why Karl Narin desired to conquer lands that could reach all the way to the bottom of the Icerock Mountains is because it would provide useful experience for his army. This explains why he had decided to slowly wait for his military campaign to finish, because his military would consistently be gaining more experience and training while not suffering enough loses to weaken his entire domain.

This theory which my recent predecessor historians and scholars researched and formulated, have all called it the “dream for the Graypine”. They named it that because they believed it accurately describes the specific goal which Karl Narin’s mindset was aiming for. He did not aim to acquire Graypine trees just because of their magical properties or because a High God simply told him to do so. In an artistic way, the leaves of a gray pine tree are very stable and sturdy all year round, so they are often able to support themselves and the entire tree despite harsh weather conditions such as heavy snowfall. Karl Narin must have thought of a gray pine tree as a perfect symbol which could represent his ideals and rules for governing his domain. So, when his descendants would think deeply about the name of “Graypine”, they’d think about all the teachings, rules, and traditions that this symbol would carry over. Not to mention that these types of pine trees tend to always point straight up, like an arrowhead that Karl Narin was aiming.

Today, the academia of the University of Leancia has accepted this theory a commonly understood fact with little to no complaint from any member. However, for hundreds of years this theory wasn’t known by anyone in Graypine or outside of it. So, many scholars used to speculate whether the founder of House Narin was insane or not. Shockingly, even less than a hundred years ago, some foreigners still questioned the moral background of the royal family in order to poke unnecessarily holes into questioning legitimacy. Simply because the founder might have “absurdly” proclaimed that a High God messaged him in his dream or that he was a potential madman who sought to simply acquire trees for the sake of insanity. These assumptions can now finally be put to rest because now they appear completely absurd with a much more realistic theory.

In my view, and in the view of many other professionals, the “dream for the Graypine” is an excellent theory that explains to us how and why Narin Karl was so great and brilliant. And how his descendance (mostly) continued to harbor his genius and skills as future rulers. Of course, it should be clearly mentioned here at the end, that because Karl Narin’s eventual success in obtaining the gray pine trees, he had finally and officially created a dutchy, calling it the “Dutchy of Graypine”.

Part One of "A Short History of the Kingdom of Graypine" Ends Here.

Well, that was an informative read…I didn’t think that the Kingdom of Graypine is 500 years old and that this Karl guy conquered a lot of land just so he could basically collect some pine trees.

I wonder if I can go to Leancia, their capital city, in game? I probably could. I bet the Player who had uploaded this book onto this website probably found it there as well. Oh! Maybe you could actually meet the author of this book in-game as well?

See! Having such a big open world to explore and discover is so good! Especially when there is SO much readily available content already in it.