Greetings Achaeans. As I take up my quill to set down my thoughts upon
this present debate, I first wish to establish my entire reverence and
respect for the Gods Themselves. My small mortal mind cannot even begin
to comprehend the Divine Wisdom, the Divine Knowledge, the Divine Power
of the Most High Gods. To all Divines, and especially to Lord Sarapis, I
wish to submit that I hold your words and statements to be infallible
and undisputable truth.

To begin, then: There is a statement in the ancient Xoran tongue, of
which I have made no small study. It is this: "Vox populi, Vox Dei."
This, translated into the common tongue, says "The voice of the People
is the voice of a God." I mean no blasphemy by quoting this. I state
that this refers to a principle of life. When a God speaks, He or She
may speak for Themself, or they may use mortals to speak for them... to
achieve their purposes. This in no way means that the Gods *need*
mortals to speak for them, or serve them. I simply say that it may
please a Divine to use a mortal as their mouthpiece, as their instrument
or herald.

I saw this occur recently when Shub Niggurath, normally a quite rational
and logical person, changed his title suddenly to "The Prophet of
Inexistence" and began stating that all mortals are doomed. No matter
what was shouted or said to him, he persisted in his words: "Nothing can
save us. Flee. Hide. Confer. It does not matter. We are all doomed..."
and so on. Then, as suddenly as he had begun, he ceased this unusual
chant. When queried about this, it was found that his name was now the
original Shub Niggurath, and that he had no memory at all of shouting
what he had. Once again, I do not presume upon the minds of the Divine,
but I would not be surprised to learn that none of them believe that
this incident occurred. In that case, I bow to their superior knowledge,
and assent that this was simply an odd figment of my imagination.

However, this particular "figment" raises a terrible question. If the
only one making Shub Niggurath speak in this way, as I remember, could
have been a God, and the Gods deny that they originated this, or that it
even happened, there are only three possibilities remaining to us.

Either there IS an Over-God (once again, I mean no blasphemy to the
Garden, I am simply stating philosophical ideas and hypotheticals) as
has been stated previously. I personally do not credit this assumption
greatly. I believe that the One Being with the most power in all the
universe is our Logos, Lord Sarapis. What then of the second
possibility?

Many small ants can fell a great tree. Young wolves, in a pack, can
bring down a mighty stag, who would be more than a match for any one of
them alone. Therefore, while I do hold that Lord Sarapis is the highest
SINGLE BEING in the universe, the possibility of a coalition or alliance
set up AGAINST the Gods must not be ignored. What of the Tsol'teth? What
of the Chaos Lords? What of other entities or beings, residing in other
planes of existence, of whose lives and powers we have no shadow of
knowledge? Of course, none of these things could challenge the Gods in
and of themselves, but I cannot help but wonder if their combined powers
might be enough to manipulate even the Garden without its knowledge.
However, I do not wish this to be true. I cannot force myself to believe
that our Divines could be outwitted or fooled in any way by Other(s), no
matter how powerful their alliance. What possibility remains to us,
then?

The last, and in my mind the most probable, possibility, occured to me
when pondering this incident that I imagined about Shub Niggurath. He
claimed to be "the Prophet of Inexistence." There is another statement
in our Xorani proverbs, which says, (I translate) "The only thing
stronger than anything is nothing." Let us reflect upon this for a
moment, for it is profound. I personally believe that there was no
Other. I believe there are no other Gods who can best our mighty
Divines. I simply believe that when Nothing acts, it removes all traces
even of itself. For is this not a property of Nothingness? If the
Paladin's teacher *did* once exist, and he was swallowed up into
Nothing, then the very memory of his existence would naturally disappear
as well. The Gods are powerful, but they cannot change the fact of
existence or non-existence. If something becomes Nothing, then it Is
Not. When this occurs, we know not that it ever Was. I believe that we
are all imagining things which never were. There never was a guild
teacher of the Paladins. There was no Prophet of Inexistence. There is
no Other. They are Nothing now, therefore they are Not, therefore they
were Not, therefore they never Were. Let us ponder the wisdom of the
ancients, and be still, listening to the voices of our glorious Gods.

~Tryste Blackfist, servant of Lord Sartan, the Infernals, and the great
City of Ashtan

Penned by my hand on the 23rd of Chronos, in the year 287 AF.