Annals of the Woven Dream

An old, esoteric-looking book full of the ancient script Najath rests on a bamboo table.

Transliteration

Ûjêve ta kakorashêv zînôsin, e kakam êlôsin wanoda goras â’kevenes. Kahrê kasam lev ev thên êlan jût oôn… Êuovin ko âlîs kasin kestan kala: Vel ki ûjyena ta, kat waenê lev âêchan â’astseve â’ûjesteth. Es â’keluab zletôle quân ta, vedin phoe kesprala—â’ahuru âdel kasâ, â’ashînya â’kevil tâph. Keashînya, nesanîl let wakuwis; heras let wayulye; e ko, bioquan pern â’waseve, phoe jeyab awesteth â’kekabal alas.

Translation

Into this breach within creation I have plunged, and in it I have found a hidden radiance in the black. At its terminus there are no further ends to be found nor made… I entreat you, my equal in all things: Follow me to this place, where life is sculpted from the line into the circle. And at the center of this quân [a concept of sacredness experienced outside the intervention of gods] geometry, I shall lie in waiting—the fashioner of our fates, the ashînya [a state of having lost oneself in natural surroundings] of the mortal soul [as in “essence”, not referencing the concept of the soul in the context of an everlasting entity]. In ashînya, oblivion becomes salvation; defeat becomes victory; and you, doomed to pern [unwillingly depart] the line, shall jeyab [imagine into existence] your own circles in the brightened black.

Lore

The only known text written by the god is Tave Phisas Koun, or the Annals of the Woven Dream. Written entirely in Najath, the formal language of philosophy in both the Age of Schisms and much of modernity, only some eleven copies are known to exist, all of them purportedly hand-penned by Aphye.

In the text, believed to have been distributed short years prior to their ascension to godhood, they set out their vision for humanity: to no longer face death as an ultimate end, but to be eternally reborn as clean slates. While identities perish, the experiencer and their capacity to experience never will, providing an outlet for existential anxiety in a way fundamentally different from the canonical deities.

Atlas of Central Fao, Gods of Nivost: Vernal Deities

Techniques

This was another complex mixture of photography and painting. I took the photograph of the hand myself (that’s my hand!) and the book, as well as the table, which was my bamboo desk table at the time. I erased the pages’ original contents, then designed and wrote up the new content before transforming them to fit the perspective of the shot. The writing on both pages aren’t meaningless, but were translated and then transliterated into the script I designed for the language Najath, which I’ve provided here.