Tome of the Black Trove

...*we can never truly know, not to a level that will satisfy us as scholars, how Malik Nous was worshipped during the First Years. But fragments have come down to us that we are duty bound to preserve, even if they can only tantalise and never illuminate. So it is in this work that I have set myself the task of setting down my summation and interpretation of the oral history of the illiterate, semi-nomadic elders of the villages around Horse Thief lake in the Imperial Forest west of Wagdon, lest the viccisitudes of life in the Empire mean that this community does not survive to communicate its stories to future scholars...*

...*the Black Trove was a treasure house set aside by those Clerics of Malik Nous whose task it was to receive the devotions of the common people to the Dark Creator. The phrase "common people" is misleading, for it seems that then as now, that among those who were not aristocracy there were many of great wealth and even mystical power. While most commoners brought tribute in wares or livestock, powerful sorcerers and rich merchants brought great stores of gold, jewels and even items of arcane power. The Clerics set aside some such prizes as a reward for those who embarked on a path of deeper understanding of the mysteries of the Terrible Father, and laid a trail of hidden references and clues through the Temple to entice novices who yearned for initiation into deeper mysteries and the powers they yielded...*

...*the "Path of the Black Trove" was both a metaphor for a perilous path through a world firmly in the grip of a malevolent deity that would nonetheless reward spiritual treasure, but also a very literal reward in the form of a reserved segment of the riches donated by the worshippers within the Temple precinct...*

...*the priests who maintained the Path of the Black Trove were effectively a sub-order within the larger organisation, believing that the Path of the Black Trove represented a special trust to them, directly from the Eternal Emperor, and they did their best to hide the Path and its End even from their superiors within the Temple. The question of whether this was something their superiors ever took them to task for, is a question upon which the elders of Wagdon are silent upon...*

...*the exact nature of the Path seems to have changed over the years, presumably as it was discovered and had to be reinvented for new generations of Initiates. One constant seems to have been the use of an Orb, symbolising Malik Nous' domination of the world, and a location known as the "Shrine of the Bleeding Mother". The songs also tell of a Father and Child who stand alongside, but beneath, the Mother. It is possible that this mystery involves embracing the feminine, or at least non-masculine, nature of Malik Nous...*

...*depictions of Malik Nous as male may be a reflection of patriarchal culture that exists in Imperial culture independent of the teachings of the various sects that follow Malik Nous in his aspects. After all, unlike the Archons, Malik Nous was never a mortal. The Creator may use a physical body but this is simply a manifestation of power, not a true part of The Creator's self. As such The Creator cannot said to be male, or female, or even gendered in any way. If gender is a reflection of physical body, there is no such body. But even if, as some scholars argue, gender is instead a reflection of the mind and identity of the person within the body, Malik Nous' mind and identity were formed before such things as physical bodies existed, so to speak of The Peacock Angel identifying as male, female or some third state is nonsense...*

...*the assertion of The Dark Creator's gender-free state is less a discourse about gender itself but simply a stark, if relateable way to assert to the average worshipper that The Dark Creator is not like us, but an entity that stands unfathomably apart, and unfathomably above us...*

...*note that these assertions are of a scholarly nature and their role is simply to help us better understand the views of the worshippers of Malik Nous to better combat them. Worship of the Only God is betrayal of life itself, and I do not endorse or condone it.*

- *Parcifal of Balborough, writing in Sudgewen, year of the Throne 277*