Exen and her forgotten history
Some info on Exen, the Forgers and the Ones Who Came Before
1/5/20233 min read
Alright, lore post cos the wiki doesn't really have the right places for it just yet.
Exen, She of Nothing, is an exiled goddess bound to the material realm in exile after committing a heinous treachery against the Old Pantheon of Lakesht. This is known, but what did she do? I've thought about this on and off for a while but never really found a great spot for it. The running theory I'd had was that Exen was the one to plant the Progenitor Strain deep below the earth that the Shapers would one day find, alongside being the mother of the Godling that was instrumental in the formation of Connected society, forming the brain and spine of the Network itself.
As seen elsewhere there's been themes of the 3 major factions, Shapers, Connected and Forgers, representing the concepts of Body, Mind and Soul. It was all to easy to attach Exen to the centrepiece of the Forgers core technology, the Soul Forge. In the modern era the Soul Forge aka Tower of the Singularity is a paracausal nightmare ruin, the shockwave of it's criticality event sending ripples through time which make it's image static from specific distances, alongside making a permanent hole in the Separation between life and death. The core at the centre of the Forge is the Apex Soul which is why the Forgers were able to use it to reach beyond to pull souls through and repurpose them for their specialty magic and automatons.
But what was Exen's goal with these three monumental undertakings to artificially build the three components for a lifefrom. Programmable flesh, mercurial intellect and an unbreakable soul, all three spelled doom for the powerful quasi-nations that wielded them and constructed their societies around them. For that we need to go back further, to the Ones Who Came Before. It'd been an idea I couldn't quite shake that the Stonegraves predate the Precursors and they simply researched and investigated the Stonegraves before eventually repurposing it. Along with that, who was responsible for enacting the Veil when the conflict in the Southern Reaches became dangerously untenable. The answer to that is the Ones Who Came Before, one of which ascended to godhood under the old methods to become Exen. The original entry for Exen says she betrayed her fellow gods at the behest of her worshippers to earn her exile. I like the idea we crib from Morrowind and the Dwemer, Exen's creations end goal being to raise her people and supplant the gods themselves.
Like the other Precursors their centrepiece, the Forge, was already exceeding their grasp long before the Soul Forge detonated and essentially broke apart their civilization. It was mostly through their paganistic/animistic beliefs and rituals they staved things off as long as they did. I've said before that the Conflict that brought the Precursors crashing down all happened over a couple of centuries and caused the Veil to rise, isolating the Reaches from greater Lakesht but perhaps it wasn't a defense against the roiling, chaotic energy within as the Precursors fell apart, but instead was intended to incubate whatever abomination Exen's 3 creations were intended to make. To that end, Exen herself doesn't know. In fact, the only ones likely to know are Al-akshet, He of the Radiant Blood, was the one to decree her punishment, and Kajsha, the Pale Eye Moon, who is the one to enforce her punishment. Perhaps some others at the top of the Concord of the New Pantheon but for now I'm not sure.
Additionally, Exen's ascension, betrayal and eventual exile was the core of what convinced Al-akshet to change the rules for divine ascension, to prevent anything of it's like ever taking place again. The memories of what Exen did were purged from mortals and the lesser powers alike to this very same end.
I've spoken previously about how I adore the moments where a few seemingly unrelated threads connect into a single interesting story thread months later and this is no exception. Until next time.
Oh! I forgot to post the final art for the Stonesingers, check it out below.

