If you wander through the mountains and become lost, you might find a path where no paths should be. It is a thin line of worn-down grass, winding between lichen-covered rocks and little cold-as-ice streams. You follow it, since you have no idea where you are and figure there must be something at the other end of the path.

No trees grow here. It's too cold, too high up; lichen, tough grasses, heath, moss and many other small plants grow instead. The snow have yet to fall -- where you are right now, the snow can be seen on the highest peaks, but in this valley the ground is bare. It is cold, though. There is frost in the air and the wind howls around the rock walls. Cold mist -- no, you think, clouds -- whirl around you.

After a long, cold walk, you see some kind of structure in the distance, on a hill at the end of the valley. It seems to be a ten minutes walk away, but as you begin to go towards it, it does not seem to come closer. An hour, one and a half; your sense of time is lost -- but at last, you are almost there.

You now see that the structure is some kind of great cathedral. Its high belfry seem to pierce the sky and the statues above the great entrance stare down at you with cold unseeing eyes. The doors are made of wood, weathered and old and grey. Large iron handles and decorations adorn them.

You stop for a moment. Why is there a cathedral in the mountains? No people lives here. Who built it and why?



The Endless Forest is not Ephiré’s original home. It is a place he stumbled upon on one of his journeys; a safe haven, a place suspended in time, a place where he has found a measure of peace.
His real homeland, the one he always returns to eventually, is a bleak, barren place. At the end of the world it sits, the old stone building he calls home.


The Endless Forest
Here, Eph takes the form of a large midnight-blue deer, most similar to a moose. He wears a black-polished skull of some large bird of prey, and his tines reach high into the sky.

Athu: Emnes
In the world of Athu, spends his time disguised as a human in the modern city of Roang Idala, working in a library and helping Verve with odds and ends at her club. Keeps a watchful eye on the boundary between worlds.

Ka-Theraan
His old homelands. Situated in the northeast of Emnes, in modern times known as Ikran or Chatera. A ruined empire long gone.

2009
• Came to the forest in early spring. He was an elusive figure at first, unsure of this new land, and mostly spent his time in the birch, away from any prying eyes.

• 'Virgil' (the Red) became his first close friend a few months later.

• Was briefly involved in the events surrounding the deer Baal and a murdered fawn.

2010

• Was introduced to Gehirn through Virgil.

2011

• Met Herla for the first time.

• He had an important part to play in the great tale of Iaurdagnire's fight against the seasons:
I: Jack to the King | Catalyst
II: Overthrow | Catalyst
III: Start Your Descent | Catalyst
...aftermath

• The event influenced him greatly, and the year that followed was not a particularly good one, guilt and the ever-present question of "did he do the right thing?" piling up on him.

2012

• Virgil died:
Forever

• Despite the dark times, there were lighter happenings; he was asked by Herla to be godfather to her two unborn children. He also ventured home to find stones as wards before the birth of them.

• He also met Verve again; hadn't seen her since she was very small. Was given one of her first crafted things, a dreamcatcher to use against his nightmares.

• Eventually, it was clear that Iaurdagnire's story was yet to be finished:
II: Dandelion Hill | War Drum
III: Warrior Hysteria | War Drum
But Iaurdagnire did not come back despite their efforts.

• Aurora needed an escape from the forest; took her and Verve on a trip to his homelands.

2013

• Verve left him a large skull mask as a gift.

• The great tale of Iaurdagnire's fight was almost at its end:
Waiting
V: Your Supremacy | War Drum

• He was involved in a terrible event that left Verve almost dead with the help of his own tines, further driving him into black mood and dark thoughts:
[5.] For the Gift of Hands
Verve survived, but it was a close call.

• There was a bittersweet reunion:
The Fortress and The Raven | Epilogue

• Verve took him on a trip to her homelands in Africa.

2014

• Helped save the fawn Neela from her would-be kidnapper.
All I ask?

• Heard whispers of Virgil's return. Unsure what to think of it.

• Met Virgil in the grasses of the Birch a few weeks later. Very hesitant at first, but eventually, accepted the Hart as the old friend he once was. Things may never be the same, but there was the seed that could grow into what their friendship had been.

• At the end of the year, he and Verve managed to slowly work their way together.
Fools

2015

• After a stressful winter, decided to travel for a while. Verve joined him, and in spring, left the forest with her.
Neither would return until much later.


2018
• Returned to the Forest during the Rut, after a chance meeting with the angel Altijd in another world. A strange experience - a thousand years had passed for Eph, while the forest was the same as always, three years later. Many of those he knew had gone.

• Helped Verve regain her Forest memories.

Long, long before the dawn of man, when only the beasts and spirits walked the earth, a god was born on the plains to the northeast. It was a natural god, an embodiment of wild magic.

Barely more than a flutter of consciousness in the wind, it was nameless and shapeless. Soon it saw the forms of wild boars in the valleys and the purpur bison on the plains; it saw the mist and the rain and the colour of endless dry tall-grass; and it took all these shapes to make them its own.

The bison named it after their fashion, and the wild boars too, and the wind and the rain and the mist also gave it names, but what they were we can only guess.

After uncounted millennia, the first human tribe came to the plains. They saw the wild god, and named it the Old Mother, Roko'a, and they revered it. It brought the warm mists and the spring rains, they said, and where it tread, the earth flourished.

Eventually, the humans turned envious of Roko'a and its power. It did not come when they asked for it, and neither did it answer their prayers; it was still a wild and untamed god, guided only by the deep earth and its own erratic whims. Sometimes it left the valley plains, and no rains fell and no grass grew while it was away, and the people starved.

One day, the tribe had enough, and they hunted down and killed the wild god. They wanted to capture its power, and so they saved its remains; the blood was poured into large stoneware jars, and the bones were buried under a great black stone.

Around it, they built the village of Ka-Theraan: a place that would prosper and grow and eventually turn into the beginning of a mighty empire, for its people had found the secret of making their own gods. They did not make gods to pray to, anymore, instead they made gods to bear their hardships - reviled and hated gods of death and illness and despair; of war and storms and famine; of wild animals and anger and freezing winter nights. They were created, and cast aside, cursed to carry their burdens away from the people of Ka-Theraan.

The old rites required a cup of a dead god's blood, the dust of its bones, and a willing participant: sacrificed to die and rise anew.

But in every drop of blood, a sliver of a vengeful wild god's mind: reaching out from beyond the chasm of time and death to call its children home; to exact revenge upon the tribe and all its descendants.







This tale begins in a world far away from ours, in a small land wedged between a low mountain range and a cold clear river, beyond the endless wind-carved plains. There a people lived, in the land of Ka-Theraan, but what they called themselves has long since been forgotten.

It was not a generous land; farmers had to work hard for their crops, and the woodworkers in the forests wore down their axes on the knotty hardwood trees. The hills were dry and the river was grey and cold. The people who lived there were of few words but with large hearts, and they loved songs and tales more than fights and bloodshed.

There was the silver-eyed river people, the tough-skinned forest people, the bead-adorned town dwellers, and the tall and proud farmers on the plains, and all of them bowed down to the same queen and they all knew the same gods.

Our tale is of a man who lived among the river tribe; his name is as forgotten as his people, but we know that he collected stones and driftwood and other things the river brought, and life was sometimes cruel and sometimes kind, as it generally is. He wore his black hair long as was their custom and he had neither a wife nor a husband. He had some friends and perhaps he had been close to someone earlier in his life, but of that we can only guess.



There had been a long, sweltering summer, and now the grey autumn had come, promising a harsh and cruel winter.

'We need a new god', some of the people said, 'the winter will be long and cold and many will be left alone when their companions die. We need a new god for the lonely', and the queen considered their words.

A peculiar thing about the people of Ka-Theraan was that they created their own gods, because they had not been chosen by a god when the world still was new and fresh. The people still held bitterness in their hearts for this, and so they did not pray to the gods they made but left their burdens in their hands instead. There would never be a god of joy nor a god of life there, but for night and death and despair and many other terrible things they had gods: 'Let the people prosper and be joyful! Leave sadness, death and famine to the gods', the saying went.


The queen, a woman of the plains farmer people, was fair and just and so a great drawing of lots was held, and every woman, man and child had their name on a small piece of paper, and every piece was laid down in a great stoneware pot. The queen held out her hand and called for silence, and every person who had gathered there held their breath and grasped the hands of their loved ones, while their queen reached into the pot and took a piece of paper, and read the name aloud.



They came for him in the evening, when the sky had turned gold and red like blood; the man did not weep nor did he cry out, but closed his eyes and held out his hands and they bound them with a strong red rope. They led him to the middle of the city, to the great building of the gods, and there they dressed him in the ceremonial long black clothes and gave him a cup of thick bitter liquid, and he drank it and slept a dreamless sleep.

At dawn they woke him, and made him walk to the great mountain beside the city. Many people followed, singing and chanting, all of them grateful for not being in his place this day.
The man still did not weep. His hands were still bound with the red rope; not tight, as his guards held no ill will in their hearts against him, and sometimes they gave him water to drink.

The road to the mountain was long, and the sun had reached its highest point when they reached the top. The priests and the people gathered around, and the man was led to a great stone altar; there he lay, unmoving, and for the first time tears ran down his cheeks, for he knew what lay ahead. Clouds had gathered on the horizon, great dark clouds filled with the promise of bad weather.

They slit his wrists with sharp knives, and red blood ran on the altar stone, and silver tears ran down his cheeks, while life slowly left his body and pooled on the ground. The chanting of the priests and the singing of the people slowly faded, and at last he laid there cold and pale, eyes unseeing, with no heartbeat in his chest.

In the darkness there was nothing, save for the echo from the great void: a cold and silent universe of black stars.

The people chanted and sang, and the priests summoned the old magic to replace his lifeblood with, and when he woke he was alone. His mind was reeling and his body did not obey him when he tried to rise, but eventually he managed to sit, and then he looked out over the mountaintop. There was his blood, soaked into the gravel, and far away down in the valley, the people were back in their homes.

It was a sickly twilight in the sky and the storm would be soon upon the valley; in his heart he knew what they had done and he wept bitterly. Never would he walk among his friends again, but they would sing of him and spin the legends of their new god, and everything they said would become true. His head ached and his hands hung limply from the pain in his wrists, but all he could think of was the new memories that flooded his mind: how he had come into existence when the stars were newly born, and how long and dark the endless years had been.

And so he closed his eyes and turned away from the valley, and began to walk away from the place that had been his home, into the mountain labyrinth, while the storm began to rage above his head.

The people in the valley never saw him again, but they sang of their new god, and spun their tales about him. He lived far away at the end of the world, they said, where the land was barren and no man thread, and he had taken all their loneliness with him when he left.