#drehmal

This is most prominent in all the great societies:

- Insohm, the civilization that once united a good chunk of the post-Avsohm world, is now relegated to one medium-sized Port Town and a singular flying ship

- Gozak, the classical protector of the entire Heartwood, keeping it safe from external threats, now retreats within its thickets to one medium-sized town

- Athrah, a kingdom spanning the Casain peninsula that conquered many peoples there and founded Sal’Anyr (though it was of course not called that initially), again being reduced to a singular city with a once incredible harbor now rarely even used

- And, of course, Avsohm.

- Not to mention every other major civilization. The Tharhan Empire, the Tidal Dynasty, Highfall, they’re all dying or have already been dead.

But the one that sticks out is Rhaveloth and Maelihs’ Empire as a whole. On the surface, everything seems not just liveable, but alive. Rhaveloth is the largest city one comes across except for maybe Naharja, but that’s on Lo’Dahr anyways so who cares. There are a significant amount of books one can find in Rhaveloth that paint it as a city filled with individual lives and hence life as a whole.

And yet, just below the surface, it too is dying.

Rhaveloth only has gotten as far as it has because of their zealous reverance of The Burnt Lord. Of the God of Chaos, and Destruction. Maelihs.

And Maelihs has since abandoned them. Not just Rhaveloth and The Burnt Palace, not just his empire as a whole. Maelihs abandoned Drehmal in its entirety and spends the rest of his days in Ytaj, the Palace of the Gods, in meditation. Practicing leaving behind his ways of Chaos and Destruction that he was born as the God of. (Sidenote: I absolutely love that the creators of Drehmal did this. I’ve never really liked the concept of an ‘evil’ god in the first place, it’s always painted the conflict too black-and-white for my liking, so actively making the ‘evil’ God stop being evil is so cool and it makes me love Drehmal even more than I already did.) And if you’re familiar with Tarot, this is the textbook Spiritual Death the card is in reference to.

Oh, but even moreso than that—he never leaves. He never finishes. Stuck in moratorium, never being forgiven by his sister, Virtuo. Never returning to Drehmal to undo his greatest mistake: The Burnt Palace and his armies. He holds contempt for them, seen in his dialogue especially if you approach wielding his iconic sword, Malevolentia, but he never does anything about them. He is in limbo about it all. His spiritual Death never gives rebirth. He stays, in a spiritual and transformative sense, dead.

the drehmal 2.2 beta, apotheosis, is now out! we have been working on this for over 1000 days!!! drehmal has been my life for the last few years, and it would mean a lot to me if you checked it out. its about 4 gigabytes and 60 hours long, so be aware of that going in!

"As the Primal Tree tore its roots from the ground in anguish and ripped apart the three continents, millions perished. Among all the ash and chaos rose the Realmbinder. The few survivors of the reshaping came to know Them by the Drehua name for the world. Behold, Drehmal." - @DrehmalMC

A poster design commission I had the pleasure of doing for the Drehmal team last month! Always fun to put a dozen hours into art piece.