Destiny Grimoire Anthology, Volume I

Destiny Grimoire Anthology, Volume I
Author(s):	Bungie
Publisher:	PGW Ingram
Publication date:	28th November 2018
Media type:	Hardcover
Pages:	144
ISBN:	978-1-945683-44-2 978-1-957721-00-2

Destiny Grimoire Anthology, Volume I (subtitled Dark Mirror) is a hardcover collection of Grimoire material in printed form, released during Fall 2018.

Description

Bungie presents the Destiny Grimoire Anthology, a must-have collectible lore compendium designed and assembled for Destiny's devoted and enlightened scholars and lore lovers, as well as fans of fantasy and science fiction storytelling.

Until now, the myths, mysteries, and machinations of the Destiny universe were found hidden throughout the worlds – enticing threads that hinted at a greater tapestry. The Destiny Grimoire Anthology weaves tales from multiple sources together for the first time, casting new light on Destiny's most legendary heroes, infamous villains, and their greatest moments of triumph and tragedy.

Each unique volume intends to illuminate a facet of the world, and the complete anthology will confirm and challenge players' thoughts and assumptions on what it means to be a Guardian, offering new and differing perspectives on the cosmic war that rages between the Traveler and its ancient enemies.

The book is divided into four chapters, reproducing 78 of the game's grimoire entries. The first, "A Book of Sorrow", transcribes the fifty-two verses of the Books of Sorrow. Chapter two, "The Burden of Light", tells the story of the encounters between Jaren Ward, Shin Malphur and Dredgen Yor by way of the Thorn and The Last Word entries (bar their fifth ghost fragments), Ghost Fragment: The Dark Age 2, and the four Rezyl Azzir entries. Chapter three, "Shadows Beyond", discusses the Shadows of Yor and comprises the ghost fragments for the Crucible arenas Blind Watch, Widow's Court, The Cauldron, Timekeeper and Cathedral of Dusk, as well as Shadows of Yor and the missing Thorn and The Last Word entries. The final chapter, "A Vacancy", includes the texts Oryx: Defeated, King's Fall, and a variation of Touch of Malice that combines the original flavour text with a new body that may be intended to foreshadow the events of Shadowkeep.

Lore

"And my vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand me, where I have been and where I was going."The following is a verbatim transcription of an official document for archival reasons. As the original content is transcribed word-for-word, any possible discrepancies and/or errors are included.

Chapter 1: A Book of Sorrow

What is this violent ritual? These tales of suffering, where all ends in a feast of maggots and rot laid on a wormwood tale for gods to feast on misery?

But is not the Light also served by savage sacrifice? Accepted wounds? Blood spilled on the dust of distant worlds?

Life and death and life and death and life and death are locked a battle that never ends.

The cycle is the same. The pain is the same. We eliminate those who oppose the Light. They annihilate those who do not worship the Dark.

In the end, only sorrow remains.

Chapter 2: The Burden of Light

If there is Light, there also must be Darkness.

One reveals the other. Tends it. Carves it like marble to reveal a new shape. There is balance between them.

Therefore, to understand the Darkness we study the Light. Just as Light is connected through space and time, so is the Darkness. And, just as the Light has those who serve, who act as hands, and heart, and will, there are those who wield the Dark in the same fashion.

The Light healed us, and so we have a responsibility to give it back the lives it has given us. There will be a day when we meet a new kind of Guardian.

Light and Dark. Power and Weakness.
Guardian and Guardian.

Symmetry.

The Last Word

Once Was Palamon

I'm writing this from memory—some mine, but not all. The facts won't sync with the reality, but they'll be close, and there's no one to say otherwise, so for all intents and purposes, this will be the history of a settlement we called Palamon and the horrors that followed an all too brief peace.

I remember home, and stories of a paradise we'd all get to see some day—of a City, "shining even in the night." Palamon didn't shine, but it was sanctuary, of a sort.

We'd settled in the heart of a range that stretched the horizon. Wooded mountains that shot with purpose toward the sky. Winters were harsh, but the trees and peaks hid us from the world. We talked about moving on, sometimes, striking out for the City. But it was just a longing.

Drifters came and went. On occasion they would stay, but rarely. We had no real government, but there was rule of law. Basic tenets agreed upon by all and eventually overseen by Magistrate Loken.

And there you have it... no government, until there was. I was young, so I barely understood. I remember Loken as a hardworking man who just became broken. Mostly I think he was sad. Sad and frightened. As his fingers tightened on Palamon, people left. Those who stayed saw our days became grey. Loken's protection—from the Fallen, from ourselves—became dictatorial.

Looking back, I think maybe Loken had just lost too much—of himself, his family. But everyone lost something. And some of us had nothing to begin with. My only memory of my parents is a haze, like a daydream, and a small light, like the spark of their souls. It's not anything I dwell on. They left me early, taken by Dregs.

Palamon raised me from there. The family I call my own—called my own—cared for me as if I was their natural born son. And life was good. Being the only life I knew, my judgment is skewed, and it wasn't easy—pocked by loss as it was—but I would call it good.

Until, of course, it wasn't.

Until two men entered my world. One a light. The other the darkest shadow I would ever know.

The Last Word 2

The Weight of Truth

The man I would come to know as Jaren Ward, my third father and quite possibly my closest friend, came to Palamon from the south.

I was just a boy, but I'll never forget his silhouette on the empty trail as he made his slow walk into town.

I'd never seen anything like him. Maybe none of us had. He'd said he was only passing through, and I believed him—still do, but life can get in the way of intent, and often does.

I can picture that day with near perfect clarity. Of all the details though—every nuance, every moment—the memory that sticks in my mind is the iron on Jaren's hip. A cannon that looked both pristine and lived in. Like a relic of every battle he'd ever fought, hung low at his waist—a trophy and a warning.

This man was dangerous, but there was a light about him—a pureness to his weight—that seemed to hint that his ire was something earned, not carelessly given.

I'd been the first to see him as he approached, but soon most of Palamon had turned out to greet him. My father held me back as everyone stood in silence.

Jaren didn't make a sound behind his sleek racer's helmet. He looked just like the heroes in the stories, and to this day I'm not sure one way or the other if the silence between the town's people and the adventurer was born of fear or respect. I like to think the latter, but any truth I try to place on the moment would be of my own making.

As we waited for Magistrate Loken to arrive and make an official greeting, my patience got the best of me. I shook free of my father's heavy hand and made the short sprint across the court, stopping a few paces from where this new curiosity stood—a man unlike any other.

I stared up at him and he lowered his attention to me, his eyes hidden behind the thick tinted visor of his headgear. My sight quickly fell to his sidearm. I was transfixed by it. I imagined all the places that weapon had been. All of the wonders it had seen. The horrors it had endured. My imagination darted from one heroic act to the next.

I barely registered when he began to kneel, holding out the iron as if an offering. But my eyes locked onto the piece, mesmerized.

I recall turning back to my father and seeing the looks on the faces of everyone I knew. There was worry there—my father slowly shaking his head as if pleading with me to ignore the gift.

I turned back to the man I would come to know as Jaren Ward, the finest Hunter this system may ever know and one of the greatest Guardians to ever defend the Traveler's Light...

And I took the weapon in my hand. Carefully. Gently.

Not to use. But to observe. To imagine. To feel its weight and know its truth.

That was the first time I held "Last Word," but, unfortunately, not the last.

The Last Word

"Yours...not mine.""

— Renegade Hunter Shin Malphur to Dredgen Yor during the showdown at Dwindler's Ridge

The Last Word is a romantic weapon, a throwback to simpler times when steady aim and large rounds were enough to dispense justice in the wilds of a lawless frontier. Of course, some might say that time has come again.

The Dark Age 2

A Good Man's Deed

Loken's men found Jaren Ward in the courtyard where this had all began.

Nine guns trained on him. Nine cold hearts awaiting the order. Magistrate Loken, standing behind them, looked pleased with himself.

Jaren Ward stood in silence. His Ghost peeked out over his shoulder.

Loken took in the crowd before stepping forward, as if to claim the ground—his ground. "You question me?" There was venom in his words. "This is not your home."

I remember Loken's gestures here. Making a show of it all.

Everyone else was still. Quiet.

I tugged at my father's sleeve, but he just tightened his grip on my shoulder to the point of pain. His way of letting me know that this was not the time.

I'd watched Jaren's every move over the past months, mapping his effortless gestures and slight, earned mannerisms. I'd never seen anything like him. He was something I couldn't comprehend, and yet I felt I understood all I needed the moment I'd seen him. He was more than us. Not better. Not superior. Just more.

I wanted father to stop what was happening. Looking back now, I realize that he didn't want to stop it. No one did.

As Loken belittled Jaren Ward, taunted him, enumerated his crimes and sins, my eyes were stuck on Jaren's pistol, fixed to his hip. His steady hand resting calmly on his belt.

I remembered the pistol's weight. Effortless. And my concern faded. I understood.

"This is our town! My town!" Loken was shouting now. He was going to make a show of Jaren—teach the people of Palamon a lesson in obedience.

Jaren spoke: clear, calm. "Not anymore."

Loken laughed dismissively. He had nine guns on his side. "Those gonna be your last words then, boy?"

The movement was a flash: quick as chain lightning. Jaren Ward spoke as he moved. "Yours. Not mine."

Smoke trailed from Jaren's revolver.

Loken hit the ground. A dark hole in his forehead. Eyes staring into eternity.

Jaren stared down the nine guns trained on him. One by one, they lowered their aim. And the rest of my life began—where, in a few short years, so many others would be ended.

Thorn

The Rose

The noble man stood. And the people looked to him. For he was a beacon—hope given form, yet still only a man. And within that truth there was great promise. If one man could stand against the night, then so too could anyone—everyone.

In his strong hand the man held a Rose. And his aura burned bright.

When the man journeyed on, the people remembered. In his wake hope spread. But the man had a secret fear. His thoughts were dark. A sadness crept from the depths of his being. He had been a hero for so long, but pride had led him down sorrow's road.

Slowly the shadows' whisper became a voice, a dark call, offering glories enough to make even the brightest Light wander. He knew he was fading, yet he still yearned.

On his last day he sat and watched the sun fall. His final thoughts, pure of mind, if not body, held to a fleeting hope—though they would suffer for the man he would become, the people would remember him as he had been.

And so the noble man hid himself beneath a darkness no flesh should touch, and gave up his mortal self to claim a new birthright.

Whether this was choice, or destiny, is a truth known only to fate.

In that cool evening air, as dusk was devoured by night, the noble man ceased to exist. In his place another stood.

Same meat. Same bone. But so very different.

The first and only of his family. The sole forbearer and last descendent of the name Yor.

In his first moments as a new being, he looked down at his Rose and realized for the first time that it held no petals: only the jagged purpose of angry thorns.

Thorn

"To rend one's enemies is to see them not as equals, but objects—hollow of spirit and meaning."

— 13th Understanding, 7th Book of Sorrow

Augmented through dark practices, Thorn was once a hero's weapon. Its jagged frame hints at a sinister truth: a powerful connection to the unutterable sorceries of the Hive.

The legend of Thorn is bound to the rise and fall of Dredgen Yor, a Guardian whose name is remembered with disgust and shame. The weapon was thought destroyed... but rumors of its existence still haunt the wilds.

Thorn 2

The Bloom

TYPE: Transcript.
DESCRIPTION: Conversation.
PARTIES: Four [4]. Three [3] unidentified [u.1, u.2, u.3], One [1] unconfirmed.
ASSOCIATIONS: Breaklands; Durga; Last Word; Malphur, Shin; North Channel; Palamon; Thorn; Velor; Ward, Jaren; WoS; Yor, Dredgen;
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../

[u.1:0.1] Can I see what you got there?
[silence]
[u.1:0.2] Yer cannon...can I see it?
[beat]
[u.2:0.1] I know you?
[beat]
[u.1:0.3] Not that I can say.
[u.2:0.2] And you wanna hold my piece?
[beat]
[u.1:0.4] Just that I never... seen one like it.
[beat]
[u.2:0.3] No, you haven't.
[u.1:0.5] Looks dangerous.
[u.2:0.4] Seems, maybe, that's the point.
[u.1:0.6] Suppose so.
[u.1:0.7] Can I see it?
[u.2:0.5] Not likely.
[silence]
[u.1:0.8] Where'd... where'd you find it?
[silence]
[u.1:0.9] You hearin' me?
[silence]
[u.3:0.1] He asked you question.
[silence]
[u.2:0.6] Didn't find it. Made it.
[u.1:1.0] Heh. Helluva touch you got then. You a 'smith?
[u.2:0.7] I look like a 'smith?
[u.1:1.1] Looks can be deceiving.
[u.2:0.8] Got that right.
[u.1:1.2] There a problem?
[u.2:0.9] Doesn't need to be.
[u.1:1.3] Glad we got that cleared up... Now, about that piece.
[silence]
[u.2:1.0] Been to Luna?
[u.1:1.4] Excuse me?
[u.2:1.1] The Moon. You been?
[u.1:1.5] Nobody's been.
[u.2:1.2] That a truth?
[u.1:1.6] That's a fact.
[u.2:1.3] Funny you'd make that distinction.
[u.1:1.7] Truth is you must think you're some kinda something special. With that attitude. The way you're just dismissin' us like you we're nothing... like we ain't even here.
[u.1:1.8] Fact is... You ain't near as rock solid as you figure. Fact is, special's only special 'til it's not.
[silence]
[u.2:1.4] The bones say otherwise.
[u.1:1.9] Speak straight.
[u.2:1.5] You say "nobody." Bones say otherwise.
[u.1:2.0] What bones?
[u.2:1.6] All of them.
[u.1:2.1] What're you gettin' at?
[u.2:1.7] Too many to count.
[u.1:2.2] You trying to get a rile outta us? Was only making conversation.
[u.2:1.8] You really weren't.
[u.4:0.1] We got a smart one here.
[u.2:1.9] Experienced more than smart. But experience has its advantages.
[u.1:2.3] Experience tell you to lip off to strangers just tryin' to make talk?
[u.2:2.0] Keep insisting and maybe we will.
[u.1:2.4] Talk?
[u.2:2.1] Have words.
[u.1:2.5] Ain't that what we're doin'?
[u.2:2.2] My conversations tend to be a bit louder.
[silence]
[u.1:2.6] That a threat.
[u.2:2.3] A truth.
[u.1:2.7] Who the hell you think you are?
[u.2:2.4] According to your facts, "nobody." Yet, here I sit.
[u.1:2.8] Don't matter much how pretty yer cannon is. You keep it up, we'll see just how loud you like to get.
[silence]
[u.1:2.9] You done talkin' now? Guess he knows his place, boys.
[u.2:2.5] Ever have a nightmare?
[u.1:3.0] You playin' games? Or just thick?
[u.2:2.6] I know you have. This world? Can't help, but.
[u.1:3.1] I don't have nightmares. I give 'em.
[u.2:2.7] You are a goddamn cliché. The picture perfect bandit.
[u.2:2.8] Hearing your voice - the things you're saying, the shade of the hard man you pretend to be...
[u.1:3.2] Ain't no shade.
[audible crack]
[audible crack]
[audible crack]
[silence]
[u.2:2.8] Sit down.
[silence]
[u.2:3.0] Sit. Down.
[u.2:3.1] Your mouth just got your friends dead.
[u.2:3.2] This is what happens when you bore me. And right now...
[u.2:3.3] I'm so very bored.
[u.1:3.3] Wha... No listen...
[u.2:3.4] Shhhhh.
[u.1:3.4] But... but... you're a... you're one of them... A Guardian, right?
[u.1:3.5] You're supposed t'be one'a the good ones.
[u.2:3.5] "Supposed to be?" Maybe I am. Maybe this is what "good" looks like.
[u.2:3.6] Anymore, who can tell?
[u.1:3.6] I...
[u.2:3.7] You wanted to see my prize.
[u.1:3.7] No... I...
[u.2:3.8] Look at it.
[u.1:3.8] I...
[audible sobbing]
[u.2:3.9] Whimpering won't stop what comes next.
[u.2:4.0] Look...
[audible sobbing]
[u.2:4.1] Look at it.
[u.2:4.2] Open your eyes.
[audible sobbing]
[u.2:4.3] Not many get such a clean view.
[u.2:4.4] The bone... You see it. Jagged, like thorns.
[u.2:4.5] I used to think of it as a rose...
[u.2:4.6] Focusing on its bloom.
[u.2:4.7] But the bloom is just a byproduct of its anger.
[silence]
[u.2:4.8] You have nightmares?
[audible sobbing]
[u.2:4.9] Ever seen a nightmare? Ever opened your eyes and realized the horror wasn't a dream? The terror wasn't gone?
[u.2:5.0] I've seen nightmares.
[u.2:5.1] They live in the shadows.
[u.2:5.2] They've been watching.
[u.2:5.3] I thought... It's foolish, I know... but I thought I saw a way.
[u.2:5.4] That maybe we could win. Maybe we could survive.
[u.2:5.5] But once you step into those shadows, it's so very hard to walk in the Light.
[u.2:5.6] Or... maybe I just wasn't strong enough.
[u.2:5.7] Maybe.
[u.2:5.8] But I feel strong now.
[audible sobbing]
[u.2:5.9] I stole the dark.
[u.2:6.0] Or, maybe it stole me.
[u.2:6.1] Either way, here we are.
[u.2:6.2] And I'm hungry.
[u.2:6.3] Its hungry.
[u.2:6.4] You have no Light beyond the spark of your pathetic life.
[u.2:6.5] But a spark is something.
[audible sobbing]
[u.2:6.6] Open your eyes.
[audible sobbing]
[audible sobbing]
[audible crack]
[silence]
[silence]
[silence]

/...END TRANSCRIPT///

Chapter 3: Shadows Beyond

In the beginning, I toed the line.

My Ghost brought me up out of the long black, led me to a gun, told me I was a warrior. She said I was supposed to protect humanity. I told her I didn't see much reason in fighting for people who'd never given one damn about me.

She said I was special. I told her if that was true, she wouldn't have found my bones in the back-end of nowhere. Didn't know who I'd been before she woke me up, but I knew enough to know I was no hero.

Her rules didn't make much sense to me. I was supposed to do all the bleeding. All the dying. I was the one pulling the trigger. I was the one who couldn't close my eyes without seeing one of a thousand things I'd rather forget. Nightmares that turned into horrors on planets that weren't my own that turned into more nightmares.

The rest didn't have to do anything but be saved.

So I started thinking. Then I started reading. I'm no Warlock, but it didn't take a Warlock to track down the stories. Of the Risen who'd taken ahold of the Dark and made it his own. The man who'd gone down into the tunnels and burned down the horrors. Took their remains and wore them like a king. Stripped away the petals of the rose like broken shards.

They say he fell to corruption. That he lost himself and had to be put down. That the Man with the Golden Gun is the hero who saved the day.

I don't believe it. I'm not the only one, either—not many of us left now, but we've walked in his dust. We know everything he ever did. We understand what you don't.

He wasn't the demon the stories make him out to be. He was showing us the way.

My Ghost doesn't talk much these days. When she does, she calls me by my old name. Callum.

I don't answer to that anymore.

Chapter 4: A Vacancy

Oryx: Defeated

— Listen —

Death is the last part of living
and life is learning to die
The song is the same as the singing
The last truth commands me
to eat all the light in the sky

I will go on forever. I will understand.

Dwell a moment on the weight of what you've done. Contemplate the story you just ended. Will you ever do anything that screams down the millennia? Will you ever hammer your will on the universe until it rings and rings and rings? Oryx was an awesome power. Show reverence.

All right. Enough. Enough. A vacancy has opened, hasn't it?

How interesting. How very interesting.

Do you ever pause, dear listener, to consider who benefits from all this heroism you commit? Do you ever look around you and feel the faintest chill? As if you are the tiny little ball bearing placed beneath a great mass, so that it might, if pushed, begin to roll?

You're a god yourself now. You've consecrated yourself. Emulate me. Use your power to learn.

There are worse things to practice being.

King's Fall

Where are you going? No, wait, listen.

I was right, at first. In the ever-expanding Blighted-place, even Light must obey the sword-logic. Even you Guardians, you best and brightest of the dying dawn, you drew blood in honor of the Taken King. The Warpriest did his duty, and you did yours. Oryx was challenged, yes, but challenged in the way of the Hive, which is to say that challenge is worship—is challenge—is power. Sword-logic. You played your part well.

You were not supposed to touch the Light.

How did you find your way into the King's Cellars? How did you even recognize that benighted draught for what it was? Do you not know that the Hive pursue Light precisely for the purpose of devouring it with slavering jaws and slick gulping throats? How did you take (or rather, uh-Take) the Blighted Light that Oryx gathered to offer in sacrifice to Akka, and ignite it so that it burned and burned the Darkness?

It was barely Light anymore. But you took it. And when you took it, you did not keep it. You set it free.

You fools! You disastrous, bumbling squanders! It's not right! Who now shall be First Navigator, Lord of Shapes, harrowed god, Taken King? Not you! You might have been Kings and Queens of the Deep! But you have toppled Oryx and you have not replaced him!

There must be a strongest one. It is the architecture of these spaces.

Why are you leaving?

Touch of Malice

"Let them feel every lash, every curse, every touch of malice that they first dealt to me."

— Eris Morn

"A weapon that draws upon the Hive's ravenous Darkness itself—a weapon that could turn back upon the Hive all the suffering they have inflicted upon us—it is done. I name it Touch of Malice, for it is naught but the Hive's own doing. Take it, Guardian, and remember that they had a choice... and now so do we."

Anthology Artwork

A Book of Sorrow

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The Burden of Light

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Shadows Beyond

A Vacancy

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