Bone Collection's Serene Demesne

Aidonia... the snow-covered city-state of death once stood tall in the wind and snow, and also fell silent in the wind and snow.

During the long Golden Age, almost everyone enjoyed the pleasure of eternal life upon warm lands, but a very small number grew weary of the stagnant cycle of alternating day and night, and resolved to seek the end point of life. “Where is life born from? And where will it go?” Eleusis, leader of the ascetics, murmured these questions of life and death while heading north together with them, in search of a long dream, sweet and cold. The robed ascetics settled upon the silent northern wasteland and built a solemn city-state... Snow falls and covers it all year round, and the world calls it “Aidonia”.

How the Golden Age ended was lost long ago in the chronicles, but the “first dead” of Amphoreus is said to have come from Aidonia. That person received the gift of death from Thanatos, the Titan of Death, which was both mercy and the highest honor.

The inhabitants of Aidonia are used to the harsh cold climate. The falling snow has also taken on the color of the silent faith in Thanatos, the Titan of Death, snatching away the warmth of life the moment it touches the ground... In the distant past, when travelers from afar entered the territory of Aidonia, they could always easily find nameless corpses lying along the road, returned to the embrace of the “Dark Hand”. The north wind carried a long howl, and the departed became markers along the road, guiding and warning the travelers within the wind and snow. Travelers in Aidonia always hurried on their way while the breath of life was still within them.

Later, the people of Aidonia discovered sorrowful stone steles raised upon the wasteland, and realized that someone was blessing the flow of life and the vanishing of living things.

Beneath that stele a nameless young woman rested, and around her spread a region of death like a ghost, where even Bonegrass, which breathes with the breath of death, withered and rotted. The people of Aidonia felt upon her the merciful touch of Thanatos, the Titan of Death, so they brought her back to the city and revered her as a Saintess. The devotees who revere the Titan followed the example of the Saintess, and to mark the end of a long journey and the return of everlasting lives, they raised colossal stone steles upon the wasteland... Life and death are both journeys, and this place holds only the mileposts that record that journey.

The steles announce to the travelers from afar that no one halts there, and no one sleeps peacefully there... The departed are travelers too, they are the north wind, they are the flying snow, they are thousands of threads woven together.

There was once a nosy fool who made trouble for the devotees of Aidonia, questioning why Amphoreus should worship death...

“You love Thanatos, the Titan of Death, so very much, why not run a sharp spear through your own chest?”

The people of Aidonia glanced at him with contempt. “The River of Souls never ferries barren souls across.”

Ever since the city-state was built, Aidonia has been the holy land that treasures life the most in all of Amphoreus.

The devotees of Thanatos, the Titan of Death, firmly believe that the water of the River of Souls is cold to the bone, that no ordinary person can cross it, and that only those who have been tempered long enough in the world can cross that cold realm with a resilient soul and behold Thanatos, the Titan of Death. To seek a blessing from “death” does not mean to hold life in contempt.

It is for this very reason that although the people of Aidonia look upon death as a return and do not lack fearsome warriors, they have never invaded the fertile lands to the south... That is not land that can temper strong souls, and the people of Aidonia disdain to sink into comfort.

Asceticism is the unique culture of the people of Aidonia. Every year when the snow melts, in those rare clear days when nothing obstructs the view, called the Bone Gathering Festival, the priests of Aidonia form parties and leave the city to search for the remains of beasts sleeping in the wasteland and the marshes. The remains of prehistoric monsters that died millions of years ago in the Light Calendar are naturally the most sacred offerings. Strike upon their bones, and within the low, dull echo there seems to come the whisper of Thanatos. Those icy beast bones, which seem soaked in the cold of the River of Souls, are carried back to the city one after another... The slightly broken pieces are crafted into ornaments for the inhabitants, worn by day and by night. As for the intact pieces, the priests grind them with their own hands into funerary bone swords, to serve as offerings in the festival.

At one Bone Gathering Festival, the people of Aidonia met a young woman in the wasteland. Afterward, the rumor that “her touch can let a person cross the barrier of the River of Souls and face death” spread swiftly.

Those who worship “Death” rushed to the sanctuary in competition, only to meet the representative of Thanatos. The keen priests of Aidonia noticed that this young woman would affect the people's devotion to the faith, and so they appointed the young woman the Battle-Overseeing Saintess, strictly forbidding common folk to make contact with her. Only Ascetics who had passed through the hardships of the world and who revered life and death were qualified to have their souls return to the underworld within the arms of the young woman. The young woman wore the robe prepared by the priests, carried out the execution with her two hands, and used her embrace as the rite of encoffining.

The people of Aidonia truly believe the truth that “the River of Souls never ferries barren souls”. Yet the River of Souls never asks about the weight of a soul, it only flows quietly, leading all life to the unavoidable end, the place where every soul converges.