u/East_Choice

So we know thanks to Azunes level up that he is a member of a long lost people called NaviKaan. We also know his sorcerous bloodline is Draconic. Finally when Azune levelled up he had a dream of what sounded like a Dragon deep in the earth rejoicing.

I believe Luis is drawing on Latin mythology a bit with regards to Azunes mysterious heritage. Specifically I think the Dragon in Azunes dream is inspired by Quetzalcoatl

Heres my full theory

Long ago, before the Shapers came to Araman, a dragon diety which ill call The Great One sired the Dragon race. He and the Dragons were bevolent guardians of the mortal race and protected them from Primordials and Giants. Some of the Dragons mated with mortals creating the Navikan people. This Navikan people were a great people with a rich sorcerous heritage spreading the love and wisdom of their Ancestor the Great one.

Things changed when Shapers came and made war to enslave the mortals.The Great one was defeated and sealed in the earth (not killed cause Shapers couldnt do it),Dragons were killed and Navikaan people were scattered and enslaved

Thousands of years have past,and the memory of the navikaan people have faded to myth and legend. But the Great One is sealed in the earthmagically calling to his descendants to Remember. Remember their heritage.

I believe remembering will be the key to freeing the Great One.And the Great One can heal the Barrowdells

We know from the cold open of Episode 25 The Tachonis twins sent a very interesting letter to their uncle. Heres the full text

>Uncle,

>We hope this letter finds you well, and the Castle’s Torch Garrison proves sufficient to handle the Last Minute improvisation.

>We must make all haste to Dol Makyar, and from there we head north to board the Moray, and see forthwith beyond the Sea Door.

>Loathe though we are to admit it, we find ourselves condemned to some degree of confusion.

>To wit: Father will not listen to our entreaties, nor explain our sudden need for urgency. The failures in experimentation up to this point include some very dear sacrifices indeed, as you all are well aware. Are we certain we have isolated the possible risks?

>If Octus is indeed the appropriate choice, why can we not suffer the few days it would take to transport him from Dolmakiar to Tanasar? Are our forces truly so embedded within Telmora that they cannot be recalled stealthily and safely?

>We understand that Univere and Dorset, almost done with their harvesting, have now been reassigned to retrieve the stolen Calcidion. Is the path itself not a more worthy target than the orchard?

>Having thus split our family’s forces between two extremely significant rituals on either side of the Reaches, it feels we are rushing, both when there is no need to rush either, or at least no reason that has been explained to us.

>What is time-sensitive, however, is the opportunity we have once the Timinish King is dead. Oh, that political opportunity, though non-magical and therefore perhaps boring to Father, is our most urgent cause.

>With two-thirds of the council on our side, this represents the single greatest chance we have to lay low the Gray Tower, at which point we will no longer have to deceive the Barrowguard into doing anything.

>Doubling our forces, access to the Barrowdells, answering the Kahad problem.

>Let us not make the mistake of our great-grandfather and rely on magic to the exclusion of politics.

>Father will not listen to us. He may well listen to you, given your respect, given your recent demonstration of devotion.

>Please entreat him, if not to reconsider, then at least to explain why we are behaving so recklessly.

>Petrah and Riyah Tachonis

What are your thoughts? Letter hints at two significant Tachonis rituals

The Crisis

With the death of the Shapers, the doors to  their realms were closed. And with the death of celestial Psychopomps, Araman had no way to access the Realm. Souls no longer passed on to the Shapers realms but remained tapped in the Underworld, sometimes spilling over to the Mortal World.This is the Underworld crisis of Araman

 

Thiazi’s secret plan

Here’s my guess: I believe Thiazi and his secret associates(like Mara) were a part of a secret group called the Cloak which the Tachonis referenced in their letters in Tannesar,

The Goal of the Cloak is to Fix the issues with the Underworld.

They plan to create Magic doors to the lost afterlifes.

The Goal is 7 working Doors for the 7 AfterLives.

They plan to open the Doors to the 7 Afterlives and then cast a spell through this doors to destroy them. Doing so will cause the Cosmos to reset , and souls will be able to freely to move on to whatever the Pre-Shaper Afterlife was.

To create this Doors, seem to require the Cloak to obtain Psychopomp items for each dooe(Stone of Nightsong, Coffin of Olbalad etc)

The Paint Thiazi sent to Hal seems to be very important as well

Before I explain how this doors are created, lets speculate on the Paint

 

THE PAINT THEORY

Assembling the clues we got from  Episode 24, we know that the paint used to be some form of magical boiling blood before it was altered by Hollis mistress.

We can easily guess where this blood is from-It was likely from the Azgra relic we saw in Tannesar, that boiling pot of blood. We know that a Druid-likely Mara stole something from this Relic that made it loose its ability to generate blood. I believe she stole the Heart of this Relic so that she can generate the Magical blood for the Cloaks purposes.

So what exactly is the Blood though?

Bolaire got a big clue:That the blood is related to crossing the veil, Just like the Stone of Nightsong and Olbalad. Bolaire vaguely remembered some River of blood in Myth called Gavidzra related to crossing the veil.

So the blood is this Gavidzra.

Heres my theory: Gavidzra is the Orcish Psychopomp item.

Just like the Stone of Nightsong was used to guide Elvish souls to their After Life,I believe Gavidzra was the magical River of Blood that guided Orcish souls to their After Life.It was created by Azgra to serve this purpose.Its a horrible purpose cause the Orcish Afterlife is described to be hellish.

Gavidzra was altered by Hollis Mistress though to a form that encapsulates dreams and wishes. I believe that Form is Filament, albeit a special Filament with a Pscychopomp signature

 

The Secret to creating the Doors

How they were secretly creating this doors can be decoded from Jaufs letter for Thiazi.

Heres my decoding of the Mysterious letter between Shadow(Thiazi) and the Mysterious Professor.I will be breaking it down, part by part

>   To Shadow
If all has gone well you'll have the stone in hand; we'll need the steel, and you said you can convince her to reshape it into an anchor. If not, anyone in the family can make plow shares

 Shadow is obviously Thiazi and the stone is obviously the Stone of Nightsong. What the steel is, is unknown but The Cloak seem to need it reshaped into an Anchor. The Her who Thaizi was supposed to try and convince , If I had to guess is Thaisha and if that failed he could convince anyone else in the Lloy Family. This leads me to believe the Steel might have been some god killing weapon, Since the stone is related to the Elves, I expect the steel is as well. My guess? The Steel is the Last Arrow (or a part of it) which was used to kill Sylandri goddess of elves

>> Once it's done, the next step is to bring it to the field. Our wings are leading a charge across the border to draw the locals from the site. That hot shot I mentioned will meet you there and help prepare the arch from steel to stone. Please try to temper his confidence with pragmatism. Yes, I know you are precisely the wrong person for that.

 This part of the letter explains how one of the Doors is being made-specifically The Door to Elven Afterlife. The Stone and the Anchor would be brought to a specific field which the Cloak will ensure is abandoned by leading the locals away from the site. I supect the site must be sacred to a god for it to be used as the Site for the Portal creation. The Stone and the Steel will then be forged into an Arch for the portal with help from a Magic expert.

With this we can deduce that there are 4 key steps needed in the creation of a bridge to a Shapers realm afterlife

1)      Obtain a Psychopomp item connected to guiding souls to a specific Shapers realm (which is why Thiazi was seeking the Stone of Nightsong, Coffin of Olbalad etc)

2)    Obtain an Anchor item connected to the Specific Shaper (which can be forged from a god killing weapon)

3)   Choose a site sacred to the Specific Shaper and create/or choose a structure on the site.

4} Have the Structure be fused with the Psychopomp item and the Anchor Item . This structure can now serve as a Bridge. A Bridge that when switched on will open a Door to the Specific Shapers realm.

For example the hotshot in the letter was helping the cloak to create an Arch structure that fuses the Stone (which is a Psychopomp Item ) and the Steel (which is an Anchor item) on a field likely sacred to Sylandri.If the hotshot completes this he would have created the Door to the Elven Afterlife

I believe the Cloak also planned to create the Orcish Door to the Afterlife using the Gavidzra blood (which is a Psychopomp Item) and a reshaped Paraiah Blade (as an Anchor Item) in the Hallowed Round (Sacred Site to Azgra)

>Still, remember, until a stable trinity of bridges are built it is vital that the blood be protected. I trust that you have disguised it well. With any luck, the next time I see your face we will have undone the damage of our first attempt. More than one door will be open to us from there.

A third component for the Door creation is revealed which is The Blood which I already explained to be Gavidzra. Whats interesting is that the letter reminds Thiazi that the Blood has to be hidden and protected until a Stable trinity of bridges are built.This means that the blood was to be used for the plan only after 3 Stable bridges are built.

In otherwords,The Cloak only planned to use the Gavidzra blood to create the Orcish Door after 3 bridges were successfully built.

Why?

I believe the reason was Strategic.If the Cloak made the Hallowed Round into a Bridge for the Orcish Afterlife, its magical signature would become incredibly Loud. Anyone in Dol Makyar who gets close to it would immediately sense its true nature thus exposing the Cloaks plans to the public which they were not ready for yet. TExposure means people can stop them

The Cloak is focused on building the Bridges in secret locations currently. Once they succeed on creating successful bridges and used them to free some souls from the Underworld,Then the Cloak would be more than happy to go Public because they have the results to win the public to themselves.At that stage, they wouldnt mind creating a Public Orcish gate at the Hallowed Round.

So the Cloaks focus is to create 3 secret and successful bridges. Why 3?

The reason I think it might be linked to why the Cloak’s first attempt caused Damage. I believe The Cloak in the past ,activated a single bridge to the afterlife which caused some kind of damage. So the Door did open but it is unstable.

I believe the Cloak investigated why and came to the conclusion that opening a Door to an Afterlife when theres less than 3 bridges in existence was dangerous. So if they created at least 3 bridges, then could safely open Doors

So They planned to create 3 inactive bridges first, then after begin to switch them on, creating Safe doors.

> Until then, I search for suitable anchors for the remaining four. We may need more hands soon after.

This reveals that the Cloak already had 3 anchor items ready to go and needed to find 4 more

We already know they have the Elven Anchor which is the Steel in this letter (I explained it to be The Last Arrow)

We already know Thiazi obtained the Halfling anchor which would be the now altered Termina

The third anchor the Cloak have located is unknown. Could the letter be referring to the anchor used in the Unstable Door? or perhaps a different anchor?

 

 The Hallowed Round as Future Bridge and a Present Weapon

Thizai had 2 reasons for wanting the Hallowed Round painted with Gavidzar Filament.

One was to prepare it to become a Bridge.

I explained earlier that Thiazi and the Cloak planned to make the Hallowed Round a Bridge to the Orcish Afterlives but only after 3 bridges were secretly built by the Cloak and they were ready to go public with their plans.

Thiazi set in motion ,plans to get the Hallowed Round ready for this. He got Hollis mistress to disguise the Blood as paint with the plan to get it painted on the Round.

If a Pariah blade is reshaped into an anchor and fused with the Hallowed Round, The Hallowed Round willl become a Bridge. A Bridge which when switched on will open a Door to the Orcish After Life.

Thiazi set for the Paint to be hidden at the Hallowed Round in plain sight until he was ready to turn the Hallowed Round into a bridge.

But the 2nd reason,Thaizi wanted the Round painted was to make it a weapon

If you recall in ancient times the Hallowed Round was imbued with ancient runes that allowed Azgra the Orcish Shaper cast amplified version of his spells across long distances. After the Shapers war the runes lost its power, but Thiazi realised that if the magic of the Hallowed Round was restored it could be used by its new Master as a weapon.

Painting the Hallowed Round, with Gavidzra blood has restored the Magic of the Hallowed Round. Just as Thiazi Planned

What will happen with Hal's Play?

The Hallowed Round is now restored to what it was during Azgras time thanks to the Paint. Its a powerful Magical item/weapon for its Master to use

For the Round to be used it needs to charged with the “Praises of Orcs’’.Its part of the reason Azgra forced the Orcs to praise him in the Round.The Praises are the battery for the Round.

Hal’s play is going to charge up the Round once more with the praises and enjoyment from the audience.I believe once fully charged the Round will wake up and seek its master choosing Hal to bond with.

Once Hal becomes bonded to the round he will be able to Magnify his magic when in the Round just like Azgra did.

I also suspect bonding to the Hallowed Round,means Hal is bonded to Gavidzra similar to Vaelus being bonded to the Stone of Nightsong.That means Hal should also gain the extra spells Vaelus got from the stone.

Finally I suspect that Hal will be able to summon Orcish Souls to serve as Minions once hes bonded to the Round.

The Crisis

With the death of the Shapers, the doors to  their realms were closed. And with the death of celestial Psychopomps, Araman had no way to access the Realm. Souls no longer passed on to the Shapers realms but remained tapped in the Underworld, sometimes spilling over to the Mortal World.This is the Underworld crisis of Araman

 

Thiazi’s secret plan

Here’s my guess: I believe Thiazi and his secret associates(like Mara) were a part of a secret group called the Cloak which the Tachonis referenced in their letters in Tannesar,

The Goal of the Cloak is to Fix the issues with the Underworld.

They plan to create Magic doors to the lost afterlifes.

The Goal is 7 working Doors for the 7 AfterLives.

They plan to open the Doors to the 7 Afterlives and then cast a spell through this doors to destroy them. Doing so will cause the Cosmos to reset , and souls will be able to freely to move on to whatever the Pre-Shaper Afterlife was.

To create this Doors, seem to require the Cloak to obtain Psychopomp items for each dooe(Stone of Nightsong, Coffin of Olbalad etc)

The Paint Thiazi sent to Hal seems to be very important as well

Before I explain how this doors are created, lets speculate on the Paint

 

THE PAINT THEORY

Assembling the clues we got from  Episode 24, we know that the paint used to be some form of magical boiling blood before it was altered by Hollis mistress.

We can easily guess where this blood is from-It was likely from the Azgra relic we saw in Tannesar, that boiling pot of blood. We know that a Druid-likely Mara stole something from this Relic that made it loose its ability to generate blood. I believe she stole the Heart of this Relic so that she can generate the Magical blood for the Cloaks purposes.

So what exactly is the Blood though?

Bolaire got a big clue:That the blood is related to crossing the veil, Just like the Stone of Nightsong and Olbalad. Bolaire vaguely remembered some River of blood in Myth called Gavidzra related to crossing the veil.

So the blood is this Gavidzra.

Heres my theory: Gavidzra is the Orcish Psychopomp item.

Just like the Stone of Nightsong was used to guide Elvish souls to their After Life,I believe Gavidzra was the magical River of Blood that guided Orcish souls to their After Life.It was created by Azgra to serve this purpose.Its a horrible purpose cause the Orcish Afterlife is described to be hellish.

Gavidzra was altered by Hollis Mistress though to a form that encapsulates dreams and wishes. I believe that Form is Filament, albeit a special Filament with a Pscychopomp signature

 

The Secret to creating the Doors

How they were secretly creating this doors can be decoded from Jaufs letter for Thiazi.

Heres my decoding of the Mysterious letter between Shadow(Thiazi) and the Mysterious Professor.I will be breaking it down, part by part

>   To Shadow
If all has gone well you'll have the stone in hand; we'll need the steel, and you said you can convince her to reshape it into an anchor. If not, anyone in the family can make plow shares

 Shadow is obviously Thiazi and the stone is obviously the Stone of Nightsong. What the steel is, is unknown but The Cloak seem to need it reshaped into an Anchor. The Her who Thaizi was supposed to try and convince , If I had to guess is Thaisha and if that failed he could convince anyone else in the Lloy Family. This leads me to believe the Steel might have been some god killing weapon, Since the stone is related to the Elves, I expect the steel is as well. My guess? The Steel is the Last Arrow (or a part of it) which was used to kill Sylandri goddess of elves

>> Once it's done, the next step is to bring it to the field. Our wings are leading a charge across the border to draw the locals from the site. That hot shot I mentioned will meet you there and help prepare the arch from steel to stone. Please try to temper his confidence with pragmatism. Yes, I know you are precisely the wrong person for that.

 This part of the letter explains how one of the Doors is being made-specifically The Door to Elven Afterlife. The Stone and the Anchor would be brought to a specific field which the Cloak will ensure is abandoned by leading the locals away from the site. I supect the site must be sacred to a god for it to be used as the Site for the Portal creation. The Stone and the Steel will then be forged into an Arch for the portal with help from a Magic expert.

With this we can deduce that there are 4 key steps needed in the creation of a bridge to a Shapers realm afterlife

1)      Obtain a Psychopomp item connected to guiding souls to a specific Shapers realm (which is why Thiazi was seeking the Stone of Nightsong, Coffin of Olbalad etc)

2)    Obtain an Anchor item connected to the Specific Shaper (which can be forged from a god killing weapon)

3)   Choose a site sacred to the Specific Shaper and create/or choose a structure on the site.

4} Have the Structure be fused with the Psychopomp item and the Anchor Item . This structure can now serve as a Bridge. A Bridge that when switched on will open a Door to the Specific Shapers realm.

For example the hotshot in the letter was helping the cloak to create an Arch structure that fuses the Stone (which is a Psychopomp Item ) and the Steel (which is an Anchor item) on a field likely sacred to Sylandri.If the hotshot completes this he would have created the Door to the Elven Afterlife

I believe the Cloak also planned to create the Orcish Door to the Afterlife using the Gavidzra blood (which is a Psychopomp Item) and a reshaped Paraiah Blade (as an Anchor Item) in the Hallowed Round (Sacred Site to Azgra)

>Still, remember, until a stable trinity of bridges are built it is vital that the blood be protected. I trust that you have disguised it well. With any luck, the next time I see your face we will have undone the damage of our first attempt. More than one door will be open to us from there.

A third component for the Door creation is revealed which is The Blood which I already explained to be Gavidzra. Whats interesting is that the letter reminds Thiazi that the Blood has to be hidden and protected until a Stable trinity of bridges are built.This means that the blood was to be used for the plan only after 3 Stable bridges are built.

In otherwords,The Cloak only planned to use the Gavidzra blood to create the Orcish Door after 3 bridges were successfully built.

Why?

I believe the reason was Strategic.If the Cloak made the Hallowed Round into a Bridge for the Orcish Afterlife, its magical signature would become incredibly Loud. Anyone in Dol Makyar who gets close to it would immediately sense its true nature thus exposing the Cloaks plans to the public which they were not ready for yet. Exposure means people can stop them

The Cloak is focused on building the Bridges in secret locations currently. Once they succeed on creating successful bridges and used them to free some souls from the Underworld,Then the Cloak would be more than happy to go Public because they have the results to win the public to themselves.At that stage, they wouldnt mind creating a Public Orcish gate at the Hallowed Round.

So the Cloaks focus is to create 3 secret and successful bridges. Why 3?

The reason I think it might be linked to why the Cloak’s first attempt caused Damage. I believe The Cloak in the past ,activated a single bridge to the afterlife which caused some kind of damage. So the Door did open but it is unstable.

I believe the Cloak investigated why and came to the conclusion that opening a Door to an Afterlife when theres less than 3 bridges in existence was dangerous. So if they created at least 3 bridges, then could safely open Doors

So They planned to create 3 inactive bridges first, then after begin to switch them on, creating Safe doors.

> Until then, I search for suitable anchors for the remaining four. We may need more hands soon after.

This reveals that the Cloak already had 3 anchor items ready to go and needed to find 4 more

We already know they have the Elven Anchor which is the Steel in this letter (I explained it to be The Last Arrow)

We already know Thiazi obtained the Halfling anchor which would be the now altered Termina

The third anchor the Cloak have located is unknown. Could the letter be referring to the anchor used in the Unstable Door? or perhaps a different anchor?

 

 The Hallowed Round as Future Bridge and a Present Weapon

Thizai had 2 reasons for wanting the Hallowed Round painted with Gavidzar Filament.

One was to prepare it to become a Bridge.

I explained earlier that Thiazi and the Cloak planned to make the Hallowed Round a Bridge to the Orcish Afterlives but only after 3 bridges were secretly built by the Cloak and they were ready to go public with their plans.

Thiazi set in motion ,plans to get the Hallowed Round ready for this. He got Hollis mistress to disguise the Blood as paint with the plan to get it painted on the Round.

If a Pariah blade is reshaped into an anchor and fused with the Hallowed Round, The Hallowed Round willl become a Bridge. A Bridge which when switched on will open a Door to the Orcish After Life.

Thiazi set for the Paint to be hidden at the Hallowed Round in plain sight until he was ready to turn the Hallowed Round into a bridge.

But the 2nd reason,Thaizi wanted the Round painted was to make it a weapon

If you recall in ancient times the Hallowed Round was imbued with ancient runes that allowed Azgra the Orcish Shaper cast amplified version of his spells across long distances. After the Shapers war the runes lost its power, but Thiazi realised that if the magic of the Hallowed Round was restored it could be used by its new Master as a weapon.

Painting the Hallowed Round, with Gavidzra blood has restored the Magic of the Hallowed Round. Just as Thiazi Planned

What will happen with Hal's Play?

The Hallowed Round is now restored to what it was during Azgras time thanks to the Paint. Its a powerful Magical item/weapon for its Master to use

For the Round to be used it needs to charged with the “Praises of Orcs’’.Its part of the reason Azgra forced the Orcs to praise him in the Round.The Praises are the battery for the Round.

Hal’s play is going to charge up the Round once more with the praises and enjoyment from the audience.I believe once fully charged the Round will wake up and seek its master choosing Hal to bond with.

Once Hal becomes bonded to the round he will be able to Magnify his magic when in the Round just like Azgra did.

I also suspect bonding to the Hallowed Round,means Hal is bonded to Gavidzra similar to Vaelus being bonded to the Stone of Nightsong.That means Hal should also gain the extra spells Vaelus got from the stone.

Finally I suspect that Hal will be able to summon Orcish Souls to serve as Minions once hes bonded to the Round.