Revolutionaries of the Sunset: Before the Revolution

In every town in Aden, from Gludio to Runa, stands a woman in dark robes. She doesn't sell, doesn't tell fortunes, and doesn't beg. She tells every passerby the same thing—and the fact that the words haven't changed for years only makes them more terrifying.

"Until the day of revolution! The Seal of Death has awakened! We, the Revolutionaries of Sunset, will destroy the old order with our might and create a world where all are equal!"

Priestess of Sunset - in the square of any city

This is not a sect on the outskirts or a bunch of conspirators in a basement. This is one of two armies fighting for Seven Seals — for the power with which Elmoreden once bound the goddess of death. And to understand who marches under the banner of the Dusk, it's enough to read the rules of entry. They are more honest than any sermon.

The army of those who have nothing

The Dawnlords are accepted by clans that own castles, their allies, and those who have personally received a certificate of approval from the castle's lord. Each lord can distribute three hundred such documents to whomever they deem necessary. The Revolutionaries of Dusk have a mirror image and a merciless rule: the one whose clan owns the castle is not allowed to enter. At all. No merits will help.

The Chronicles of the Seals puts it bluntly: the struggle between Dawn and Dusk is "a battle between those who hold castles and those who have none." All who lack a place at the table flock to the dark banners: landless mercenaries, clans without fortress walls, ruined artisans, scholars without chairs. Dawn prays for order, where everyone will remain in their place. Dusk promises a world in which there will be no places at all—nor the walls that separate them.

And this army has its own scientists. In the archives Towers of Insolence For centuries, the volumes of the "Revelation of the Seals" have been gathering dust - and the Masters of Sunset pay the seekers in hard cash for each sheet they save.

"Is this the entire 'Revelation of the Seals' set? Yes, yes! Give them to me! Now I'm much closer to solving the mystery of the seven seals! Soon we, the Revolutionaries of the Sunset, will rule the world!"

Master Desmond, Scholar of Sunset

The revolution isn't going to storm castles with a battering ram. It's going to open up what the old empire locked away—and then let the walls protect whoever they want.

The war that goes on underground

That's why the War of Sunset doesn't resemble a war. Every two weeks, the pendulum of the Seals swings anew: for a week, both sides gather their forces, for a week, the victor reaps the fruits. The battlefield isn't fortress walls, but necropolises and catacombs, open across the continent: there, warriors from both armies battle the Nephilim, Lilim, Giants, and Liths—the armies of the eternal war of light and darkness—and carry up seal stones, fragments of ancient magic. The stones are carried to the priestesses; the priestesses pay with ancient adena, the gold of a dead empire— and the entire guild of Mammon feeds on this goldAnd in the oracular shrines of Sunset, the Festival of Darkness thunders—a competition that, in the words of the priests themselves, is organized "to awaken the power of the sleeping seals."

Listen: The army of equality is fighting to to wake Something the empire lulled to sleep at any cost. The victory of the Dusk also has its earthly fruits—undivided possession of necropolises, trade with Mammon's merchants, and under the Seal of Discord, even lords who conquer sieges dare not ride a wyvern. But among the rewards is one that radiates a chill. The Chronicles of the Dusk describe it bluntly.

"The door to the Forbidden Sanctuary opens, and we finally meet the holy flame—Anakim. She is our greatest enemy."

"The Seal of Greed," Chronicles of the Decline

The greatest enemy of the revolution is not the lord in the castle. Not the tax collector. Seraphim of Light, guarding the world from the abyss. When a movement promising universal equality first wages war against an angel, it's worth asking who truly leads its banner.

Whose equality

The answer is suggested by theology itself. Sunset is the heir to the old Twilight Empire: the rebellion that arose after the execution of Saint Solina and devoured Elmoreden from within. Back then, the slogans were the same: down with the gilded order, all are equal before heaven. It's all over now. the Emperor's pact with the spirits of darkness and the destruction of the only human kingdom. And beyond the door that Sunset storms in the necropolises, there awaits no platform for victory speeches—there, in the depths, stands the Forbidden Altar of Lilith, the Mother of the Abyss, the very one whose abyss once seduced the goddess herself. The priests Shilen There is a saying that sounds like the fulfillment of all the promises of Sunset at once: in the peace of death, all are equal.

The revolution has another, quiet work, one that isn't shouted about in the squares. When a family perished in the Forest of the Dead Von HellmannRumor first pointed to the "revolutionary army of Sunset." The lord's daughter's diary preserved how it all began: her father, impoverished after the lost war, received a mysterious guest and "talked and talked about starting a revolution"—and the daughter was horrified: "We've already lost too much." The guest who whispered to the lord about Runa's shaky power and urged him to act is already familiar to the reader of these chronicles: a magician whose name is read backwardsHe himself, when asked about the army of Sunset, merely shrugged: "I don't care about such things." A ruined lord, thirsting for revenge, is the best kindling for someone else's fire; the revolution doesn't ask who supplies the fire or why.

Phoenix and Messenger

And now comes the strangest part of this story: Heaven, it seems, hasn't chosen a side.

When the mysterious woman in blue ordered the blacksmith Reorin a weapon for the hero, "that will reshape the face of the world," she ordered to brand it with the sign of two great constellations at once: Phoenix of the Revolution - and Herald of the DawnNot one of the two. Both. Fate hands the hero a blade engraved with the coats of arms of both armies, and doesn't tell him which one he's destined to become—the bird that burns the old world, or the messenger that heralds a new day.

This, perhaps, is the truth about the Revolutionaries of the Sunset. The Pendulum of the Seals swings every two weeks, and every two weeks, thousands of people decide anew who they are: guardians of the order in which they are fortunate, or destroyers of the order in which there is no place for them. Both answers are honest. Both call to the necropolises, and both feed the gold of a dead empire into the same war with no end in sight—because the real stakes here are not castles or equality. The real stakes are the seals on the door of the goddess of death. And while below, underground, stones and slogans ring, above, two wait: a seraph with a sacred torch—and the Mother of the Abyss. Each army is confident that it is opening the door for itself.