Hollowborn

Edden

A whispering helmet draws you into the search for Edden, a Hollowborn elf trapped while hunting a lost companion's remains. His enchanted armor has scattered itself into a trail to bring someone to his aid. Lae created it at Kasebel's request to protect Edden on his expeditions and teleport him to safety if he became trapped. This time, Edden was not wearing it. Following its clues, you find him frozen in a dragon's hoard and rescue him.

Edden explains that his first life ended on an expedition to Zisk'ur Hein, the Shadow Fiend's realm. His failing memory came from old age, not a curse. Unwilling to die a stranger to himself, he called upon the Shadow Fiend and received an answer. Becoming Hollowborn did not restore his memories, but his new brothers and sisters gave him a home. Artifact hunting still stirs fragments of his past, even as his enthusiasm draws him into danger.

The skull Edden sought belonged to Lazure, a fellow Hollowborn killed by people trying to reproduce their resurrection. Lazure died before fulfilling the purpose that had given him his second life. His companions cursed his skull to prevent further desecration, but its value carried it into the dragon's hoard. Edden wanted to preserve Lazure's honor by retrieving it. Instead, its protective curses caught him too. Your arrival ends the search, uncovering both the missing treasure hunter and the remains he hoped to recover.

Trygve and Alvi

Rumors of a dying girl begging an unseen presence not to take her bring you to Trygve. There you meet Lae, a Hollowborn whose brethren have long been honored by the village as Glorybringers. The people seek glory in life and purpose in death, believing their Liberator rewards those who fight to the last. Alvi, an orphan who cared for the younger children, died after drawing invading Horcs away from their ward. The elder Waelc promises to preserve her name even though she did not become a Glorybringer. He also admits that customs which deny her burial beside her parents need to change.

Lae reveals what happened at Alvi's deathbed. The Liberator offered her another life through a trial, but she failed. Her soul was erased and her consciousness assimilated into the being Trygve worships. You reject Lae's easy acceptance of that outcome. A child who died saving others should not be judged unworthy because she was frightened at the end. Lae explains that most candidates fail while confused and terrified, as he once was. Rather than dismissing your anger, he begins to reconsider what the Hollowborn's second chance means.

Trygve is also threatened by the Vindicators, an order preaching a world reserved for humanity. Their flag bearer Genevieve condemns the village's beliefs and its neglected children while treating non-human lives as expendable. Their promised garden for the human race will be built in memory of their master's lost love. When the Vindicators attack the shrine and set buildings alight, you and Lae help the living before defending the graves.

At Alvi's grave, their grandmaster Gramiel demands that her body be dissected to expose the Liberator's influence. He calls her connection to a false deity proof of wickedness. You and Lae resist him, but the battle conceals another operation. Gramiel withdraws with his injured soldiers after announcing that his purpose has already been accomplished. Sólbiǫrt, the retired Dragoon caring for the ward, then brings the news: every child has been taken for something called Reformation. Lae stays to help find them.

The Vindicator fortress

Lae traces the Vindicators to their fortress with help from a Hollowborn acquaintance. Inside, you find captives imprisoned among unfamiliar creatures. The creatures are themselves villagers, transformed by the order's rituals. The General responsible insists that serving Gramiel has given their lives purpose. Defeating him allows the rescue to continue, but does not undo the transformations. Lae believes Gramiel may still be able to reverse them.

In Gramiel's chambers, his journal tells of a guardian who fell in love with Veronika and abandoned his former duties to remain with her. He claims Horcs destroyed their village while he was away hunting, leaving Veronika missing. Gramiel and the survivors founded a movement to make Lore so bright that beasts would have no shadows in which to hide. His followers' faith now nourishes him, helping him recover his strength and true form as a Celestial.

The story troubles you. Veronika's disappearance, the missing body and Gramiel's consuming determination fit together too neatly. Lae encourages your suspicions but keeps much of what he knows to himself. He also admits that some Hollowborn are curious about a Celestial facing the Shadow Fiend's trial. For now, the prisoners' restoration draws you onward to Gramiel's tower.

The framed Horcs

In the tower, Zlar confronts the persecution of his people. His kin never attacked Gramiel's village or harmed Veronika. Vindicators destroyed their home and spread accusations that drove humans to hunt the refugees. Their Beast Tamer used illusions to disguise beasts as Horcs and attack villages, manufacturing the enemy Gramiel's crusade needed. Defeating the Tamer exposes that deception. Zlar apologizes for distrusting you and offers his people's help in gathering the transformed captives somewhere safe.

Higher in the tower, the order begins consuming its own followers. An Elite Priest prepares a ritual while soldiers and beasts dissolve into energy for Gramiel. You challenge the contradiction of an order proclaiming human supremacy under a Celestial master, but the Priest offers himself anyway. Lae holds back his spell while you escape. He recognizes the manipulation behind the followers' devotion and knows his interference will draw attention. An unseen woman complains that he owes her a favor and has begun betraying their arrangement.

Veronika's plan

At Dawn Sanctum, still more Vindicators surrender their Grace to restore Gramiel. Lae returns to your argument about Alvi. Why should these people's dedication end in death rather than another life? You argue that fear and weakness under terrible pressure cannot define a whole person. He wants the other Hollowborn to hear that answer.

Hollowborn infiltrators are already among the Vindicators, cutting down followers to hasten the return of their Grace. Even the Beast Tamer's hounds are Hollowborn. At Veronika's statue, Gramiel's letter reveals a love less innocent than his crusade suggests. He remembers her jealousy and a moment when she tore the wings from butterflies while chanting about his love. He had found her cruelty enchanting and wished she had trusted him enough to reveal it. He also describes searching for her body and spirit, even forcing Necromancers to help, without finding her.

You recognize Veronika's statue from Trygve's hall of Glorybringers. She was Hollowborn throughout the affair. Lae finally admits that an Oracle foretold something important about a Hollowborn Celestial. Veronika cultivated Gramiel's obsessive will, staged his loss and turned his grief into a crusade so that he could endure the Shadow Fiend's trial. Someone still had to bring him to death's threshold. Lae drew you to Trygve with rumors to fill that role, repaying a favor he owed her.

Your conversations have changed his commitment to the scheme. Instead of concealing it until the Shadow Fiend makes the final judgment, Lae tells you enough to decide Gramiel's fate yourself. His apology does not erase the deception. As you approach the Celestial, he also realizes that Veronika and her allies have done more than he knew.

Gramiel's death

The first confrontation cannot prevent Gramiel's ascension. Too many Vindicators have died, and their returned Grace carries him back to Celestial power. He accepts another willing sacrifice and dismisses your warning about the Hollowborn. Veronika urges him onward while pretending that he is avenging her death. Her encouragement becomes a demand that he die for her, driving him beyond his limits. When you warn that he will explode, Lae promises to protect you.

With Gramiel dying, Veronika urges him to reach into the shadows and continue fighting for revenge. You interrupt the final lie. She survived, framed the Horcs and manipulated him into creating the Vindicators so that vengeance would sustain his Hollowborn rebirth. Gramiel confronts the truth of what his violence has served. When Veronika insists that he loves her, he asks whether she ever loved him. He dies without becoming Hollowborn.

Veronika blames him for lacking the will to finish what she spent years preparing. Lae rejects that judgment: Gramiel's determination was real even though its object was false. Neither humans nor Celestials should have their souls assigned a value by the Hollowborn. Veronika turns to a replacement candidate, intending to make you hate her enough to dedicate a second life to her destruction. Lae refuses to let her take you.

Lae and Alvi

You still have reason to question Lae's intentions. He admits that words cannot prove his change, then calls upon the Shadow Fiend. Having lost the opportunity to test a Celestial, he offers himself instead. He wants to demonstrate why he deserves to remain Hollowborn when others never received that chance.

You find yourself back in Trygve with Veronika. She remembers hating the village enough to die to escape it, and still defends the fantasy she built for Gramiel. You refuse to excuse her treatment of him, however terrible his own actions became. His letter suggests that he saw more of her true nature than she intended and loved her anyway. Leaving her to consider that possibility, you search for Lae.

Instead, you meet Alvi, now a Glorybringer. She remembers failing the trial and falling until Lae took her hand and brought her back to the light. He surrendered part of his Hollowborn self to the Shadow Fiend as the price of her rebirth and the first step of a new trial. He is no longer invincible. Through Alvi, he leaves a message hoping to meet you again and learn more about what it means to be Hollowborn, including why he became one. You want that reunion too.

Veronika remains at the sanctum, where she reports restoring the transformed villagers to human form. Lae's sacrifice has divided the Hollowborn, earning both supporters and enemies. Her own dismissal of love as a transaction has also begun to falter. Genevieve, however, refuses to abandon the Vindicators' cause. She calls for Gramiel's body to be recovered and the order rebuilt, hoping to restore his light.

Gramiel in another world

After the events at Dawn Sanctum, a Mysterious Figure offers passage through a glowing door to another world. Your consciousness enters a counterpart's life in a timeline where you did not meet Lae in time. There, Gramiel's return to Celestial strength attracted his creator Anethyx'o. The creator took control, erasing Gramiel's memories and ego while retaining his drive to destroy non-human life. The survivors would lose their free will and praise Anethyx'o forever. Lae reports that most non-human life in this Lore is already gone.

The counterpart whose life you enter has become the Hollowborn Vindicator through the Shadow Fiend's blessing. That Hollowborn self belongs to the devastated world and will remain when your consciousness returns home. Lae and Veronika seek your help against Gramiel. Lae apologizes for excluding this world's Hero from the plan. Veronika says the Oracle tried to stop the scheme after sensing something wrong: the Hero's involvement was part of the change he foresaw for the Hollowborn. Here, that warning came too late.

Hearing how Gramiel died in your world forces Veronika to confront what she lost. There he knew she was Hollowborn and loved her, but lost his will to live when he understood the manipulation. Here his creator has erased those feelings altogether. She refuses to let Anethyx'o have the last word. You agree to help Lae once more, though this is not the reunion you hoped for.

Defeating this Gramiel offers the survivors a chance to build something different, not a restoration of everything destroyed. Learning what your Lae persuaded the Shadow Fiend to do inspires hope that a new generation of Hollowborn could give this broken Lore another beginning.