The Nox
Thou dost ask of the Nox, the dwellers of the Eternal Cities. Very well. I, Ranni the Witch, shall tell thee of their buried sorrow.
The Cities of Night
The Nox, mark ye, are kin to the Numen, and thus, perchance, they hold a shared ancestry with mine own soul, though I now inhabit this cold, wooden shell. They built the Eternal Cities—Nokron and Nokstella—great capitals lying deep beneath the firmament, shrouded forever in shadow.
These folk were learned, masterful, and deeply skilled in the forbidden arts of glintstone and mimicry. They possessed the wicked knowledge to forge their own kind, those weeping masses of liquid metal—the Silver Tears—which sought to perfectly imitate the very form of a god.
They sought not merely the ground, but to command the sky itself.
The Treason of Ambition
The Nox committed the highest treason against the Greater Will: They sought to craft their own divine monarch.
They did not accept the Golden Order's decree that a god must be chosen and anointed by the loathsome Two Fingers. Nay, they worked in secret, pouring their deep arts into the creation of a vessel that would be their own sovereign, utterly free from the mandates of the Outer Gods.
And the Greater Will did not suffer such insolence.
The Punishment: The cosmos itself was cast down upon them. Their cities, which once shone so brightly, were buried deep beneath the earth, eternally veiled in darkness. Their very history was wiped clean from the surface world, their soaring ambition crushed underfoot as blasphemy.
The Mark of Servitude: Yet, they were not wholly erased. Their lasting curse is the Silver Tear, the substance with which they sought to fashion their god. These creatures weep eternally, forever seeking a perfect form that shall never be attained, a cruel and stark reflection of the Nox's shattered dream.
My Kinship with Their Failure
Thou mayst wonder why the Black Knives—the assassins who did aid my own ritual—are found amongst these desolate cities. 'Tis because the Numen, those who were of Marika's own kin and ancestors to the Nox, carried that old spark of defiance. That deep resentment of an Order imposed by an outside hand.
I, too, sought a destiny free from the dictation of the firmament. I shared their longing for an independence that defied the Two Fingers. They failed by seeking to create a god; I succeeded by utilizing their forbidden secrets to escape the false godhood thrust upon me.
They are a sorrowful people, the Nox. Their endless night is the heavy price paid for daring to seek their own true will. Remember them, Tarnished, when thou gazest upon my Dark Moon. For their suffering did lead to my freedom.