The Gale Bridges
The Breath of Ventaros, God of Wind and Wandering
Before the Deus Mori, when the gods still walked among mortal roads, the world was vast, scattered, and unconnected. Though the Aetherion lands shared sky and sea, each region lived enclosed in its own truth:
Aeloria sang beneath moonlit canopies and star-reflecting rivers.
Valecrown stretched across golden plains, wide roads, and restless hearts.
Durnhal thundered with forge-hammers deep beneath eternal mountains.
Though the people differed, their longing was the same:
They wished to reach one another.
And it was Ventaros, the Deus of Wind, Freedom, and Sky-Art, who heard them.
He who never built a temple, for his temple was the open horizon.
He who never settled, for stillness was a kind of death.
He who believed movement itself was sacred.
The Gift
Ventaros took a breath — not a mortal breath, but the kind that gathers hurricanes and scatters starlings across the world.
From this breath he shaped the Gale Bridges:
Invisible roads of wind and light, steady as stone, gentle as cloud, swift as thought.
To step onto one is to be lifted, lightened, carried.
Storms bend away. Waves calm. Lightning parts.
No harm can strike those traveling under Ventaros’ grace.
The journey feels like walking through the memory of flight.
Who Received the Gift
The bridges were not granted to the strong nor to the devout, but to the peoples whose hearts truly desired connection:
Aeloria
Their isles were distant and scattered, and though their voices carried in haunting song, their hands could not meet across the sea.
The Gale Bridges allowed their cities to remain one people.
Valecrown
Humanity was young, ambitious, always running — toward war, toward peace, toward each other.
The bridges let them share culture, grain, armies, and dreams, binding their lands into a single breath.
Durnhal
The dwarves first refused, declaring:
“Stone holds. Wind breaks.”
But Ventaros, amused, wove a single bridge to the mountain gates, not to change dwarven lives, but to show respect:
“Even mountains deserve to meet the world.”
And the dwarves accepted, with one correction:
“Stone chooses when to open.”
Why the Gift Endured
When the gods fell silent in the Deus Mori, the world cracked, seas rose, nations reeled.
But the Gale Bridges did not shatter.
They do not rely on faith, altar, or priest.
They function because the wind continues to move.
As long as a breeze touches the grass,
As long as a bird crosses the horizon,
As long as a child stands somewhere and wishes to be somewhere else—
Ventaros lives.
Not as a god,
but as the freedom to go forward.
Current Belief
Travelers still whisper before stepping into a bridge:
“May the wind remember my name.”
And somewhere in the high sky,
where even dragons dare not fly,
a presence watches —
not ruling,
not commanding,
only hoping the world keeps moving.