Yes I know the title sounds insane! But in the grand scheme of SotO's narrative, Isgarren is an idealist at heart wearing a cynic's armor, and Mabon is a cynic at heart wearing an idealist's mask.

And Isgarren is an idealist because you kind of have to be one to dedicate yourself to 10,000 years of protecting a world that doesn't even know you exist.

And one of the only things we know about him from before his ascension was that he tried to go help the mursaat fight Zhaitan anyway even after Sidony decided against helping them. Most of what he calls his mistakes were also born from his attempts to help others - taking in Eparch and ascending Waiting Sorrow being the biggest examples. And still he keeps helping others. Still, no matter how many times his attempts to better the world led to another "mistake", led to his own exile from his kin, led to the deaths of people he loved, Isgarren still kept doing it because he believed in doing good no matter what.

He figured out at some point that the Elder Dragons were vital to Tyria's magical ecosystem, so he turned his efforts to fight for the good of Tyria outward, especially once Eparch gave him reason to think all kryptis were threats. He wasn't going to step in with the Elder Dragon wars until it literally threatened the destruction of all Tyria not because he didn't care, but because he had faith in us.

Keep in mind that in the personal story, the Commander and Trahearne successfully united the world to fight Zhaitan. Isgarren had seen this before. He saw Sidony unite all the other elder races to fight Zhaitan, only for them to suddenly betray each other and leave the mursaat and Forgotten to die on their own. The Pact succeeded where the elder races failed. Why wouldn't he believe in the strength of mortals at that point?

Not to overuse and refer back to my favorite conversation in SotO too often, but Isgarren doesn't save farms not because he doesn't care, he doesn't save the farm because he knows the Commander will be there to have his back and do it while he takes care of the dragon minion.

Isgarren, for all his faults and his grumpy and bitter attitude, is an idealist.

Mabon called him naive for a reason. He even calls his own choices naive.

And speaking of Mabon...he's a cynic at heart.

This might seem contradictory to the way he is characterized as an optimistic and positive force among the Wizard's Court and for the Astral Ward (and he is), moreso than Isgarren being a hidden idealist under his sour armor, but consider that Mabon's entire character rides on his idea of atonement.

In his journal from shortly after his ascension, he doesn't remember what he was like before it. He just remembers that his own people are cruel and evil. He assumes Isgarren is avoiding him because he's afraid of him as a violent mursaat and never truly trusted him at all (when this could just as likely be because Isgarren is feeling guilty of the ascension wiping Mabon's memories, but that's just me speculating). He assumes that he must have been just like all other mursaat and he must have been a terrible person himself. So he must atone. And atone he does for 10,000 years.

Isgarren tells you, when you ask him about Mabon, that Mabon was not like other mursaat when they first met.

In SotO, Mabon's arc starts shortly before we meet him. Asthenes is attacking him mentally the whole time, but he puts on his outward mask of idealism and strength to save Dagda and Lyhr and to lead the Astral Ward while Isgarren is missing.

Knowing the Wizards, knowing the Commander, wouldn't we have found some way to save him too? If we knew? If we had realized? Isn't that what the Wizards and the Commander do? Wouldn't we have just made it possible to save Dagda, Lyhr, and Mabon?

Mabon didn't want to die, but he felt at that point "there is no other way this can end" and he outright asks us not to hesitate "when the hour arrives." He doesn't bother to ask for help with his own possession because he thinks he's beyond saving, and he needs to save the others first.

He also notably meddles with Tyrians more than Isgarren does. Many of the Astral Ward's recruits are his specifically. He travels to Tyria frequently to meet people and experience the world "on the ground", so to speak. Compare this to the historical mursaat modus of sitting back and manipulating an entire society unseen.

Even when it's someone Isgarren (and Uenno) recruits like Frode, it's not until Mabon involves himself that they heal and find their place in the Astral Ward.

That's not to say he didn't believe in mortals at all, just that as part of his trying to be a better person than he believed himself to be, he ended up taking it upon himself to help those he felt no one else would.

Finally, it's notable to me that both Isgarren and Mabon attempt to distance themselves from their races in some manner, and they both go about it in very different ways.

Isgarren made himself blue so he might be mistaken for a djinn at first glance but he still takes great pride in being a Seer. He wants to be seen as part of the rest of Tyria despite sitting above it, but will happily answer your questions about Seers.

Mabon hides his wings to be less threatening, but he's still very obviously a mursaat at first glance. He's still other from the rest of Tyria, but he distances himself from the other mursaat so much that he considers his own race extinct with Lazarus's death.

And somehow, it's so very fitting that these two found each other and created the Wizard's Court together.

I went down a lore rabbit hole again. This is why I love Secrets of the Obscure so much: it's all rabbit holes. Shoutout as usual to @/icebrooding, my partner in crime when it comes to unearthing SotO lore and piecing it all together.

Let's go, another long post.

So. Akeem's tarot card says they will die "bringing together our two worlds".

And we know Akeem died during Eparch's invasion in Lonely Tower, alongside Vass or even trying to protect her.

(This just a guess based on the name of the Akeem's Sacrifice POI though, since we know Cerus and Deimos killed Vass but Dagda specifies only Vass and not Akeem in the dialogue that names them her killers. It's possible Eparch is the one who killed Akeem.)

You can probably see where I'm going with this: Akeem was experimenting with portals into the Mists and that's what led to Lonely Tower.

One more thing to possibly back this up:

The event chain that unlocks their tarot card has some interesting dialogue about the nature of the rifts between Nayos, but specifically I want to point to the second event in the chain which gives us this little bit:

Eparch notices after some time that we are "peering into his domain". While events in Amnytas take place during the invasion that forms the backbone of base SotO's plot, so he would probably be paying attention to rifts opening from the Tyrian side--what if this is what happened with Akeem too?

Akeem was experimenting with portals into the Mists and then "peered" into Nayos a little too long and a little too often, so Eparch takes the opportunity to invade the Wizard's Tower with Cerus and Deimos and a section of their army.

But what if Akeem opening portals into Nayos was one of Eparch's "nefarious tricks"? What if they were being influenced from beyond the Veil? Or was it their natural curiosity and interests into "the obscure" that led to this?

The worst part?

If Lezzi has managed to essentially recreate Akeem's experiments, it's possible there was no way to close the portals or rifts in Lonely Tower either other than using the other wizards' powers.

There is however one difference in this event and what happened in Lonely Tower: we have the Heart of the Obscure to close rifts.

And Waiting Sorrow created the Heart of the Obscure.

Perhaps she did so after Lonely Tower?

The Shield of Tyria #

There is one more thing about Akeem piercing the Veil I want to talk about.

Isgarren was already building the World Spire when he ascended Mabon, but the incident with Eparch and the centaur village solidified his resolve to keep the barrier between Nayos and Tyria firmly shut. That's what the World Spire is: Tyria's shield.

Now I want to call attention to two things here: that the barrier between realms was "compromised or otherwise weakened" and that "higher kryptis such as Cerus, Peitha, and Deimos had possessed many Tyrians".

Bringing It All Together #

Prior to the World Spire's completion, Eparch and his brother are able to physically make the jump from Nayos to Tyria. There was probably some natural barrier that has always existed here which makes it either difficult or dangerous for kryptis to do this en masse, and possibly the elder dragons themselves were part of that defense.

Isgarren completes the World Spire at some point with Mabon's help. This feels likely to me to be after Eparch and the centaur village. The World Spire bolsters Tyria's barrier to the Mists, but specifically against Nayos and other parts of the demon realm.

This may not have been 100% airtight, as kryptis could dream of Tyria and Eparch was possibly able to reach Akeem.

Akeem, whether under Eparch's influence or not, opened portals between Tyria and Nayos, bypassing the World Spire's shield and severely weakening it. Very likely one of their own portals is what Eparch used to invade the Wizard's Tower in the events of Lonely Tower.

After Lonely Tower, Isgarren and the other Wizards tighten the barrier once more, but the damage has been done and kryptis are occasionally able to cross the Veil. This is what allowed Cerus and Peitha to possess Tyrians. This is how Deimos crossed into Tyria to look for other ways to breach the Veil entirely. This is how Kanaxai ended up trapped in the Deep.

And then you get...well, the entire game. Everything from the Personal Story to End of Dragons happens and a metric ton of shenanigans happens with the Mists, all of which likely contributed further to weakening the Veil into Nayos, and each elder dragon's death was another likely defense down, and one of them started eating their way through the Mists and possibly even branded some kryptis along the way.

And then Soo-Won's death breaks it entirely.

Making some connections and assumptions about the noble houses of Nayos

(and some history headcanons)

This is a big post compiling a good chunk of the ideas I've had from collecting Nayos lore and trying to put it all together. This is kind of all over the place but I tried to break it up a little into sections too. There is a lot of speculation in this post based on text from Secrets of the Obscure, and a section of headcanon at the end.

Deimos's Timeline #

So Deimos gives us a kind of baseline for how far back things mentioned as "ancient history" happens. Also, we know Deimos was the "young glaive" of House Nephus based on his plaque in the Amnytas museum, and at some point this same title was given to Cerus.

Saul founded the White Mantle roughly 300 years before the events of Bastion of the Penitent, and since Deimos had to be possessing him by the time he was imprisoned by Mursaat, then it's been over 300 years since Deimos left Nayos. Presumably Peitha and Cerus are of similar age to him, though I think of Deimos as the oldest of the three, or at least older than Cerus.

Cerus also has some kind of issue about Eparch seeing him as capable as Deimos.

Which means it had to be over 300 years ago that Deimos killed Febe in the Temple of Febe.

Kanaxai's assassination of Lady Mosyn #

And thus it has to be much, much earlier than 300 years ago that Kanaxai executed Lady Mosyn during a public gathering of Kryptis, because Peitha was recognizably a "young one" at the time of this execution.

Mosyn's execution appears to have been the end of a sort of golden age for Kryptis society when they would create their own art rather than copy from other world. Based on how "debate" and "protest" were also part of what Mosyn led her house and the Kryptis in, I assume this era could be a kind of Kryptis equivalent to the Age of Enlightenment as it occurred IRL.

Febe's mentorship #

Febe appears to have continued Mosyn's work after her death, and this stretch of time was long enough for Peitha to grow into an adult. She sought out Febe at some point during this and he mentored her, likely leading to her radical thinking against Eparch that leads to the rebellion in the present time.

Up until Eparch had Deimos execute Febe too. In front of Cerus, who speaks very highly of Febe. To crush his spirits? "That's what happens when you fight back"? If not for Febe's execution, could Cerus have gone the same path as Peitha?

Incidentally, Kanaxai, and House Aurkus by extension, appear to have been Eparch's inquisitors or secret police. Aurkus himself was also the one who ordered Mosyn's execution.

Also, perhaps Deimos was the Glaive at the time, that Kanaxai mentions?

And I guess Kanaxai assassinating Mosyn and being an inquisitor is a reference to his class in GW1.

General Nephus's insurrection... #

So, first, Grand General Nephus. A "folk hero" that the average villager looks up to. Said to be a "brilliant strategist" and a "peerless warrior" whose very name commands loyalty, and, if executed, would immediately become a martyr. He's essentially...the Commander but for Kryptis.

We also know he was going to rebel, but Eparch stopped him before he could even start by publicly killing everyone who would have supported him. This, of course, is why he's so reluctant at first in the Forced Hand chapter, and only joins Peitha when Labris's arrival gives him no other choice.

Given the only public execution we know of was that of Mosyn, it's possible she was one of those killed because of Nephus, but I feel that takes away from her and the work she was doing. She was a public figure, a hero to the Kryptis, in her own right, and executed for her own "blasphemies" rather than for supporting Nephus.

Maybe Nephus's would-be insurrection was actually a much longer time ago? It would explain the way he is spoken of like a legendary figure, hidden and lost to all but a select few. Hundreds of years before Mosyn, Nephus saw and realized the beginnings of Eparch's tyranny, and meant to put a stop to it by reaching out to other nobles and generals who shared his sentiments, only to be faced with "mercy" as the only survivor of his rebellion. By the time of Mosyn's protests, Nephus was a beloved figure of Kryptis history, but locked away by both the King and his own despair.

Or perhaps closer instead? If it was closer in time to the current story, it could have been after Mosyn's death, as "the king's claws tightened on our throats" after the end of their golden age, as dreams started to dry up in Nayos, and the average Kryptis started looking for a new hero to believe in and they turned to Nephus, who sought out others of the same mind as him and looked to finish what began with Mosyn?

Either could work.

...and what it meant for House Nephus #

So what, then, is "House Nephus"? And how does it connect Peitha to Nephus?

We know from the other noble houses mentioned so far - House Aurkus and House Mosyn - that they take their names from their founders, so of course, it stands to reason that Nephus is the founder of this one. Each house also seems to have a role or predilection for one within Kryptis society - House Mosyn were artists and intellectuals, House Aurkus were inquisitors willing to do dirty work. House Nephus, perhaps, is a house of warriors and tacticians?

Forced Hand gives us the only real interactions between Peitha and others of House Nephus. Peitha isn't welcome, because by this point she's known to be leading a rebellion and the last thing anyone of House Nephus wants is to let their General get involved in another one of those, on top of perhaps believing Peitha is here to kill him.

The next part of the above conversation implies Nephus and Peitha have some very slight familiarity with each other.

But it does seem like Nephus hasn't actually seen Peitha in a very, very long time.

So maybe...Peitha and her brothers were actually placed into House Nephus by Eparch, not by Nephus's choosing or theirs, perhaps back when they were very young? Why House Nephus, though? Maybe because with Nephus hidden away, command of the house and the three siblings then falls entirely to Eparch and Labris?

So perhaps Peitha and the siblings are in House Nephus as a means to control them?

Bonus headcanons: Eparch's Nayos #

(and House Mosyn's place in it)

Ok, pure headcanon time. As we go deeper into Nayos, we meet more and more friendly Kryptis, or Kryptis so scared of both Eparch and the Astral Ward they just run away and hide no matter what. The villages though, seem to have this strong sense of community, and there are elderly Kryptis taking care of younger ones and being protective of their homes.

Something notable to me is that though the Astral Ward are there to assist Peitha's rebellion and do participate in fighting, a good amount of events in Nyedra and their interactions with the Kryptis are more about helping them bring aid to the average Kryptis. And as these events happen, the Kryptis come to welcome them despite initial misgivings.

And take note: in Forced Hand, when the fighting starts, several Kryptis flee into the safety of their homes. There are also villagers who will run and hide when events like the meta start.

So maybe before Eparch's militant unification of Nayos under his banner, Kryptis society was composed of disparate villages. "Solitary" in the sense of competing for the "scarce resources" of Nayos. Each village did what it could to survive.

Until Eparch decided he was to be king, and marched on each village and made them bow to him.

And those who didn't fall in line under Eparch's banner? Killed as traitors.

Interestingly, Nephus tells us there were at least four "disquiets." With the Vision of the Disquiet above implying these were major military conflicts, maybe this means there were actually attempts by other groups of Kryptis to fight back against the establishment of the kingdom? Particularly since Nephus implies it was an attack on them instead.

Also a character headcanon - I like to think Nephus earned his title of Grand General during Eparch's takeover of Nayos and perhaps some of his guilt comes from helping to put Eparch on the very throne that would oppress the Kryptis he sought to protect.

All this is to say: I think Eparch's version of Nayos is entirely at odds with the Kryptis's actual nature - which is more community oriented than their world and their king affords them.

Enter House Mosyn.

Once the kingdom was established, Eparch doled out titles and noble houses to significant Kryptis. Despite what would happen later, one of these was Lady Mosyn, who cultivated a house built on creativity and culture and creating things rather than copying what they saw in dreams.

With the kingdom established into peace, this presumably meant villages now shared resources and soldiers now protected them, rather than needing to compete with each other to survive. In such an environment, Mosyn and the Kryptis who followed her had the chance to flourish and create culture now that survival was not a primary concern.

And of course, that is why Mosyn's assassination marked the beginning of Eparch's current tyranny.

(See my original post about kryptis noble houses for where I'm coming from for most of this, though a big chunk of the info there is outdated now.)

So Eparch's Nayos has four major houses: Nephus, Aurkus, Febe, and Mosyn are all named as the founders.

Several nobles also appear in the throne room. It's possible they are each indicative of a lesser house for each existing, perhaps ruling over territories across other parts of Nayos we haven't seen (and perhaps that means Heitor is of such a rank?)

That said, I think the four great houses provide an interesting split in responsibilities:

House Nephus and House Aurkus serve as military oriented houses, while House Febe and House Mosyn handle civil responsibilities.

House Nephus is fairly straightforward: it is composed of strong warriors and brilliant tacticians who would also go on to serve as officers of military. This was of course, run by Grand General Nephus, and its prominent members also include Deimos, Cerus, and Peitha, but with Nephus in exile from Zakiros alongside the rest of his house, it seems likely that Eparch and Labris placed the three siblings here in order to both give them status and to control them.

House Aurkus is composed of assassins and inquisitors, serving to root out dissent discretely and identify threats to the Midnight Throne before they take ground. Aurkus, as far as I can tell, has never appeared directly in-game, but mentions of him include him whispering in Eparch's ear or being horribly sadistic to inquisitorial targets. Kanaxai is, of course, the most prominent member of this house to us. There's also a subtle religious slant to this house in the use of "inquisitors"—Kanaxai's memory of Mosyn even calls her words blasphemies.

House Mosyn is composed of artists and creative talents. Mosyn herself was a singer and a painter, so we can extend these to the rest of the house. It's possible they also served as architects and builders for the kingdom. Mosyn is the only member of the house we know of, though it's possible there were some in-game simply left unstated. Mosyn was unfortunately assassinated by Kanaxai at Aurkus's orders.

House Febe is where things are a little nebulous. We have no clear indication of what role Febe held outside of his relationship with Mosyn, but based on the Temple of Febe and the way religion exists for kryptis as upholding Eparch and Labris as divine (the Thirst for Power book in particular invokes religious imagery for Labris as the "Mother of Nayos" using such things as a "chalice"), perhaps House Febe was the closest to clergy that the kryptis had? If so, they may also have facilitated intellectual pursuits alongside spiritual matters, making them suited to working with House Mosyn. As with House Mosyn, Febe is the only member of this house we know of with the possibility of unstated members. Despite his status under Eparch, he was an outspoken proponent of breaking away from Eparch's tyranny, up until Eparch had Deimos kill him in front of Cerus.

If my assumptions are correct, you could also then place Houses Nephus and Mosyn as largely secular while Houses Aurkus and Febe have more religious slants.