Books of Sorrow

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Cover of the Books of Sorrow Grimoire.

The emblem of the Darkness is superimposed over a Calcified Fragment; in the background can be seen the faint outline of a pillar inside the Dreadnaught
“ I will prepare a book, which is a map to a weapon. And my vanquisher will read that book […] and then they will take up my weapon, and they will use it, […] and armed thus with my past, and my future, and my present […] they will become me […]. Thus I will live forever. ”

The Books of Sorrow are a compendium of the Hive's history and mythos, with the first five volumes written primarily by Oryx stretching back before the dawn of Humanity when the founders of the Hive lived as mortals on Fundament - a gas giant similar to Jupiter - before they rose up and formed the Hive pantheon.

Excerpts of the first five Books can be recovered by discovering Calcified Fragments aboard the Dreadnaught. For the full record of the Books of Sorrow, please visit the Books of Sorrow Grimoire page. For the first and last Verses, see the Enemies/Darkness Grimoire page.[1][2]

Excerpts for the seventh Book can be recovered by completing The Last Word quest, and scoring kills with Thorn.[citation needed] Excerpts for the eighth Book can be acquired by identifying certain cards in the Deck of Whispers.

Summary

It is mentioned in Verse XLVI (46) that there were five Books of Sorrow at the time Oryx started cataloging his thoughts. If the different individual books are to be determined, the following synopsis has attempted to divide them based on subject matter, with bracket links to each subject:

  1. (Curiosity - XIX) Twenty of the Verses detail the lives of the Krill sisters Xi Ro, Aurash, and Sathona on Fundament, their meeting with the Leviathan and the Worm Gods, eventual dominion over the Jovian world and destruction of the Ammonites. They emerge as Xivu Arath, Auryx, and Savathûn. In the process they discover the Ascendant plane and begin the hunt for the Traveler.
  2. (XX - XXIV) Five Verses afterward describes the Hive's maturation into the feared conquerors they became later known as, destroying the Qugu species, developing the Sword Logic and their "throne worlds", little pockets of reality carved into the Ascendant plane; and Auryx, the Hive King, realizing the consequences of their bargain.
  3. (XXV - XXIX) Five Verses detail their war against the Ecumene, a monolithic galactic civilization comprised of hundreds of species. At first the war goes well for the Hive but they soon crumble as the Ecumene unleashes their mastery over nature against them; Auryx finds the secret to Taking wills, and turns the tide of the war, resurrecting his sisters, and exterminating the Ecumene. At this point he becomes Oryx, the Taken King. The tribute system and Hive hierarchy is developed.
  4. (XXX - XLIII) Fourteen Verses recount the Hive's destruction of the Taishibethi, Oryx's communion with the Darkness itself following, his sisters' plots against him, and his children; plus the Hive's encounters with the Vex (which include the Vex discovering the Sword Logic), and creation of the Dreadnaught. Oryx's son, Crota, is thrown out to prove himself because of his causation of the Vex invasion.
  5. (XLIV - Insight) Eight Verses records the destruction of the Harmony, the separation of the Hive siblings; and Oryx's private thoughts on his journey and conquests. He makes plans for his eventual defeat, knowing that his work will be completed regardless if he lives or dies.

Named entities

The following is an alphabetical list of the characters, organizations, and species which appear in the Books of Sorrow. This list is not exhaustive, as many are mentioned only once. The Hive siblings' transformed names are used to lessen reader confusion.

Characters

Primary

Secondary

Episodic

Organizations

Species

Other

Synopsis of the Pentateuch

Calcified Fragments: Curiosity

This Verse isn't in the Books proper, and may be considered as a prologue.

It begins with the narrator writing to their sisters, telling them that after two years of their short life they have found the truth of their species' origins: they, and perhaps all of the races living on the gas giant Fundament, are immigrants. It describes many nearby known continents as fragments of an ancient world where they once had lived, how the sea they float on and the atmosphere above them are two layers of the same gas giant.

The narrator then addresses one of their sisters by name, Sathona, and tells her that their philosophy of life—"the Timid Truth", as it is called—is completely wrong, and that they were never meant to be prey, but something much more. The narrator asks Sathona to tell their father of this discovery, claiming it is the culmination of his whole life, and signs it as "with love[…] your first surviving sister, Aurash". The Verse mentions that this is Sathona's second birthday.

I: Predators

Verse I opens with an introduction, indicating Xi Ro had written this, and meant for it to last. It mentions she is the third surviving sister of a brood that was apparently killed or lost to misfortune. Her father is called the Osmium King.

In this Verse, true to its title, Xi Ro describes seven dangers her species face and her observations of those dangers. She describes a stormjoy as "a living cloud", drifting over continents, with "feeding tentacles" tipped with "bait-stars". Stormjoys apparently emit light from their bait-stars to attract prey—Xi Ro cautions that "Although light makes you happy, you must avoid it. You will be eaten." The elderly can choose to be eaten by a stormjoy; a brave knight can cut off its bait-stars without getting killed. Xi Ro herself has six of them.

She describes what happens when her father "uses the engines", that an unwary person can fall off the continent to their death. Then she describes how the currents of the Fundament ocean bring them to other continents, especially the Helium Drinkers of the Helium Court, who are of the same species as Xi Ro's. After describing their physical appearance Xi Ro says how they raid them each day, and that they are "bright/evil", and how she wants to become a knight and fight them. She also describes losing ten of her sisters to the Helium Drinker ambassador's appetite as "tribute". Eating them was within the ambassador's rights, but she still resents it.

Xi Ro describes Mothers, the females of their race. Like much of the Verse this has a happy quality to it. She describes their attributes, that they can fly, live for longer than ten years, and are extremely intelligent. She also warns what happens if anyone tries to harm their eggs, that the Mothers eat them. She notes that her sister Sathona wants to become a Mother and live longer.

She also tells of the storms of Fundament. The rain is often poisonous and can even dissolve flesh, and if lightning strikes a person they are instantly obliterated. She mentions lightning farms, indicating that her species harness the storms for energy, and finishes by saying that all of Fundament is deadly. Continuing in this vein, Xi Ro talks about the rest of Fundament, saying it is very large and her species are small, and if they don't understand something it is likely to kill them. Her teacher, Taox, says that is why they live so briefly: so they can breed and adapt quickly.

Xi Ro finishes by mentioning "moon waves", saying it is something her sister Aurash is afraid of. Xi Ro doesn't know what they are, and when Aurash returns from a place called the Tungsten Monoliths, she'll ask her.

II: The Hateful Verse

The Verse opens with an introduction to the Helium Court, mentioning that it was written both in secret and desperation. The writer introduces herself as Taox, the teacher of the Osmium King's three daughters. She claims she is sterile and a Mother; and because of these two qualities she rose above petty court politics to see what she calls "the patterns of survival". Taox mentions having designed the engines used to move their continent, the Osmium Court. Both of these she says she did alone, and now she'll do so again.

Taox writes a plea to the King of the Helium Drinkers. Her King is old—nearing his tenth year—and approaching madness, with senility having already claimed him. She says he neglects his duties in favor of studying old books, observing "moons above the storm", and wandering his halls muttering about nonsense, talking to a "dead worm" from the deep sea that he has taken as a familiar. He tends to this worm, she mentions, and keeps it sealed in glass.

She laments the King's three surviving daughters, each two years old. She describes Xi Ro, Sathona, and Aurash's qualities, listing their ages from youngest to eldest. She calls Xi Ro brave for wanting to be a knight, Sathona clever for wanting to be a Mother, and Aurash as simply the "navigator child". (Taox mentions that the next day Aurash will return from the Tungsten Monoliths, spoken of in previous Verses.) All of these are good qualities, Taox says, but none of them are suitable to protect her home and people. Xi Ro cannot lead, Sathona cannot fight, and Aurash is often distracted by her curious nature. She fears for the survival of all future children.

Taox begins to close by saying that the King will lock himself away in his Royal Orrery, and will neglect his kingdom again. She calls for the Helium Drinkers to invade, to kill the three heirs, and install her as regent, offering her services as an engine-builder to them. She finishes by invoking a curse upon herself to be eaten by the Leviathan if she fails.

She ends by saying this is a hateful request written in grief, and that she is "neutered to watch". She mentions being the Osmium-mother, indicating she may have birthed the Osmium King.

III: The Oath

The narrator, Aurash, is speaking to her sisters. She instructs them to place their left hands on a mast next to hers in order to swear an oath. She tells them how to do it, by piercing their hand and drawing a blood-line down the mast. After each oath is sworn Aurash intones: "in blood the oath is made".

Xi Ro, the youngest, swears on her left eye to take back the Osmium Court and kill the traitor Taox in vengeance. Sathona, the middle child, swears on her right eye to take back her home, eat the mother jelly, and raise her children on the corpse of the Helium King. This she promised to fulfill. The two sisters then offer to help with Aurash's oath.

Aurash, the eldest daughter of her dead father, swears on her center eye to find out what drove her father into obsession, what caused the moons to shift, determine if the world is ending and if so why it is ending. She thanks her sisters. Saying they only have one ship, which represents freedom, she makes plans to go exploring, to find secrets and raise armies. Ordering the lightning sails to be raised, Aurash and her sisters begin their travels.

IV: Syzygy

Aurash reflects on all that has changed since they escaped. She tells of how Xi Ro and Sathona used their various tricks—Xi Ro's bait stars and Sathona's cunning—enabled them escape from the Helium Drinkers, and laments the loss of her home. She mentions how Xi Ro hates Taox with a burning fury.

Aurash thinks back to her expedition to the Tungsten Monoliths, of how she first learned the truth. The Timid Truth, she again says, was their philosophy of life, that they are the bottom of the evolutionary chain, "the smallest, most fragile things alive", and are meant to be prey. She adds with contempt that Taox's teachings say that their species came here to flee a cold universe. She then speaks of her dead father, of how he died afraid. Not because of Taox or the Drinkers, but because of what he saw in his orrery. He told her—"screaming"—that the physical laws were bent and the paths of the moons were different, indicating a syzygy.

She paints a picture of the Fundament's fifty-two moons—not necessarily all of them, she amends belatedly, but this is her deepest fear—aligning together and exerting their gravity upon the seas of the gas giant. This combined force, she recounts, would create a bulge in those seas that would collapse once the moons passed, and then turn into a colossal tsunami that would wash over the world sea and annihilate all of the civilizations on Fundament, including her species. She calls this a God-Wave.

Aurash resolves to find a way to stop it, but despairs of getting back home, to her father's Royal Orrery, of learning exactly when this would come to pass. She recounts how Xi Ro comforts her when her fears become too great to handle, and how their growing reliance on Sathona's wit seemingly brings them good luck. She notes Sathona's odd and sometimes erratic behavior, but dismisses it because of the good luck it has brought them.

V: Needle and Worm

This Verse begins with Sathona recording her secrets, and why her behavior has changed so drastically as noted by Aurash. She mentions a code, meaning she is keeping this record a secret from her sisters.

Sathona recounts their journeys across Fundament, of how they sailed through great storms and beautiful days, exploring wrecks and fleeing from monsters. She calls these the happiest moments of her life. She reveals her desire to be a Mother, not so that she could raise children, but so she could live a longer and more meaningful life and make an actual difference. She mentions they have been out on the sea for a year, making them three years old. Sathona mentions she is afraid of dying before they can fulfil their oaths. She says she knows secrets, of where to find certain things, and then mentions a needle ship.

Another recounting of their travels begins. Sathona triumphantly says of how they rescued the needle from the "Shvubi Maelstrom", and that she knew it would be there. She describes the needle ship, calling it long and slender like hope, older than death, unbreakable, and gray. She says that it is not a sea-ship like Aurash's but an object of advanced technology. Sathona says, chillingly, that she knew what happened to the crew, and the ship's purpose.

Sathona tells of how Xi Ro wanted to sell the ship at "Kaharn Atoll" a place where other species of Fundament gather, in order to raise money to hire mercenaries and take back their home and obliterate the Helium Drinkers. Cunningly, she told her youngest sister that the ship was worthless. Aurash decided to figure out how to open the ship and captain it. Sathona approves, for she says her worm told her to agree with Aurash as "it was the right thing to do".

In the third and final entry written by Sathona, she describes the worm as a segmented creature, which was the very worm that her father kept and talked to, which she took with her when she and her sisters fled the Drinkers' invasion. Despite being dead, it speaks to her saying "[L]isten closely, oh vengeance mine..."

VI: Sisters

The Verse begins with a record of the end of the sisters' carefree life.

Aurash urges Xi Ro to come and take her mind off of her duties, which was moving bodies of the former crew from a place called the "birthing room". She encourages her sister to pilot the needle for a time, and this Xi Ro does, her mind at ease. The needle's wake could be seen upon the surface of the Fundament ocean.

As Xi Ro steers the ship, Sathona tempts Aurash with stories she acquired from the Kaharn Atoll, likely during a resupply trip. Sitting in a place called the "flesh garden", amongst "mummified flesh fans", Aurash listened in silence to her sister, her own mind troubled. She reflects upon her brief life, of how eager she is to know and learn of the world.

Afterwards, Xi Ro pulls Sathona from her stillness to play a game—"swords and lanterns"—but this fails to succeed as her sister only goes through the motions. At last she tells her sisters that they are five years old, middle-aged by their individual lifespans. They've spent about a third of their lives repairing the needle, and not working towards revenge against Taox and the Helium Drinkers: Sathona will soon be unable to become a Mother and Xi Ro will be unable to kill those who killed their father, who have surely died from old age by now. Lastly she laments that Aurash is now unable to discover the truth of her father's madness. Taox the traitor would outlive them all and they would die in exile.

Xi Ro comments that she wished Sathona weren't so honest, while Aurash privately thinks her middle sister had never been wrong. She proposes that they utilize the needle to its intended purpose: to dive beneath the waves, toward the center of the Fundament, to find a secret that would change everything. This is in part because of her voracious nature to discover everything; the other is out of desperation.

Her younger sister protests, saying that was where the bodies she'd pulled from the birthing room had died, and where a mysterious horror had been born. Sathona supports her elder sister, prompted by her dead worm. The Verse ends with Aurash hoping they'd find what they needed most—a longer life.

VII: The Dive

The three sisters begin their dive. Sathona dove for life; Xi Ro for vengeance; and Aurash for knowledge. As the needle dove Aurash searched through its recorded maps—there is mention of "high angelic cloud decks" and "oceans and plates of floating world"—to map their course to Fundament's core.

During their dive they met predators which sought to ensnare them for food. One such group of creatures were anemones, "continental in scope", using glowing tentacles much like bait stars to lure them. Xi Ro ignored and pierced them through with the needle, leaving behind frosty blood to mingle with the metallic water. At last they came to a place that was mysteriously still. Aurash turned on the sensors and they listened to the Fundament Ocean above them. Continents crashing against one another, helium-neon rain storming, monsters struggling—and the beginnings of the Syzygy. Sathona expresses horrified amazement, that Aurash was right.

Xi Ro remembered the birthing room, wherein they had found a dead horror born from unfortunate explorers. There is made mention of a chrysalis and a caul, indicating this something was perhaps an invertebrate. Something found in the darkness of the Fundament. Then, as she spoke, the Leviathan overshadowed the needle.

The Leviathan is described in monstrous terms: its brow is as large as a continent, and has great, crackling array-fins of electricity. Its voice is described as a "microwave", indicating the Leviathan spoke telepathically; and it warned them to turn back, to save themselves.

VIII: Leviathan

This Verse is unusual in that it records six discourses between the Leviathan and the three sisters, but Sathona does not address the beast nor is being addressed.

The Leviathan proclaims that they are on the edge of a titanic war between two philosophies called the Formless and the Form, or, as it later became more commonly known, the Deep and the Sky. Speaking of its great vision the Leviathan tells of what each philosophy does: the Sky builds up while the Deep destroys, illustrated with the analogy of a fire being drowned in water. In conclusion the Fundament is extolled as a refuge and a home for trillions, the jewel and triumph of the Sky.

Aurash responds with a plea. The world is harsh for the proto-Hive, the small krill, it is full of monsters and stormjoys; it is no home. The proto-Hive lived and died in the dark, their lives quickly snuffed out. And eventually even the Syzygy would destroy them all. She entreats the Leviathan to let them go so that they may continue upon their quest.

The Leviathan counter-argues that their very struggle is what gives him hope. After asking them what drew them to the core of Fundament, he then tells of how he watched the proto-Hive live and die and live again in their constant survival against the planet's harshness, "balanced between the Deep and the Sky". He tells them of the Deep's Claim: that when life becomes too hard to bear, desperate creatures like them would turn to the Deep for survival. The krill represent his only proof that the Deep Claim is false, and he urges them to reject it, maintaining that the hard way is better.

Xi Ro protests the fact that he has no right to tell them what they should do—he is old, massive, and will continue to exist long after they have died. If that is how the world works, she vowed, then she would change it. Taox would not get away, nor would anyone like her; Xi Ro would kill them all.

The Leviathan seemingly ignores this impassioned defiance, telling them that what they seek will lead them to death, for the Deep is all about the extermination of life. He contrasts this with the Sky, saying that it works against death, creating toward a place of eventual peace and utopia. He ends with a final warning: they will live as death and destruction if they do not return, for once they start down this road they will never come back. The Sky, he contends, is harder indeed but it becomes easier the longer one stays upon it. He then falls silent, his "voice" exhausted.

Sathona takes advantage of the Leviathan's silence to reveal to her sisters their father's familiar, claiming it led them to the needle, that it speaks plainly rather than in riddles. She asks them what will they trust: the Leviathan and its empty promises, after all they have fought and suffered for, or "the plain, honest worm"?

She commands that they dive deeper, inciting Aurash's curiosity, and Xi Ro's sense of adventure, "oh, sisters of mine…"

IX: The Bargain

The narrator is describing Aurash standing upon the needle's hull. It tells her that she should be dead, crushed by the immense pressure and heat, but instead it has sustained her.

The narrator reveals itself to be Yul, the Honest Worm, one of the five Worm Gods. The others he calls the Virtuous Worms. Yul describes himself as vast and ponderous, full of strength, and of an immense size. He describes himself as having great jaws and folded wings, and all of the colonies of creatures living upon him in symbiosis. He finishes by calling himself "fecund", able to produce life and sustain it. The other Worm Gods are presumably similar in size.

Yul then describes their history, that Fundament is actually a prison. The wording is unclear but while they remained imprisoned they also grew; calling other species to roost upon the planet, to test them and see if they were worthy. He finishes by saying they have waited millennia for Aurash and her sisters to find them.

He offers them a bargain. The Leviathan, he claims, would destroy them in fear, and that it has conspired to drown them with the Syzygy. To combat this he says the Worm Gods could help them. First they must take into each of their bodies a larva, in order to become eternal, and be free of their "fragile flesh". The larva, Yul claims, would allow them to remake their bodies and the world in their image: for whatever is imperfect they would destroy—no law would bind them, save one.

Aurash would forever obey her inquisitiveness, Sathona her cunning, and Xi Ro her strength. They would never cease to obey these defining traits, lest they be consumed by their worm. But if they succeed, both they and the worm will grow stronger. Yul promises this is a small price to pay for eternity, and that they would benefit the most out of it.

He concludes by inviting Aurash to accept his offer.

X: Immortals

The Worm Gods declare that their compact is done and that Aurash is now eternal, exerting that they are bound to her as close as her appetite or her loves and needs, likening themselves to the weapon in her fist and the word in her throat. They intagliate ("carve" or "incise") her ship with worm larvae and charge Aurash with spreading the good news through the Osmium Court and the Hydrogen Fountain, in the Bone Plaza and the Star-surgery—assuring her that she will rise in the world.

The Worms also declare that those who reject symbiosis with their children will be made an example of in the face of the mighty wave that is coming for them all, instructing Aurash to only save what can be saved. The Worms then grant her power over her own flesh, ending the conversation by asking Aurash what her adult name will be after she takes the king morph. She replies it will be Auryx—meaning "Long Thought"—and the Worms approve.

XI: Conquerors

The Worms speak to Sathona, who by now has taken the mother morph and has become very cunning, and has named herself Savathûn.

They go on to reveal that the Leviathan caged them within Fundament's core for millions of years under the Traveler's philosophy of cosmic slavery, seeding civilizations predicated on what they believe to be a terrible lie—that right actions can prevent suffering. They believe that such philosophy is antithetical to the nature of reality, where deprivation and competition are universal. The Worms affirm that in the Deep, they enslave nothing and that liberation is their passion—existing only to help the universe achieve its terminal, self-forging glory.

The Worms are pleased with Savathûn's use of the Worm larvae in the creation of mighty knights and plentiful warriors, pointing out that Taox's retreat to the Hydrogen Fountain proves her superior strength. They then inform her that reclaiming Fundament would not be enough and the technology to build ships would come from one of the five hundred and eleven species living on the gas giant.

XII: Out of the Deep

The Worms address Xi Ro, now Xivu Arath after taking the knight morph. They acknowledge her love to conquer, and reveal that they enjoy to see her at work, stating that nearly two percent of Fundament's surface is now under their dominion and are pleased that her species embraces the Worm's larvae. They go on to assure her that the Syzygy has passed and warn that the God-Wave will occur in less than two years.

The Worms tell Xivu Arath that Taox's surviving Refusalists flee towards Kaharn Atoll in the hopes of rallying the rest of Fundament's population against her and that the Leviathan's agents are destroying all of the planet's ships and engines, trapping the Hive and their Worms on Fundament. They order Xivu Arath to overwhelm the Kaharn bastion and to slaughter everyone there. From those acts they would obtain the power that they require to cut space open and migrate to orbit above Fundament.

The verse closes with a final statement from the Worm Gods: "reality is a fine flesh, oh general ours. Let us feast of it".

XIII: Into the Sky

The Worm Gods congratulate Auryx who by now has already begun to exhibit paracausal abilities.

They note that at times sadness is present in him. They reassure him by saying that that he enacts a sacred and majestic task and a divine work, declaring that existence is the struggle to exist—only by playing that game to its final, unconditional victory can they complete the universe. They then announce that they are free from Fundament's core, and Savathûn's spaceships called 'cutters' are ready to fly. With Xivu Arath victorious, the Worms had opened a wormhole at Kaharn—a wormhole leading to geostationary orbit above Fundament. The Worms point out that they are faithful to their covenant with Auryx and his sisters.

The Worms close the verse by assuring Auryx that they have no future on Fundament, but its orbiting moons—once the proto-Hive's fear—will make fine habitats.

XIV: 52 and One

The Worms bring Auryx "good news" on the whereabouts of Taox: she has been granted asylum on a large ice moon by a species of bony six-armed cephalopods that Savathûn has named the Ammonite. After their failure at appealing to the Ammonite's hopes and dreams, the Worms devise a plan to kill them all and take their possessions.

Lastly, they inform Auryx that they have detected a fifty-third moon in orbit of Fundament—the Traveler. They assert the Traveler's presence is what arranged the Syzygy. The Verse ends with the Worms chiding the siblings with a final command: "Do not hesitate. You're fighting the hypocritical puppets of a cosmic parasite. Avenge your ancestors".

XV: Born As Prey

The Worms angrily speak to Auryx and his sisters, noting that their armies have been forced to retreat from the Ammonites as a result of Auryx's weakness. They order Savathûn to wake Auryx out of his "catatonia" and to convince him that there is no possible way to live in peace with the enemy and that the notion of peace is nothing more than a bait-star of the Sky, the very thing they wage war against. The Worms describe war as an effective way of achieving peace and equality—"War is the natural rectification of inequality. The universe's way of pursuing equilibrium".

The verse ends with the Worms telling Xivu Arath that it is time for their forces to change tactics—"Breed your armies back to strength, and find a way to disperse the broods across these many moons. If we cannot defeat their strengths, we will infect their weaknesses."—and prepare for victory.

XVI: The Sword Logic

Main article: Sword Logic

The Worms address Auryx directly. They tell him that the Ammonite have begun using "paracausal weapons", meaning powers like those of the Deep and the Sky, which are superordinate to physics; and that the source of these powers and weapons is the Traveler, "the Sky's bait star", and offer to equip Auryx with what will become known as Hive magic—not the Deep itself, but a way of calling upon its power.

The Worms urge Auryx to observe his separation from causality by killing a hundred Thrall, and watch his sword change as the universe reacts to his power. They say he has begun defining his existence, in the ways of the Deep. However, this power is not the only reason he is indebted to the Worms. To prevent his symbiote from devouring him, he must obey his nature and honor their pact.

XVII: The Weakness Verse

Auryx is dead. After he offered to parley with the Ammonites on neutral ground, Savathûn betrayed and murdered him, then ambushed the Ammonites and continued waging war.

The Worm Gods insist that Auryx will learn from this, and that it was only right that he was killed for his weakness and mer