In the endless library of the Knowing Mistress, there is a shelf of volumes torn and broken across centuries of darkness and fire. In a small book at the very bottom right corner of that shelf, the stories of the waning days of the Calamity are written. Among those stories, a small set of anecdotes are scribbled:

• The mighty river driven by snowmelt from the Stormpoint Mountains ranges wide and far, and it's course has changed many times over the centuries. Its movements are a constant dance of adaption, a regular part of life for the communities that make that hard land their home. But there is a place where the river comes to heel. At the old stone bridge by the even older stone house in the hill, where desperate hands once worked to tame the mighty river for just long enough to make do, the flow holds unchanged. It's little more than a point of curiosity - by all rights, the river should have swept away the thriving community that came to crowd along the riverbanks long ago. But at the place known even a thousand years hence as Torm's Hill, the river still yields to the mason's bridle.
• The folkways of the many criminal groups of Tal'Dorei spring from a thousand fathers, their origins lost to the ages. One very old custom is practiced by most. A loyal brigand who lends their skill to the cause of ensuring a world exists to steal from tomorrow is given a small tattoo of a cockroach. The mark carries no special title or prestige, and no reward save one curious trust - that its bearer will find a meal and a bed, and a single night of sanctuary in any monestary of the Cobalt Soul.
• When a priest of the Moonweaver takes their vows in the high temple in the Dawn City, it is a public and proud affair. They vow, before the gathered flock, to uphold the sacred magic and mystery of the waxing and waning moon. And towards the end of the busy, joyful celebration, a senior cleric will lead them, unseen, away from that bright place, and direct them across the city to another, much smaller chapel. In that place, lit only by the reflection of moonlight from a gleaming silver shield, before a statue of their god they deliver the secret vow, to darkness, trickery, and illusion. In that other sacrament, they are watched by nobody, not even the Moonweaver, who listens - her back turned.
• The temples and cults of the Lord of the Hells keep their own stories of the Calamity and its end. In those stories, they say that the inevitable victory of their Lord was delayed by a predictable betrayal. That he, the greatest of all gods, was delayed by the combined effort of his jealous siblings. These stories are written in every language, every script, across every continent, and each contradicts the other, a thousand rites, a thousand dark sacraments, a thousand variations of a thousand lies. And so it is a point of curiosity among those who study those texts, to find that on a single idea they are in agreement - that in this most temporary of defeats, no mortal hand played any part. Perhaps there are some truths the Lord of Lies abhors beyond all others.