"I'm not sure where I was going with that, actually.  But...hmm.

"Oh right it was the retired void gods bit.  And the Valde Bellum."

"...Why was I - oh, right, souls - and the wanting or not-wanting thereof."

(The angel nods slightly, interested.)

"So let's talk about the Valde Bellum!  And how it is and is not like the analogous Light/Void relationship!"

"In the book of Nobilis, Excrucian Strategists are known for the use of a power called The World-Breaker's Hand; the power of ravening, utter destruction.

"From the perspective of Strategists as seen in Glitch, Creation is both Too Bright - in that it dares to illuminate, and thereby perceive, what is λ, including them - and fundamentally entangled with their existence, such that they cannot escape their Bane, no matter what Sanctuary they have.

"...Fuckit I'm just going to infodump all over the place and hope you find the thing I'm pointing at.

"Anyway, where was I -

"Ah!

"Right.

"I forgot to lay out the Nobilis perspective of Why There Are Strategists.

"It's simple enough, really.  When Cneph - a creature of λ, which you can tell because his name is actually a valid Ninuanni luthe, the - sort of thing a traditionalist Strategist will have always have been named when they see the Glitch, awaken to the Lie that is Creation, and what have you - and Harumaph, were creating the World Ash -

"Actually I'm not sure Cneph was there and I'm not sure if Harumaph even appears by name in Nobilis but let's leave that aside for now -

"When someone created the World Ash, and saw that it was good - or good enough, for a story is told that in the process of Creation, one of those sought secrets of the other and it was thus, that Creation must have flaws...

"They looked up to the λ-Sky above, and veiled it from Creation with the flames of Hell - but it was too late, for those who were Creation's protectors, Heaven's own perfected Angels, had already perceived the forces of their own destruction in their fear of the unknown.

"And thus the Valde Bellum was joined.  Not with malice, but with fear and pain."

It's a worthy origin story, at least.

"Are you asking for this to be fact, or legend?"

"Nope!"

...

"The parallel between the Light-Void interaction and the Valde Bellum is in the way these forces work, not in the way they came to be.

"Because, the thing is - the primordial Light and primordial Void exist on their own recognizance, neither strictly in need of the other.  We wouldn't have a story if only one of them existed - but you couldn't separate Creation from the λ made into Is.  And that means that directly lifting Excrucians or Nobilis or Imperators, that's right out.  But.  You can draw on their properties for inspiration.

"And I have some in mind!"

"Or rather, I have mechanics I would lift."

"Not the World-Breaker's Hand; the powers of Wyrd, the power of utter destruction - well, in truth, I'd say they're Deathly.

"But creatures of the Void...

"If anything, I half expect them to be not Excrucian Strategists, but instead Excrucian Deceivers, who embody the principle of some strange λthing or λevent in the way a Noble embodies their Estate.

"And the powers of Lore...

"I think now may be the right time for a brief digression into storied Ninuan."

(And boy, is she glad she can finally pronounce that properly - or close enough; she kind of bungled the leading λ-N.)

"Ninuan!  The place that Is Not!  Native land of impossible, inconceivable things!  And it is from this lore that we draw the experience of the Void.

"Because the Void is possibility unfettered from logic.  Because the Void is, much as Ninuan, an infinity of nothing that Is and everything that is Not.

"Perhaps I can explain it better by analogizing Ninuan to the realm of Platonic ideals. Things that are not real, but exist anyway.

"Compare, then, Void of possibility to the Light of purest extancy spilling through it.  What do you see, when they interact?"

"You see... something spring into existence?"

"A whole universe springing into existence.  Or, perhaps, many universes."

"Exactly.  And it is from this fundamentsl interaction that our cosmology arises."

"...I was going somewhere with this, but I'm not sure I remember where anymore.  What was I trying to explain, again?  Lore?  ...Lore the statistic and associated powerset, not to be confused with lowercase lore like 'what Villarosa's administrative structure and neighbors are like'.

"And I was doing that because I was thinking about 'Void Lords', and trying to figure out how they'd work.

"Which, really, we should figure out what all the forces have as their archetypal characters.  Hmm.  Alright.

"The Void...It has -"

She takes a surprised breath.  "Infinite Lords.  That feels right.

"And I think that what they want souls for is for their agency and extancy, because that's something their very nature cannot have; a thing that Is Not can do only what it does.  Almost more like - some unholy cross of Deceivers and Warmains.

"If, indeed, the Infinite Lords are things that can be said to be capable of want at all."

"The equal and opposite Radiant Exemplars...

"Light wants all to be one with it.  Unity.  Duty.  Destiny.  ...Okay that's not actually the right sort of thing to reference here, but my brain free-associated to it anyway.

"The Light brings its singular power into focus through bearers because it wants all to be one with it."

"I am less sure of how Life and Death would trend to empowering champions; I suspect that gods in the interventionist model may well be creatures of order more than I've found anything else fitting, yet."

"...Wait a minute.  Holy fuck.  Damn, both Light and Void are immense psychohazards.  Void from potential exposure to - things like 'true statements that contradict themselves', and worse - but Light is a hazard by way of wireheading.  It takes immense conviction to wield the Light because the surussating call beneath its undeniable power is a very simple one: to surrender and become one with it."

The angel is, again, interested.

"So there's no... actual proposition, actual cause to stand for... there inside the Light?  I was thinking there would be - so it wouldn't be wireheading but self-surrender."

"The Light is neither good nor bad; it merely is.  You may recall the Scarlet Crusade I mentioned?  An order of Light-wielding paladins.  Also wholehearted commissioners of atrocities."

"Of course, but the Scarlet Crusade is crusading for something, some particular cause."

"That's kind of the point.

"The Light doesn't truly care what they believe, so long as they believe it with sufficient...

"Forcefulness.  I have a very clear image of how this works, why are words failing me...

"But let me be clear that the Scarlet Crusade's purpose - in the narrative, at least - was doing awful things - such that even in the middle of fighting a zombie plague that brought the usual wars on Azeroth to a total halt, you couldn't trust them at your back; they were enemy forces in the Plaguelands, to literally every faction.  Including another paladin order."

"Oh no."

"That sounds dangerous... much more dangerous than just wireheading."

"...Well, yes, because wireheading - or whatever it may be; desperate self-abnegation, maybe - is what happens when you manage to draw upon the Light but can't keep ahold of your selfhood.

"There's two things that can go wrong here, in other words, and clearly I explained poorly if they've been conflated."

"Yes... you can get wrapped up in some sort of certainty by yourself and not do anything; a more philosophical sort of wireheading than most places, but still wireheading.  Or you can get wrapped up in that certainty and go try to enforce it on the world.  I'm sure there're a lot of Crusades like that."