The seven Seals

Seven pre-human angelic prisons. Seven ranges or zones. Seven war fronts. Seven corresponding Princes of Vice — see The seven Princes of Vice. Each Seal is a region whose identity is derived, step by step, from geography, climate, resources, culture, religion and the consecrated mineral that dominates it.

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The Seals did not break at random. They broke in a wave, east to west, across seven years, out of the epicentre at Ivandir.

Year	Seal	Distance from the epicentre
Year1780	SealVII — Deep East	Distance from the epicentrethe epicentre. Ivandir. See The Cataclysm of Ivandir
Year1781	SealII — Twilight Range	Distance from the epicentreeast-central
Year1782	SealV — Septentrional Massif	Distance from the epicentredeep north
Year1783	SealIII — Southern Range	Distance from the epicentresouthern peninsula
Year1784	SealI — Solar Range	Distance from the epicentrecentre-north
Year1785	SealIV — Open Sea	Distance from the epicentrecentral sea, undersea
Year1786	SealVI — Insular Archipelago	Distance from the epicentrefar west. The same year as the Intervention of the Archangels

What the cascade produced — this is the axis that explains the whole geopolitics of 1890:

• The east had no warning at all. Veheran fell with the mountain on top of it. Six years of continuous demonic occupation before any containment — long enough for the pact to become an institution. That is why there is a Pact Heptarchy and not merely warbands: they had six years to organise under the Watchers.
• The centre had four years. When Seal I opened beneath the alpine range in 1784, the emerging Order already knew what would come out. It evacuated, fortified, and held. The heart of the Order was never occupied.
• The west had six years and escaped by months. Seal VI opened in early 1786; the Archangels came down at the end of the same year. Brytonia never suffered a land invasion. It never owed its survival to Rome. That is why the Insular Schism was possible, and why Mammen works through mercantile corruption rather than open war — he barely had time to get out.
• The line of the Limbus Mundi is the trail of the wave. The Archangels pushed everything back east in 1786 and stopped where they stopped. What was left on the wrong side was left there because it fell first and fell for longest.

A hard rule: the three cities that fell "within three weeks" of Ivandir — Vladigrad, Aurinopolis, Magnaport — did not fall to Seals of their own. They fell to the spreading outbreak of Seal VII, in the first month. All three are in the east, and all three lie under the Limbus today. See The Cataclysm of the Seals.

A hard rule on technology: there was no Hashmal revelation of any kind before 1787. Between 1780 and 1786 humanity fought with powder, common steel and whatever it found by accident. See Before the Cataclysm.

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The topological map of the Seals

#	Seal	Where	Vice / Prince	Dominant mineral	Whose ground	Broke
#I	SealSolar Range	Wherecentre-north	Vice / PrincePride / Luzhar	Dominant mineralChoir-Iron + Hashmalite	Whose groundFerrum Alpina + Kantonal Confederation	Broke1784
#II	SealTwilight Range	Whereeast-central, in an arc	Vice / PrinceLust / Asmoteth	Dominant mineralSeal Salt + Lumen	Whose groundSal Pradelica + Vykhradia	Broke1781
#III	SealSouthern Range	Wheresouthern peninsula	Vice / PrinceGluttony / Belzebar	Dominant mineralmineral Ardentine	Whose groundMeridia + Maritima Coronata	Broke1783
#IV	SealOpen Sea	WhereSea of the Choir, undersea	Vice / PrinceEnvy / Leviath	Dominant mineralSilver Chrism + coastal Seal Salt	Whose groundMaritima Coronata + Velinia + Meridia	Broke1785
#V	SealSeptentrional Massif	Wheredeep north, Kal'arn	Vice / PrinceSloth / Belifor	Dominant mineralnorthern Hashmalite + Choir-Iron	Whose groundKönigsmark	Broke1782
#VI	SealInsular Archipelago	Whereislands to the west	Vice / PrinceGreed / Mammen	Dominant mineralholy coal + Silver Chrism	Whose groundBrytonia	Broke1786
#VII	SealDeep East	WhereRange of the Wrathful + Vychodstep	Vice / PrinceWrath / Sathnar	Dominant mineralliquid Ardentine + Black Mineral	Whose groundPact Heptarchy; border with Vykhradia	Broke1780

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VII. The Seal of the Deep East — the First Mouth

The epicentre. The first. The one that opened the war. See The Cataclysm of Ivandir for the full event.

Geography

• Where: the far east of the continent, beyond the Vykhradian plateau. The vast Eastern Steppe (Vychodstep) and a terminal chain, the Range of the Wrathful. The Mountain of the Crown, next to Ivandir, is the exact point of the first fissure.
• Climate: extreme continental. Scorching summer, glacial winter, spring and autumn measured in weeks. The steppe catches fire in summer.
• Water: long rivers, inland seas, oases in arid ground.
• Resources: petroleum in the fields of Sathkar, coal, sulphur, and Black Mineral — the only territory outside the Limbus where it is mined.

Economy

• Liquid Ardentine refined at Sathkar, from petroleum and infernal alchemical sublimation. Black Mineral by brutal extraction with enslaved labour.
• Coal, iron, rock salt, copper.
• Nomadic herding: horse, sheep, goat. A characteristic light cavalry.
• Caravan trade east to west. Forced agriculture at the oases.

Society

• The Pact Heptarchy: a confederation of the seven cities patronised by the Princes, plus rural pact-bound tribes.
• The hierarchy: pure pact-bound, then lesser pact-bound, then pact-bound servants, then the bloodless servants — captives still human, awaiting a future pact.
• Ethnic identity is fragmented: several peoples, their own languages, held together by the common pact. All of them descended from Veheran.

Religion

• Organised demonic polytheism. Each city venerates one of the seven Princes.
• Inverted temples. Black masses as official daily liturgy, not a clandestine cult.
• The priesthood: the Spoken, the Crowned of the Flesh, the Servants of the Vice.
• Enochian tradition: the cult of the fallen Watchers, above all Azzal of the forge and Shemyas, the first chief. In some valleys the Watchers are free and take part in the liturgy in person.

The Seal

• It broke on 17-18 October 1780. The Mountain of the Crown split from top to bottom beneath Ivandir. Six hundred thousand dead in one night.
• What makes it unique: this is the only Seal from which the fallen Watchers emerged alive and articulate. From the other six came demons; here came rebel angels still able to teach. They taught the Veherenic survivors to purify Black Mineral, to make a formal pact, and to build the Heptarchy.
• Dominant entity: Sathnar, Wrath. Forges perpetually lit at Sathkar. A sword of Black Mineral as the emblem.
• Lesser choirs: living fallen Watchers, forge demons, incarnate fury, the Silent Ones.

Where it stands in 1890

• It is not a front: it is consolidated enemy territory. The region fell entire and was never recovered.
• Vykhradia holds a permanent border on the Vychodstep. Pact hosts throw themselves forward in waves, fall back, return.
• Sathkar is a monumental forge-city. Red smoke visible at night for kilometres.
• The Winter of Belkar, 1884 — the Order's last serious offensive — died on this steppe. See The fifteen battles.

How it looks

Black and the iridescent green of Black Mineral; cinnabar red and black for Sathnar; pestilent brass, captive leather, dark horses, an orange steppe at sunset, an executioner's mask, the mark of the Vice tattooed.

"Where the mountain screamed first."

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II. The Seal of the Twilight Range — the Mouth of Folklore

Geography

• Where: an arc of mountains in the east-centre, wrapping the Vykhradian plateau.
• Climate: continental. Hard winter, moderate summer. Forests of beech, oak and fir.
• Water: rivers running down to the plateau. Deep karst lakes.

Economy

• Seal Salt in the mines of Pradel — centuries-old galleries, an underground chapel carved out of salt. Lumen in sedimentary mica.
• Copper, silver in small deposits, emerald in geodes.
• Slope timber, exported to Ferrum Alpina.
• On the plateau: wheat, rye, poppy. Late vines in sheltered valleys. Sheep on transhumance, horses, cattle.

Society

• Vykhradia: magnate aristocracy with immense estates, peasants — serfdom abolished in 1848 — and light cavalry.
• A tense border: Sal Pradelica and Vykhradia have been disputing the tribute from the mines for generations.

Religion

• A permanent tension: the official Order disapproves of the folklore; the popular Church practises it. Spina magi move about the countryside between healing, counter-charm and outright fraud.

The Seal

• It broke in 1781, second in the cascade, a year after Ivandir. An underground valley in the Pradel massif collapsed and revealed unknown prison galleries, with dozens of lesser demons loose at once.
• The discovery of Seal Salt, 1781 — and this is a point of weight: the salt taken from the prison galleries themselves repelled demons, and it was found by accident, six years before any Hashmal revelation. Humanity's first real weapon was not given; it was already there. Theologians read it as a mercy of God pre-dating the prayer — He kept the answer inside the question.
• Dominant entity: Asmoteth, Lust. A court of incubi and succubi. He does not fight in the open — he infiltrates villages by erotic possession and the begetting of lesser Nephilim. The functional vampirism of the region is a manifestation of his subjects.
• Lesser choirs: succubi, drudes, functional vampires, the marked children of the Ash.

Where it stands in 1890

• Quarantine, not conquest — a doctrine fixed after the defeat at Manor of Twilight in 1863. Cities fortified; the countryside dangerous after dark; whole villages cleared and reopened with an armed resident canon.
• Cracoviana has become the continent's academic centre for exorcism — the only chair of applied demonology in existence. It is what carried the siege of 1888.
• The canon Spina — the rural priest mediating between official Curia and real demonic folklore — is a recognisable figure across the whole continent.

How it looks

Damp grey, black beech, translucent crystalline salt, a rusted bell, red-white-black embroidery, the double cross, garlic on the door, a yellowing autumn vineyard.

"A thousand mouths and not one name."

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V. The Seal of the Septentrional Massif — the Throne of Cold

Geography

• Where: the Kal'arn massif, in the deep north.
• Climate: subarctic. A very long winter, a short summer with midnight sun at the extreme. Tundra to the north, taiga to the south, boreal forest between.
• Water: broad rivers frozen in winter, immense lakes, a fjord coast.

Economy

• Copper, silver, gold, emerald, blue-white marble.
• Furs: sable, white fox, marten. Taiga timber for shipbuilding and rail.
• Limited agriculture: rye, barley, root crops. Dried and fermented fish.
• A war fleet of its own.

Society

• Königsmark: a monarchy moderated by a military nobility. A Junker-type aristocracy, free peasants — a continental exception, there is no serfdom — and ancient military monastic orders.
• The condemned miners of the North: prisoners sent to the Hashmalite mines. High toxicity. A hereditary caste, parallel to the alpine Broken Glass.

Religion

• The Northern Schism: a Royal Church presided over by the monarch. It receives the Septentrional Mikahel — a direct military manifestation in the field, not technical revelation. Austere, vernacular liturgy. It does not recognise the One.
• Roman rites tolerated in minority urban chapels.
• Domestic paganism survives in remote villages: solstice feasts, runes, threshold offerings.

The Seal

• It broke in 1782, third in the cascade. An earthquake beneath Kal'arn. The pre-winter cold arrived three months early — the Early Winter of 1782, a climatic anomaly that caused mass famine before any fighting at all.
• Dominant entity: Belifor, Sloth. Ice demons, lethal numbness, deep melancholy. Whole villages found asleep — populations lying down at home, dead of torpor, with no wound on them.
• Lesser choirs: incarnate ice, spirits of sleep, incarnate melancholy. The White That Walks, in local folklore.

Where it stands in 1890

• A cold, stable front. Königsmark holds the Northern Line in high-latitude fortresses. Winter paralyses the fighting; summer is a concentrated military season.
• Königsburg is an academic and military centre. Its university rivals the Order's Schola Coronata and innovates outside the dogma.
• Mikahel appears in the field periodically. The heavy cavalry of the North carries the Arms of Mikahel — five wings and a cross. Visible combat, unlike the Roman Hashmal, which is technical and revelatory.

How it looks

Blue-white, silver, deep cobalt, icon gold, the three-barred cross, a black fur coat, the Crown's cobalt mantle, a two-headed eagle.

"The Cold that chooses who sleeps."

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III. The Seal of the Southern Range — the Devouring Chalice

Geography

• Where: the spine of the southern peninsula.
• Climate: Mediterranean. Dry hot summer, mild wet winter, an olive coast.
• Water: short torrential rivers. A coastline rich in fish.
• Geology: active volcanoes. Periodic eruptions and quakes.

Economy

• Mineral Ardentine — volcanic phosphate with powdered Lumen. The volcanoes supply an inexhaustible raw material. Monumental clerical refineries at Stromakra.
• Sulphur, sea salt, marble.
• Olive, vine, citrus, hard wheat. Tuna, sardine, octopus, anchovy.
• Silk in the interior cities. Spice trade along the coast.

Society

• Maritima Coronata: the Maritime Cardinal-of-State. Hierarchical port cities, the clerical fleet quartered there.
• Vallia Sacra: the Cardinal-of-State of the Valleys. Agriculture, herding, liturgical vineyards.
• Meridia: a mercantile-military aristocracy, clergy, a port middle class, fishermen, peasants. A rigid Mediterranean stratification with mobility through trade.
• Southern peasants: poor, devoted to the local saint, superstitious.

Religion

• The Roman Curia dominant, with archaic Riti Meridionali tolerated in the popular and rural layers. Meridia receives the Meridian Angels — a parallel gift the Curia officially ignores.
• Popular devotion to local saints, one per city. A mystical tradition: stigmata, miracles of the Virtues, pilgrimages.
• Baroque iconography: gold, red, painted plaster angels, a martyr's blood in a consecrated phial.

The Seal

• It broke in 1783, fourth in the cascade. The eruption of the Volkar coincided with a deep subterranean earthquake. The lava exposed prison galleries beneath the mountain, and the demons came out inside the lava flow itself — incarnate in living molten rock. A phenomenon unique among the seven.
• Dominant entity: Belzebar, Gluttony, the devourer. His subjects: literal swarms of demonic flies, ghul, incarnate hunger. Trap-feasts: places that look like a prosperous village and devour the traveller.
• Lesser choirs: swarm-creatures, ghul, lava demons.

Where it stands in 1890

• A stable, hot front. Periodic eruptions partly reopen the Seal; the Curia maintains the Lava Guard, Knights of the Seal trained for volcanic combat.
• Stromakra is the world centre of Ardentine production. Heavy industry worked by condemned labour.
• The loss and recapture of Vela Tarda, 1871-73, exposed the scale of Meridian smuggling with the Heptarchy. See The fifteen battles.

How it looks

Beaten gold, Pompeian red, white marble, cypress, olive tree, a baroque candle, volcano smoke in the distance, the blood-red mantle of a cardinal.

"The Chalice that eats the guest."

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I. The Seal of the Solar Range — the Broken Heart

Geography

• Where: the central range of the continent, on an east-west axis, its highest peak Mount Choir, around 4,500 m.
• Climate: glacial at altitude, alpine in the valleys, Mediterranean on the southern slopes. Long winter, short bright summer.
• Water: the sources of the continent's three greatest rivers. Perennial glaciers.

Economy

• Choir-Iron, a monopoly of Ferrum Alpina, and Hashmalite in deep veins. The greatest liturgical steel centre in the world.
• Alpine gold, copper, rock salt.
• High-altitude herding. Consecrated cheeses cured for more than a thousand days in monasteries.
• Liturgical horology: the northern cantons make precision mechanisms for chronometric exorcism.
• Kantonal mercenaries hired out across the continent. The One's personal guard is Kantonal.

Society

• In the Order's valleys: closed communities, their own dialects, partial endogamy. Hard, religious, taciturn.
• In the cantons of the Confederation: autonomy, confessional pluralism, an armed popular militia. A historic refuge for heretics.
• Along the border, where Ferrum Alpina meets the Confederation: mixed villages, smuggling, marriages between clans.

Religion

• Old alpine Catholicism in the Order, cantonal pluralism in the Confederation.
• Surviving alpine folklore: pagan figures of the peaks, the glacier demon, solstice masks.
• High-altitude monasteries: the Order of the Ash has its mother houses here, and the White Vigil its women's houses. The purest receptacles of Hashmal revelation in the world.

The Seal

• It broke in 1784, fifth in the cascade. The Valley of Karentin, the deepest glacial valley, opened from north to south.
• The decisive difference: when the mountain split, the See had known for four years what would come out of it. The valleys were evacuated first. There was no alpine Ivandir. The heart of the Order was the only great centre on the continent that met its Seal prepared — and the difference between Karentin and Ivandir is the difference between the Order of 1890 and the Heptarchy of 1890.
• Karentin was fortified, and the fortress city of Karentin-Alta rose in the 1810s to cap the access. Lost in 1834, retaken in 1836 by the Knights of the Seal — see The fifteen battles.
• Dominant entity: Luzhar, Pride. He appears periodically over the range, in high-altitude flight, generally sighted by contemplative monks before he is gone. He does not fight in the field. He appears at every Seal, but the earthly throne he claims is Mount Choir.
• Lesser choirs: subordinates of Luzhar's circle; fallen of Pride still emerging.

Where it stands in 1890

• A stable front. Routine fighting, and no ground lost since 1840.
• The range is the backbone of the Order — the world's weapons come out of here.
• The cantons keep their rebellious autonomy. The Cardinal-of-State of Ferrum Alpina watches the cantonal Council of the Just with permanent suspicion.
• Ferrumkar carries the scar of the Forty Days of 1852, when the Broken Glass took the forge-city and purified ammunition with no cleric at all. See The fifteen battles.

How it looks

Grey granite, eternal snow, black fir, a bronze bell, the blood-red mantle of the Knights of the Choir, the black-and-white of the Contemplative Whites, the cantonal double cross in white-red-white.

"Here the spine held."

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IV. The Seal of the Open Sea — the Pit of the Green Eye

Geography

• Where: undersea, at the bottom of the Sea of the Choir.
• What makes it unique: the only underwater Seal. It has no range; it has a trench.

Economy

• Deep liturgical fishing. Consecrated coral.
• The main transport route for raw mineral between the Seals.
• Coastal Seal Salt by evaporation; maritime Silver Chrism, very rare silver recovered from old wrecks and island ore.
• Coastal shipyards: ironclads, frigates, merchantmen. The spice and cloth route from south to north.

Society

• Serenissima Velinia: a mercantile oligarchy in the archipelago city of Velinia. The Doge of Sails, the Council of Captains, the Ten in Black.
• Maritima Coronata: the allied clerical fleet.
• Coastal fishing communities: poor, devout, superstitious. They know the sea better than any cartographer.
• A caste of condemned divers: they go down to the Seal to bring up consecrated coral. Mortality is extreme. The Society of the Salt Eyes is the informal brotherhood of the survivors.

Religion

• The Roman Curia, plus the Sea Schism: Velinia has a bishop of its own and recognised liturgical autonomy.
• Maritime devotion: the patroness of the sea, the sailors' saint, and the submerged bell — the local myth that the bell of a cathedral sunk in 1785 still rings, now and then, from the bottom.
• Maritime folklore: the siren, the demonic calm, the ghost ship.

The Seal

• It broke in 1785, sixth in the cascade. An undersea earthquake. A tsunami tore the coasts. The port city of Antinia partly sank.
• Dominant entity: Leviath, Envy. A primordial sea serpent. He moves in deep water and rises periodically, causing the canonical storms. His subjects: maritime demons, the envious calm, the chosen shipwreck.
• Lesser choirs: sirens who seduce toward drowning, demons of dead calm, the raging spirits of the drowned.

Where it stands in 1890

• A permanent naval front. Choir-Iron ironclads patrol the trench.
• Velinia is the mercantile and diplomatic centre of the world. Its annual fair gathers every trading faction on the continent.
• The Vigil of the Pit: once a decade Leviath surfaces entire and the combined fleet puts out to contain him. It costs a great deal. They never kill him. The Vigil of 1830 went badly and sank fourteen ships — see The fifteen battles.

How it looks

Deep navy blue, greened copper, a patched white sail, Venetian gold, a carnival mask, dried fish hung up, a wet stone bulwark.

"The green eye at the bottom."

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VI. The Seal of the Insular Archipelago — the Mouth of Salt and Coal

Geography

• Where: an archipelago west of the continent, across the Insular Channel.
• Climate: humid oceanic. Cool summer, mild winter, rain all year, frequent fog.
• Water: middling rivers, glacial lakes, a broken rocky coast.
• Resources: bituminous coal — the largest reserve in the world and the base of the insular industrialisation. Iron, tin in the south-west, silver, Highland wool.

Economy

• Holy Coal, consecrated: the energy source of an accelerated insular industry; it burns lesser demons clean.
• Insular Choir-Iron, industrial, parallel to the alpine kind. Tin, silver, lead.
• Textiles, steel, machines, locomotives, ships. The Company of the Insular Cross runs the routes.
• The Brithon exchange is the second largest in the world, after Velinia. It competes with the cantonal banks.

Society

• A constitutional monarchy with a bicameral parliament. A rural aristocracy and an urban industrial middle class.
• A society of decorum: Victorian taste at its peak, frozen since 1875 by the Stagnation. Salons, tea, frock coats, top hats.
• Relative economic mobility: the industrial bourgeoisie marries its daughters to impoverished aristocrats.
• The workers of Manchaster, the densest city on the continent. The Broken Glass heresy was born here, in parallel with the alpine one.

Religion

• The Insular Schism — the Solar Church, with the monarch at its head. It receives the Solar Hashmal, a parallel gift focused on civil engineering rather than weaponry. The Roman Curia denies its validity; in practice it works.
• Roman rites tolerated as a minority. Nonconformists legalised since the 1830s.
• Organised occultism: the Dawn of the Hashmal, hermetic societies, theosophical circles in the salons of Brithon.

The Seal

• It broke in 1786, seventh and last in the cascade. An undersea earthquake off the west coast. The wave struck the shore; Trentmarc partly sank; prison galleries under the Isle of Caer'n were revealed by collapse.
• The decisive chronology: Seal VI opened in early 1786. The Archangels came down at the end of the same year. Brytonia had six years of warning and then less than twelve months of real exposure before the Intervention — the islands never suffered a land invasion. This is the geopolitical fact that holds up everything Brytonia is in 1890: the intact industry, the theological arrogance, and the material possibility of the Insular Schism. Whoever does not owe Rome their life can argue with Rome.
• Dominant entity: Mammen, Greed. A court of mercantile demons, financial pact, incarnate debt. Not violent — insidious. His subjects work inside exchanges, trade and banking. They corrupt through interest, not through blood. Mammen barely had time to get out, and adapted to the only ground left: the contract.
• Lesser choirs: demons of usury, the Pale Collectors who call in pact debts, the banker-demon of popular folklore.

Where it stands in 1890

• A single, strange front. Almost no open physical combat. The war is against mercantile pact corruption, and the Insular Inquisition works on a trading floor, in a bank, in a solicitor's office.
• Brithon is capital and shop window. The Dawn of the Hashmal occupies the aristocratic salons; the Decadent-Watcher nihilism prospers among young nobles.
• Brytonia remains a permanent commercial and theological rival of the Roman Order.

How it looks

Moss green and gold, dark oak, brass, red brick, fog, gaslight, tea in a fine cup, a top hat, a crowned solar lion, the Solar Cross.

"The price of everything, the value of nothing."

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Two closing observations

Cumulative coherence

Each Seal derives its identity in the same order: geography → climate → resources → economy → society → religion → look.

The grimdark inversion

The war against Hell accelerates the development of the regions. Without the Cataclysm this continent would be two generations behind. With it, it is technologically ahead — at the cost of sleeping villages, condemned miners and eternal borders. Victory costs.

The unanswered question of the Seals

Who imprisoned, and who broke? Were the earthquakes of 1780-1786 natural? Infernal engineering? Divine permission? An act of the Watchers, worked from inside? It is not resolved. The cascade running east to west, orderly and annual, is the strongest argument of those who say it was not chance — and the Curia avoids the subject for exactly that reason.

Links

• The Cataclysm of Ivandir — the epicentre, Seal VII
• The Cataclysm of the Seals — the continental event
• The fifteen battles — the fifteen battles fought on these fronts
• The state of the world
• The seven Princes of Vice