Folly

The Cayrien Folly (or, more commonly, the Folly) is the name for man-kin's inherent imperfection and tendency toward self-destruction. It is called "the stain on the soul of man." The use of shadow and grim magic is believed to draw the Folly into the world.

The word "folly" is sometimes used as a curse word, such as in the phrase "Woe and folly!"

Among the monks of the Cayrien Order, the Cayrien Folly also refers to a specific event in the distant ancient history of the man-kin. The specific act is long forgotten, but whatever it was, it despoiled the legendary paradise of Eterra and forced the man-kin into the aimless Long Night. Ultimately, the man-kin settled on Landfall. Some of the most ancient records of the Cayrien Order (from the ante axum period, long before Water's Age) suggest that the event of the "Cayrien Folly" on Eterra was actually more properly called the "New Cayrien Folly." The prefix "New" was dropped for unknown reasons sometime within the last 4000 years. This suggests that the event that despoiled Eterra had happened before, and is consistent with the Order's view that man-kin are inherently flawed and all society tends toward inevitable self-destruction -- further suggesting that a new New Cayrien Folly will happen again, sometime in the future.

Spoken quickly, the phrase "new cayrien folly" is coincidentally similar to "nuclear fallout."