After the dark years of the civil war, some had the audacity to believe Light would illuminate the years ahead. They formed a new community, the Orandi, dedicated to healing the blackened corners of the realm through prayer. The Orandi sought out the Void’s corruption, erected their tabernacles, and prayed until it receded. Early successes made them bold, but they were doomed. Sir Grendel Ravensmantle and his Blackwing Knights rode to their aid, but they arrived too late. All the Orandi had been killed or Consumed. All, that is, but one: the child who would become a saint, Hermeida the Immaculate.

The Chapter of that time wanted to use her. Instead, Hermeida chastened them for worldly ambition. She blazed like a second sun and the Chapter abased themselves. Where Hermeida went, fallow fields became fertile and corrupted streams ran clear. With her Light alone, she cleansed the site of the Orandi’s destruction. Thousands walked in her train, but none were more convinced of her blessedness than Hermeida herself. When she announced she would cleanse the Void wastes themselves, her most devoted begged her to reconsider. “Where I would go,” she said, turning her back on them, “Doubters cannot follow.”

It is believed she perished in battle with the Void, but this is not true. Hermeida lives, conquering and reconquering mere parcels of the wastes for the Light, only for the Void to return as she moves on. She is so focused on her inner Light, ever burning like a forge in the night, she is oblivious to the shadow without. She is both pure and Consumed, a kernel of undiminished Light shrouded in Void; two natures made more intense by their proximity to one another.

In form, she is entirely Consumed, but her mind is consumed in a different way—deluded into believing that she is the manifestation of the Goddess of Light.