Crimson Moon Story & Lore: Nephilim, Dead Gods, Spire

The setup

The support article that introduces the story is blunt about your position: the Nephilim “were born of forbidden blood, and now bound in chains … must serve the Lunetarian Church to repent the sins of their fathers”. You are a weapon the Church does not entirely trust, sent into a city it has already lost.

That city is Gildenarch, a port in the Mystic Peaks on the Aemar River, grown from a fishing hamlet called Gildeus into the Church’s showpiece and the trade gate between Velchoria and the western continent of Armaea. It is now “a feast for the Hellgrowth and its spawn” — the corpses of Paladins and Nephilim in the streets, the undead walking, and at the centre a Spire “that pierces the Veil”.

The Nephilim and the Order

Three hundred years before the game, the rogue demigod Cain turned on the Holy Lineage and led the Infernal Legion against the world in the Rite of Desolation. The Watchers — angels “tasked with watching over humanity” — failed, and out of that failure came the Nephilim: humanity’s free will and courage fused with angelic strength. They turned the war.

Peace was harder. The Church tried to exterminate the Nephilim, starting with the first of them, Gallant Alexander; his failed execution led instead to the Crimson Concordat and the founding of the Order of the Crimson Moon, a “sanctified order of Nephilim in forced servitude”. Nephilim who refused were branded Apostates and hunted — the Apostate armor set and Apostate’s Shield you can loot are relics of that history. Some fled to Belwayne in Armaea, the one city-state that legalised them.

Each Nephilim carries an Angelic Sigil that shapes their angel form: Aegis, the warrior, or Sunder, the ranged arcanist. That is the in-fiction reason for the two Angels.

Factions you will meet

• The Lunitarian Church of Velchoria — the theocracy that rules the Velchorian Isles, founded by demigods, worshipping the god Lunarin. Your employer.
• The Knights of the Crimson Moon — you, headquartered in the Sanctus Clypeus.
• The Angelic Choir — servants of the Divine led by the archangel Maedrael; the Church believes the Divine is Lunarin.
• The Infernal Legion — Cain’s demons, returned to Eden “for the first time in 300 years”, led in the field by General Valahk-Nor.
• The Reborn Cult — humans who worship the Hellgrowth as “The Garden” and eat infernal flora to mutate; their heresy spread through the Forsaken Streets.
• Clan Moore — vampires under the patriarch Solomon Moore, Cain’s immortal agents; Moore Manor in the Gilded Ward is his estate. Their rivals, Clan Telvaught, fight from Armaea’s underworld — the Telvaught armor and shield are theirs.

The Hellgrowth and the Spire

The Hellgrowth is an infernal biomass that terraforms the city and rewrites the souls trapped in it; the Flesh-Wrought Egregore boss is what those souls become. The Godsreach Spire was “a project approved and funded by the Archspire Chapter as a symbol of Gildenarch’s revival” — the Church’s own construction — and is now destroying the veil between Eden and the realms beyond, powered by the Abraxas Stones.

The Abraxas Stones and the Dead Gods

The stones hold “remnants of the souls of the Old Gods”. Your main quest, per the War Table briefing: collect the stones, extract the Dead Gods’ spirits, destroy the Spire. There are three, and each is an achievement in order — Rot, War, Arcana — matching the three Dead Gods:

• E’frae, The Dry Rot King — once the Lord of the Wild, “a magnificent stag of bark and amber blood” warped by ages on the edge of death.
• Mahkteah, The Lord of Perdition — the war god of the ancient Mahkten cult, “creative destruction: the fire that burnt the forest to give birth to new life”.
• Aegoroth, The Eye of the Abyss — god of forbidden knowledge, “the voice in the dark”, the only one whose imprisonment “scarcely changed” him.

Boss details and drops are on the bosses page.

The wider world

Eden was once shared by humanity and gods and has been destroyed and reborn through cycles the wiki calls The Coil; the current age, the Shattered Coil, is linear and “largely cut off from magick”. Beyond Velchoria lie Armaea (a dark age of warring city-states, including Belwayne and the neutral port of Nachtendale) and Karsiv, the frozen north where Gajov the blacksmith came from. Lore scrolls found in Gildenarch are the game’s way of unpacking all of this — hand them to Mereda for Boons and, presumably, answers.

What we do not know

The wiki flags its own gaps: how the Spire changed and “the precise nature of its connection to the invasion … are not yet fully understood”; Cardinal Mathias became “a pawn in Solomon’s conspiracies” for reasons the game keeps for itself; and the “greatest secret” of the Archspire Chapter is named as the reason the city fell without being stated. This page stays spoiler-free by following the wiki’s own line.

Related

• Missions and Wards — the three Wards and six districts.
• Sanctus Clypeus hub — the four Knights you serve alongside.