Lore · Gods of the Pantheon
Drinal & Ehayae, the Spirit Gods
Not every god in Norrath had a city and a priesthood. Two of the oldest were known only to tribes of beast-folk, and between them they hold the whole cycle of life.
The Silver Reaper
The 2002 roleplaying game says very few know of Drinal, the spirit god of night, destruction and death. A tribe of nomads named the grey moon after him long before there were great cities. He is neutral, not cruel: he watches over death because life cannot complete its cycle without it. His Lujien worshippers picture him as an upright white wolf with midnight-black paws, tail and jaws, carrying a silver sickle shaped like the crescent moon.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Drinal (EverQuest RPG Game Master’s Guide)
Matron of the Dawn
Ehayae is his other half. She keeps the cycle of birth, rebirth and creation, and dawn and twilight are her holy hours. Many races would call what she does good, but the RPG insists she is neutral too: she does it because it must be done, not out of kindness. Her Gihjna followers show her as a golden-skinned woman with an ivory-beaked hawk’s head and golden wings for arms, holding a half-circle between her wingtips for the rising and setting sun.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Ehayae (EverQuest RPG Game Master’s Guide)
Lord of Graves
Drinal grew darker in EverQuest II. There he is the Lord of Graves who rules Ethernere, the realm of the dead, and sends his Harrowing Horde after souls who refuse to accept their deaths. One EQ2 journal follows a zealot among the Unkempt Druids who argues that the wandering dead should simply accept Drinal, and he would call the Horde back.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Drinal (My Journey to Harrow’s End, EverQuest II)
A prayer to the sky
An EverQuest book called “Immortals” ends with a prayer to the heavens by name, Trorsmang, Anbeal, Drinal and Cordan, and finally to Norrath itself. Drinal is asked to be the people’s stability, the ground where they can take root.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Drinal (Immortals, in-game book)
The white wolf
The RPG Game Master’s Guide adds how his worshipers see him. Drinal “does not maintain his watch over death out of malevolence, but out of the necessity for it to occur in order to fulfill the cycle of life.” His Lujien followers picture him as an upright white wolf with midnight-black paws, tail and maw. He is said to carry a silver sickle, the crescent moon that is most sacred to him and his bestial worshipers.
Sources: Library of Erudin: Drinal (Game Master’s Guide — Drinal, The Silver Reaper)
The moon itself
A 2008 developer post on Norrathian astronomy lists Drinal as an actual body in the sky: “A solid body with a solid core, frozen water, minimal atmosphere and a desolate climate.” In the same list, Anbeal has no water or atmosphere and Cordan is gaseous with three rings of ice and debris. Those are the same names invoked in the in-game prayer “Immortals.”
Sources: Library of Erudin: Drinal (Norrathian Astronomy; Immortals)
Harrow’s End
The EverQuest II book My Journey to Harrow’s End is written by a convert in Ethernere, “forever under the shade of the Lord of Graves.” The narrator mocks Wegadas of the Unkempt Druids, who promised protection to the Wayward souls of Cardin Ward, and argues that if the dead would only accept Drinal, he “would embrace them, and call back the Horde.” The book also mentions the Gehein, “those who volunteered their souls for the Horde.”
Sources: Library of Erudin: Drinal (My Journey to Harrow’s End)
Where the sources disagree
- The RPG says Drinal is the name of Norrath’s grey moon. A 2008 developer post on Norrathian astronomy lists Drinal as a solid body with frozen water, alongside Anbeal and Cordan. Wave 1 also noted a fan claim that the name is an anagram of Aldrin; we still do not repeat it as fact.
- The RPG’s Drinal is a neutral keeper of the cycle; EverQuest II’s Drinal commands a horde that hunts the dead. The two portraits are hard to fully reconcile.
Keep reading
Retold in our own words from the sources linked under each chapter; short quotes are marked and sourced. The illustration is an original AI-generated painting made for this page alone, not from the game.