The Best Story From Destiny’s Hidden Lore

PublishedSeptember 1, 2015

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Destiny’s story has been a punchline since the game came out. Story? What story? Destiny has a story? Good joke! And yeah, okay, yeah. Fair enough.

This article was originally published on September 1, 2015.

Of course, there is a lot of careful world-building going on in Destiny. You just wouldn’t know it from playing the game, unless you paid very close attention. Most of the best lore is buried in what are known as “Grimoire Cards,” which you unlock and read on the internet separately from the game.

Prologue: The Villain

The first thing you’ve got to know is that Dredgen Yor is a Guardian who fell from grace into darkness. He’s kinda like Darth Vader, I guess? He had a gun called “Rose,” and he used it to do great deeds, but when he turned evil, his gun lost its petals and became an eeeeevil gun called Thorn. He’s mentioned in a lot of item descriptions as this great Guardian killer; here’s the most relevant excerpt:

The noble man stood. And the people looked to him. For he was a beacon - hope given form, yet still only a man. And within that truth there was great promise. If one man could stand against the night, then so too could anyone - everyone.
In his strong hand the man held a Rose. And his aura burned bright.
When the man journeyed on, the people remembered. In his wake hope spread. But the man had a secret fear. His thoughts were dark. A sadness crept from the depths of his being. He had been a hero for so long, but pride had led him down sorrow’s road.
Slowly the shadows’ whisper became a voice, a dark call, offering glories enough to make even the brightest Light wander. He knew he was fading, yet he still yearned.
On his last day he sat and watched the sun fall. His final thoughts, pure of mind, if not body, held to a fleeting hope - though they would suffer for the man he would become, the people would remember him as he had been.
And so the noble man hid himself beneath a darkness no flesh should touch, and gave up his mortal self to claim a new birthright. Whether this was choice, or destiny, is a truth known only to fate.
In that cool evening air, as dusk was devoured by night, the noble man ceased to exist. In his place another stood.
Same meat. Same bone. But so very different.
The first and only of his family. The sole forbearer and last descendent of the name Yor.
In his first moments as a new being, he looked down at his Rose and realized for the first time that it held no petals: only the jagged purpose of angry thorns.

This guy Dredgen Yor goes around killing people with Thorn. In another Grimoire card we get a chilling transcript of a conversation between him and some hapless jerks who happen to cross his path. That all matches up with what happens in the actual game, as it happens: Thorn is a gun you can get in Destiny, and the journey to acquiring it is very cool and requires you to ruthlessly kill a whole bunch of other players. Thorn is evil in more ways than one: It’s easily the most hated gun in Destiny, because it does crazy damage and has a comically overpowered ability to “burn” other players over time. Bungie is nerfing the gun starting next week, and the majority of Destiny players welcome the nerf with open arms.

Anyway! On with the story.

Chapter One: The Narrator

So now you know who Dredgen Yor was. That gets to the other, parallel story—the story of The Last Word, and a heroic badass named Jaren Ward. That story is told over the course of a few Grimoire cards by an unnamed narrator that by all appearances is Shin Malphur, who would go on to become a “renegade hunter” and would be quoted in The Last Word’s item description.

A Grimoire Card about The Last Word begins with Malphur describing his childhood living in Palamon, a settlement some distance away from the relative safety and civility of The Last City:

I’m writing this from memory - some mine, but not all. The facts won’t sync with the reality, but they’ll be close, and there’s no one to say otherwise, so for all intents and purposes, this will be the history of a settlement we called Palamon and the horrors that followed an all too brief peace.
I remember home, and stories of a paradise we’d all get to see some day - of a City, “shining even in the night.” Palamon didn’t shine, but it was sanctuary, of a sort.
We’d settled in the heart of a range that stretched the horizon. Wooded mountains that shot with purpose toward the sky. Winters were harsh, but the trees and peaks hid us from the world. We talked about moving on, sometimes, striking out for the City. But it was just a longing.
Drifters came and went. On occasion they would stay, but rarely.
We had no real government, but there was rule of law. Basic tenets agreed upon by all and eventually overseen by Magistrate Loken.
And there you have it...no government, until there was. I was young, so I barely understood. I remember Loken as a hardworking man who just became broken. Mostly I think he was sad. Sad and frightened. As his fingers tightened on Palamon, people left. Those who stayed saw our days became grey. Loken’s protection - from the Fallen, from ourselves - became dictatorial.
Looking back, I think maybe Loken had just lost too much - of himself, his family. But everyone lost something. And some of us had nothing to begin with. My only memory of my parents is a haze, like a daydream, and a small light, like the spark of their souls. It’s not anything I dwell on. They left me early, taken by Dregs.
Palamon raised me from there. The family I call my own - called my own - cared for me as if I was their natural born son. And life was good. Being the only life I knew, my judgment is skewed, and it wasn’t easy - pocked by loss as it was - but I would call it good.
Until, of course, it wasn’t.
Until two men entered my world. One a light. The other the darkest shadow I would ever know.

Chapter Two: A Hero Comes To Town

Following so far? Sounds like we’re going to get a hero and a villain, and we already have a pretty good idea of who the villain is. Let’s go on with another card:

The man I would come to know as Jaren Ward, my third father and quite possibly my closest friend, came to Palamon from the south.
I was just a boy, but I’ll never forget his silhouette on the empty trail as he made his slow walk into town.
I’d never seen anything like him. Maybe none of us had. He’d said he was only passing through, and I believed him - still do, but life can get in the way of intent, and often does.
I can picture that day with near perfect clarity. Of all the details though - every nuance, every moment - the memory that sticks in my mind is the iron on Jaren’s hip. A cannon that looked both pristine and lived in. Like a relic of every battle he’d ever fought, hung low at his waist - a trophy and a warning.
This man was dangerous, but there was a light about him - a pureness to his weight - that seemed to hint that his ire was something earned, not carelessly given.
I’d been the first to see him as he approached, but soon most of Palamon had turned out to greet him. My father held me back as everyone stood in silence.
Jaren didn’t make a sound behind his sleek racer’s helmet. He looked just like the heroes in the stories, and to this day I’m not sure one way or the other if the silence between the town’s people and the adventurer was born of fear or respect. I like to think the latter, but any truth I try to place on the moment would be of my own making.
As we waited for Magistrate Loken to arrive and make an official greeting, my patience got the best of me. I shook free of my father’s heavy hand and made the short sprint across the court, stopping a few paces from where this new curiosity stood - a man unlike any other.
I stared up at him and he lowered his attention to me, his eyes hidden behind the thick tinted visor of his headgear. My sight quickly fell to his sidearm. I was transfixed by it. I imagined all the places that weapon had been. All of the wonders it had seen. The horrors it had endured. My imagination darted from one heroic act to the next.
I barely registered when he began to kneel, holding out the iron as if an offering. But my eyes locked onto the piece, mesmerized.
I recall turning back to my father and seeing the looks on the faces of everyone I knew. There was worry there - my father slowly shaking his head as if pleading with me to ignore the gift.
I turned back to the man I would come to know as Jaren Ward, the finest Hunter this system may ever know and one of the greatest Guardians to ever defend the Traveler’s Light...
And I took the weapon in my hand. Carefully. Gently.
Not to use. But to observe. To imagine. To feel its weight and know its truth.
That was the first time I held “Last Word,” but, unfortunately, not the last.

So we’ve got this classic western setup: The good townspeople are being oppressed by an evil magistrate named Loken. A badass stranger comes to town, with a gun on his hip finer than any the narrator has ever seen. Obviously, a showdown’s brewing.

Chapter Three: Magistrate Loken’s Last Words

That very confrontation is detailed in yet another Grimoire card:

Loken’s men found Jaren Ward in the courtyard where this had all began.
Nine guns trained on him. Nine cold hearts awaiting the order. Magistrate Loken, standing behind them, looked pleased with himself.
Jaren Ward stood in silence. His Ghost peeked out over his shoulder.
Loken took in the crowd before stepping forward, as if to claim the ground - his ground. “You question me?” There was venom in his words. “This is not your home.”
I remember Loken’s gestures here. Making a show of it all.
Everyone else was still. Quiet.
I tugged at my father’s sleeve, but he just tightened his grip on my shoulder to the point of pain. His way of letting me know that this was not the time.
I’d watched Jaren’s every move over the past months, mapping his effortless gestures and slight, earned mannerisms. I’d never seen anything like him. He was something I couldn’t comprehend, and yet I felt I understood all I needed the moment I’d seen him. He was more than us. Not better. Not superior. Just more.
I wanted father to stop what was happening. Looking back now, I realize that he didn’t want to stop it. No one did.
As Loken belittled Jaren Ward, taunted him, enumerated his crimes and sins, my eyes were stuck on Jaren’s pistol, fixed to his hip. His steady hand resting calmly on his belt.
I remembered the pistol’s weight. Effortless. And my concern faded. I understood.
“This is our town! My town!” Loken was shouting now. He was going to make a show of Jaren - teach the people of Palamon a lesson in obedience.
Jaren spoke: clear, calm. “Not anymore.”
Loken laughed dismissively. He had nine guns on his side. “Those gonna be your last words then, boy?”
The movement was a flash: quick as chain lightning. Jaren Ward spoke as he moved. “Yours. Not mine.”
Smoke trailed from Jaren’s revolver.
Loken hit the ground. A dark hole in his forehead. Eyes staring into eternity.
Jaren stared down the nine guns trained on him. One by one, they lowered their aim. And the rest of my life began - where, in a few short years, so many others would be ended.

There’s a KEY QUOTE in there, in case you skimmed and missed it. When Loken derisively asks Jaren Ward if those were his last words, Jaren responds “Yours. Not mine,” then blows him away.

Chapter Four: A Hero Falls; Another Rises

After that story, there is one more dispatch from the unnamed narrator, relating how Jaren Ward led him and a small group of townspeople from the ruins of their settlement (something terrible happened) and into the dangerous wilds on a trip to The Last City, where they’d be safe.

As they travel, Jaren detects danger, and leaves the others alone at their camp to go meet it.

The Ghost—Jaren’s Ghost—never said a word to any of us. Just hung there. Always alert. Always judging. Not us, per se, but the moment. Any moment.
I never got the sense it thought of us as lesser. More that it was guarded, wary.
We knew it could speak. We’d overheard them a few times. Just brief words, and no one ever pressed the subject.
From time to time I caught its gaze lingering on me, but always assumed the attention was a result of the bond Jaren and I had. He was a father to me. At the time I didn’t know why he’d singled me out as someone to care for. Someone to protect. After all the loss, I welcomed it, but looking back—taking in the arm’s length at which he kept the others—I guess I should’ve known, or at least suspected there was more to it.
We all woke that night, closer to morning than the previous day.
A crack of gunfire split through the wood. Then more.
Far off, but near enough to pump the blood.
A familiar ring. “Last Word.” Jaren’s sidearm. His best friend.
Then another. A single shot, an unmistakable echo calling through the night. Hushed, cutting.
One shot, dark and infernal. Followed by silence.
We crouched low and quiet. Listening. Hoping.
Jaren was gone. Off on his own.
Maybe we were closer than we’d allowed ourselves to believe.
Too close.
He’d gone to face death alone.
I couldn’t admit it—not at the time—but he thought he was protecting us.
After such a long road—years on its heels, a trail littered with suffering and fire—maybe he just couldn’t take the thought of anymore dead “kids,” as he called us.
The echoes faded and we all held still. No way to track the direction. No sense in rushing blind.
What was done was done.
The cadence of the shots fired told a story none of us cared to hear.
“Last Word” it hadn’t been. And somewhere in the world, close enough for us to bear absent witness but far enough to be a dream, Jaren Ward lay dead or dying. And there was nothing to be done.
Hours passed. An eternity.
We held our spot, but as the sun rose the others began to fade back into the world. Without Jaren there was nothing holding us together. No driving force. Vengeance had grown stale as a motivator. Fear and a longing to see more suns rise drove a wedge between duty and desire.
By midday I was alone. I couldn’t leave. Wouldn’t.
Either I would find Jaren and set him at ease, or the other would find me and that would be a fitting end.
Death marching on.
But then, a motion. Quick and darting. My muscles tensed and my hand shot to the grip of my leadslinger.
Then a confirmation of the horrible truth I had already accepted, as Jaren’s Ghost came to a halt a few paces in front of me.
I exhaled and slumped forward. Still standing, but broken.
The tiny Light looked me over with a curious tilt to its axis, then shot a beam of light over my body. Scanning me as it had done the very first time we met.
I looked up. Staring into its singular glowing eye.
And it spoke...

And…. THE STORY ENDS THERE. Jaren Ward dies off-camera, and it’s strongly implied that Jaren’s ghost chose the unnamed narrator for some grand task or... well, destiny.

Update 9/14/2015: Since I published this story, Bungie has released two new (awesome) Grimoire cards that tell the full story of what happened at Dwindler’s Ridge. I’ve removed my theorizing and copied the full text of the new Grimoire cards below, courtesy of Planet Destiny. Here we go.

Chapter Five: The Shadow And The Light

The next card details the conversation between Jaren Ward’s Ghost and Dredgen Yor immediately after Yor killed the Ghost’s master. For reference, [u.1] is Ward’s Ghost, and [u.2] is Dredgen Yor.

TYPE: Transcript.
DESCRIPTION: Conversation.
PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Ghost-type, designate [REDACTED] [u.1], One [1] Guardian-type, Class [REDACTED] [u.2] ASSOCIATIONS: Breaklands; Durga; Dwindler’s Ridge; Last Word; Malphur, Shin; North Channel; Palamon; Thorn; Velor; Ward, Jaren; WoS; Yor, Dredgen;
//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//
//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS…/
[u.1:0.1] Such Darkness.
[u.2:0.1] Impressed?
[u.1:0.2] Far from it.
[u.2:0.2] To each their own.
[u.1:0.3] His Light is faded.
[u.2:0.3] His Light is gone.
[u.1:0.4] You are an infection.
[u.2:0.4] I am that which will cleanse.
[u.1:0.5] You are a monster.
[u.2:0.5] Heh. An old friend once saw me as the same. He was right, and, had we met earlier, so too would you be.
[u.1:0.6] You’d dare defend yourself – all you’ve done – as anything but monstrous?
[u.2:0.6] No more than a hurricane.
[u.1:0.7] Then you’re a force of nature?
[u.2:0.7] I am all that is right. You may not see it – for lack of looking, or blind ignorance – but I am all that is good.
[u.1:0.8] You’ve just murdered a good man.
[u.2:0.8] He shot first.
[u.1:0.9] Yet you stand.
[u.2:0.9] Guess he missed.
[u.1:1.0] He never misses.
[u.2:1.0] First time for everything.
[silence] [u.2:1.1] His cannon? Nice piece of hardware.
[u.2:1.2] Well-worn, but clean. Smooth hammer.
[u.1:1.1] It was his prize.
[u.2:1.3] Guess he put too much faith in the wrong steel.
[u.1:1.2] Is that where you’re faith lies, in steel?
[u.2:1.4] Not for some time. My steel is only an extension. My faith is in the shadow.
[u.1:1.3] Then my Light is an affront to all you are. I am your truest enemy.
[u.2:1.5] One of many.
[u.1:1.4] Would you end me?
[u.2:1.6] Not you. Not now.
[u.1:1.5] The shadow knows mercy.
[u.2:1.7] The shadow knows no such thing.
[u.1:1.6] Then what?
[u.2:1.8] The other.
[u.1:1.7] What other?
[u.2:1.9] The dead man’s charge.
[u.1:1.8] The boy?
[u.1:1.9] You’d end him as well?
[u.2:2.0] If it comes to that… We’ll see.
[u.1:2.0] I won’t let you have the child.
[u.2:2.1] Been long enough now, think maybe he’s a man.
[u.1:2.1] You cannot have him.
[u.2:2.2] Not yet.
[u.1:2.2] I won’t let you.
[u.2:2.3] That you could stop me is an amusing thought.
[silence] [u.2:2.4] Here.
[silence] [u.2:2.5] Take it.
[u.1:2.3] Why?
[u.2:2.6] Give the apprentice his master’s “sword.” It is a gift.
[u.1:2.4] You cannot have him.
[u.2:2.7] You fear for his Light?
[u.1:2.5] He…
[u.2:2.8] …is special.
[u.1:2.6] Yes.
[u.2:2.9] I am aware.
[u.1:2.7] You’re trying to tempt him. You’re feeding his anger.
[u.2:3.0] The gun is a memento, nothing more.
[u.1:2.8] You claim to be a vessel, a hollow shell where once a man stood, but that is just a lie. The man is still in you.
[u.2:3.1] There is no man here, I am now, and for the rest of time, only Dredgen Yor.
[u.1:2.9] “The Eternal Abyss?”
[u.2:3.2] So, not all the forgotten languages are dead.
[u.1:3.0] Hide behind whatever titles you wish, it is all still a façade. No force of nature would play such games.
[u.2:3.3] Games?
[u.1:3.1] The cannon. You wish to tempt the boy. Too spur him on and fuel his rage. There is intent there. The actions of a man, monstrous, mad or otherwise… you are nothing more.
[u.2:3.4] And what value does your conclusion bring, flawed as it may be?
[u.1:3.2] That a hurricane can only be weathered, not stopped. Not redirected. A force of nature is uncaring and without intent, but a man…
[u.2:3.5] Yes?
[u.1:3.3] A man is none of those things.
[silence] [u.1:3.4] A man can be killed.
[silence] [u.2:3.6] And there it is…
[u.1:3.5] There what is…?
[u.2:3.7] A sliver of hope.

What then? A second new Grimoire card for The Last Word recounts the story of the climactic showdown at Dwindler’s Ridge in extremely awesome detail.

Chapter Six: The Showdown At Dwindler’s Ridge

We pick up with one final entry from Shin Malphur’s journal.

Then.
Palamon was ash.
I was only a boy – my face caked in soot, snot and sorrow.
I’d assumed Jaren, my friend, our Guardian, the savior of Palamon, would always protect us – could always save us…
But I was a fool.
Jaren, and the others, only a handful, but still our best hunters, our hardest hearts, had left three suns prior. Tracking Fallen, after the bandits had caused a stir.
The stranger – the other – arrived the following day.
He rarely spoke. Took a room. Took our hospitality.
I was intrigued by him, as I was Jaren when he’d first arrived.
But the stranger was cold. Distant. Damaged, I thought.
But I wasn’t afraid. Not yet.
Only a child, I knew the monsters of our world to walk like men, but they were not. They were something alien. Four-armed and savage.
The stranger was polite, but solemn.
I took him for a sad, broken man, and he was. Though, at the time, I didn’t understand how that could make one dangerous.
As with Jaren, father made an effort to keep me away from the stranger.
It wouldn’t matter.
As the silhouette approached, fear held tight.
The dark figure towered over me. Looking into me – through me.
He smiled. My knees weak. All lost.
Then, he turned and walked away.
Leaving ruin and a heartbroken, terrified boy in his wake without a second glance.
I’ve been chasing that stranger’s shadow ever since.
Now.
We stood silent, the sun high.
Seconds passed, feeling more like hours.
He looked different.
He seemed, now, to be weightless – effortless in an existence that would crush a man burdened by conscience.
My gaze remained locked as I felt a heat rising inside of me.
The other spoke…
“Been awhile.”
I gave no reply.
“The gunslinger’s sword… his cannon. That was a gift.”
My silence held as my thumb caressed the perfectly worn hammer at my hip.
“An offering from me… to you.”
The heat grew. Centered in my chest.
I felt like a coward the day Jaren Ward died and for many cycles after.
But here, I felt only the fire of my Light.
The other probed…
“Nothing to say?”
He let the words hang.
“I’ve been waiting for you. For this day.”
His attempt at conversation felt mundane when judged against all that had come before.
“Many times I thought you’d faltered. Given up…”
All I’d lost, all who’d suffered, flashed rapid through my mind, intercut with a dark silhouette walking toward a frightened, weak, coward of a boy.
The fire burned in me.
The other continued…
“But here you are. This is truly an end…”
As his tongue slipped between syllables my gun hand moved as if of its own will.
Reflex and purpose merged with anger, clarity and an overwhelming need for just that… an end.
In step with my motion, the fire within burst into focus – through my shoulder, down my arm – as my finger closed on the trigger of my third father’s cannon.
Two shots. Two bullets engulfed in an angry glow.
The other fell.
I walked to his corpse. He never raised his cursed Thorn – the jagged gun with the festering sickness.
I looked down at the dead man who had caused so much death.
My shooter still embraced by the dancing flames of my Light.
A sadness came over me.
I thought back to my earliest days. Of Palamon. Of Jaren.
Leveling my cannon at the dead man’s helm, I paid one final tribute to my mentor, my savior, my father and my friend…
“Yours… Not mine.”
…as I closed my grip, allowing Jaren’s cannon, now my own, to have the last, loud word.

I mean, look. I know it’s a big fat cliché. I know it’s a story we’ve seen a hundred times. But come on. That is some good shit.

Destiny (deservedly) gets a lot of crap for taking so much of its backstory and burying it on the internet where the majority of players will never see it. And it’s true that the actual story of vanilla Destiny doesn’t come close to the drama in even this admittedly trope-laden Grimoire tale.

Most RPGs contain these kinds of buried side-stories. Maybe they’re in books you find laying around as you explore, or maybe they’re stored in a codex you can read in your inventory menus. The game’s writers, momentarily freed from the need to make their writing line up with carefully scripted gameplay or cutscenes, get to cut loose. The purpose of these types of optional stories is to make the game’s world feel richer, and to give a sense of history to a place that is mostly defined by what you’re doing in the present.

By that metric, the story of The Last Word is a success. Overwritten? Sure. Melodramatic? Totally. But it tells me something interesting about the world in which Destiny takes place. It tells me something new about two of the most popular, deadly weapons in the game, and even creates an adversarial relationship between the guns that reflects how they’re used in the game itself. (For months on end, both Thorn and The Last Word were horribly overpowered and dominate in PvP, to the point where a given battle really does feel like a grudge match between #TeamYor and #TeamMalphur.)

Even though we now know what happened at Dwindler’s Ridge, some questions remain. Why did Dredgen Yor spare Jaren Ward’s Ghost, and why did he want Shin Malphur to have The Last Word? Why didn’t he fire a single shot at Dwindler’s Ridge, and what did he mean when he told Ward’s Ghost that he was actually a force for good?

I hope we learn the answers to those questions. This story may have reached a satisfying conclusion, but I hope this isn’t the last we’ll hear of Thorn, The Last Word, and the famed warriors who wielded them.

To contact the author of this post, write to kirk@kotaku.com.

Gun images via Destinypedia