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)
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.