The Rauh Ruins are the great academic and religious centre of the Hornsent before Belurat ascended. The Map: Rauh Ruins description states the geography : 'These giant ruins are flooded, overgrown, and split into two by a chasm. To the southwest is the Church of the Bud, overlooking the tower of shadow.' What that flatly factual map omits is what the place was for. The Antiquity Scholar's Cookbooks record it : 'A record of crafting techniques left by the hornsent academics who studied the ancient ruins of Rauh. Details techniques for working with sprites thought lost to antiquity.'

Rauh is, in other words, the place where the Hornsent's natural philosophers studied the same pre-Erdtree life-forms, sprites, divine beasts, the Crucible's older lattices, that Marika's Erdtree later defined as impure. After Messmer's burning, only the Sealing Tree remained intact at Rauh, the great living lock that holds the Gate of Divinity sealed at Enir-Ilim. To open the Gate, the sealing tree must burn ; to burn the sealing tree, only Messmer's own kindling will suffice. Messmer, in the canon's quietest irony, is the only fuel that can finally undo what he was sent to destroy. Romina, Saint of the Bud, makes her last stand at the Church of the Bud, the only Rauh structure where her scarlet-rot pilgrimage could reasonably have ended.

◆ Sources

Key ItemMap: Rauh Ruins

Map of the ancient Rauh Ruins. These giant ruins are flooded, overgrown, and split into two by a chasm. To the southwest is the Church of the Bud, overlooking the tower of shadow.

CraftingAntiquity Scholar's Cookbook [1]

A record of crafting techniques left by the hornsent academics who studied the ancient ruins of Rauh. Details techniques for working with sprites thought lost to antiquity.

Item / MiscMessmer's Kindling

The kindling that burned inside Messmer the Impaler. A dark thing, eaten away at by a wicked serpent. Burns the sealing tree said to be found at the old Rauh ruins.