From the earliest days of Destiny there was a Hunter cloak named The Cloak of Dregden Yor. It's description read: "Before he took Pahanin's Light, Dredgen Yor ruled the Crucible, the notorious Thorn at his side." Who was this Guardian who could permanently kill someone in the Cucible? I wondered. Now, I think we know. Turns out, the owner and creator of Thorn, the murderer of Jaren Ward and Pahanin and several others, was none other than Rezyl Azzir.

Rezyl was a Titan before anyone knew what a Titan was. He helped form The City. He helped save it from the Faction Wars. He hunted Fallen and once made a daring attack on one of their Ketches where he intentionally got himself killed so the Kell would come out of hiding. He also, notably, rescued a small mountain town called Palamon.

Unfortunately, for all the good he accomplished, Rezyl slowly, over the course of what had to have been hundreds of years, grew tired of winning battles and victories but never the war. And slowly, but surely, despair poisoned his mind. But not just despair... there was a dark call that lead him to the moon. He appears to have been the first Guardian to go there. Ever. And he was invited in by the Hive. We don't know exactly what happened to him yet, not all of it anyway, but he can back out changed and with a new name.

As Dredgen Yor, he killed, permanently killed, Guadians in the Crucible, and eventually he retuned to Palamon and for some reason sought out and killed the Hunter Jaren Ward, the original owner of The Last Word. I think maybe he did this not as an act of evil exactly but as an act of desperation. He knew he had become a monster and I think he might have been seeking out those who might be able to stop him. Jaren Ward, unfortunately, could not. But The Last Word passed on to one of Jaren's closest friends: Shin Malphur.

Shin and Yor came face to face some years later and Dredgen Yor bated him on. Taunted him. Got him righteously enraged. The result is perhaps my very favorite bit of story in all of Destiny:

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.

"Yours... Not mine." was what Jaren Ward had said in response to the corrupt leader of Palamon who had just told him his previous words had been his last. I always loved the quote.

All in all, this has been a lot of fun. Reading and wondering. Searching for clues with each new release. And finally stumbling on the answer. I'd suspected Rezyl since a year ago but only now did the final pieces fit into place. I highly suspect there's a bit more to the story. We've yet to learn all the Hive did to Rezyl Azzir, but it appears that one of the longest running mysteries of the Grimoire has finally been revealed. :)

How did I reach this conclusion? Well... it looked something like this:

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.

Rezyl Azzir was a man.

Rezyl had been a champion of these wars. A leader. Against the alien pirates he had been more. If the giant wasn’t a God, then maybe Rezyl was.

Yet Rezyl grew weary. Stories haunted his nights. Old stories. Those no longer told. Those locked behind tight lips for fear of what they may invoke. Whenever the sun dropped below the horizon and the moon rose high, Rezyl’s thoughts wandered. How safe was safe? How long could they fight with the Darkness still writhing?

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.

— In Defense of North Channel —

Winds from the south caught the smoke and began to clear the thick air.

Slowly, the citizens of the small, snow-covered settlement came out from their hiding places.

Rezyl surveyed their faces — each weary, but flecked with hope.

Living in the wilds was all they had known. Surviving. Fighting. Hiding. These people had heard stories of a safer place, but tales of a better life were so rarely true.

Rezyl and his companions had been tracking these Fallen for weeks. Had they caught them sooner this town would have been spared. That any survivors climbed from the rubble to see another day marked this as a victory, but Rezyl
was growing tired of small wins, however meaningful.

That evening, Rezyl and the others led a gathering of survivors on the long journey to the growing city beneath the Traveler. Some settlers remained behind, choosing to stake their claim in the untamed wilds.

Rezyl admired their resolve, but never looked back. He knew whatever death these brave pioneers avoided that day would come to them... someday... in one form or another.

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.

Those who stayed saw our days became grey. Loken's protection - from the Fallen, from ourselves - became dictatorial.

u.1:1.3] Glad we got that cleared up...Now, about that piece.
[silence]
[u.2:1.0] Been to Luna?
[u.1:1.4] Excuse me?
[u.2:1.1] The Moon. You been?
[u.1:1.5] Nobody's been.
[u.2:1.2] That a truth?
[u.1:1.6] That's a fact.
[u.2:1.3] Funny you'd make that distinction.

Rezyl had come to Luna in search of nightmares, and after his long journey—from the growing City beneath the Traveler to the ends of the Earth and beyond—he found himself face-to-face with the remnants of stories he'd hoped were nothing but lies.

The figure in the doorway—a dark, ethereal woman cloaked in tattered ceremony and armored with ornate bone—danced in the air.

Rezyl and the demon woman held their ground, contemplating one another.

With no warning the silent intimacy of the moment was broken by a booming, angry call from deep within the doorway. The sound, thick and pained, echoed across the narrow valley then fell silent.

After a beat that felt like eternity, the figure backed away into the dark.

The doors remained wide – an invitation or a dare, Rezyl did not know. Nor did he care.

The mighty Titan took steps forward.

“Uhhhh... I’m not sure this is a good idea,” his Ghost’s concern was impossible to mistake.

“Not sure that matters.”

u.1:1.3] You are no longer yourself.
[u.2:1.4] I am myself. It’s who I was that’s gone.
[u.1:1.4] Who you were held all the value.
[u.2:1.5] To you.
[u.1:1.5] To the Light.
[u.2:1.6] The Light...
[u.1:1.6] It is all.
[u.2:1.7] It is nothing but a crutch.
[u.1:1.7] One that has held you up.
[u.2:1.8] Only just. And nothing more.
[u.1:1.8] Nothing more? You were a hero.
[u.2:1.9] And yet people still die. Corruption still exists. Light still fades. And Darkness still spreads.
[u.1:1.9] As it will ever be, that doesn’t mean you give in to...

Ghost Fragment: Thorn 4

The Shadow and the Light

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.../

Yeah i was thinking they were probably one and the same myself. Nice post.

I don't know why, but this theory bothers me, even thiugh its probably true. It's a classic fall from grace story, but its also... Kind of boring?

This cloak is a hunter cloak.

Also this hunter artifact http://www.ishtar-collective.net/items/dredgen-yors-rose

I am not aware of any Guardian's changing classes in the lore as of yet, unless this is the first case. The grimoire does have the class and his previous name as [REDACTED] so it may be so.

- No text -

Is that all this stuff sounds amazing and I know nothing about it. I tried to read the grimoire but couldn't get into it. At this point I have zero interest in the story of destiny unfortunately and it's such a shame because I've read all the halo books except the forerunner series. Do you have a grimoire website you'd recommend? Also, is there any explanation as to what the darkness is and how our enemies are related to it? This seems like it should be such and important point and yet I know nothing about it.

Is that all this stuff sounds amazing and I know nothing about it. I tried to read the grimoire but couldn't get into it. At this point I have zero interest in the story of destiny unfortunately and it's such a shame because I've read all the halo books except the forerunner series. Do you have a grimoire website you'd recommend? Also, is there any explanation as to what the darkness is and how our enemies are related to it? This seems like it should be such and important point and yet I know nothing about it.

Your account sounds just like mine own experience.

I've been using the Istar Collective to get up to speed on some of these stories. They do a good job of organizing the stories into coherent chunks. This is my biggest beef with the grimoire, but I understand why Bungie allows it to feel seemingly unorganized and incoherent if their desire was to make ascertaining the story part of the fun. Frankly, just spoon feed me the story - the lore is SO good!

There's also a Ghost fragment podcast that is pretty well done, though I find that the audio mixing sometimes make the words difficult to hear over the effects.

- No text -

Also, is there any explanation as to what the darkness is and how our enemies are related to it? This seems like it should be such and important point and yet I know nothing about it.

i don't know anything about it either. i just assumed that the light and darkness are inspired by the Force, in that it is everywhere, and some can harness it.

Any Interest?