The Tablets of Chaos are the greatest relic of Nergal, god of death, in the legend of the valley, buried and still unfound beneath the barrows of the Barrowmaze.
| Type | Object (relic) |
| Place | Barrowmaze |
| Spanish entry | Tabletas del Caos del Barrowmaze |
Accounts waver between the tablet and the tablets; their material nature is not fixed (see Tablet of Chaos).
Legend
Nergal, lord of the underworld, foresaw that his sons Orcus and Set would depose him, and had loyal followers bury the Tablets deep in the barrows behind many traps. The sons overthrew him and fought over the throne; each side sends forces into the Barrowmaze to find them. The oldest rumor of Helix holds that the dead there do not rest because something calls them from below.
The Tablet of Wishes
A loose tablet appeared in an open room of the barrows. A companion read its rune, invoked the spirit of the wish and, with the company shattered, asked for everyone’s recovery; all were restored. “That is the most powerful magic there is; you are grabbing and changing reality… the abyss on the other side looked at you, but told you: you can ask for whatever you want.”
Silas later tried to wish on the altar — “I wish to know the room of the Tablet of Chaos” — and was stopped. The company, holding wishes, spent none on the Tablets or its dead. Sayings link the tablets to obsidian mirrors and “the end of civilization,” and hold that what the Abbot sought “is a tablet too.”
The archival deposit
The Sixteen Positions (position Φ15) read the Tablets as an archival deposit: “The archvillain himself, amnesiac and mutilated, writes bilingual tablets — his Bible — so that any future version of himself can remember.” The Helix sanctuary group found in the barrows an obelisk giving Nergal’s dark rites in four languages (Black Tongue, Elvish, Dwarvish, Old Common); a companion copied it and studied the Black Tongue. A hooded spirit rumored to be the deposed god led two companions to repeat on a third what Set and Orcus did to their father.
Present state
The Abbot keeps his formula running: “come back with the tablets or don’t come back.” Silas died on the altar asking where they were; the demon Quasi, who offered the location in a pact, is still free. Belial manifested over the skull of “the one who had the tablets of chaos” (Pact of the Nobeliares). Los Condenados (“the Condemned”) left the Tablets buried, and the Seekers of Ardis Vala march toward the same barrows.
Open questions
- Whether they weigh on the dark side of the Ludus Umbrarum’s balance (darkness, the negative plane, the restless dead).
- Whether they echo the gem-world Vala Cristalis.