The Book of Remembrance is an upcoming book from Christopher Paolini, covering in-universe accounts of seven different battles throughout the history of Alagaësia, with the framing device of being a collection gathered together by Arceanist Brother Hern. Altogether, Christopher has said that this material is longer than half the length of FWW, and that it's shaping into "a proper book" on its own.
There is a deluxe illustrated edition being published by Wraithmarked that is available to back now on Kickstarter, aiming for a September 2026 release. It will not necessarily be available for purchase outside of the campaign, but there will likely be a traditionally published edition by Random House at some point after that.
The Kickstarter Edition ("Book of Remembrance")
The Kickstarter edition will be a 5x7" book bound in leatherette or leather (depending on backer tier) with three-colored foil stamping, a few dozen illustrations, and a list of the Kickstarter backers, stylized as a "list of the fallen" from each battle.
That artwork includes two black and white illustrations from Christopher, three dragon sketch studies from Isvoc for the endpapers and signature sheets, one two-page b/w illustration from Christopher J Alliston for each of the seven battles, 3-5 additional illustrations, a map, and twenty-two pages of fan portraits. Design will be done by Shawn T. King (stk_kreations).
See the Kickstarter page for more information about the different backer tiers, which can affect placement in the non-canon "list of the fallen" within the printed book as well as the choice of cover material. The Kickstarter page also shows the illustrations from Christopher and Isvoc, and a WIP piece from Christopher J Alliston.
Christopher's two illustrations are "Brother Hern's Letter" (a runic transcription of on a scroll, following the tradition from his art in the Murtagh Deluxe Edition and the Eragon Owlcrate Edition), and "Runestone" (which appears to be a combination of the art in Murtagh and the moon from his 2002 Saphira drawing). Christopher has also said that he may do more illustrations if time permits.
The Random House Edition ("Tales from Alagaësia volume 2")
For the Random House edition, Christopher will write some chapters from Eragon's POV to go around the stories, so that the book can be presented as the second volume in the Tales from Alagaësia series. It will update on Eragon and Saphira, the Eldunarí's silence, the hatching dragons, the missing werecat cubs, and Svartlings. Christopher has said that the additional content "will be a fair amount", and will take him some time to write, leading to the final book being "bigger than Fractal Noise" and "way bigger than Tales 1."
This rest of this reddit post will focus on the main text of the book, which should be the same in both the Kickstarter edition from Wraithmarked and the trade edition that Random House may publish in the future. Christopher has said that this content is "just about the same size as The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm".
Introduction
The beginning of the introduction to the book (Brother Hern's letter) was shared on Kickstarter, but as a page of runes, with parts of the text hidden behind other objects, such as a scroll case. This is a letter that Brother Hern is writing for Etharis to read when he has the time. What follows is a back-transcription into english, with curly braces used to indicate guesses for the obscured text. "Wérthoros" means "humans". (Thanks to /u/notainsleym and /u/Cptn-40 for help with this transcription.)
Codex Wérthoros
{Brothe}r [E]tharis,
{As you r}equested I have taken leave of my illumin{ations so that I can} compile this account. It required much mor{e of my time t}han I would have liked, and I fear my ink pots {have run dry i}n the interim. And for what, what is it you think to {find in t}he records of these battles?
{If it's} new insight into the Draumar’s meddling, then your {head mus}t be sharper than mine, for I saw nothing unexpected. {Nonethe}less, I have done as you have asked, and it was a mighty {effor}t. I strove to find the earliest recorded accounts {of each batt}le, and where possible, I combined and compared {them to cr}eate what I believe to be an authoritative list of {the fallen.} Some authors as you are no doubt aware, are more {trustworthy tha}n others—I would not trust Heslant the monk when {it concerns an}ything much before the founding of the Riders—but {there is a scarc}ity of written material regarding several of {the early battles}—notably the Defeat at Amaranth, the Fall of {Vroenga}rd, and the Ambush of Stavarosk—and we poor scryers of the past must scrape and scramble for whatever scraps of truth have survived.
To that end, I have been to the deepest parts of the reliquary, where the dust lies as thick as snow, And for my efforts, I have been sneezing every day for the past weeks, to the point that even Brother Advari has forsaken my company. I expect a mug full of good Summer ale as compensation when next I see you, Brother Etharis.
Despite my aggravation, I will admit, examining the roles of the fallen has put me in a somber mood. Our history, that is, the history of humans, has often been an unfortunate one, and those who died in each of these conflicts did so at the most crucial of turning points for Alagaësia and, indeed, Elëa as a whole. We are ever at such a point now, and I wonder if someday our names will be recorded in a similar manner. If any peoples remain to write and read.
Please ignore my ramblings. I have been too long in the catacombs. My head needs light and space and good conversation. Perhaps I will seek out Brother Advari once again.
Oh, and I would say this as well, the rosebushes contin{ue to} wither beneath the onslaught of aphids. The branches grow o{ld.}
The Seven Battles
The names of all seven battles can be found on Kickstarter, and Christopher runs through the list with some very brief commentary in one of the promotional videos. What follows below will be these descriptions, coupled with whatever we know about the battles from other sources.
It seems each battle will be told through an excerpt from a different in-universe writing, and Christopher has said that all of the POVs will be from characters we have not yet met, and that two of them will be from an elf and from a werecat, though it's unclear which battles he's referring to for those. (Also unattributed to any specific battles, Christopher has said to expect more info about elves, doors and werecats, an official definition for "inarë", and a sentence that's 147 words long. The werecat chapter will be titled "THE KICKER OF CATS: As Recorded for Us by Sister Blackclaw of the Seventh Toll")
1. The Defeat at Amaranth
The first one is called the Defeat at Amaranth and covers the final confrontation between mad King Palencar and the elves where the humans were defeated. This is the battle that led to humans being included in the pact between dragons and Riders.
"Amaranth" is a new term. Christopher has said that the battle was named that because it "took place on a field where large amounts of amaranth grows". (And that "amaranth often has mythological associations with immortality/long life".) However, the history of King Palencar has been alluded to before. Brom told the story to Eragon in the self-published edition of Eragon, as they passed Ristvak’baen. This got cut by Random House when they republished the book, but it was replaced with a more detailed account in the next book, told to Eragon by the elf Lifaen, shortly after entering Du Weldenvarden. And then a third, even more detailed account is included in Heslant the Monk's introduction to Domia Abr Wyrda, as published in the Deluxe/Limited Edition of Eldest. All three accounts are fairly similar, differing mainly in the amount of detail provided, so here I'll just give the third and most detailed version:
When Palancar encountered the elves, they explained to him which land was theirs, which was the dwarves’, and which was the dragons’, and granted him the right to claim that which was unoccupied. They and the Riders also demonstrated their physical and magical prowess. Intimidated, Palancar dared not argue with them—at least not so long as his docked fleet was at their mercy—and so he agreed to their terms.
The Broddrings roamed Alagaësia for several years before they discovered Palancar Valley—as it was to be dubbed—and decided to make it the basis of their kingdom. After Palancar vanquished the local Urgals and founded the town that is now Therinsford, his hubris grew so massive, he thought to challenge the elves for the region between the Spine and Du Weldenvarden. It is still baffling why—having witnessed the Riders’ might and main—he believed he could prevail in this matter. On this subject, I agree with Eddison, who reasons that Palancar was in the early stages of dementia, an assumption that is borne out by his later actions and those of his family, for madness always runs through the bloodline.
Three times Palancar’s warriors faced the elves, and three times the elves obliterated them. Aware of the Urgals’ fate and having no desire to share in it, the Broddring nobles sent an envoy to the elves, and they signed a treaty without Palancar’s knowledge. Palancar was then banished from his throne. He and his family refused to leave the valley, however, and instead of killing him, the elves constructed the watchtower Edoc’sil—now Ristvak’baen—to ensure that he could cause no further strife.
The elves took pity on the remainder of our ancestors and allowed them to live in Ilirea, which the elves had abandoned during their war with the dragons nearly two thousand years earlier. Ilirea became the new capital of the Broddring Kingdom, which exists even to this day as the center of Galbatorix’s empire: Urû’baen.
That brief confrontation with Palancar—which cost humans far more than it cost the elves—convinced the then leader of the Riders, Anurin, to amend the elves’ magical pact with the dragons to include humans. Anurin recognized that, as a race, humans are hardier than the elves and that we reproduce faster than the dwarves, making it inevitable that we would soon proliferate across Alagaësia. Before that day arrived, he wanted to weld our species together—using a flux of spells, oaths, and commerce—in order to prevent what he saw as a likely war for domination of the continent. (Eldest Limited Edition, "A Brief History of Alagaësia")
2. The Siege of Kvôth
Then we have the Siege of Kvôth, which is a dwarven siege. Although there's a dragon rider involved with that. And there's a certain red-eyed rabbit in that battle as well. That was a fun one to sort of write about.
The Siege of Kvôth was first summarized by Christopher in a 2010 Shurtugul Q&A, where he said that it was content that got cut from inclusion in Brisingr. (This Q&A was later republished on paolini.net in 2016, which is perhaps the source it's more well known from.)
Another famous battle was the Siege of Kvôth, which was attacked during the War of Iron, which pitted humans against dwarves and knurlan against knurlan in a dispute over ownership of the iron mines in the western foothills of the Beor Mountains. The human king at the time, King Thedric, did his best to forestall bloodshed by meeting in secret with the dwarf Ivaldn in the city of Furnost, but his efforts proved unsuccessful and, in the end, it fell to the Riders to restore the peace.
Later, in Inheritance, Eragon walks in on Angela finishing up an account of this story, though her version involves a red-eyed rabbit.
—but he was too slow, and the raging, red-eyed rabbit ripped out Hord’s throat, killing him instantly. Then the hare fled into the forest, and out of recorded history. However, if you travel through those parts, as I have … sometimes, even to this day, you will come across a freshly killed deer or Feldûnost that looks as if it has been nibbled at, like a turnip. And all around it, you’ll see the prints of an unusually large rabbit. Every now and then, a warrior from Kvôth will go missing, only to be found lying dead with his throat torn out … always with his throat torn out.
Terrin was horribly upset by the loss of his friend, of course, and he wanted to chase after the hare, but the dwarves still needed his help. So he returned to the stronghold, and for three more days and three more nights the defenders held the walls, until their supplies were low and every warrior was covered in wounds.
At last, on the morning of the fourth day, when all seemed hopeless, the clouds parted, and far in the distance, Terrin was amazed to see Mimring flying toward the stronghold at the head of a huge thunder of dragons. The sight of the dragons frightened the attackers so much, they threw down their weapons and fled into the wilderness. This, as you can imagine, made the dwarves of Kvôth rather happy, and there was much rejoicing.
And when Mimring landed, Terrin saw, much to his surprise, that his scales had become as clear as diamonds, which, it is said, happened because Mimring flew so close to the sun—for in order to fetch the other dragons in time, he had had to fly over the peaks of the Beor Mountains, higher than any dragon has ever flown before or since. From then on, Terrin was known as the hero of the Siege of Kvôth, and his dragon was known as Mimring the Brilliant, on account of his scales, and they lived happily ever after. Although, if truth be told, Terrin always remained rather afraid of rabbits, even into his old age. And that is what really happened at Kvôth. (Inheritance, "Mooneater")
Afterwards Eragon questions her on the accuracy of the story, and she says "Well, you can hardly expect the dwarves to admit they were at the mercy of a rabbit."
Christopher has since confirmed that the rabbit was a shade, (and also that the Monty Python references were intentional).
3. The Sack of Vroengard
Then the Sack of Vroengard, which covers some of the defeat and fall of the dragon riders.
This battle is alluded to many times throughout the series, starting with the first book in Brom's story:
Only Vrael, leader of the Riders, could resist Galbatorix and the Forsworn. Ancient and wise, he struggled to save what he could and keep the remaining dragons from falling to his enemies. In the last battle, before the gates of Doru Araeba, Vrael defeated Galbatorix, but hesitated with the final blow. Galbatorix seized the moment and smote him in the side. Grievously wounded, Vrael fled to Utgard Mountain, where he hoped to gather strength. (Eragon, "Dragon Tales")
However, the only two accounts with any detail can be found in Inheritance, and both focus on Thuviel's sacrifice. We first get an account from Glaedr, representing the publicly known version of the story:
During the battle with the Forsworn, one of our own, an elf by the name of Thuviel, killed himself with magic. Whether by design or by accident has never been clear, but the result is what you see and what you cannot see, for the resulting explosion rendered the area unfit to live in. Those who remained here soon developed lesions upon their skin and lost their hair, and many died thereafter. ... Thuviel wrought this destruction by himself. ... he converted his flesh into energy. ... The energy was without thought or structure, and once unbound, it raced outward until it dispersed. ... It is not well known, but even the smallest speck of matter is equal to a great amount of energy. Matter, it seems, is merely frozen energy. Melt it, and you release a flood few can withstand.… It was said that the explosion here was heard as far away as Teirm and that the cloud of smoke that followed rose as high as the Beor Mountains. ... The blast killed Glaerun, the one member of the Forsworn who had died on Vroengard. Galbatorix and the rest of the Forsworn had a moment of warning, and so were able to shield themselves, but many of our own were not as fortunate and thus perished. (Inheritance, "Amid the Ruins")
And then shortly afterwards we get an account from Umaroth, showing the actual intent behind that sacrifice.
Before the Battle of Doru Araeba, more than a hundred years ago, all of the Eldunarí were placed in a trance so deep as to be akin to death, which made them that much more difficult to find. Our plan was to rouse them after the fighting was over, but those who built this place also cast a spell that would wake them from their trance once several moons had passed. ... Thuviel agreed to sacrifice himself to conceal our deception from Galbatorix. ... It was a great tragedy, however, we had agreed that he was not to act unless it was obvious that defeat was unavoidable. By immolating himself, he destroyed the buildings where we normally kept the eggs, and he also rendered the island poisonous to ensure that Galbatorix would not choose to settle here. ... One of the Forsworn had slain Thuviel’s dragon a month before. Though he had refrained from passing into the void, as we needed every warrior we had to fight Galbatorix, Thuviel no longer wished to continue living. He was glad for the task then; it granted him the release he yearned for while also allowing him to serve our cause. By the gift of his life, he secured a future for both our race and the Riders. He was a great and courageous hero, and his name shall someday be sung in every corner of Alagaësia. (Inheritance, "Lacuna, Part the Second")
Christopher has also said to expect the names, genders, and races of all thirteen of the Forsworn to appear in the book.
4. The Ambush at Stavarosk
The Ambush at Stavarosk, which is all about how the Urgals wiped out about half of Galbatorix's army in the mountains of the Spine.
This battle also gets mentioned throughout the series, but usually nothing more than that one factoid:
The Spine was one of the only places that King Galbatorix could not call his own. Stories were still told about how half his army disappeared after marching into its ancient forest. (Eragon, "Palancar Valley")
No matter how many soldiers the Ra’zac summon, they will never dare enter the Spine. Not after Galbatorix lost half his army in it. (Eldest, "Wounds of the Past")
All my life I’ve heard it said that Galbatorix once lost half his men in the Spine, but no one could tell me how or why. (Inheritance, "Mooneater")
The most details are given in Inheritance, where Nar Garzhvog tells it to Eragon right after Angela recounts the story of Kvôth:
Do not all humans know of Stavarosk? Is it not sung of in every hall from the northern wastes to the Beor Mountains as our greatest triumph? Surely, if nowhere else, the Varden must speak of it. ... When [Galbatorix] came to power, he sought to destroy our race forever. He sent a vast army into the Spine. His soldiers crushed our villages, burned our bones, and left the earth black and bitter behind them. We fought—at first with joy, then with despair, but still we fought. It was the only thing we could do. There was nowhere for us to run, nowhere to hide. Who would protect the Urgralgra when even the Riders had been brought to their knees?
We were lucky, though. We had a great war chief to lead us, Nar Tulkhqa. He had once been captured by humans, and he had spent many years fighting them, so he knew how you think. Because of that, he was able to rally many of our tribes under his banner. Then he lured Galbatorix’s army into a narrow passage deep within the mountains, and our rams fell upon them from either side. It was a slaughter. The ground was wet with blood, and the piles of bodies stood higher than my head. Even to this day, if you go to Stavarosk, you will feel the bones cracking under your feet, and you will find coins and swords and pieces of armor under every patch of moss. (Inheritance, "Mooneater")
Murtagh offers a bit more context to this conflict, with Bachel implying that Galbatorix had been trying to wipe out the Draumer.
Nal Gorgoth and places like it have endured for longer than you can imagine. No dragon or Rider or elf or any other creature in all the history of the land has ever succeeded in clearing our redoubts or snuffing our faith. ... Not even the dread dragonkiller himself, Rider. He tried, once, and soon realized the magnitude of his mistake. (Murtagh, "The Court of Crows")
This was then confirmed by Christopher on reddit:
As for why [Galbatorix] tolerated them ... he didn't. In fact, he sent an army into the Spine to wipe them out at one point, and the Draumar used the Urgals to wipe out his men. (This is part of why the population of the Empire is lower than it really ought to be.)
On Twitter, Christopher has shared some excerpts from this portion of the Book of Remembrance (1, 2, 3):
So. When our grandsire’s sires strode the land,
in the days that followed the death of the Riders,
then woe was our harvest and hardship our lot.
We had thought to find freedom after the Fall,
to break the shackles the Shur’tugal imposed,
and extend our reach from our mountain realm,
across the furrowed fields of the Hornless.
But. Our freedom was brief and false.
We ran forth and raided many
a village and fort. Victory was ours
more often than not, honor for Svarvok,
won with fierce joy in bloody fights.
Then Galbatorix with new-gathered strength,
sent men with swords against our steads. . . .
. . . Tulkhqa lowered his head. “Talk
no more, for you mangle Svarvok’s truth
with every word, warp it as badly
as that horn you wrecked in fitful wrath. . . .
Christopher has also said that this was his favorite part of the book to write.
5. The Battle Under Farthen Dûr
And then the Battle Under Farthen Dûr. I don't want to say too much about that one.
This battle serves as the climax for the first book, but the account we see in this book will presumably be something new.
Christopher has said to expect more information about the Gûntera apparition, the Erisdar lanterns, and dwarven sewer systems. And to write this part he needed to do some calculations for the amount of livable space inside Tronjheim.
It should be noted that Christopher has written extra accounts about the tunnels under the battle on two different occasions. The first draft of Eragon had Eragon/Kevin leading a scouting expedition to Orthíad, where he encountered the Urgals and some shades. This all got cut from the book by the second draft, but Orthíad still exists as a staging point for the Urgal army, and Christopher has on occasion discussed some specific visuals he has of it.
Also, in 2005, Christopher helped develop a text adventure game set in these tunnels on the eve of the battle. That game had the player trapped in the tunnels and encountering both Angela and some Urgals, and then needing to get back to the surface. There's not a ton of content there, but it should be noted that Christopher was tweeting about this game while working on this section for Book of Remembrance.
6. The Slaughter at Gil’ead
The Slaughter at Gil’ead, which covers the capture of Gil’ead by the elven forces during the Inheritance Cycle. Which is also where Oromis was killed, and Glaedr lost his body.
This forms the B-plot for the climax of Brisingr. While Eragon is fighting in Feinster, he gets visions from Glaedr of the fight in Gil’ead. Given that we've already seen the fight between Oromis/Glaedr and Murtagh/Thorn/Galbatorix, it's likely that the Book of Remembrance will focus on other parts of the battle instead, of which we've only seen very little before:
The lazy-one-eye-sun hovered just above the horizon. To the north, the big-water-Isenstar was a rippling sheet of polished silver. Below, the herd of pointed-ears commanded by Islanzadí was arrayed around the broken-anthill-city. Their armor glittered like crushed ice. A pall of blue smoke lay over the whole area, thick as cold morning mist. (Brisingr, "Shadow of Doom")
Look what happened at Ceunon and Gil’ead. All his men, all his power, and Galbatorix still couldn’t stop them from swarming over the walls. (Inheritance, Rumors and Writing)
Murtagh was glad to have arrived, but the sight of Gil’ead brought him little pleasure. The last time he and Thorn had been at the city, they had been fighting at Galbatorix’s behest, in a desperate and failed attempt to defend the place from the elves. It had been a bloody, miserable battle. (Murtagh, "Dragonflight")
In the fields alongside the road, he saw traces of the battle for Gil’ead, ghosts of past bloodshed. There along a hedgerow was where the Empire’s cavalry had massed, and even now a circle of ground was bare where horses had trampled the dirt until it was hard as fired brick. Half a ruined wagon lay rotting along the lip of a nearby ditch, the wood burnt black by spellfire. Farther to the east was where the elves had broken through the army’s defensive lines and begun to drive them away from Gil’ead. Murtagh forced himself to stop looking, but he couldn’t stop remembering. It must have been terrifying, he thought. To be stuck on foot, with dragons fighting overhead, and ranks of elves descending upon your position…He could hardly imagine a worse situation. (Murtagh, "Hostile Territory")
When Murtagh shared what he’d seen, Thorn’s sorrow joined his own. “The elves must have driven them into the water. They never stood a chance.” The last he’d seen of Galbatorix’s battalions, the squares of men had been huddled together upon the smoke-shrouded plains outside Gil’ead while the ranks of tall elves marched upon them with inexorable force. (Murtagh, "Heave and Tail")
7. The Fall of Urû’baen
And then finally the Fall of Urû’baen, which, again, we saw in the Inheritance Cycle. But this is from a point of view that has never been done before.
So we have one, two, three, four battles that have never actually appeared before. They've been mentioned, but they haven't appeared. And then three battles that we've seen in the Inheritance Cycle, but we're seeing them in a very different way now.
It's unclear which perspective of this battle we will see here. We've already seen in great detail both Eragon's journey into the throne room, and Roran's fight with Lord Barst. Between those two fights we know what almost all the named characters were doing during the fight, and there's no obvious gaps.
There is the perspective of the group that rescues Roran, whom Christopher has confirmed have a planned POV at some point, but they're supposed to one day get their own book, so this might not be the place to tell their story.
