Zairen Siran was born twenty-two years before the end of the Warlord Eras in a contested city where murder, trafficking, and extreme scarcity were routine. His mother, Naira Siran, raised him alone on the edge of a forgotten trade route. She was a sharp civilian survivor who offered the only steady reminder that he was human amid constant brutality. She never revealed his father's identity.

His father was Varen'Kayeb Kal'vashir, known by the alias Caleb. He had a brief, need-driven encounter with Naira after a failed extraction left him wounded. He departed at dawn and never learned of the child.

Naira died from starvation compounded by infection while Zairen was still young. Two days later her body was scavenged for parts, a common practice during the Warlord Eras. He was left to survive without grief or sentiment.

The Warlord Eras

Zairen survived by working under warlords and syndicates. During this period he changed his family name from Siran to Vaul. He did not want the acts he was committing and approving of to be attached to his mother's name. Everything he did under Vaul was deliberate separation from her, a way of keeping her memory apart from what the wars required of him.

After the Wars

After the wars ended, Zairen remained in the ruins of his birthplace. He built a small stead on the city's outskirts, scavenging materials and establishing basic shelter. Isolated survivors gradually joined him, including Vohk'tirrel, a Scout-Class Engineered deserter who had evaded conscription for nearly twenty years by moving between patrols with precision timing. Vohk was not drawn by belief. He was drawn by shared rhythm in labor. They worked side by side clearing debris and building shelter, and over time Vohk became Zairen's first true companion.

The Entity

One evening, as the wind stilled and the sky turned violet, the Entity appeared to both Zairen and Vohk. It manifested as a hovering parallax scar, a thinning of locality and inward collapse of structure. The experience brought no fear or worship, only a profound sense of inevitability and clarity.

Zairen emerged with a new understanding: collapse was calibration rather than chaos. This became the foundation of the Church of the Infinite Maw. He founded the Church through presence and example alone and transformed his ruined birthplace into the Maw's Crown, its central seat. The movement spread steadily among settler communities, disillusioned survivors, and post-war networks seeking meaning in endurance rather than restoration.

The name Gabrim was given to him after the Church's founding, an earned name that followed from what the Church became under his presence. He is widely known as Vaul'Zairen Gabrim.

The Infinite Maw Conflict

The Church launched coordinated strikes on the major capitals and destroyed the State of Midreach Lira at the onset of the Infinite Maw Conflict. Church forces hijacked relay signals across multiple regions, seized three mega relay spines from the Era of Absolute Expansion alongside dozens of smaller relays and outposts, and gained rapid support from Engineered ranks. Assault lines opened corridors, Tacticians synchronized maps, and Scouts surveyed routes for territorial shifts completed in days. The conflict lasted less than two years. The Church issued no ceasefire. They withdrew once their operational goals were complete. The seized territories remain under Maw control.

The Search

Zairen Vaul and Vohk remain the only people confirmed to have directly witnessed the Entity, known as Liminor or Liminora. It has not reappeared since that single event. For decades the Church has devoted resources to rediscovering or triggering its presence, but all efforts have failed. The ongoing search for resonance with collapse continues to define Maw doctrine and structure.

Vohk, years later, left the Maw's Crown to lead a private company of trackers in search of Zairen's unknown father. The mission was driven by personal loyalty. Its outcome is unrecorded.