Pelithine Fury

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The Titanomachies

The Titans' Dream

• Within the timestorm, there is a moment / alternate timeline where the titans have broken free and are engulfing the shard of Pelithos
• the Theoi died preventing this from ever existing, a truncated alternate timeline.
• The Weaver led the effort, using broken Destiny to choose another future
• That alternate past still exist as an endless, never-progressing moment called the Titan's Dream.

The First Titanomachia

• the cults obtained the Key (one of their number was bearer); if Enthroned, they might have triumphed, and they were working to make that happen, but failed.
• the starfall
• the Mandragora actually helped the imitheoi and opposed the titancults, since the Old Dragon doesn't want the titans freed
  • the Mandragora used their ability to associate with the cults to infiltrate and assassinate the Key; a big, crucial deal that has cemented their quasi-ally status with the imitheoi (a lot of old debt, still being paid back)
• the new key-bearer issued the summons; this was the turning of the tide

The Second Titanomachia

• in the fall

Freeing the Titans

• opening the way from the Titans' Dream
  • perhaps accessing it through the Dreamer, the Strange, particularly the Obyrith
  • perhaps through broken Destiny power (the Loom, the Pyxis (the Final Doom!), the Owl, or again, the Obyrith)
    • The Final Doom of the Pyxis might be the release of the titans
  • esoterically minded cultists were very interested to learn of the gods of Vashad being pulled forward to the present
  • some may have had limited success, accessing the Dream through their own dreams / strange rituals, gaining knowledge, insights, or prophecies, pulling emissaries or objects of power from the dream into the world
• using the Key to draw through enough power to break them out
• pulling down more stars, breaking the divine machinery to increase leakage

Opposition to Fury

• White Tree, Scroll, and Lyre vs Oneiros corruption (strange and fury)
• Key and Keywardens, Cornucopia vs forgeheart corruption
  • ???Clay, ???Hammer
• Oboloi and Amphora most directly oppose corruption of the dead (oboloi within Erebus, Amphora both on the surface and in Erebus)
• Beacon focuses on rooting out titancults and lurking perils
• Some Spears and Horns have made a point of hunting fury creatures for the challenge.

Rivalry among Fury

• points of clashing between Vaultlands
  • maelstrom and golden wastes
  • golden wastes and kyterian ori
  • maelstrom and gilded vale?
  • starling grove and creeping willow in the aphxanamos
  • Mandragora vs everyone

The Vaultlands

Helios (The Sun)

• radiant heaven leaks from the sun. Originates during the Timestorm.
  • she goes free during the Fall, and the Sun stops emitting fury
• sometimes visible around the sun is a prismatic corona
  • this can lead to weird weather: lingering auroras that illuminate even into the night sky, showers of sun-hail stones, unusual behavior among birds, unusual flares of insight and through above people, windy weather and even gales.

Selene (The Moon)

• lonely hollow leaks from the moon. Originates during the Timestorm.
• a shallow ocean of the titan's black tar has spread across the surface of the Moon, creating ragged-edged phases.
  • when the moon is full, Integral Night dominates (social fear, fear of what humans may do, etc). Under the new moon, primal fear dominates (fear of things: spiders, drowning, the dark, sickness, etc).
• sometimes, under the new moon, slicks of moon-tar can manifest on the earth.

Opagos

• pale maw leaks from the iceheart. Originates during the Timestorm.
• glacier (cold/water/stone)
• it melts at the southern edge, watering the Riverlands
  • most of the water is mundane. The monitors of Tapiseri and the Keywardens patrol the border to deal with occasional stray monsters and blood-flows contaminating the water.
• it calves off in the sea along the north coast, creating the ice-laided waters of the Frozen Expanse with their frigid mists
  • most of the ice is mundane, but occasional "chunky bits" come off, containing blood, bone, or emaciated monstrosities frozen within.

Kyterios

• Everburning Obsidian leaks from the fireheart. Originates during the Timestorm.
• volcano/desert/badland (stone/heat/reason)
• During their height as a titancult, the Dactyloi carved many hidden seclusiums and forge-hermitages for them to contemplate the titan, hone their power, and craft items of power. Some (especially the new cult among the Dactyloi in the Dawn Age) seek them for their treasure vaults or sorcerous lore, while some occasionally disgorge rogue fury-constructs or fiery monsters. Lots of booby-traps and wards to keep out the unwanted.

The Aphxanamos

• Starling Grove & Creeping Willow, mixed fractiously together, leak from the Rainheart. Originates during the Timestorm.
• jungle (flesh/wood/life/instinct)
• supercharged cycles of growth and decay / consumption
• During the first titanomachia, its power and territory surged considerably.
• The cults of the two titans fight an ongoing Contest Eternal, capturing cultists and turning them to their own side, claiming turf back and forth. trolls and treants duke it out.
• scent is an ever-present, significant force: fragrances and fumes, stench, intoxication, miasma, luring aromas; plants use it as lure/weapon/defense, animals exude it and excel in tracking it, the ground seeps it; can get a sense of whose turf you're on (if it fades down, you're in integral turf)

Erebus

• Braided Thought seeps into the rivers of the underworld. Originates during the Timestorm.
• the river-titan's waters of memory mingle in the underworld rivers: lethe, mnemosyne, etc. Some wake spirits that should drift away to their old memories, rousing them to fury-corrupted existence. Some wake to memories from the titan rather than their own, long lost heroes or realm-lords.

The Stygian Wells

• During the starfall, a star of Iron Ascension broke into 3 pieces, punching shafts down into Erebus.
  • the Great Crypt of Taphos is built in one of these wells, guard it and contain its corruption.
• the Iron Ascension-touched dead within the wells are wise in the ways of Truth and Judgement
  • they can be called upon as oracles, to speak the truth of the world, or uncover lies or deception, called Antekhoi (echoes) when they act in this role. they anoint their eyes and mouths and foreheads with the titan's oil
  • they can be called upon to avenge and punish deeds, called Timoroi (punishers) when they act in this role; hook-wielding spectres carried aloft in swarms of bats
• the titan has no cult at the moment, but the Mandragora seeks to reunite the fragments for its own ends. The timoroi implacably oppose them.

Avigia

• A single starfall created it during the first titanomachia.
• Nightsinger / Dreaming Meadow (amber and mist, dreams, sleep)
• weird moor, with strange dreaming mists, sound of bells, dew-dappled, stags in the mist
• people venture in to gather its potent dew and precious amber
• it can draw people in, trap them in slumber for years or longer

The Maelstrom

• A single starfall created it during the first titanomachia.
• whirlpool (dark/water)
• Maelstrom Deep
  • insatiable greed, Davy Jones' Locker vibe

The Labyrinth (Phidion Ori)

• Created by corrupting forgehearts during the first titanomachia.
• Lonely Hollow
• the titan's cult (the sisters of stone) secretly gathered its moon-tar for ages, storing it in the caverns below the Phidion Ori. During the Titanomachia, they unleashed it, corrupting many forgehearts beneath the earth, creating the vaultland known as the Labyrinth.
• as the caverns swelled below the earth, they forced the mountain dramatically higher

Synnephion Ori

• the Windfury titancult was active in these peaks, concentrating and gathering Radiant Heaven's solar corruption (sun hail, etc) and corrupting the forgehearts, much as Lonely Hollow's cult gathered its moon-tar and created the Labyrinth.
• In the Fall, Radient Heaven went free, and her power ceased to leak from the Sun (which was also then darkened). The corruption of the peaks gradually dwindled, and the cult was much reduced in the Second Titanomachia without its patron to draw on, but some features remain.
  • The snows of the peaks glitter like prisms and sweep out in scintillating plumes in the wind. These prismatic frost-clouds can fills the sky or sweep down canyons, plunging them into fantastical twilight.
  • Earth- and ice-motes float among the peaks. The peaks seem drawn up, taller and slenderer than ordinary mountains.
  • The winds can sometimes be strong, capricious, playful, or mischievous.

Golden Waste

• Originally an expanse of woodland and grasslands, it was the site of an incursion by the obyrith maters Soma, the Hand Dripping Blood. She was banished in an epic battle with Pallas, the Aegis. The region was left corrupted by Strange, with a handful of neogi princes making lairs in the dream-haunted woods.
• During the First Titanomachia, the cult of Scorching Abandon used the permeability between Oneiros and the material world to tap into fury-corrupted Sleep-Roads and draw their power into the world. They spread this corruption to local forgehearts, and the land was transformed into the Golden Wastes.
• In the Second Titanomachia, it spread to the lower slopes of the Kyterion Ori, where desert and volcano Vaultlands mingle.

Kekrymmenos

• Created by a single starfall in the Boreal Archipelago during the first titanomachia
• Gilded Vale
• submarine canyons wind through the seas between the isles, radiating out from a hidden, wandering isle, Kekrymmenos, that is a maze of water channels between towering sea-mesas.
• its influence reaches out like tentacles, manifesting on isles; sea serpents sporting in the waves, strange flowers blooming, isolated marble pagodas, winds whispering cryptic secrets, and the presence of its intoxicating honey, purveyed as a drug.

Titancults

• roped in lots of lycans / ferals
  • many early lycans were driven out of civilized lands, sometimes taking refugee in vaultlands, becoming corrupted. some 2nd gen ferals turned to fury as a source of power and became ensnared with it, forming titancults.
• the realm of thought / dream / pattern is also leaking; a handful of fury roads
  • titancults use dream to touch fury, fury corruption can come from within dream

Sisters of Stone

• gorgons (fury-corrupted pythians) that turn victims to crystal
• cult of Lonely Hollow, mostly operating within the Labyrinth and Phidion Ori.

Dogs of Winter

• cult of Pale Maw, roaming the Opagos and sailing the waters of the Frozen Expanse (often launching from bases carved into icebergs).
• founded from kynes who fed upon the gore and flesh of Pale Maw, and their vulture familiars who also devour the flesh
• they capture and starve victims, offering them only the Flesh to eat. Those who do are inducted into the cult; those who refuse are devoured.

The Thousand Teeth

• dwarves (dactyloi) settled in the Kyterian Ori, their leaders falling under the sway of Everburning Obsidian
  • they were celebrated smiths and alchemists (titan's quicksilver)
  • the cult is divided into the Black Chamber (obsidian: battle) and Silver Chamber (quicksilver: craft, planning, trickery), both in service to conquest and the spread of the cult's power
• the cult usurped rulership of the dactyloi nation prior to the first titanomachia and was extremely warlike and acquisitive. They ruled from their seat of power, known as the Molten Court.
• the cult's power was broken in the First Titanomachia, and the freed Dactyloi sued for peace. The imitheoi required the creation of the Akropolis atop Mount Kyterios as their penance, which they performed.
• The dactyloi slumbered along with the other dwarves, reemerging in the Dawn Age.
  • A splinter group of fury-sorcerers espouses returning to their fury-fueled glory days. Bent on recreating the old cult, they fled to the isle of Napahu, which they have begun fury-terraforming (their new Molten Court).
• The rest of the dactyoloi remain on the side of the Integrum, though spontaneous fury-wielders are common among their folk, and accepted as long as they commit to using their power for the community and eschew the titans.

The Mandragora

• led by the Old Dragon, who lairs within the Aphxanamos. It leads a cabal of fury-sorcerers, carefully trained to avoid full corruption into the service of any titan.
• They seek to exploit the forces of Creeping Willow and Starling Grove for their own gain, sometimes raiding, sometimes allying with.
• The Old Dragon harbors secret dreams of regaining enough power, stolen from the other titans, to return to titan-hood itself.
• the sorcerers and reavers of the Mandragora range out into other lands, both other vaultlands to exploit other sources of fury, and to parley with rulers, merchants, and thieves. Because they don't serve a titan, they tend to attract less scrutiny from the imitheoi, heralds, and servitors (and might even aid them against other titancults, able to go into corrupted lands or offer insights).
• The Old Dragon seeks to become a titan again, the only free one, able to devour the rest at its leisure.
• It is experimenting with fury power. Among its efforts, it exploits the mad fertility of the Aphxanamos to grow "mandrake children" who will grow into fury sorcerers with new or useful powers.

The Windfuries

• originally a cult of Radiant Heaven based in the Synnephion Ori. Large numbers of harpies.
• During the Second Titanomachia, when Radiant Heaven went free, the cult lost access to its patron and was largely destroyed by the forces of the imitheoi.
• With most of the fully corrupted leaders gone, the surviving fury-sorcerers transitioned into a more independent, mercenary coven. The few fully-corrupted elders remaining were angered by this disloyalty and the cult fled their ire out of the Synnephion Ori.
• The surviving elders are very powerful; ageless as all fey, the linger on, but aimless and bitter. In the centuries of the dark ages, even they have mostly lost hope of rekindling Radiant Heaven's power on Pelithos, and pursue their own personal projects. The act a lot like hags, dangerous beings you might seek out for lore, magical aid, or fury-sorcerous training.

Mnēmeîon (The Remembrance)

• (mneh-may-on)
• cult of Braided Thought
• some dead are fully corrupted to the titan, becoming its chief servants, the Vathyteroi ("deepest")
  • their ghostly forms are flowing silt and water, schools of luminous fish accompany and serve them
• some dead who waken on their journey seek the aid of the titan to resist death's pull, serving it but not being subsumed. these are the iketes ("supplicants", sing 'iketis'). They may claim domains, collectively the Satrapies of the True River.
• there are also living mortals who serve the cult, for power, to aid their dead ancestors, etc. these are the psaraki ("minnows"). They tend to operate in isolated cells or pocket cults with no direct connection, guided by memories sent from the dead.

The Straywater Cabal

• "cult" of Gilded Vale, mercenary sorcerers out for their own ends
• seafarers, pirates, spies, brokers of information and stolen things, purveyors of the titan's honey and lotus flowers
• wear overt masks when acting openly and when meeting one another; often have one or more secret identities to operate under
• sail the hidden, winding paths above the vaultlands sunken canyons
• for obscure reasons, junior members are called "candles", senior members are "dukes" and "duchesses"

The Saltbound

• The bloodthirsty cult of Maelstrom Deep.
• It is mostly tritons, dwelling the seas beneath the Maelstrom vaultsea. They pillage and extort tribute and sacrifices from seafarers and coastal towns.
• They are served in secret by vassal pirates and shoredwellers, choosing those who demonstrate pleasingly all-encompassing greed, paid for their service in pearls and plundered gold, dragging off those who fail or displease them.
• Fury-mutated octopoi and crabs serve them.

The Ceaseless Hunt / The Leukrotta

• cult of Starling Grove, operating from within the Aphxanamos
• chiefly concerned with the Contest Eternal waged against Creeping Willow's cult in the vaultjungle, but they range out into Potamia at times for fresh prey or "converts".
• Cannibal banquets and ceremonial hunts. A kind of barbaric, elvish splendor.
• They seek to always augment and improve their beast forms (leukrotta), chiefly rooted in a shape with feline and/or plant features, to become the ultimate hunters / predators, but also for artistic expression of the glory of the hunt and the hunter, with majestic beast features and intoxicating fragrance. They tattoo themselves extensively in red and black inks.
• a weird mix of savagery and elegance; elaborate tattoos, intoxicating fragrances, elegant beast forms, bloody slaughter and cannibalism.
• demand tribute in silver coin

The Cauldron

• cult of Creeping Willow in the Aphxanamos
• fungal infestation
• toads, frogs
• bile and fume alchemy, towering, blobby clay alembic stacks
• clay jars, alchemy and pottery, clay domiciles
• Often shrouded in leather and frog-skin smocks, wearing lumpish gourd-masks
• melting down flesh and mulch in pots to brew swamp-homunculi servants from
• strangling kudzu vines

???The Chained Dream??? the Swarming Mirage???

• scorching abandon's cult in the Golden Waste
• venom-crazed dervish-berserkers in chitin armor, with mantis blades
• stealthy poison-dart shooting dune stalkers, cloaked in mirage
• hedonistic revelers, drunk on venom and cactus-juice, dancing in empty, illusory palaces of sand
• mad mystics crawling with scorpions, tripping out on venom, walking the fury road in dream
• secret song-lines (song-chains?) woven across the desert
• poison-spring oases wrapped in cacti, hidden natural fortresses