His Imminence

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His Imminence looked like a blurred image of a man, just out of focus unless he was at the edge of your vision.

Unlike most surreal forms of Fey Gods, The Proximity was difficult to notice.

Overview

Congar (Feyspeak \ˈkoʊngər\ for close at hand), His Imminence, was the Fey Goddess of the The Displaced and the ruler of The Nigh Court, one of the Shattered Courts of Arcadia. His Court explored the Strange Essence of Relation, seeking meaning through proximity without arrival, the state of being near or impending, but never present. His Court’s obsession with anticipation manifested in rituals of waiting, almost-meetings, and delay.

Among mortal scholars, His Imminence is poorly understood and often conflated with later Courts that inherited fragments of his ideas. Most surviving knowledge comes from Strange explorers who encountered Dishligh phenomena, beings and places that could never be quite focused upon, remembered clearly, or reached fully.

The Nigh Court was dissolved during The War of Erasure, its philosophical foundation unraveled through Denial. Exploration of Relation was taken up by the Midnight Courts of The Greater Court and The Half Court.

History

Origin

Little is known of Congar before his ascension. He is known to have been a Sidhe since the days of the Ancient Courts, having participated in each of the three Ancient Courts over centuries. But his life before Arcadia is nothing more than myth and legend: a traveler and a watcher at the thresholds, someone who lingered at gates, harbors, and crossroads. His fascination with these places between naturally drew him to The Strange Sea, the ultimate liminal space. And from there, Arcadia called to him in his dreams.

Ascension

Congar’s ascension occurred c. NIR 820, when he demonstrated that proximity alone could stabilize Strange phenomena. He created regions of Arcadia that only existed when approached but vanished upon arrival, and beings who could be sensed clearly only when not directly observed.

Fey drawn to this abstract philosophy gathered around him and gradually transformed into the Dishligh, whose displaced, blurred presence embodied the Court’s beliefs. Thus was formed The Nigh Court, one of the seven Shattered Courts.

War of Erasure

During The War of Erasure, the Nigh Court was the second targets of Denial. Its philosophy, reliant on unresolved states, proved vulnerable to arguments that negated the value of almost, as in relative terms any value of almost was indistinguishable from another, when viewed at the right scale. As their meaning collapsed, the Dishligh lost coherence, and the Court’s conceptual ground dissolved.

His Imminence was stripped of his Strange Power during this phase of the War. Unlike some fallen Fey Gods. He spent several hundred years lingering on before finally being reborn in a new dream life.

Description

In depictions of His anthropomorphic form, Congar appears as a tall, willowy elven man with elongated limbs and narrow shoulders, his proportions subtly stretched in ways that feel perpetually unfinished. His features are handsome but indistinct, as though the viewer can never quite agree with themselves about what they have seen. His long hair is often described as dark or silver depending on the account, and his eyes are said to reflect light without ever quite catching it. A commonly reported perceptual oddity, Congar was never more in focus than when at the edge of the viewer's vision.

His surreal form was known as The Proximity, and was less a being and more a localized distortion of space. He was only seen as a deviation of light in a scene, very hard to see except when he was moving. There are no known depictions of this form, it is only described through stories.

Personality

Congar was tense, volatile, and unsettlingly intense. Those who encountered him described the constant impression that he was on the verge of doing something: speaking, striking, departing, revealing, but never quite did. This perpetual restraint manifested as agitation rather than calm.

He was prone to sudden shifts in mood: quiet patience snapping into sharp irritation, stillness giving way to abrupt movement. Conversations with him were often cut short, not by silence, but by interruption. He would turn away mid-sentence, change direction without explanation, or fixate on something just out of reach. Witnesses reported feeling nervous in his presence, as though they themselves were being held in a state of suspended expectation.

Congar resented conclusions. He disliked certainty, arrival, and closure, reacting to them with visible discomfort or anger. Yet he was equally incapable of resolution, trapped by his own philosophy. This internal contradiction made him dangerous, not through cruelty, but through psychological pressure. Prolonged exposure to him caused anxiety, restlessness, and obsessive anticipation in others.

Fey scholars believe his temperament was not incidental, but an inevitable consequence of his worldview. To exist forever almost at a destination is to live in a state of permanent frustration. Congar embodied this condition fully, becoming a god whose nearness to action was indistinguishable from menace.

Strange Philosophy

You can only ever almost find meaning, and when you get close enough, you have it.

—Nigh Court adage

The Nigh Court taught that meaning arises from proximity without arrival. To them, spatial completion destroys significance; once something is reached, it loses its power. True meaning exists only in the space just before resolution, the moment when anticipation is sharpest and possibility remains alive.

They believed that desire, fear, hope, and longing were all most meaningful before they were answered. Arrival was not triumph but failure: the collapse of tension into certainty. Thus, the Nigh Court cultivated states of eternal imminence, teaching that one should live forever on the threshold, never crossing fully into satisfaction, completion, or clarity.

• Meaning exists in nearness, not possession
• Arrival annihilates significance
• Fulfillment is a kind of death
• The most powerful state is “almost”
• Anticipation is sacred; resolution is profane
• To promise is greater than to deliver
• To approach is greater than to touch
• Obsession with waiting, thresholds, and delays
• Obsession with invitations never fully extended
• Obsession with doors, harbors, dusk, borders, and pauses in speech

The Nigh Court attracted Fey and mortals who lived between states: lovers afraid to confess, rulers who delayed decisions, pilgrims who feared their destination, and thinkers who preferred questions to answers. It appealed strongly to those who had been disappointed by fulfillment and learned that hope itself was sweeter than its outcome. Many Orisons of the Nigh Court became addicted to suspense, unable to act decisively without feeling that meaning would be lost the moment they did.

Though this Court was dissolved in The War of Erasure, one of its strongest adherence would become The Promised King, carrying many of these spatial philosophical ideas and applying them to time, forming The Court of Tomorrow after the War.

Orisons

• Ireval at the Last Gate: Elf, Man, Pelithos, Shattered Age, Dead. A watchman who stood vigil at a mountain pass for forty years after the city it protected was destroyed. He never admitted the city was gone, and travelers swore the gate still felt guarded long after his death.
• Sela of the Empty Harbor: Human, Woman, Pelithos, Shattered Age, Dead. A dockwarden who recorded every arrival and departure at a port that was slowly swallowed by the sea. When the harbor finally vanished, her ledgers were found floating intact, still awaiting the next ship.