Pelithine Divinity

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The Theoi and Their Mantles

• The nine Theoi were the shard-god Primarchs of Pelithos. By the end of the Time Storm, they had ceased to exist, and little is known about them or deeds.
  • Their names are not remembered, so they are known only by their titles.
  • They are generally believed to have sacrificed themselves to contain the chaos of the Time Storm and the attempted escape of the titans.
• Each Theos shattered into three parts, referred to as Mantles, each a combination of the god's divine focus and their soul.

The Builder

• God of Form. Traditionally represented as an older, muscular man with a crooked leg. He was the craftsman and architect of the gods. Serious, perfectionist, curious and creative, sometimes even a little playful in his works.
• Mantles: The Key, The Hammer, The Clay

The Mariner

• God of Life. Represented as a muscular, bearded man in his prime, boisterous and passionate, fond of revels. He had a fiery temper, but was abundantly generous and forgiving when his ire was spent. Always roaming the seas in his ship.
• The Mariner fought the titans long and hard during the Time Storm, and the wounds and struggle seem to have marked his Mantles. All three have an element of instability to them.
• Mantles: The Trident, The Cornucopia, The Caduceus

The Weaver

• Goddess of Destiny. Depicted as a striking, older woman with the bearing of a matriarch. Regal and farsighted, she guided her charges with a stern hand.
• She is said to have given Pelithos its best-loved game of strategy, Paizon.
• Mantles: The Loom, The Owl, The Pyxis

The Keeper

(death, man)

• Mantles: The Oboloi, The Sickle, The Amphora

The Sentinel

(day, woman)

• Mantles: The Aegis, The Wreath, The Beacon

The Reaver

• God of Night. Depicted as a handsome and athletic man, still a bit youthful, with a cruel smile and cold eyes.
• He and the Sentinel were eternal rivals and foes, though he was just as amused to see two armies of his own followers slaughtering each other.
• Mantles: The Helm, The Viper, The Spear

The Huntress

• Goddess of Summer. She roamed beneath the moon, a wild and peerless hunter, alluring and bloodthirsty. Games and contests of skill and prowess were held annually in her honor, as well as ritual hunts.
• Mantles: The Bow, The Horn, The Hound

The Dancer

• God of Pattern. Depicted as a youthful, androgynous figure, lithe and athletic. A trickster and hedonist, they were patron of artists, revelers, gamblers, and thieves, a connection that gave performers a disreputable cast and thieves a glamorous one.
• Mantles: The Scroll, The Lyre, The White Tree

The Witch

(winter, woman) - white witch vibe

• Mantles: The Jewel, The Wand, The Shroud

The Imitheoi

• An imitheos (demigod) is a mortal bonded to one of the Mantles and able to wield its power.
  • Imitheoi are also know as Bearers (e.g. Trident-Bearer, Bearer of the Hound, etc).
  • The means of bonding varies among the Mantles, often taking the form of specific rituals or contests. The Mantles contain not only the divine power, but fragments of the original gods' souls. They are not conscious, intelligent artifacts, but the personality, attitudes, goals, dislikes and interests of the god uniquely color each Mantle's nature.
  • Mantles move on upon the death of their bearer, seeking a new one according to their preference. Some Mantles may reject and leave a bearer who falls too far out of alignment with it, and some can also be usurped from a current bearer.
• Imitheoi are not as powerful as Primarchs.
  • Despite representing a third of the original divine focus, a Mantle comes closer to wielding a quarter of its power.
  • To wield the full power of a Mantle requires both personal practice by the bearer, but also their attunement with the "personality" and nature of the Mantle. Many bearers never truly master their Mantle.
• The struggles and machinations of the imitheoi some of the main movers of events on Pelithos, collectively called the Theagonas (contest of gods).

Thrones

• The Apparatus has nine "slots" for the expected nine gods, termed Thrones. Imitheoi can, by various metaphysical maneuverings, attach themselves to these slots, greatly amplifying their power.
  • These (up to) nine Imitheoi are referred to as Enthroned (e.g. the Aegis Enthroned, the Trident Enthroned).
  • If each Mantle holds a quarter of a Primarch's full power; the remaining quarter residing in the Throne, to be wielded by its occupant. Enthroned imitheoi have much greater capacity for large-scale and long-lasting works; the creation of new beings or objects of power, kingdom-spanning enchantments, etc.
• The Apparatus "wants" one imitheos Enthroned from each Domain, but it's possible to overcome this.
  • The Enthronement of imitheoi from the same domain is less stable, so they often come into conflict, trying to dethrone one another to secure their own position.
  • Side-effects in the Apparatus result from the lack of an Enthroned domain. The domain's power may become weak, surge out of control, or fluctuate erratically. The other imitheoi and servitors can work to counterbalance this, but it also pushes them to take sides in dethroning a surplus bearer.

Heraldry

• The power a Primarch has to invest in heralds and exarchs is more fungible for the imitheoi.
  • Some Mantles distribute this power according to their own designs, but many bearers can bestow greater or lesser amounts of power upon their followers, creating sacred bands or fellowships called synods.
  • Even when the Mantle permits the bearer to distribute its power to followers, the imitheos often has to learn the "divine engineering" necessary to bestow it as they intend, and the same rules that govern the Mantle successor and what it seeks in a bearer can color who is able to attune to its power, or gain its favor.

• An imitheoi sometimes inherits the synod of their predecessor, or its dies out soon after its creator, leaving them a fresh canvas to work on. Some synods persist apart from the current Mantle-Bearer, conveying their now-fixed pool of foci to new members. Some war with a new imitheos, who may want to redistribute power to his own loyalists, or the synod may feel one of their own should now bear the Mantle.
  • Like all heralds, divine foci bestowed cannot be reclaimed without the acquiescence or death of the bearer.

• Without reliable access to stable, widespread organizations of heralds, "folk heraldry" fills the gaps for ordinary Pelithines.
  • Many people seek local servitors for their aid, resulting in a wildly varying set of arrangements ranging from harmony to extortion to bizarre ritual demands.
  • "Performances" of a domain (festivals, feasts, contests, or other public ceremonies) also offer a crude means of amplifying the domain in the participants. A feast and orgy could boost Life, and a brutal series of contests could boost Night prior to a battle.

Servitors

• Given the cosmological disarray of Pelithos, and the unreliable attentions of the imithoi in addressing it, the Apparatus dispatches many, many servitors to the realm.
• These servitors often stay for much longer than in other realms, lingering long enough to develop independence and personality. This gives Pelithos a very animistic host of divine beings, great and small.
• Servitors, especially powerful ones, often do not quickly bow to the authority of imitheoi, especially weak or untested ones.
• Many powerful servitors have become patron "gods" of regions, natural features, cities, or organizations.

Temenoi

• A temenos is the Pelethine term for a Forgeheart, one of the regional loci of Form across the realm.
• From them, one can exercise power over a wider area and achieve deeper workings.
• Most temenoi have been claimed as the territory of servitors. Some are claimed instead by long-standing heraldic cults.
  • They may attract ordinary mortals seeking heraldic aid, becoming holy sites, or site of pilgrimage.
  • Imitheoi often seek them out when they need to push their power beyond its normal limits, and some establish a seat of power at a temenos.

The Mantles

Builder (Form)

The Key

• Appearance & Nature
  • A sceptre-like rod of truemetal, studded with geometric forms and truecrystal gems.
• Notable Powers
  • The Key channels and modulates the flow of fury energies, hurling lightning bolts, calling up storms, etc. It while it can summon, banish, or imprison realm-lords, it can't command them.
  • The bearer is said to be able to draw almost limitless Fury power, but this risks causing extensive environmental fury-corruption and the violent loss of the Key.

• Rules of Succession
  • The bearer's affinity with the Key weakens as the level of fury power around them rises (weather, furyborn, spells, etc). Unlike many Mantles, this doesn't weaken their power at all, but if affinity gets weak enough the Key can be physically seized and attunes to its new holder.
  • In truly drastic concentrations of fury power (such as drawing on the Key's full power, or if the bearer dies while channeling a great deal), the Key may explosively sever its bond (and also the nearby surroundings and bystanders) and be hurled away.
  • The bearer can always pass the Key to a chosen successor by simply drawing enough power to weaken their affinity, and handing it over.
  • The titancults have long sought to claim the Key, believing it is the key to opening the Vaults and perhaps even deintegrating the cosmos. Other imitheoi have gone out of their way to protect the Key and keep it from their hands.

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods
  • The foci granted by the Key don't permit normal Form heraldry, but can unleash and channel a degree of fury power. With training, the herald can effectively wield fury sorcery, or channel the power like a reaver. They don't have mutations (and are in fact quite resistant to fury corruption), but possess other advantages like a herald.
    • ??? maybe they are able to siphon up and decorrupt things of fury taint? Rip power out of fury beings, or calcify them into inert, safe integral stone?
  • The only major synod of the Key, the Keywardens, has run through many bearers since its inception during the First Titanomachia. They are charged with countering the titancults and containing the spread of fury corruption, and may invoke the Summons of the Key to requisition the aid of other imitheoi and their synods (this sometimes even works).

The Hammer

• Appearance & Nature
  • The Hammer can assume the form of any hammer from a tiny jeweler's mallet to a long-handled smith's striker to a sledgehammer. It always has a truemetal head and handle of dark wood.
  • The Hammer's affinity is with order and precision in craft, rather than creativity (more Apollonian than Dionysian).

• Notable Powers

• Rules of Succession
  • They Hammer is attracted to craftsmen who bring order and complexity out of disorder and formlessness, such works build affinity. Scale matters a great deal; it's favors temples, fortresses, cities, mines, aquaducts, etc over smaller works.
  • Affinity from such works is lost if the work falls into disrepair or ruin, or is intentionally destroyed. A usurper can destroy the works of a bearer to weaken them; the Hammer does not care what you have destroyed, only that you have made works that yet endure.

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

The Clay

• Appearance & Nature
  • An bare, stoneware urn, suspended by three truemetal chains linking together into one. Inside, the Clay itself slowly shifts in bands of pale color, purple, gold, ochre, red, with a sheen of iridescence. The urn is a little uncomfortably warm, as if the clay is molten. The quantity is bottomless.
  • The Clay is focuses on inspiration and creativity in craft, rather than purely skill (more Dionysian than Apollonian).

• Notable Powers
  • The clay can be used to craft objects and creatures. A quickly hurled glob will result in a crude and short-lived creation. The more time and skill is invested into a work, the more capable and lasting it will be. If properly fired, particularly in rare or magical flames, they can become permanent and invested with powerful magics.
  • Only integral creatures and plants can be created, although the parameters of flexible. Mortals can be created, but they are mute and soul-less, Telaric forms like plants and animals, but able to follow instructions, much like golems. Creatures do not possesses true Life; they cannot reproduce or heal, though they can be repaired. Slain creatures crumble back into clay.

• Rules of Succession
  • ???
  • known for chasing creative genius, a penchant for novelty, so it's kind of flaky, prone to run off to a new bearer

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

Mariner (Life)

The Trident

• Appearance & Nature
  • A three-pronged spear of truemetal, chased with bronze turned green with water and age. It's shaft is bleached and slightly gnarled, like driftwood, with grips bound in sharkskin.
  • It's power is focused on the command of rain storms and water.

• Notable Powers
  • The Trident gains power over a target's blood once it has shed some of it.

• Rules of Succession

• • When the bearer dies, the Trident spins up into the sky, wrapping itself in a torrential rainstorm (called the Mantlestorm). The storm races across the land until its force is spent, then falling to earth. Anyone can pick it up and claim it. Should it lie untouched for several days, its power will build back up an launch it up in a new storm, endlessly, until it is finally claimed.
  • Something is unstable within the Trident, and its affinity with its bearer weakens over time, usually slowly, but occasionally in bursts, especially if its power has been significantly exerted. If the bond breaks, it is swept up in the Mantlestorm as if they had died.
  • Slaying agents and destroying works of Autumn (servitors, undead, heralds, imitheoi, enchantments, magic items) rebuilds affinity in proportion to the strength of the target.

• Famous Bearers
  • ???: thrust the Trident into the a spire of desert stone, causing the Sacred Spring of Pyrgos to pour forth.

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

The Cornucopia

Appearance & Nature

• The yard-long spiraling horn of a great beast, chased and banded with truemetal.
• It's power is focused upon fertility, birth, and growth.
• The Cornucopia is one of the most widely revered of the imitheoi, carrying great influence among the common people.

Notable Powers

• The Cornucopia can pour forth fresh water, salt, grain, produce, fruits, seeds, herbs, and flowers without end.
• The bearer can call upon the telar to raise springs, gently shift the course of rivers, mold the landscape, and break stones down into mud and soil.
• A common minor boons created by the Cornucopia are a variety of magical seeds. These can swiftly grow into a walking tree-guardian, a wall of thorns, or potent alchemical and medicinal herbs.

Rules of Succession

• The bearer builds affinity by tending and attuning to the Soul Springs of the various telar across Pelithos. Their collective "consent" sustains her bond. If a Spring is neglected, it turns against her, but a bearer who has the support of most of them can endure some discontent.
• If enough cease to support her, or she dies, the Cornucopia moves on, seeking someone with a strong association with fertility (often a cultivator of bountiful lands, or a parent of many children).
• In times when free travel across Pelithos is not possible (the Fall, the Acrolonian Invasion), the Cornucopia often passes rapidly through many hands.
• Heralds also gain bond from tending the Soul Springs, and the bearer can usually pass the Cornucopia to one of them, should they wish.

Famous Bearers

Heraldry & Famous Synods

The Caduceus

• Appearance & Nature
  • A yard-long truemetal rod topped with wings. Twined along its length are living serpents with truemetal fangs named Pikria (bitterness) and Valsamo (balm).
  • The Caduceus is associated with the aspects of Spring relating to healing, renewal, and the development of the living body.

• Notable Powers
  • The Caduceus can guide and shape wood and flesh, mutating and transforming a living subject. The deeper the bearer's knowledge of the processes and substance of life, the greater the results they can achieve, including true-breeding alterations. There are a lot of crops and livestock breeds across Pelithos that were crafted by bearers, as well as some notorious products of mad natural philosophy.
  • The wings of the Caduceus can stir the air around them, sending a cleansing wind to disperse plague and miasma, flinging back enemies, or carrying the bearer aloft.
  • The serpents watch the world around them with keen senses and sharp minds, telepathically advising the bearer. Their bites ???

• Rules of Succession
  • This Mantle is somehow entangled with the titans from the Mariner's struggles against them. From time to time, the influence of a titan will manifest somewhere in Pelithos as a kind of malady, called the Nosos. As it grows, the bearer's affinity weakens, until the Mantle ultimately abandons them and can be claimed by anyone (although if the Nosos isn't soon addressed, once the honeymoon period ends, the Caduceus will move on once more).
    • The bearer can sense when the Nosos emerges, as their bond begins to weaken, and the Caduceus can help them find the outbreak. Then it is up to the bearer's power and medicinal skill to heal the affliction and banish the Nosos.
  • Sometimes the Nosos is limited in scope, perhaps even afflicting just one person. Sometimes it spreads like a plague, and might even result in monstrous fury corruption of its victims. Each manifestation is unique but bears the hallmarks of a specific titan.
  • Each titan gives rise to symptoms associated with its nature.
    • Braided Thought: amnesia, aphasia, multiple personalities
    • Burning Obsidian: fevers, outbursts of anger and violence
    • Creeping Willow: gooey plagues, gross mutations
    • Dreaming Meadow: narcolepsy leading to catatonia, strange dreams
    • Gilded Vale: obsessions, compulsive behaviors
    • Inexorable Stone: bone spurs, caustic tears, lost time, petrification
    • Iron Ascension: obsessions with purity, cleanliness, and loyalty, on personal and societal levels.
    • Lonely Hollow: anxiety, shortness of breath building to phobia to heart failure, seeping black sores and tears
    • Maelstrom Deep: sweats, pneumonia, kleptomania
    • Pale Maw: chills, lethargy, wasting, culminating in wendigo hungers
    • Radiant Heaven: luminous veins, incautious and childlike curiosity
    • Scorching Abandon: slow toxins, mania, spasms (speech, movement, dancing, laughing), intoxicant-seeking
    • Severed Horizon: steaming breath, disruption of spatial and temporal orientation, restless wanderlust
    • Shattered Empty: inexplicable wounds and stigmata
    • Starling Grove: flares of instinctual behavior, partial bestial transformations or full lycanthropy

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

Weaver (Destiny)

The Loom

• Appearance & Nature
  • In it's "travel form", the Loom shrinks to a truemetal distaff. When placed within a bounded space (room, cave, etc), it unfurls to fill it with a vast apparatus of truemetal and shimmering, prismatic strands. Numerous tapestry views slowly weave themselves forth, and the bigger the space, the more room there is for such vistas.

• Notable Powers
  • Every bearer of a divine focus from the Loom has an unseen thread linking them to it. The bearer can call them up on the Loom's vistas, showing their current situation and past (becoming less precise and more compressed and abstracted as it fades into more distant past).
  • The bearer or a herald of the Loom can step into these vistas, into living fabric dreamworlds. They can appear to the subject as a phantom of luminous threads and converse, or cast spells on them. They can "inhabit" the subject, their phantom appearing superimposed in the real world, and cast spells through them.
  • Physical cloth can be woven from the Loom by the bearer, encapsulating one or more vistas seen through it. This imbues the cloth and the garments, banners, etc made from it with subtle power shaped by the events (battles, scenes of court, orderly ceremony, etc) that helps the possessor walk that path.

• Rules of Succession
  • The Loom's succession is governed by the Prophecies of Calandra. Deciphering and ensuring fulfillment of a prophecy builds affinity with the Loom. Build enough, lay hands upon it, and you can usurp it.
  • As cruxes of prophecy pass by unrecoginized and unshaped, a bearer's affinity weakens. If the bearer dies, or their bond weakens enough, the Loom will seek a new bearer according to the enigmatic prophecies.
  • Thalestris has done her best to acquire or destroy all copies of the Prophecies of Calandra, and to obscure lore regarding them, yet she has never fully succeeded, and likely never can.

• Famous Bearers
  • Calandra: the first Loom-bearer; no one is sure where she came from. Some believe she was a fragment of the Weaver herself.
  • Queen Thalestris of Tapiseri

• Heraldry & Famous Synods
  • The Monitors of Tapiseri: the servants and enforcers of Thalestris' rule in Tapiseri. Her junior Monitors are dispersed throughout the kingdom, overseeing it. Her Loom is unfurled in a vast hall, where senior Monitors (and the imitheos herself) observe the doing of the juniors, stepping in to query or give orders, or providing magical aid when needed.

The Owl

• Appearance & Nature
  • A living bird with feathers of white and silver, and beak and talons of steel-rending truemetal.
  • The Owl is imbued with the Weaver's love of intricate strategy and tactics, both in games and war.
• Notable Powers
  • The Owl is farseeing and communicates with the imitheos mind-to-mind, sharing its wisdom. Its knowledge of tactics, strategy, warfare, and fortifications is particularly expansive, collecting everything its bearers (and the theos before them) has ever learned on the topic.
  • The bearer can become incorporeal and be carried as a spirit within the Owl.
  • The owl's senses are extremely keen, and the bearer can borrow them, or ride the mind of the Owl wherever it is, speaking from it as well.

• Rules of Succession
  • Mastering games of strategy and skill builds affinity (cheating and trusting excessively in luck are not looked on favorably), as does using wise tactics on the battlefield.
  • When the bearer is challenged by another who has favor in the Mantle's eyes, they must accept as soon as reasonably convenient. The victor gains considerable affinity from the loser (a favored bearer might survive a few loses before the Owl leaves her). The bearer cannot throw the game to a chosen successor; the Owl would simply leave them.
  • If the bearer dies, the Mantle gathers a collection of worthy contestants for an tournament of strategy at the next month of Destiny, with the victor claiming it.

• Famous Bearers
• Heraldry & Famous Synods

The Pyxis

• Appearance & Nature
  • A square truemetal box with an intricate puzzle-lock and a Foundertongue glyph on each side.
  • The Pyxis is still haphazardly coupled to the broken mechanisms of Destiny, such that opening it causes "the gears to grind", always with disastrous results, subtle or overt, called Dooms.

• Notable Powers
  • Solving one of the Pyxis' locks allows that side to open. Each side is coupled to a divine domain or axial pair of domains, and released a Doom tied to that domain.
    • day-night: social dooms, strife, groupthink, witch hunts, betrayal, schisms
    • summer-winter: weather dooms, wildfires, blizzards, gales, erruptions
    • spring-autumn: plagues, locust swarms, droughts, floods, etc
    • form: earthquakes, landslides, tidal waves, fury storms, fury upheavals
    • pattern: upheavals of Strange, troubled dreams, madness, financial or legal ruin
    • destiny: misfortune, murphy's law, pebble-that-starts-the-avalanche black swan events, becoming lost
  • A skillful bearer doesn't so much influence the doom that comes out as they intuit what will be unleashed and what course it will take, and simply waits until the parameters (mostly) align with their intent.

• • At times the Pyxis attempts to open itself, and the imitheos must choose whether to try to oppose it, guide it, or let it work its will.
  • The Mantle's power is weaked against a subject (mortal, servitor, or even a settlement or institution) that has successfully weathered, more or less intact, a Doom unleashed by this bearer. The greater the Doom and the more intact, the greater the weakening.

• Rules of Succession
  • When the bearer dies (often from his own misapplied Doom), the Pyxis seeks someone it would be amused to have as its bearer and presents itself to them. If they take up the Pyxis and open it, releasing their first Doom (and surviving), they become its bearer.
  • If the survivor of a Doom takes the Pyxis from its bearer, they may claim it without first having to open it.

• Famous Bearers
  • Some bearers of the Pyxis have reveled in the fear it instills, blackmailing nations for tribute and obedience, while others have sought to be guardians of what it contains, protecting the world against its power.
  • ???the current bearer is turning the box into a Die, to turn Destiny into Chance (carved runes on the faces of the box, the Mantle can grow and shrink in size)

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

Notable Powers Each lock can be opened independently to allow the box to hinge open in a different direction. The bearer must gradually decypher the puzzle box, learning to open each lock in different ways.

Opening each of the locks unleashes a different kind of disaster, termed a Doom. Although the mechanisms of Destiny are defunct, opening the Pyxis causes those dormant processes to convulse, disrupting the world. Opening the first lock sends forth physical disasters (earthquakes, storms, wildfires), the second lock holds social disasters (financial ruin, mistrust of authority, riots, mass hysteria), and the third lock holds vital disasters (famines, plagues, swarms of insects). Each of these locks has many combinations that unlock it, unleashing different forms of doom, giving the bearer at least some control over what he calls forth and what course it will take, though it is never precise.

The fourth lock has never been opened. The Calandran Prophecies say that if it is opened, it will release the Final Doom and end the world. Some think it would unseal the Vaults and free the titans, so many titan cultists have tried to claim this Mantle. Others have suggested that it will open the shell of the world, admitting Aeon and his demons. Or perhaps it will simply cause the Orrery to grind to a halt, bringing an end to Time.

Keeper (Death)

The Oboloi

• Appearance & Nature
  • A pair of truemetal coins with a dull sheen, seeming heavier than they should, stamped with the sign of the Lord of Entropy on one side and the asphodel flower on the reverse.
  • The Oboloi are associated with Erebus. The bearer is the lord of the underworld and the culminating mechanisms of death.

• Notable Powers
  • While the bearer lies inert, their spirit can project swiftly through the world. They can inhabit any corpse, and perhaps even possess the living, or manifest in ghostly, undead form. Many bearers keep preserved vessels scattered around so they can swiftly travel to distant locations.

• Rules of Succession
  • To become bearer, one need only place the coins upon their eyes. They falls lifeless, imperishable but inert.
  • Only an act of mortal volition can remove the coins, leading to the old bearer's death. To guard against this, bearers have traditionally built vast and secret tombs to house their bodies, filled with traps, guardians, and mazes. There is no other way to permanently slay the already dead bearer.
  • If the coins are abandoned after being removed from the old bearer, they will seek a new one according to unknown criteria.

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

The Sickle

• Appearance & Nature
  • Braided bands of truemetal form the handle of a chipped blade of obsidian-like truecrystal.
  • The Sickle's nature is attuned most closely to the Autumn processes of killing, dying, and entropy.

• Notable Powers
  • The bearer can cut herself, shedding blood that bears the touch of entropy, manifesting as a poison or corroding what it touches. A person ritually marked with that blood is under a geas; if they do not abide by the Sickle's demand, they slowly wither.

• Rules of Succession
  • There is only one bearer of the Sickle. When the Keeper died, two fragments of his soul adhered to the Mantle. These fragments are endlessly reborn as mortals, one becoming the bearer of the Sickle until she is slain by the other, who then claims the Mantle.
  • The killing is often not even intended; the world conspires against the current bearer when their other half is near. The slain half immediately passes into a newborn vessel, and the cycle continues. Some bearers struggle against their own succession (perhaps slaying their other half, who simply reincarnates again), while others submit and pass on the Sickle. If the current bearer is slain by something else, they will reincarnate, and the Sickle will find its way to one of the two halves.
  • The identity of the mortal half is never obvious. The soul can be born anywhere on Pelithos, to any race, and it has no special insight into its own identity. Some have believed misleading prophecies or omens, and perished attempting to claim the Sickle. There is no certainty to be had, save in success.

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

The Amphora

• Appearance & Nature
  • A graceful, twin-handled jug glazed in vivid reds, ochres, and blacks. The scenes, patterns, and words shift when no one is looking.
  • The Amphora is the Mantle of the Psychopomp, the gathering of the dead down into Erebus through the rivers.

• Notable Powers
  • The bearer can sometimes gain insight from its images, as they reflect the workings and state of the Apparatus and world.
  • The Amphora can produce a faintly luminous, wine-like liquid, like liquid starlight, called the Nectar of Memory. It is filled with the memories of the dead, and drinking it grants one access, if they can keep their focus and sift through the flood for what they seek. Drinking more increases both access and its perils. The bearer is best able to navigate the memories, but anyone can drink nectar if the bearer offers it.
    • Drinking too deeply and the mind can be overwhelmed by memories and identities other than your own (sometimes a singular individual comes to the fore, sometimes it is a gestalt of many identities). One can fight back against this with strength of will, but also by giving voice to the memories in song or poetry. Some who falter recover after a period of delirium, some go permanently mad.
  • At the bearer's command, the Amphora can also produce nectar that absorbs memories from the drinker, causing them to forget. This can erase just a few recent moments, or a specific event (if the bearer is skill with their power), or even cause complete amnesia.

• Rules of Succession
  • Each night of the month of Autumn, the bearer must drink a measure of the Nectar of Memory to sustain their bond.
  • Anyone present may challenge the bearer to a drinking contest. Whoever holds their nectar the best claims the Amphora. One can always forfeit and cease drinking, but those who go too far lose themselves during this sacred contest, becoming Maenads. These contests are sometimes quite public, as they are inevitably filled with elaborate epic poetry and song pulled from the memories of the fallen, as the contestants struggle to keep their sanity.

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods
  • The Maenads form an entourage for the bearer. They are powerful heralds, but flit madly through identities and moods. They heed the bearer's authority, but imperfectly and sometimes erratically. Sometimes a particularly powerful maenad will split off, perhaps taking some others in tow, doing their own thing.
  • The bearer can also make heralds in a controlled fashion, offering measures of drink and training the herald's will and poetic craft; unless this is done in a very flawed way or to a flawed candidate, there's little risk of becoming a maenad.

Sentinel (Day)

The Aegis

• Appearance & Nature
  • A truemetal shield emblazoned with a stylized eye. It adjusts to best suit its bearer's stature and style of battle.
  • It is focused upon the aspects of Day associated with protection, courage, and hope.

• Notable Powers
  • The eye is able to perceive deeply and pass its sight to the bearer.
  • The Aegis can burn with a clear light that blinds the wicked and saps their will and stamina.

• Rules of Succession
  • The bearer's affinity is strengthened by righteous deeds of valor and protection of the virtuous. It weakens, often dramatically, if the bearer disgraces themself by abandoning or exploiting their charges.
  • If the bearer is slain, or their bond becomes very weak, the Aegis presents itself to a mortal who shows courage by standing in defense of others against great odds. Often this may mean waiting with a fallen bearer for one of their followers to take it up and save the day. There are many popular songs about newly-blessed bearers who faced hopeless odds but carried the day.
  • The Mantle can also be passed voluntarily to a candidate it finds worthy.

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

The Wreath

• Appearance & Nature
  • A set of truemetal stems woven into a crown, from which living, golden laurel leaves sprout, never withering or fading.
  • The Wreath expresses Day's harmony and prosocial bonds. It is also the Mantle most closely related to the Sun.

• Notable Powers
  • The bearer is supernaturally charismatic, a natural leader with an aura of majesty about them (often manifesting as a literal nimbus of light), but the Wreath does not grant wisdom. The rule of the imitheos can be tumultuous, his subjects bound together by the cult of personality rather than law and common tradition.
  • The bearer can shed a halo of light, potentially visible for miles, and all within its light can hear his words.

• Rules of Succession
  • The bearer must always lead a group (merchant prince, king, first speaker, general, headmaster, etc) by the members' acclaim. The larger and more devoted the group is to the bearer, the stronger their bond.
  • If the group dissolves or repudiates the bearer as its leader, the Wreath moves on. Sometimes the Wreath will desert its bearer when their bond is shaky, but not broken, if it comes in contact with the strong candidate.
  • If the group chooses a wreath herald as their leader (formally or informally), the Wreath moves to them. The bearer can use this to anoint a chosen successor and pass the Mantle to them. Otherwise if the bearer dies or loses station, the Wreath moves on to find a candidate to its liking.

• Famous Bearers
  • Bardelys: in the Dawn Age, he worked closely with Lucidus of Acrolon to rekindle the Sun.

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

The Beacon

• Appearance & Nature
  • A lantern of truemetal with pure, heatless white brilliance inside. Numerous lenses, covers and apertures can shift, filtering and shaping the radiance cast.
  • The Beacon expresses Day's desire to pierce darkness, revealing and thwarting the secret machinations of Night.

• Notable Powers
  • The Beacon's light is unparalleled in its ability to strip away magical deceptions, illusions, and concealments.
  • The Beacon senses and guides its bearer toward hidden evil. The sense is not always incredibly precise, but it can pull the bearer by intuition alone into the orbit of schemes with even the deepest secrecy and most powerful wards to hide them.

• Rules of Succession
  • The bearer is often afflicted by a restless sense when evil is afoot. When one matter is dealt with, the Beacon tugs at them, pulling them toward the next and the next.
  • If a bearer cannot or will not continue to pursue evil, their affinity wanes and eventually the Mantle leaves them. Some bearers voluntarily give up the Mantle, too weary to endure the endless chase.
  • When unattached, it will often leap to someone struggling with a hidden evil, aiding them in overcoming it. Some of these bearers carry the Mantle on to other struggles, while others were just concerned with this particular matter, and the Mantle passes briefly through their hands and moves on.

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

Reaver (Night)

The Helm

• Appearance & Nature
  • A Greek helm made of Night-tarnished, battle-scarred (!) truemetal.
  • It expresses the aspects of Night relating to tyranny, dominion, fear, darkness, and the Moon.

• Notable Powers
  • The bearer's visage terrifies foes and makes subordinates tremble and obey. The imitheos is a powerful warrior alone, but reaches his pinnacle at the head of an army, driven by fear of failure and hunger to crush and conquer, while enemies quail in terror. The Helm does not deal in clever strategy or maneuvers, but crushes its foes with brutal force and disregard for life.

• Rules of Succession
  • A bearer must designate a "battle standard". This can hang in his throne room or be carried at the head of his army, but if it is taken from him by open force, his bond with the Helm begins to weaken, and the Helm can be taken from him by force as well.
  • If the bearer dies by less direct means, or is not claimed, it will seek out a suitably tyrant and present itself, or more often tantalize several candidates and let them murder each other to claim it.

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

The Viper

(treachery, discord, hate)

• Appearance & Nature
  • A thin, agile serpent with truecrystal eyes and truemetal fangs.
  • It often coils around the bearer's arm or hangs like a living necklace. While worn, it can glamour onlooker so appear as just a piece of jewelry.
  • It focuses on the Night aspects of treachery, strife, concealment, and deception.

• Notable Powers
  • The venom of the viper can be deadly, agonizingly lethal or soporifically subtle. It can also warp the mind, inflicting paranoia or making the victim interpret the behaviors around them in the worse possible light.
  • When the bearer betrays someone and they survive, they gain the Blood Right. When the bearer betrays and slays someone, their immediate kin (parents, siblings, children, and spouse) gain the Blood Right in their place.
  • The Viper's power is weaker against one with the Blood Right. The greater the betrayal, the weaker their power. Vipers must manage their risks, use catspaws so they do not personally inflict the betrayal, conceal the truth of their deeds, or evade those who might seek vengeance.

• Rules of Succession
  • To usurp the Viper, one must betray him. The betrayer may then seize the Viper before the bearer can avenge himself and restore his bond. Anyone with the Blood Right against the Viper may take it from the bearer by force or guile and claim it. If the bearer dies or the Viper is left unclaimed, it will seek out the next person to commit a great betrayal.

• Famous Bearers
  • The Viper tends to go through bearers rapidly; many never make much of a name or gain much mastery over the Mantle before their deeds (or the simple fact that they bear the Viper) catch up to them.

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

The Spear

• Appearance & Nature
  • A shaft of dark, polished wood tipped with a spearhead of gleaming truemetal, watered with ripples of darkness. It shifts shape and size at the bearer desire.
  • The Spear embodies Night's ruthless and merciless nature, though it is perhaps the least interested in active cruelty among the three. It makes no judgments on how its power is used. There have been both wicked and noble bearers over the years.

• Notable Powers

• Rules of Succession
  • The Mantle passes to a new bearer when the old one dies. If they were defeated in battle, the victor may claim the Spear. The Mantle imposes no rules; ambushes, hordes of lackeys, poisoned weapons are all acceptable, as long as the it is death by direct violence. The one who strikes the killing blow has the claim, but the right can be taken by their killed, even if they haven't claimed the Mantle yet. Massed attacks often turn into murderous melees until a final victor emerges.
  • If the bearer is slain by other means, the Spear draws together contestants for a tournament at the next month of Night, and is claimed by the last one standing.

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

Huntress (Summer)

The Bow

(speed, movement)

• Appearance & Nature
  • A bow of dark golden wood, traced with intricate patterns.
  • It expresses the nature of Summer concerned with motion and speed.

• Notable Powers
  • The bearer is possessed of superhuman agility and vigor, able to outrun the wind for miles without tiring, crossing water or running up walls with ease.
  • Upon taking up this Mantle, the bearer reverts to young adulthood, becoming ideal paragon of themselves.

• Rules of Succession

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

Rules of Succession One builds bond with the Mantle by testing their limits, performing feats or survival (living in marginal or deadly environments, making perilous journeys) and physical prowess (climbing mountains, swimming raging rivers). When the bearer is challenged by another who has favor in the Mantle's eyes, they must accept as soon as reasonably convenient. The victor claims the Bow and Quiver. The bearer cannot throw the game (the Mantle would become angry and simply leave). If the bearer dies, the Mantle gathers a collection of worthy contestants for an athletic tournament at the new month of Spring, with the victor claiming it.

The Horn

• Appearance & Nature
  • A hollow, curving ivory tusk, carved with scenes of the hunt and flame, bound in truemetal.
  • It expresses Summer's aspect of sound and passion, in particular colored by the Huntress' love of the hunt, the chase, and physical challenge.

• Notable Powers

• Rules of Succession

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

Notable Powers When it is blown, the imitheos can summon a pack of wolf-like moon-beasts. She can also call up a stag-like moon-beast as a steed, a tall but incredibly swift creature known as Dromeas. The Horn is able to infuse Night into beasts, plants, and mortals, guiding their mutation into Night-blooded monsters enslaved to the will of the Mantle.

Rules of Succession If the bearer sets out to hunt quarry and is eluded or gives up, their bond weakens. The Horn spawns moon-beasts, savage, Night-blooded monsters, often nearby but not always. The bearer can sense the number of such creatures out in the world, getting glimpses of them in dreams. While moon-beasts are at large, the bearer's bond decays gradually. Slaying one is a dangerous prospect as they range from dangerous to deadly, and relish leading their would-be hunters into misfortune in the wilds, then turning on them. Eating the heart of a moon-beast increases the hunter's bond with the Horn. If it is not the bearer, the bond is lost from them as well. If another can hunt and slay the bearer and eat their heart, they claim the Horn. If another hunter has surpassed the bearer's bond, the Horn calls to them, urging them to take it for themself. If the bearer dies by means other than this duel of hunters, a particularly powerful moon-beast arises in the next month of Night, and the Horn calls to worthy hunters. Whoever slays it and cuts the Horn from its body, claims it. As the month wears on, the beast weakens, becoming easier to kill, but competitors will also have time to arrive and pursue the hunt. If the month ends, the beast vanishes, only to appear, more ferocious than ever, the next year.

The Hound

• Appearance & Nature
  • A lean hunting hound with a coat the rippling colors of flame, truemetal teeth and claws, and eyes of truecrystal.
  • The Hound expresses Summer's aspects of flame and hunger.

• Notable Powers
  • The Hound can envelop itself in flame. From ambient flames it can conjure more burning hounds, creating an entire pack to lead. When their fuel is finally spent, they fall to ash.

(swift, hungry, and howls - heat and flame? hunger)

• Rules of Succession

???

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

Dancer (Pattern)

The Scroll

• Appearance & Nature
  • A scroll of pale vellum covered with Foundertongue glyphs in void-black ink, wound on rods of truemetal and housed in a case of dark wood bound in truemetal.
  • It manifests Pattern's aspects of language, communication, law, and exchange.

• Notable Powers
  • The bearer can teleport to places with a strong affinity for language and exchange, such as libraries and marketplaces.
  • The bearer can personally bear witness to an oath or contract, placing the power of the Scroll behind it. If it is broken, the oathbreaker will suffer subtle retribution.
  • The bearer can sense the location of anyone who speaks their name, and if skilled in wielding their power, can scry upon and converse with the person.
  • By scrutinizing the Foundertongue text of the Scroll, bearers are sometimes able to discern flashes of insight into Apparatus and its current state.

• Rules of Succession

• • ???

• • Speaking direct, knowing untruth to another person weakens the bearer's affinity, though subtle distortion and omission do not. Breaking a formal, freely-given promise or agreement also weakens the bond.

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

The Lyre

• Appearance & Nature
  • A traditional turtle-shell resonator with twisting animal horns forming the arms. A wooden crossbar connects them, strung with nine truemetal strings.
  • The Lyre expresses Patterns aspects of music, art, and story.

• Notable Powers

• Rules of Succession

???

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods
  • The Lyre can only distribute nine powerful foci, each with a fixed domain (music, dance, visual art, theater, games, "social" (ceremony, fashion, etiquette, hospitality, food), comedy, tragedy, history/non-fiction). Each of these nine can distribute more power to lesser heralds.

The White Tree

• Appearance & Nature
  • The original Mantle was called the Torc, an elegantly twisted curve of truemetal.
  • When the Dancer died, the Torc sank into the Fathoms of the Strange Sea, coming to rest in a Locus. It sank into the not-ground and from it grew the White Tree. Its pale, leafless branches are skeletal against the not-sky, except when they briefly burst into bloom with feathery flowers so white as to be faintly luminous. The roots of the White Tree spread out and thrust up from the ground a considerable distance from the trunk, weaving into a circular fence of roots taller than a man.
  • Within this enclosure is Oneiros, the garden of the White Tree, in which many strange things grow. Dreamers wafted by the currents of the Strange Sea come to hang in its branches, or enter through the root arches in its wall to wander the garden.

• Notable Powers
  • When the White Tree took root, dark birds, the koraki, flew out of the Strange Sea to roost in its branches. They act as servants of the Dreamer and are sometimes sent to serve his supplicants.
  • The bearer is bound to the White Tree, and they reach the outer world through visions, sendings, and minions.

• Rules of Succession
  • The fragment of the Dancer that was bound to the Torc became the vestige of the Locus of the White Tree, woven into a throne of roots at its base. The arches of the root wall around Oneiros are called the Gates of Reverie, save a single one, which is the Gate of Thorns. A dreamer who finds gate and passes through it unscathed may join with the White Tree, becoming the latest identity worn by the collective gestalt-being called the Dreamer.

• Famous Bearers
  • All bearers are the one bearer, the Dreamer. Each new addition adds to and shifts its surface nature, but no part is lost or removed.

• Heraldry & Famous Synods

Witch (Winter)

• Rules of Succession
  • The Mantles of the Witch remain linked in a unique manner, which governs their collective succession and creates the triumvirate known as the Maiden, Mother, and Crone.
  • Instead of dying like the rest of the Theoi, the being who had been the Witch became mortal and the initial bearer of the Wand. The Jewel and Shroud had no bearers, and seemingly could not be claimed.
  • The Witch discovered that only one of her daughters could claim the Jewel.
    • It's unclear if a male child could claim the Jewel, but it has never been known to have happened.
  • Becoming a mother herself set the stage for a Jewel-bearing daughter to usurp her Mother, claiming the Wand and passing the Jewel to her offspring, the new Maiden. The displaced mother became the Crone, bearer of the Shroud. The former Crone passed on into death.

The Jewel

(greed)

• Appearance & Nature
• Notable Powers
• Famous Bearers
• Heraldry & Famous Synods
  • The Jewel can only grant foci to those with some blood connection to any bearer of the Witch's Mantles, past or present. Descendants of the current Wand (thus siblings or nieces/nephews of the current Jewel) wield power with the greatest facility, thus acting as the most effective agents, but having a Jewel focus make it easier for them to usurp the Jewel itself.

Appearance: a jewel of utter blackness set in a mail circlet of truemetal, worn upon the forehead. Duty (Night): troubleshooter of Night, spreading pain, fear, and hate where there is not enough. Notable Powers It hurts to bear the Eye; sometimes a dully, sometimes acutely, sometimes physical, sometimes emotional. The bearer inevitably turns to vices and deviations to numb it or vent their personal torments on others. Rules of Succession The bearer of the Eye is known as the Maiden, part of the Triune, the bearers whose Mantles derive from the Witch. Any female, biological descendant (daughter, grand-daughter, etc) of the bearer of the Wand can claim the Eye by donning it when it has no bearer. No one is sure if a male child could claim the Eye, but so far none has. Some daughters took up the Eye willingly (or even killed their sister for it), while others were duped or forced into it by their mother, the Wand. All come to regret it and seek escape. It can only be laid down in death or by seizing the Wand. Some daughters commit suicide, but more seek revenge upon the parent who led them to the Eye in the first place.

Appearance: a fist-sized jewel of flawless perfection and uncountable, mesmerizing facets. It appears to contains great, luminous depths within. Duty (Winter): overseer of the Iceheart. Notable Powers The Jewel excels in conjuring and shaping ice. It can build powerful prisons and wards, and seal things into timeless stasis. Rules of Succession The Jewel gradually siphons away its bearer's emotions. If not checked, they will eventually become an empty husk, and the Jewel will pass to the next being to willingly claim it. Bearers instinctively fall into one or more obsessions to fill the hole within them. Some are misers, collecting an hoarding wealth, art, particular forms of craftsmanship, lore, etc. Others are gluttons for food and/or intoxicants, seeking ever newer, stranger, and more particular things to consume. Others pursue living beauty, cultivating harems, menageries, and/or gardens in which to recline. They are loathe to give away any of what they possess, but can do it if the need is strong, or the duration temporary. The more they lose, the greater the blow; a bearer whose collection is stolen or destroyed is unlikely to recover from the crushing misery, and will soon fall prey to the Jewel.

The Wand

(ice, cold; can't fully inherit until you have a daughter of your own)

• Appearance & Nature
• Notable Powers
• Famous Bearers
• Heraldry & Famous Synods

Appearance: a cubit-length of tapering truemetal, engraved with Supernal sigils and spiraling, mathematically-significant patterns. Duty (Pattern): troubleshooter of the Pattern. Since the Fall, with the Lenses shattered, the bearer has no duties. Notable Powers When the Lenses shattered in the Fall, the bearer of the Wand was Crino, a powerful demon-taught shadow sorceress. She slew her mentors and forged a Shadow Lens from their essence, installing it in a hidden temenos of Pattern, guarded by innumerable guardians, wards, and trap. Using the Wand's patterning ability, the bearer can create semi-real conjurations of shadow, rather than mere illusions. Rules of Succession The bearer of the Wand is known as the Mother, part of the Triune, the bearers whose Mantles derive from the Witch. When the current bearer of the Wand is dead, the bearer of the Eye can set the Eye side and claim the Wand. The spirit of the Wand's former bearer, held within the Wand until freed by a new claimant, is reincarnated to bear the Shroud. The most likely death a bearer is likely to find is one meted out by her own Daughter, seeking revenge and escape from the burden of the Eye. Despite the often contentious dynamic between the three members of the Triune, the Mother tends to get her way, swaying the Maiden and Crone to do her bidding, although not without resistance. She is the only one clear of mind: the Maiden suffered under the Eye or under the vices she uses to distract herself, and the Crone is hobbled by apathy.

The Shroud

(stillness, heat death, grief, sorrow, regret, the wisdom and insight of regret)

• Appearance & Nature
  • A long, voluminous burial shroud of tattered, grey cloth, shot through with dully glinting threads of truemetal. Usually worn draped like a cloak, toga, or shawl.
  • It expresses Winter's aspects of sorrow and regret, often in the form of mercilessly clear insight.

• Notable Powers
  • The Crone is even more invulnerable than most imitheoi, perhaps as much (or more) than a true primarch.

• Famous Bearers

• Heraldry & Famous Synods
  • The heralds of the Shroud are all oracles and historians, tapping into the deep, dark well of the Crone's memory. Most feel the weight of time and regret, and have little agency themselves (though there are exceptions). They are created at the Wand's behest for petitioners who desire an oracle be made to serve them, created from a subject who must be at least marginally willing, but seldom is more than that.

Rules of Succession The bearer of the Shroud is known as the Crone, part of the Triune, the bearers whose Mantles derive from the Witch. The only way to "claim" the Shroud is for the bearer of the Wand to die, and a new claimant take it up. The spirit of the former Wand-bearer is reincarnated and becomes bearer of the Shroud. They are reborn in a state of advanced age (even ageless beings, like fey), though their faculties remain strong.

The bearer feels the cold, grey weight of age upon them, and feels little motivation to do much, usually just a dull malice toward the daughter who displaced her from the Wand into this state of ennui. She may conspire with the Maiden at times out of sympathy for her pain and to gain revenge on the Mother.

No Crone has ever been slain, so no one is sure what would happen.

When displaced, the former bearer returns to mortality, dying soon after of extreme age, though finally free of the chill of purposelessness of the Mantle.