Hi. It's OneHope01 again.
Not long after I set out, driven by the magick-born intimacy that came from my use of the ancient spell known as the Charge of the First Ancestor, to find out as much as I could about the strange man-sized vermin named the "diell beead", I came across quite a strange sight.
I had spent several days searching for a diell beead colony that I knew was hidden among a particular set of ruins not overly far from where the Babylon Five thought we might start a colony. We needed to know if the diell beead would be a barrier to said colony's success. Creeping through the tumbled stones, haunted by memories that weren't mine of a time when they stood tall and pink, veined in gold, against Nibiru's petal-blue sky, I turned the corner of a long-overgrown street and saw a huddled cluster of four diell beead. Thankfully, their attention was focused away from me on some as-yet-unseen beast, giving me the freedom to pop back and protect myself from sight and blow by means of the gargantuan stone block whose corner I had just rounded.
Driven by the insatiable curiosity of our species -- more demanding and lethal than the storied weakness of cats worldwide by far -- I peeked back around and saw something I hadn't before. Between the diell beead and whatever foe they fought was a line of creatures similar to the diell beead in most ways, only a mite bit smaller and with a few key significant differences. For example, it appeared that in this smaller species (I later learned that it wasn't a separate species, but rather a sort of neuter worker caste that makes up 50-85% of all births among the diell species), the strong leaping legs tucked up under the rear of the diell beead sat a little further forward and underneath the great red-and-black carapace, having become great feathered wings protected by chitin like a beetle's diaphanous wings. Several long feathers trailed from where I thought those legs should have been. What skin was visible among these smaller diell was also feathered, rather than warty as in the beead. And finally, their mouths did not gape wide like their larger siblings, but pinched itself small with a bonily protruding hooked beak
The name "diell beewk" floated to the top of my jumbled brain, feeling like a simple extension of the name I already carried, that of the diell beead. This was my first hint that I was looking not at two related species, but at a single, united type of Nibiruan beast. I never did see what they were fighting, unfortunately, as the battle began to press the diell back and I -- wisely, I still assert! -- fled before becoming engulfed in it. Later study revealed that the diell beewk serve the diell species by scavenging for food, building and expanding the nest, and serving as frontline defenders if the colony is attacked. Although not nearly as potent as the diell beead, in groups the diell beewk can be just as deadly.
I also discovered that the ruins belonged to a race known as the loorged scoxo, who had fielded great warrior legions of diell-borne cavalry in the long-ago days of their Shkaan Empire. It is evidently quite common for their former mounts to have taken the wreckage of their pink-and-gold towns as their rightfully-inherited home. Then again, my informants on this matter are all descended from the ancient slave-races of the loorged scoxo, making sense of their description of the diell as having the intelligence to know, interpret, and utilize inheritance law in such a manner. Diell also lurk in the lightless depths of the underground realm known as Khyrdark, where their ominous sonic chimes echo off the walls to be heard, sometimes miles away. The effect can be terrifying as the echoing makes them sound as if they come from all around.
Medium-size Vermin
Hit Dice 6d8+18 (45 hp)
Initiative +3
Speed 25 feet, burrow 5 feet, fly 40 feet (poor)
Armor Class 19 (+3 Dex, +6 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 16, CMD 20
Base Attack Bonus/Combat Maneuver Bonus +4/+7
Attack Claw +7 melee (1d8+3)
Full Attack 2 claws +7 melee (1d8+3) and bite +5 melee (1d6+1)
Space/Reach 5 feet/5 feet
Special Attacks Rend (2 claws, 1d6+4), screech, shake the earth, trample (1d8+4, DC 16)
Special Qualities Darkvision 60 feet, immunity to sonic, low-light vision, scent, sonic healing, vermin traits
Saves Fort +8, Ref +5, Will +5
Abilities Str 16, Dex 17, Con 17, Int --, Wis 13, Cha 11
Skills Acrobatics +5, Fly -1, Perception +3 (+7 in daylight)
Feats Improved Natural Attack (claw) x2 (B), Multiattack (B)
Environment Any mountains, hills, or underground
Organization Solitary or colony (7-13 plus 2-6 diell beead)
Challenge Rating 3
Treasure None
Alignment Always neutral
Advancement 7-9 HD (Medium-size), 10 HD (Large)
Combat
Like their larger brethren, diell beewk seek to attack in groups, using their shake the earth ability abd sonic screeches to both deal damage on their foes and heal each other. A key difference in strategy when diell beewk and diell beead fight together seems to be an instinctual tactic. The diell beewk attack in a line as a unit, while the diell beead gather together behind their smaller brethren. In this way, a diell beead's sonic chime attack catches many diell beewk in its blast. Due to their sonic healing ability, which is more potent than that possessed by the larger specimens, the diell beewk are able to fight much longer than expected. Combined with their own screeches, diell beewk often seem as durable, if not more so, than their heftier kin.
Screech (Su): Once per day, a diell beewk can emit a cone of sonic energy from the chitinous bell above its head, just as a diell beead. However, the diell beewk's cone is 10 feet long, and creatures within take 1d12+3 points of sonic damage (Reflex DC 16 half). The save DC is Strength-based.
Sonic Healing (Su): This ability functions as the diell beead's sonic healing ability, except diell beewk heal 1 point of damage per 3 points of sonic damage a sonic attack would normally deal.
Skills: Diell beewk have a +2 racial bonus on Acrobatics and Perception checks, with an additional +4 on Perception checks in daylight.
Showing posts with label dimensional travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dimensional travel. Show all posts
Friday, July 1, 2016
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
Diell Beead
We were the Babylon Five, a small coven utilizing reconstructed ancient Mesopotamian ritual technologies, grounded in a Thelema-inspired Aeonics and syncretized with the western magickal tradition -- with a big dose of post-Discordian post-Dada post-Situationist scifi-focused pop-culture-based chaos magick -- to find new places for the human race to inhabit. With NASA defunded and the space program worldwide a joke, we believed we were the last best hope for the survival of the human race as we reached the carrying capacity of Big Mama Earth. Well, us and a massive depopulation die-off, near-extinction kind of event, but we were hoping to avoid that.
Then we found Nibiru.
Who knows if what we found was actually the planet Sitchin described in those sacks of excrement he called books. Who cares, really? It's quite possible that out our rituals _created_ Nibiru out of all our Ouranian Barbaric chanting and cut-up bibliomancy and die-roll personality creation. Once again, who cares? What mattered is that we had found a reliable way -- much cheaper than the spaceships the governments of the world had deemed too impractical -- to escape the coming death-by-crowding of our species.
We published our work, and discovered that its promise was popular. Now, we have found ourselves at the vanguard and forefront of a movement of thousands, maybe millions, from all around the world. We call ourselves the Tenth Billion, in reference to the median projected carrying capacity of Big Mama Earth as of a 2001 report to the United Nations, which was 10 billion humans. Others sometimes call us the Renegade Colonizers or the Disunited Federation of Planets.
I still call us the Only Hope. In fact, it has become my handle in the various message boards and mailing lists that dot the web, connecting our widespread network of people working to prepare Nibiru for largescale human habitation.
I think it is the only way we will survive what we have done, are doing, and will do to the planet. We are a cancer, and this is the only compassionate cure. Even if we are crazy.
*******************
After the Babylon Five discovered or created Nibiru, we began to explore it and to collect various data on the conditions and life there. One of the first entities I myself was first confronted with was an eight-limbed creature with a hard, shiny red and black carapace that looked like it might conceal wings, but it acted only as durable armor over much, but not all of its fat body. What brown, leathery skin was visible was dotted with dry, stubby warts. Only four of its limbs were normal, walking legs. Its two rearmost limbs were large and powerful legs used for the sole purpose of jumping far distances; they were held tucked up under the rear of the body when not in use. On the front of the creature, two jointed, agile, and wickedly hooked claws groped the air before its four beady, black, insectoid eyes and sharp, jagged mandible. These wide and gaping mouthparts sat below a brow ridge that formed the base of a massive, hornlike, chitinous protrusion looking for all the world like the bell of a massive trumpet, from which I could hear a faint, high-pitched warbling. This protrusion tapered above the creature's shoulders and flared out over its sharp jaws. Essentially, the creature lacked a true head; in its place is the large horn, which warbled and trumpeted when it communicated with others of its species. Its throat bulged and rippled as though it was about to croak.
I quickly fingered the small bag of apple seeds, yew leaves, and processors at my hip, reciting the Charge of the First Ancestor (translated here from the Ancient Aramaic I used in the moment):
"Oh holy, vibrating Breath Over the Unformed Waters,
You it was
Who created
my firstmost, many infinity times great-grandfather
from the red dirt.
You it was
Who had sound but not yet language,
and You it was who charged him
with finding the names of things
and speaking them to You,
teaching You,
even You,
to speak.
In gratitude for this history,
and in order to dutifully perform my species's forgotten task,
I call to You
who is now called simply
the Name.
Summon memories of my human magick from the code of my cells,
and I will teach You,
even You,
much and more names,
the names of all things,
seen and unseen,
felt and unfelt,
thought and unthought."
Upon completion of the prayer, the name "diell baeed" floated from my brain out through my lips like the dirt that has been washed from your body down the shower drain. It appeared that this was the fearful thing's name.
I became fascinated with the hideous, nauseating thing. You know, I've read and reread every account of the Garden of Eden -- the Books of Genesis and Ezekiel in at least 4 languages, surat Sad, surat al-Baqarah, surat al-A'raf, surat al-Hijr, the Doctrines and Covenants, all manner of commentaries and revelations about those accounts, and endless divinations, numerological transformations, and cryptological breakdowns concerning the Garden. The one thing none of them ever told me was the sensuous intimacy that comes in a rush with the naming of a thing. There's a kind of merging on a fundamental level that occurs.
I embarked on a study of the diell beead, arranging for repeated ritual journeys to Nibiru (alienating my coven endlessly, by the way -- I eventually began organizing trips just to get away from the endless arguing they caused) and spending my free time doing endless divinations to learn more. I rather quickly thereafter lost my job as a canvasser.
Medium-Size Vermin
Hit Dice 8d8+32 (68 hp)
Initiative +1
Speed 40 feet, burrow 5 feet
Armor Class 20 (+1 Dex, +9 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 19, CMD 21
Base Attack Bonus/Combat Maneuver Bonus +6/+10
Attack Claw +10 melee (1d8+4), or tongue +7 ranged (grab)
Full Attack 2 claws +10 melee (1d8+4) and bite +7 melee (1d6+2 plus poison saliva and grab), or tongue +7 ranged (grab)
Space/Reach 5 feet/5 feet
Special Attacks Fast swallow, rend (2 claws, 2d8+6), shake the earth, sonic chime, swallow whole (1d3 bludgeoning plus 1d2 acid damage, AC 14, 7 hp), trample (2d6+6, DC 18)
Special Qualities Darkvision 60 feet, immunity to sonic, low-light vision, scent, sonic healing, vermin traits
Saves Fort +10, Ref +3, Will +3
Abilities Str 18, Dex 12, Con 19, Int --, Wis 13, Cha 9
Skills Acrobatics +9, Perception +7, Stealth +3
Feats Improved Natural Attack (claw) x2 (B), Multiattack (B)
Environment Temperate land and underground
Organization Solitary or colony (7-56)
Challenge Rating 6
Treasure None
Alignment Always neutral
Advancement 9-10 HD (Medium-size), 11 HD (Large)
Combat
Diell beead in groups fight by using their shake the earth ability, attempting to knock prone as many enemies as possible. They then rush in and trample whatever foes they can before switching to claw, bite, and rend attacks. The creatures only resort to their sonic chime attacks if necessary. Although mindless vermin, diell beead fight with a certain amount of savage cunning. A diell beead's tongue attack has a range of 10 feet with no range increment.
Diell Beead Saliva (Ex): Bite—injury; save Fort DC 18, frequency 1/round for 2 rounds, effect 1d3 Con, cure 1 save.
Shake the Earth (Ex): A diell beead can channel some of the sonic energy within its body by performing a rhythmic stomping on the ground as a standard action. Any creature within 5 feet of a diell beead when it activates this ability must make a DC 18 Reflex save or fall prone as the ground lurches and buckles beneath it. Diell beead are immune to shake the earth generated by themselves or other diell beead and never need to save against the effect.
If multiple diell beead activate their shake the earth ability in the same round, the radius of the effect expands as the resonance in the ground combines. For every diell beead within 5 feet using shake the earth, the radius of the effect expands another 5 feet. Thus, two diell beead within 5 feet of one another generate a shaking that effects all creatures within 10 feet of either diell beead. Three diell beead within 5 feet using the ability would generate an effect that affects all creatures within 15 feet of any one of the diell beead.
Creatures with stability or that are considered stable against trip attempts receive a bonus on their Reflex save as if they were being tripped (so a dwarf would receive the +4 bonus on the save to resist being knocked prone). The save DC is Strength-based.
Sonic Chime (Su): Once per day, a diell beead ca emit a cone of sonic energy from the chitinous bell above its head. The cone is 15 feet long, and activating the chime is a full-round action. Creatures within the cone take 5d6 points of sonic damage (Reflex DC 18 half). A diell beead is immune to its own sonic chime attack and that of other diell beead. Diell beead attacking in numbers use this ability instinctually to heal their fellow diell beead once several have taken damage (see sonic healing below). The save DC is Constitution-based.
Sonic Healing (Su): For every 5 points of damage a sonic attack would deal to a diell beead, the creature instead heals 1 point of damage it has already sustained. If a diell beead receives more healing than its current hit point maximum, the extra hit points are wasted (the creature does not gain temporary hit points from exposure to sonic damage). A diell beead gets no saving throw against attacks that deal sonic damage.
Skills: Diell beead have a +8 racial bonus on Acrobatics, a +6 racial bonus on Perception checks, and a +2 racial bonus on Stealth checks.
Then we found Nibiru.
Who knows if what we found was actually the planet Sitchin described in those sacks of excrement he called books. Who cares, really? It's quite possible that out our rituals _created_ Nibiru out of all our Ouranian Barbaric chanting and cut-up bibliomancy and die-roll personality creation. Once again, who cares? What mattered is that we had found a reliable way -- much cheaper than the spaceships the governments of the world had deemed too impractical -- to escape the coming death-by-crowding of our species.
We published our work, and discovered that its promise was popular. Now, we have found ourselves at the vanguard and forefront of a movement of thousands, maybe millions, from all around the world. We call ourselves the Tenth Billion, in reference to the median projected carrying capacity of Big Mama Earth as of a 2001 report to the United Nations, which was 10 billion humans. Others sometimes call us the Renegade Colonizers or the Disunited Federation of Planets.
I still call us the Only Hope. In fact, it has become my handle in the various message boards and mailing lists that dot the web, connecting our widespread network of people working to prepare Nibiru for largescale human habitation.
I think it is the only way we will survive what we have done, are doing, and will do to the planet. We are a cancer, and this is the only compassionate cure. Even if we are crazy.
*******************
After the Babylon Five discovered or created Nibiru, we began to explore it and to collect various data on the conditions and life there. One of the first entities I myself was first confronted with was an eight-limbed creature with a hard, shiny red and black carapace that looked like it might conceal wings, but it acted only as durable armor over much, but not all of its fat body. What brown, leathery skin was visible was dotted with dry, stubby warts. Only four of its limbs were normal, walking legs. Its two rearmost limbs were large and powerful legs used for the sole purpose of jumping far distances; they were held tucked up under the rear of the body when not in use. On the front of the creature, two jointed, agile, and wickedly hooked claws groped the air before its four beady, black, insectoid eyes and sharp, jagged mandible. These wide and gaping mouthparts sat below a brow ridge that formed the base of a massive, hornlike, chitinous protrusion looking for all the world like the bell of a massive trumpet, from which I could hear a faint, high-pitched warbling. This protrusion tapered above the creature's shoulders and flared out over its sharp jaws. Essentially, the creature lacked a true head; in its place is the large horn, which warbled and trumpeted when it communicated with others of its species. Its throat bulged and rippled as though it was about to croak.
I quickly fingered the small bag of apple seeds, yew leaves, and processors at my hip, reciting the Charge of the First Ancestor (translated here from the Ancient Aramaic I used in the moment):
"Oh holy, vibrating Breath Over the Unformed Waters,
You it was
Who created
my firstmost, many infinity times great-grandfather
from the red dirt.
You it was
Who had sound but not yet language,
and You it was who charged him
with finding the names of things
and speaking them to You,
teaching You,
even You,
to speak.
In gratitude for this history,
and in order to dutifully perform my species's forgotten task,
I call to You
who is now called simply
the Name.
Summon memories of my human magick from the code of my cells,
and I will teach You,
even You,
much and more names,
the names of all things,
seen and unseen,
felt and unfelt,
thought and unthought."
Upon completion of the prayer, the name "diell baeed" floated from my brain out through my lips like the dirt that has been washed from your body down the shower drain. It appeared that this was the fearful thing's name.
I became fascinated with the hideous, nauseating thing. You know, I've read and reread every account of the Garden of Eden -- the Books of Genesis and Ezekiel in at least 4 languages, surat Sad, surat al-Baqarah, surat al-A'raf, surat al-Hijr, the Doctrines and Covenants, all manner of commentaries and revelations about those accounts, and endless divinations, numerological transformations, and cryptological breakdowns concerning the Garden. The one thing none of them ever told me was the sensuous intimacy that comes in a rush with the naming of a thing. There's a kind of merging on a fundamental level that occurs.
I embarked on a study of the diell beead, arranging for repeated ritual journeys to Nibiru (alienating my coven endlessly, by the way -- I eventually began organizing trips just to get away from the endless arguing they caused) and spending my free time doing endless divinations to learn more. I rather quickly thereafter lost my job as a canvasser.
Diell beead, I learned, thrive in underground colonies, constructing immense, convoluted tunnel complexes reminiscent of anthills. Though often shy and nonaggressive, they are mindless hunters who live to breed and expand their warrens, breaking off into new colonies when one has grown too large for an area (typically when a colony has amassed more than 28 members). Diell beead have been used as mounts by many of the more intelligent races of Nibiru. Loorged scoxo have domesticated them in the past, as have some foresevu kelvlin tribes. These groups know that in great numbers diell beead only become more effective, and mounted units of diell beead riders sometimes form the elite fighting units for certain of the tribes or cities of Nibiru.
--@OnlyHope01
--@OnlyHope01
Medium-Size Vermin
Hit Dice 8d8+32 (68 hp)
Initiative +1
Speed 40 feet, burrow 5 feet
Armor Class 20 (+1 Dex, +9 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 19, CMD 21
Base Attack Bonus/Combat Maneuver Bonus +6/+10
Attack Claw +10 melee (1d8+4), or tongue +7 ranged (grab)
Full Attack 2 claws +10 melee (1d8+4) and bite +7 melee (1d6+2 plus poison saliva and grab), or tongue +7 ranged (grab)
Space/Reach 5 feet/5 feet
Special Attacks Fast swallow, rend (2 claws, 2d8+6), shake the earth, sonic chime, swallow whole (1d3 bludgeoning plus 1d2 acid damage, AC 14, 7 hp), trample (2d6+6, DC 18)
Special Qualities Darkvision 60 feet, immunity to sonic, low-light vision, scent, sonic healing, vermin traits
Saves Fort +10, Ref +3, Will +3
Abilities Str 18, Dex 12, Con 19, Int --, Wis 13, Cha 9
Skills Acrobatics +9, Perception +7, Stealth +3
Feats Improved Natural Attack (claw) x2 (B), Multiattack (B)
Environment Temperate land and underground
Organization Solitary or colony (7-56)
Challenge Rating 6
Treasure None
Alignment Always neutral
Advancement 9-10 HD (Medium-size), 11 HD (Large)
Combat
Diell beead in groups fight by using their shake the earth ability, attempting to knock prone as many enemies as possible. They then rush in and trample whatever foes they can before switching to claw, bite, and rend attacks. The creatures only resort to their sonic chime attacks if necessary. Although mindless vermin, diell beead fight with a certain amount of savage cunning. A diell beead's tongue attack has a range of 10 feet with no range increment.
Diell Beead Saliva (Ex): Bite—injury; save Fort DC 18, frequency 1/round for 2 rounds, effect 1d3 Con, cure 1 save.
Shake the Earth (Ex): A diell beead can channel some of the sonic energy within its body by performing a rhythmic stomping on the ground as a standard action. Any creature within 5 feet of a diell beead when it activates this ability must make a DC 18 Reflex save or fall prone as the ground lurches and buckles beneath it. Diell beead are immune to shake the earth generated by themselves or other diell beead and never need to save against the effect.
If multiple diell beead activate their shake the earth ability in the same round, the radius of the effect expands as the resonance in the ground combines. For every diell beead within 5 feet using shake the earth, the radius of the effect expands another 5 feet. Thus, two diell beead within 5 feet of one another generate a shaking that effects all creatures within 10 feet of either diell beead. Three diell beead within 5 feet using the ability would generate an effect that affects all creatures within 15 feet of any one of the diell beead.
Creatures with stability or that are considered stable against trip attempts receive a bonus on their Reflex save as if they were being tripped (so a dwarf would receive the +4 bonus on the save to resist being knocked prone). The save DC is Strength-based.
Sonic Chime (Su): Once per day, a diell beead ca emit a cone of sonic energy from the chitinous bell above its head. The cone is 15 feet long, and activating the chime is a full-round action. Creatures within the cone take 5d6 points of sonic damage (Reflex DC 18 half). A diell beead is immune to its own sonic chime attack and that of other diell beead. Diell beead attacking in numbers use this ability instinctually to heal their fellow diell beead once several have taken damage (see sonic healing below). The save DC is Constitution-based.
Sonic Healing (Su): For every 5 points of damage a sonic attack would deal to a diell beead, the creature instead heals 1 point of damage it has already sustained. If a diell beead receives more healing than its current hit point maximum, the extra hit points are wasted (the creature does not gain temporary hit points from exposure to sonic damage). A diell beead gets no saving throw against attacks that deal sonic damage.
Skills: Diell beead have a +8 racial bonus on Acrobatics, a +6 racial bonus on Perception checks, and a +2 racial bonus on Stealth checks.
Friday, April 1, 2016
Sub-Creations
In the archangel Iwa's library, there is a cuneiform tablet, documenting the ravings of an ancient human prophet. As is usual for prophecies, the text rambles vaguely and with great melodrama. Roughly translated, it begins, "And at the coming of the one who will be the third avatar, a great house will be divided," goes on with a list of events (in prophet-ese) and ends with, "And the third avatar shall choose."
Most humans, these days, would look upon the prophecy as unmitigated drivel, and clichéd, too. However, when Repha'el stumbled across it in the Library, prophecy was still something interesting. She read it, decided that several of the predictions had already been fulfilled (the Fall, various other events), and happened to mention it to her servitor Y'hohanan, the angel of Lightning.
The pair of elohim -- the archangel of Knowledge and the angel whose Word encompassed inspiration -- spent a pleasant lazy summer dissecting the prophecy. They arrived at the conclusion that the Symphony might indeed spawn off self-aware aspects. These aspects, they decided, would have to have been created directly from the Symphony. They would probably be indestructible, with Forces interwoven with the Symphony such that to destroy the avatar would necessitate destroying that part of the Symphony itself. After a lengthy debate (as to whether Eru YHVH Iluvatar was an avatar Itself, a part of the Symphony that was self-aware without being separate, or an entity whose Word was, effectively, "the Symphony"), Y'hohanan wondered aloud if Iwa might be the first avatar.
Repha'el said, "Very interesting question. I'll ask him."
And when she did, Iwa said, "Yes."
Repha'el quickly came to the conclusion that the logical second avatar might be Sker, Iwa's opposite number. To that, Iwa replied, "Almost," and would say no more. Repha'el then went off and wrote a treatise on the nature of the Symphony, avatars, and free will entitled "Avatars, the Symphony, and God", with two little discourses thrown in, one on the nature of Leukibher (whom she had determined must have been the second avatar) and one on prophecy.
"Those who know the future are doomed to repeat it," is the title of Repha'el's chapter on prophecy. Most of her musings with Y'hohanan are included, either as support for the theory or as speculations on the logical conclusions of the avatar premise. One of these is speculations on whether the third avatar should be used as a Symphonic tie-breaker between Fate and Destiny, or whether that avatar should form the nucleus of a third side in the War. (Elohim like tough questions like that.) In this discussion, she hints that, if you play with that "the Third Avatar shall choose" line, you may come to the conclusion that this doesn't necessarily mean "choose between the first and second avatars'" but simply "CHOOSE." Which might well imply that while Iwa is a manifestation of the Symphony's Bright Destiny, and Leukibher of its Dark Fate (though see below), the hypothetical Third Avatar would be Free Will manifest.
Concerning Leukibher, she wrote in a section entitled "On Sub-Creation": "Imagine Leukibher before the Fall as a prism, with the shining white light of Truth taken into him and refracted so as to wring greater beauty from it. This was how Leukibher was intended to be. As a seraph and an archangel, Leukibher explored the possibilities of the Symphony and showed his brethren, sistren, bothren, othren,, and neithren new ways of looking at God's creation. This ability to reveal to his brethren, sistren, bothren, othren, and neithren all of the colors and refractions of the Truth, unique to Leukibher, was at first a source of pride.
"Leukibher's pride was not Truth, and the dissonance of that pride drove him to madness and rebellion. When Mikha-el cast Leukibher down, I am asserting that the prism that was Leukibher shattered, and Forces which had been part of Leukibher flew free from the metaphysical impact, creating a number of distinct 'shards'. Leukibher, maddened and glutted with new power, would have maintained his new nature by compartmentalizing those parts of his psyche that did not mesh with the being that he became in the moment of his Fall. These fragments, perhaps, then broke free as shards, each with a number of Forces attached -- sort of a spontaneous creation of new celestials. As ages passed, some of those frgaments of his personality would have gained more and more Forces -- the children of his thought, the (often distorted) pieces of his Truth. Each shard would thus hold a fragment of the Truth that was Leukibher, or a fragment of his nascent madness. The Leukibher that God created (henceforth referred to as "Leukibher Prime") is likely no more. The largest shard, a balseraph, would have convinced himself that he was Leukibher, and with the amount of power that had flowed into Leukibher Prime during the rebellion, none of the new demons had the will or temerity to challenge. Besides, the rest of the rebels arrived in Hell somewhat later than Leukibher, who could create any story he wished and, as a balseraph, would believe it.
"Further research has shown the following to be reasonable possibilities for at least some of the more major shards. One shard, which embodied the insubordination of Leukibher, became Azal, the balseraph demon of Insubordination. Another shard, embodying the reverence of Leukibher for God over all, even in spite of God's favor for humanity, became Iblis the djinn, who by Islamic tradition was damned when he refused to bow before the first humans. Yet another shard, embodying the impulse which led Leukibher to test Hawwah with temptation during the Edinnu Experiment, became Samael of Hebrew tradition, a habbalah, still testing the worthiness of humanity for Heaven and firmly convinced that he works in God's service. The shard embodying the need of Leukibher to uncover and reveal the Truth eventually fledged into Litheroy, now the seraph archangel of Revelation. Seeing as no one knows his origins, it seems quite probable that Leukibher's status as the original chooser of Fate over Destiny might have grown into Sker, the prince of Fate. Perhaps one shard, holding fragments of outrage upswelling from Leukibher Prime's consciousness, nursed its rage through the eons until eventually fledging as a malak, and so on . . . . The wildest theories -- that some of Leukibher's shards might have left the Symphony entirely and taken root in Ein Soph Aur to form separate Symphonies, subject to wild variations on the Divine Will -- still find themselves without effective counterargument. Should they prove true, it is likely that the most reliable way to access these Sub-Creations would be to somehow travel through or by means of another Leukibher-shard.
"Only those shards that originally possessed (or later gained) Forces from all three realms (corporeal, ethereal, and celestial) could be considered viable celestials. Other proto-shards, possessing Forces in only one or two realms, might still exist somewhere but would most likely have dissolved into the Symphony. Still, there might be shadows in the Marches, each with a bit of disjointed wisdom, which never gained corporeal or celestial Forces, and Remnants of Leukibher Prime may lurk somewhere on Earth.
"Shards would be independent beings, with unique motivations and distinct personalities. Though they share a common origin, they almost certainly would not conveniently fit back together like some celestial jigsaw puzzle, and most would likely heartily resist any efforts to do so. They would not merge into celestial amalgam beings when they come into contact with one another. Some ancient celestials who were around before the Fall might see a faint resemblance between a shard and their memory of Leukibher Prime, but it's been a long time. I didn't."
In the last section of the manuscript, Repha'el mentions that she believes she can determine the identity of the Third Avatar.
Any search for the sequel to "Avatars, the Symphony, and God" turns up an extensive tactical summary of the battle with Leg -- troop movements, tactics, and a list of the dead. The "Third Avatar" paper died, unwritten, with Repha'el. Y'hohanan forgot all about such "youthful diversions" as he shouldered many of Repha'el's responsibilities. The tablet and her first treatise were buried in the Library, and have not come to light for centuries.
Questions to Answer, Plot Points for the Future, and Musings:
Most humans, these days, would look upon the prophecy as unmitigated drivel, and clichéd, too. However, when Repha'el stumbled across it in the Library, prophecy was still something interesting. She read it, decided that several of the predictions had already been fulfilled (the Fall, various other events), and happened to mention it to her servitor Y'hohanan, the angel of Lightning.
The pair of elohim -- the archangel of Knowledge and the angel whose Word encompassed inspiration -- spent a pleasant lazy summer dissecting the prophecy. They arrived at the conclusion that the Symphony might indeed spawn off self-aware aspects. These aspects, they decided, would have to have been created directly from the Symphony. They would probably be indestructible, with Forces interwoven with the Symphony such that to destroy the avatar would necessitate destroying that part of the Symphony itself. After a lengthy debate (as to whether Eru YHVH Iluvatar was an avatar Itself, a part of the Symphony that was self-aware without being separate, or an entity whose Word was, effectively, "the Symphony"), Y'hohanan wondered aloud if Iwa might be the first avatar.
Repha'el said, "Very interesting question. I'll ask him."
And when she did, Iwa said, "Yes."
Repha'el quickly came to the conclusion that the logical second avatar might be Sker, Iwa's opposite number. To that, Iwa replied, "Almost," and would say no more. Repha'el then went off and wrote a treatise on the nature of the Symphony, avatars, and free will entitled "Avatars, the Symphony, and God", with two little discourses thrown in, one on the nature of Leukibher (whom she had determined must have been the second avatar) and one on prophecy.
"Those who know the future are doomed to repeat it," is the title of Repha'el's chapter on prophecy. Most of her musings with Y'hohanan are included, either as support for the theory or as speculations on the logical conclusions of the avatar premise. One of these is speculations on whether the third avatar should be used as a Symphonic tie-breaker between Fate and Destiny, or whether that avatar should form the nucleus of a third side in the War. (Elohim like tough questions like that.) In this discussion, she hints that, if you play with that "the Third Avatar shall choose" line, you may come to the conclusion that this doesn't necessarily mean "choose between the first and second avatars'" but simply "CHOOSE." Which might well imply that while Iwa is a manifestation of the Symphony's Bright Destiny, and Leukibher of its Dark Fate (though see below), the hypothetical Third Avatar would be Free Will manifest.
Concerning Leukibher, she wrote in a section entitled "On Sub-Creation": "Imagine Leukibher before the Fall as a prism, with the shining white light of Truth taken into him and refracted so as to wring greater beauty from it. This was how Leukibher was intended to be. As a seraph and an archangel, Leukibher explored the possibilities of the Symphony and showed his brethren, sistren, bothren, othren,, and neithren new ways of looking at God's creation. This ability to reveal to his brethren, sistren, bothren, othren, and neithren all of the colors and refractions of the Truth, unique to Leukibher, was at first a source of pride.
"Leukibher's pride was not Truth, and the dissonance of that pride drove him to madness and rebellion. When Mikha-el cast Leukibher down, I am asserting that the prism that was Leukibher shattered, and Forces which had been part of Leukibher flew free from the metaphysical impact, creating a number of distinct 'shards'. Leukibher, maddened and glutted with new power, would have maintained his new nature by compartmentalizing those parts of his psyche that did not mesh with the being that he became in the moment of his Fall. These fragments, perhaps, then broke free as shards, each with a number of Forces attached -- sort of a spontaneous creation of new celestials. As ages passed, some of those frgaments of his personality would have gained more and more Forces -- the children of his thought, the (often distorted) pieces of his Truth. Each shard would thus hold a fragment of the Truth that was Leukibher, or a fragment of his nascent madness. The Leukibher that God created (henceforth referred to as "Leukibher Prime") is likely no more. The largest shard, a balseraph, would have convinced himself that he was Leukibher, and with the amount of power that had flowed into Leukibher Prime during the rebellion, none of the new demons had the will or temerity to challenge. Besides, the rest of the rebels arrived in Hell somewhat later than Leukibher, who could create any story he wished and, as a balseraph, would believe it.
"Further research has shown the following to be reasonable possibilities for at least some of the more major shards. One shard, which embodied the insubordination of Leukibher, became Azal, the balseraph demon of Insubordination. Another shard, embodying the reverence of Leukibher for God over all, even in spite of God's favor for humanity, became Iblis the djinn, who by Islamic tradition was damned when he refused to bow before the first humans. Yet another shard, embodying the impulse which led Leukibher to test Hawwah with temptation during the Edinnu Experiment, became Samael of Hebrew tradition, a habbalah, still testing the worthiness of humanity for Heaven and firmly convinced that he works in God's service. The shard embodying the need of Leukibher to uncover and reveal the Truth eventually fledged into Litheroy, now the seraph archangel of Revelation. Seeing as no one knows his origins, it seems quite probable that Leukibher's status as the original chooser of Fate over Destiny might have grown into Sker, the prince of Fate. Perhaps one shard, holding fragments of outrage upswelling from Leukibher Prime's consciousness, nursed its rage through the eons until eventually fledging as a malak, and so on . . . . The wildest theories -- that some of Leukibher's shards might have left the Symphony entirely and taken root in Ein Soph Aur to form separate Symphonies, subject to wild variations on the Divine Will -- still find themselves without effective counterargument. Should they prove true, it is likely that the most reliable way to access these Sub-Creations would be to somehow travel through or by means of another Leukibher-shard.
"Only those shards that originally possessed (or later gained) Forces from all three realms (corporeal, ethereal, and celestial) could be considered viable celestials. Other proto-shards, possessing Forces in only one or two realms, might still exist somewhere but would most likely have dissolved into the Symphony. Still, there might be shadows in the Marches, each with a bit of disjointed wisdom, which never gained corporeal or celestial Forces, and Remnants of Leukibher Prime may lurk somewhere on Earth.
"Shards would be independent beings, with unique motivations and distinct personalities. Though they share a common origin, they almost certainly would not conveniently fit back together like some celestial jigsaw puzzle, and most would likely heartily resist any efforts to do so. They would not merge into celestial amalgam beings when they come into contact with one another. Some ancient celestials who were around before the Fall might see a faint resemblance between a shard and their memory of Leukibher Prime, but it's been a long time. I didn't."
In the last section of the manuscript, Repha'el mentions that she believes she can determine the identity of the Third Avatar.
Any search for the sequel to "Avatars, the Symphony, and God" turns up an extensive tactical summary of the battle with Leg -- troop movements, tactics, and a list of the dead. The "Third Avatar" paper died, unwritten, with Repha'el. Y'hohanan forgot all about such "youthful diversions" as he shouldered many of Repha'el's responsibilities. The tablet and her first treatise were buried in the Library, and have not come to light for centuries.
Questions to Answer, Plot Points for the Future, and Musings:
- Who is the ancient human prophet?
- What are the events he lists?
- Three different translations, in various languages, of "Avatars, the Symphony, and God"? What's each's story? How do they come to the PCs?
- There is one Symphony-created individual who seems to embody Free Will, if not entirely in a good way: the princess of Freedom, Lilitu.
- If you assume that the Grigori were created to sire children, and that their mortal descendants the Nefilim are known to naturally have 6 Forces, and add in the concept of Lilitu as an Avatar herself . . . maybe Eru YHVH Iluvatar wanted humanity to be the deciding factor in the War, and not just the prize.
- The Angel of Hip-Hop, influenced by postmodern realities and remix/sampler culture, sees the Sub-Creations as ways to forge a new kind of existence, a novel ontology
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