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Aphonion Tales: The Archducal Council -- Unedited notes; later posts are edited transcripts (posts MWF, update 3/1/23)
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<blockquote data-quote="CPaladin" data-source="post: 8951340" data-attributes="member: 7030144"><p>Session 153 (February 21, 2023)</p><p></p><p>6 Vaen</p><p>After a peaceful week or so, Kit has a report from the Naughty Bits she dispatched to Enclaves, who have gathered a report on the Marchioness. [Attached]</p><p></p><p>"These Naughty Bits are very good," Kit commences her report. "I mean, possibly that, too, but they are very, very good at getting information, and very politically aware, which you can see from their exhaustive report. The Marchioness is actually a Marchioness of Hell, dispatched by Lilith, Queen of the Seventh Hell, to serve as a money-maker in a pleasure palace owned by the Zorplona-Moriquendarim. Lilith agreed to this in exchange for a viable Noldor seed--which the Proconsul supplied. Our Naughty Bits think that Lilith may have also had other motivations for the deal as well. I think this might be quicker to deal with, because I have no idea what we can actually do. There may be more to do than I can figure out myself, but we have this information now."</p><p></p><p>"This seems like a terrible plan on their part, I must say," comments Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, most deals involving devils are terrible," Kit agrees.</p><p></p><p>"Also, if she's done it once, what's to stop her from having multiple offspring?"</p><p></p><p>"And why does she want to have half-Noldor, half-devil babies, anyway?" asks Alistair.</p><p></p><p>"That is a really good question. What advantage would she get from that?"</p><p></p><p>"I think it's time to call in Dame Agatha, who, I believe, has a contract directly with this same Lilith."</p><p></p><p>"I hate to admit that I agree," replies Dame Brionna. "It's not that I really like calling in that resource, but I think that she is absolutely the right person to talk to in this case."</p><p></p><p>"The other thing about a Marchioness of Hell-- what we're talking about is an extremely major tempter devil, being set up in a high-end brothel. The potential for massive corruption there is enormous."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, yes," agrees Kit.</p><p></p><p>"I don't want to overly disparage my own judgment," adds Alistair, "but if they had done this a few years ago, the results could have been disastrous."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, indeed," replies Dame Brionna fervently.</p><p></p><p>"Anyway, let's call for Dame Agatha."</p><p></p><p>"Good thing there hasn't been any temptation of that kind recently," comments Kit.</p><p></p><p>"Now, how could anything tempt me when such a beautiful lady as yourself is mine?"</p><p></p><p>"Oh, you know I love you, but I also know you."</p><p></p><p>"Fair, and you know that I love you despite all that you know about me."</p><p></p><p>"Anyway, let's get Dame Agatha in here."</p><p></p><p>Dame Agatha is much brisker in responding to summons than the late Dame Constance was. "Your Majesty, you summoned me. Honored Councilmembers."</p><p></p><p>"Indeed. We have some questions that we would like to ask you about a diabolical deal that we have found that one of our, let's say, allies but not a close ally, has entered into. Are you aware of the the Zorplona-Moriquendarim Enclave in the City of Enclaves? They operate a very high-end brothel in the Enclave of Glittertowers. This is not particularly surprising. It's the sort of services that the Zorplona-Moriquendarim provide to make a profit, especially now that they no longer engage in slaving in that region. However, we have found out that the, shall we say, star attraction of that brothel is one Lell, Marchioness of Night."</p><p></p><p>"Ah. That's why she's become unavailable."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, she is apparently physically present, and frequently occupied in every sense of the word in Enclaves."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, she should command a very high price."</p><p></p><p>"Apparently she does," comments Dame Brionna. "Also, apparently she is pregnant."</p><p></p><p>"I assumed that it was Lilith who was pregnant," Alistair responds. "What we know, in any event, is that the Noldor who heads Zorplona-Moriquendarim was able to secure her services in exchange for providing some viable seed to Lilith. We don't know for how long he secured her services, and we don't know how strongly he secured her loyalty. The Lord Proconsul is very young, and he's a full Noldor. He's quite powerful for his age, and he's very young in the sense of being some few centuries old, not young in the way that humans would reckon it, but nonetheless."</p><p></p><p>"So barely in puberty."</p><p></p><p>"Indeed. He probably has no other offspring. I believe we think that one of his companions is his chief concubine, or some such, but I don't know if there is any meaningful bond there in the way that elves sometimes do and sometimes do not develop."</p><p></p><p>"So. She's making a new play."</p><p></p><p>"First, can I ask, to what extent can you discuss her plans without endangering yourself or without causing conflicts of loyalties?"</p><p></p><p>"Cautiously," replies Dame Agatha with a grim smile. "She has for some time desired greater authority. A partially Noldor-blooded offspring, in a few centuries, might give her that opportunity."</p><p></p><p>"How would it do that?" asks Kit.</p><p></p><p>"As much as the Eldar and the Noldor are an arrogant people, there's some reason for their arrogance. They're part of the purity of early creation. Everything else came later, including the devils."</p><p></p><p>"So it's essentially partaking of the essence of the two great elven gods as opposed to, for example, the essence of human gods."</p><p></p><p>"Exactly right. I don't think she could do it with an Eldar, but with a Noldor, for the possibility of bringing some of Morgrath's power into her line, I can see her being willing to bargain away her chiefest servant for a while-- a century, perhaps."</p><p></p><p>"The Marchioness is her chief servant?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes, her chief of assassins."</p><p></p><p>"What would they do with this child? When would it be a child?"</p><p></p><p>"It will be a child initially. She will raise it, teach it loyalty to her, and she could then move up in the hierarchy by using its abilities when it's old enough."</p><p></p><p>"I know that in the outer planes, deities can control the flow of time in their domains to a great degree. Can archdevils and the like do the same in the Hells?"</p><p></p><p>"To a lesser degree, yes, she can speed the process. I'm not sure if she would. I do not even know if her plan will work, but I'm fairly certain, knowing her as well as I do, that that is her plan. Now, of course, this will make her vulnerable for a period of time, so that might move her to attempt to speed things up at that."</p><p></p><p>"Vulnerable, because of the pregnancy?" asks Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"Her chief of assassins is absent, and it is Hell, after all. So the Marchioness also fills, well, your position, Dame. Whether the pregnancy would also make her more vulnerable, I don't know. She may be, but she is definitely without the full competency of her guard."</p><p></p><p>"How likely would it be for the false Empress of Hanal to be aware of this?"</p><p></p><p>"That's very difficult to say."</p><p></p><p>"I do not count your mistress as our ally," clarifies Dame Brionna, "but I do count her as the enemy of our enemies."</p><p></p><p>"And she is. I do not believe that the false Empress has any spies in Hell. In the Abyss, yes, but not in the Hells. Or at least so I estimate."</p><p></p><p>Alistair raps his fingers against a table in thought. "Surely, if our people were able to get a positive identification of the Marchioness within days of their arrival, that cannot be a closely held secret."</p><p></p><p>"She may not be hiding who she is. It's part of the draw."</p><p></p><p>"We had heard of her as the Marchioness, even before we heard her full title, so I suspect that she is not."</p><p></p><p>"But anyone who knows Hell's politics and what you're saying would recognize the weakness that represents in Lilith's court," notes Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"Oh yes, yes. I will endeavor to, forgive my bluntness, commune later with Lilith, and give her warning."</p><p></p><p>"This is something for you to phrase, Your Grace."</p><p></p><p>"Yes. I also think that we may wish to engage in a little bit of disinformation there to try to head this off. For example, we could spread the rumor in Enclaves that this is not, in fact, the Marchioness-- that this is indeed a sexual fiend, but not not, in fact, the Marchioness, and that people are being deceived. That would suggest that this is some sort of trap that's being set up in the Hells, to try to make them move a little cautiously. This whole thing is bizarre, so I don't know if this is a good idea. But..."</p><p></p><p>"I can't think that it's a bad idea. I must admit, I did not expect this."</p><p></p><p>Kit says, "We need to think about her reaction. It sounds like she wants to be known. So, if she hears these rumors, from what we know of her, it sounds like her reaction would be to double down, and boast about who she is and her power. Is that what we want?"</p><p></p><p>"The other aspect of this is that our tendency will be to think of her as being a diabolical courtesan, of paramount status, because that's what she's being currently employed us. But if she's actually principally a diabolic assassin of paramount status, who simply has a sideline in using sex as a tool for her assassination purposes, then..."</p><p></p><p>"Then I also wonder who she wants to kill in Enclaves," says Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"And that also means there may be people who can hire her for that. If we can find this out easily, albeit with a subject matter expert to aid us, there are others who know this as well. And so then there will be a steady stream of people seeking to hire her for assassination work."</p><p></p><p>"Which work she can cover with her sexual work."</p><p></p><p>"Of course. I'm sure that she would agree to accompany someone on a journey, for example, to be their companion and escort, and if somebody happens to end up dead along the way, well, who would think that it was her that was involved in that?"</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna asks, "Also, are there any young people in positions of power in Enclaves who are not particularly excellent judges of character?"</p><p></p><p>"Also, unless they have bound her not to-- and given how this whole situation has developed it would surprise me if they had thought that far in advance-- unless they have bound her not to, surely she's encountering people who would be interested in retaining her services but can't afford to. She could then offer other sorts of deals, because, even if she had to make up the difference to the brothel's coffers out of her own pocket, surely she'd be willing to do that to gain access to somebody's soul or to get promises about things that they'll do when they have advanced into higher positions of authority. All the various blandishments that powerful devils use."</p><p></p><p>"At the same time, I keep thinking that if we announced that I was taking a lengthy stay at a convent, to pray, and to commune with Glordiadel, and so forth, I'm sure that the number of expected assassination attempts would significantly increase as a result."</p><p></p><p>"Also, the number of rumors that we had been carrying on would increase dramatically, but that's true."</p><p></p><p>"I thought we had squelched those!"</p><p></p><p>"I think we had, but that was before you started running off to a faraway convent for months at a time!"</p><p></p><p>Kit nods her head in agreement with Alistair's joke.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna sighs. "My point is that, in fact, what I was thinking is that people would assume that I had been sent there to collect some valuable artifacts or something like that."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, that's true. There are people who will assume that she's there to serve some other purpose of Lillith's, which she may, in fact, be."</p><p></p><p>"But there will also be people who will assume that even if she is serving another purpose, that it still provides an opportunity."</p><p></p><p>"Isn't there a tremendously powerful evil artifact under Enclaves? A good one, an evil one, and a neutral one?"</p><p></p><p>"No, it's an artifact of order and balance," says Kit.</p><p></p><p>"There was an artifact of order--or really, of balance-- that we removed."</p><p></p><p>"I thought that was the only one. Is there another?"</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna shakes her head at Kit and Alistair. "There were in fact three major artifacts under the City of Enclaves. The artifact of balance, which we had taken, an artifact of chaos, and an artifact of law."</p><p></p><p>Kit nods, as she remembers. "So we're thinking, with these artifacts, could she be after the chaos one?"</p><p></p><p>"I wouldn't think she would want a chaos one," replies Alistair. "But an archdevil would surely be interested in acquiring an artifact of Law, because that would provide direct power within the Hells, and whatever it can be used to do as well. But if things are already starting to come apart at the seams, with the artifact of balance removed, if the artifact of law were removed, it's all but certain Enclaves would be in civil war within days. Maybe days is an exaggeration, but it would not take long. And I don't believe that we have convinced Balansar to move in yet, although we're making some progress in that direction."</p><p></p><p>"Who could we reach out to about that?"</p><p></p><p>"My first thought is to tell Princess Curinirim, or maybe the Zorplona-Moriquendarim as well, that they must not allow the artifact of law to be removed. Except that they're so arrogant that they might not recognize the risk. She will find it hard to believe that anything like that could threaten to really change Enclaves, and she'll assume she could maintain stability through sheer force of her personality."</p><p></p><p>"So who else in Enclaves would recognize the danger and be willing to take action? Some of the churches?"</p><p></p><p>"They might. Or Meredith the Dazzling?"</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna and Kit both endorse that suggestion.</p><p></p><p>"I think we need to have a conversation with Meredith the Dazzling about this. I also think we need to have a conversation with the Paranswarmians about getting proper regulation of any deals that are going on there. I don't want to pick a fight with the Zorplona-Moriquendarim, which we would do if we, for example, tried to have her banished by the Church. But the Temple of Paranswarm could legitimately come in and say, any deals here that are not for purely cash have to go through us and have to follow standards, because that's the rules and otherwise you'll be engaged in unlicensed diabolism, and we can't have that. That should at least be able to put a check on the Marchioness getting up to terrible things on that axis. So I think we talk to Meredith the Dazzling, and then we follow up with our Archbishop and their Archbishop."</p><p></p><p>"And what message do we wish to convey to Lilith?" asks Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, what do you wish me to say to the Queen of Hell?"</p><p></p><p>"What the f***?" suggests Dame Brionna, partially in jest.</p><p></p><p>"Do we really want that explained under the circumstances?" replies Alistair. "I think that what we want to say is that we think that she should know that the Seductress almost surely knows that her chief assassin is otherwise occupied in Enclaves, and may attempt to use this, either directly or indirectly through a diabolic cat's paw, to strike at her. I do wonder if we could ask her, in the interest of coordinating against the Eldritch and in exchange for the warning that we're giving her, if there are things that we ought to know about what the Marchioness is doing besides the obvious?"</p><p></p><p>"Offering it as a favor rather than as a bargain, or making a bargain?" asks Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"I think that I have already made one bargain with Lilith, and that I don't want to make any additional ones. And thus I think we want to do this as we're providing this information to you, because we think it might be useful, and because we have some shared enemies. Is there any information that you'd like to provide to us in that same vein? And if there isn't, there isn't. We can't promise we won't try to frustrate her goals, because, depending on what they are, we may directly try to do so, but then we can at least make sure we wouldn't inadvertently do so."</p><p></p><p>"So we frame it as professional courtesy," says Kit.</p><p></p><p>"Exactly. And she's a loyal Paranswarmian archdevil, right? So we also frame it as being part of a spirit of cooperation in and through the Ecumenical Council."</p><p></p><p>"I shall do so," agrees Dame Agatha. "Expect me to report back later."</p><p></p><p>"And I can't imagine that matters are so pressing, given that this has been in place for at least weeks, that we can't wait to get your report back before we reach out to Meredith the Dazzling. So I think, why don't we plan on doing that?"</p><p></p><p>After Dame Agatha leaves, Kit apologizes. "Sorry. I thought that was going to be the quick one."</p><p></p><p>"I thought so, too," replies Dame Brionna, "until I understood that she is Lilith's chief bodyguard. Not that I'm especially interested in the Queen of Hell's safety, but I don't want that power vacuum at the moment."</p><p></p><p>"It does incidentally mean that if there was someone who we decided that we needed to have assassinated, who we thought was extremely difficult to reach, we might have a potential assassin to hire."</p><p></p><p>"For what price, my lord?"</p><p></p><p>"That's obviously the question, but..."</p><p></p><p>"I'm just saying, I'm sure Kit knows people who know people who don't deal in souls."</p><p></p><p>"We already tried some assassinations," Kit points out, "and it didn't go well. I would hate to dig ourselves deeper into bargains and prices that we were not really equipped to pay for more failed attempts."</p><p></p><p>"No doubt," agrees Alistair.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna then proffers the next report. "I received a report from the field army who we sent to try to cut off the slavers bringing people to the mine. The good news is that they were able to do that. The bad news is that the guards were chaos centaurs. Apparently, they're coming in from the Shadowlands."</p><p></p><p>"That doesn't make things better," observes Alistair.</p><p></p><p>"And they inflicted five to one casualties among our troops. It would have been even worse, if not for our mages and the priest who sent me this report. Also, we do have an issue with that. The commander of the field army refused to accept that they were not ordinary centaurs on the grounds that nobody's ever seen chaos centaurs outside the Shadowlands. So the chaplain thought to report directly to me. Among other things, I think the field army's banner is primarily a banner against evil--I think we should send one that is more focused on promoting Law against Chaos."</p><p></p><p>Alistair thinks. "Let's see... who do chaos centaurs serve in the Shadow? Presumably one of the Six... I'm pretty sure they serve the Worm Who Burrows Beneath. Urlodo. I can't recall anything more about that, though. They're basically his only shock troops. That strongly suggests to me that Urlodo is in alliance with the Eldritch."</p><p></p><p>"We know some of the other major demon lords that are, but we haven't identified them all," adds Dame Brionna. "I remember the last Commune. We ran out of questions."</p><p></p><p>"And the devil that took Dame Constance's soul said the same thing, that there were seven in total."</p><p></p><p>"We could do a targeted divination just to confirm that with Father Waters," suggests Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, one of the things on our to-do list that we never quite got to was counting up which ones we knew for sure and trying to identify the others," agrees Kit. "But now we have a candidate for one of the ones that we didn't know."</p><p></p><p>"So, do we want to start by having a conversation with Father Waters about that?" asks Alistair. "And we could also call in the Doctor of Theology that we asked for but have never really consulted with. A Doctor of Theology from the Church, someone who has an expertise in in the deeper matters of theology than a regular priest-- this seems like something that might be worth involving them in as well."</p><p></p><p>"My other question is, who do we know who has served in the Shadowlands?" asks Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"I know some of our nobles have, but I can't recall who offhand."</p><p></p><p>"Because they might have a good idea if there are reliable tactics that people in the Shadowlands have been using for years against these chaos centaurs."</p><p></p><p>"And also knowledge of what other creatures tend to go along with chaos centaurs, if those aren't the only servants of the worm who are being brought over," adds Kit.</p><p></p><p>"If they have any dhoyles outside of the Shadowlands we have a different set of problems," comments Alistair. "Those are the enormous chaos worms of the Shadowlands."</p><p></p><p>"I think if we had those we would have known already," says Kit.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, probably."</p><p></p><p>"What if they're in the mine?" asks Dame Brionna. "What if they're using them in the mine? Enormous worms? People love burrowing at high speeds."</p><p></p><p>"When you put it that way, the whole nature of the Great Mine, where they're trying to dig out horrible unholy stuff does rather seem Urlodo-esque."</p><p></p><p>"I think you're right. We haven't seen them, but that's because they're not using them to escort slaves. They don't need to."</p><p></p><p>"Urlodo is also notorious for conspiracies. 'That bores beneath' is also a metaphorical thing. A great deal of the demon cults that seek to bring down the Shadowline from the far side and that sort of stuff is Urlodo, more, I think, than any of the other of the Six."</p><p></p><p>"But it can be metaphorical, and also actual with giant chaos worms."</p><p></p><p>"I agree. I'm just saying that... you know, the fall of the Southlands was exactly the sort of thing that he does..."</p><p></p><p>"Disrupting people's true faith..."</p><p></p><p>"And causing people to be corrupted and then causing a total collapse. After all, the foundations have already been destroyed, and so when the demons erupted out, it was already too late, because the people who should have been fighting them were already in no position to... I've never heard anything that suggested that Urlodo was involved in that..."</p><p></p><p>"But Urlodo was not one of the beings that we were paying any attention to," comments Kit.</p><p></p><p>"But from our perspective, he's mostly just one of the Six, and we don't even spend that much time worrying about Borsh'tro."</p><p></p><p>"Let's do a little more investigating into that," says Kit. "With finding those nobles who have served on the Shadowline and getting more information about Urlodo specifically."</p><p></p><p>The Council checks on whether the Doctor of Theology is available, and a functionary informs them that a doctor of canon law and theology has been waiting on the Council's availability, since they requested him some months ago. Each day, he arrives, waits in an antechamber, and then departs at the end of the day.</p><p></p><p>"Oh no!" exclaims Kit. "What were we asking them about? I forget. Why did we call for them?"</p><p></p><p>"One of the things we were interested in was some of the cosmogony questions," replies Alistair. "Relationships among the gods and that sort of thing. It partly came up because of the whole question of where Glordiadel's children came from. And questions like what exactly that relationship is between worship on the prime and the presence or activity of a god, because we know there's some connection, but it's a little obscure to us."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, that's right," says Kit, as Dame Brionna nods along. "Stuff we wanted to know about, but not pressing on a day-to-day basis, which is why we haven't actually gotten around to doing it. Let's talk with Bishop Waters first, and then with the theologian?"</p><p></p><p>Father Waters gives them a cheery greeting as he enters. "Good morning. Time seems to have been passing so rapidly recently."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, it's been very pleasant that we've had some days when we can just deal with the routine and then relax a little bit."</p><p></p><p>"Indeed!"</p><p></p><p>Alistair launches directly into it: "We were curious what you know about Urlodo, the Worm That Burrows Beneath, and his chaos centaurs."</p><p></p><p>"Well, I'm not a specialist in demonology. I do know that he is the one of the Six that's been most effective, despite the fact that one would not think he would be, since he's something of a coward. He was responsible for the fall of that Paranswarmian kingdom that was up against up against the Shadow. He's also been responsible for, oh, a number of disastrous turns in the different lands of Glordiadel, generally through subterfuge. The chaos centaurs are among his shock troops. You have to step back a mile and take a good look to realize that some of his creatures do not fit his reputation as a coward. For example, the great dhoyles look to him, as well as the chaos centaurs. He does, of course, have the yellow eums, but he has so much more. I consider him probably to be the most dangerous of the Six. He doesn't pound his chest, but he gets things done."</p><p></p><p>"Do you think he might be purposely cultivating the image of a coward so that everybody else underestimates him?" asks Kit.</p><p></p><p>"I think he may well be. He's always been their most effective member. In fact, quite often it's the others that put the kibosh on his plans with their activity. Why do you ask? It's not like he's here."</p><p></p><p>"There are chaos centaurs active to the west of Canberry."</p><p></p><p>"There are?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes, around the Great Mine," continues Alistair. "I think we briefed you on that? The chaos centaurs are leading slave caravans in and out."</p><p></p><p>"Urlodo is never active in anything where there's not a gain for him, that I can tell you. If there are chaos centaurs around the Great Mine, he has some presence in the Great Mine."</p><p></p><p>"That's one of the things we were wondering," says Kit.</p><p></p><p>"And we think that that means that he must be aligned with the Eldritch, if it's primarily an Eldritch operation."</p><p></p><p>"He must have reached an agreement, and he might actually be clever enough to double cross them successfully."</p><p></p><p>"It does occur to me... we've been told that Borsh'tro is no longer actually a god, that he has fallen to being some form of demon prince. Is there a chance that Urlodo has, in fact, supplanted him?"</p><p></p><p>"You would need a specialist. I would not put it past Urlodo. He has a strong cadre of followers. He has cults outside the Shadowlands, which none of the others of the Six do."</p><p></p><p>"It sounds like even if he hasn't supplanted him, he would definitely take advantage of Borsh'tro's demotion," comments Kit.</p><p></p><p>"His discomfitting. Yes, oh, yes, they compete among themselves as much as they do with anyone else. It's one of their saving graces."</p><p></p><p>"Do we know if he had any involvement in the fall of the South Kingdoms? It seems like his sort of thing."</p><p></p><p>"We don't know, because so few hierarchs of the Temple of Berta survived. There were no hierarchs of Berta who survived who did not flee immediately, and therefore had no knowledge of what happened. It is, however, very much his type of operation, and he had reached an accommodation with Berta. That is known."</p><p></p><p>"Which means that he was part of the alliance with Arthranax, which is consistent with his involvement with the Eldritch, as well."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, I'm afraid that's true."</p><p></p><p>"We've also been told that there are seven demon lords that are aligned with the Eldritch, and we are trying to count them and figure out which ones we know and which ones we don't. We know the Ram is; we know that the Queen of Chaos is; and now we know that Urlodo is."</p><p></p><p>"That leave four others."</p><p></p><p>"They might be counting the Seductress, but they might not. We've heard some references to goats, but I'm not sure if that's just misidentifications of the Ram, or whether that's a separate demon lord."</p><p></p><p>"There are demon goats, though I'm not aware of a particular demon lord of goats. But as I said, it's not my speciality. "</p><p></p><p>"Do you know of any others that we should particularly suspect?"</p><p></p><p>"I would think Jubilex."</p><p></p><p>"Demon prince of slimes."</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna says, "I feel like we've heard things reference Jubilex before..."</p><p></p><p>Alistair agrees. "Yes, there was a rain of slime somewhere around Holy Cortose--the Holy See of Sytry. We did confirm that was connected to Jubilex."</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna comes back with a record. "Here we go--we have a record of asking the Archivist of Hell questions about the major demonic supporters of the Eldritch. The answer we got was: The Lord of Rams, the Abomination of Shurr, the Queen of Chaos, and Membriel, Lord of the 540th Plane, with power over water and believable lies."</p><p></p><p>"That's very specific," comments Kit.</p><p></p><p>"And notably is precisely what the Queen-Empress has been using, or rather the Usurper," adds Alistair.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, it's all very plausible! Sure, there could be a third child of Thyastis."</p><p></p><p>"Indeed, there was a third child. It's just the third child died at birth, essentially. So that gets us five, leaving us with two that we haven't counted."</p><p></p><p>"Also, there is mention of another army deep in the Underdark of the southeastern part of the continent."</p><p></p><p>"You were saying something about demon goats-- that they're a known thing, but they do not have their own lord?"</p><p></p><p>"I am unaware of them having a lord. However, there are specialists within the church who would know more than I do. There are so many planes of the abyss, and so many different demons, it's hard to keep track of them all."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, but now we're approaching knowing enough of them that picking out who might also belong in that group should be easier."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, but that at least requires knowing that they exist."</p><p></p><p>"Could you have an expert on such things attend on us?"</p><p></p><p>"I could, and I will."</p><p></p><p>"And we'll need to check that one carefully to make sure that they are not overly expert in such things."</p><p></p><p>"Of course."</p><p></p><p>"Set them up for tea with Aunt Cecilia, or have young Lord Brightspan show them in?" asks Kit.</p><p></p><p>"I would think young Lord Brightspan would be better for that."</p><p></p><p>"That's what I was thinking."</p><p></p><p>[Out of character, the players observe that Urlodo and the Chaos Centaurs would be an awesome name for a band, with albums like "Eldritch Operations" and "The Worm that Bores Beneath." Jubilex would be a rival band.]</p><p></p><p>They thank Father Waters, and call for the Doctor of Theology. Reverend Canon Raphael Mylan Gabriel de Libre enters. He is an elderly priest with a neatly trimmed small beard who looks like he was probably quite dashing when he was younger.</p><p></p><p>"Reverend Canon. Thank you for joining us."</p><p></p><p>"Your Imperial Majesty. It has been an honor waiting upon you."</p><p></p><p>"We're sorry about that, but..."</p><p></p><p>"Your staff makes a wonderful cup of tea, Your Majesty."</p><p></p><p>"They do, they do."</p><p></p><p>"I've had many of them. How may I help you?"</p><p></p><p>"We had a couple of questions, some more in the way of general curiosity, and some that deal with some specific threats that we've encountered, and we thought you could provide insight."</p><p></p><p>"I am delighted to offer what expertise I can, Your Majesty."</p><p></p><p>"The first thing was that we were curious about how Glordiadel relates to His family members--His Children, and for that matter, His Brother. It seems surprising to us that we have a God of Light who is the Father of three Children, and yet there's never any mention of a mother of them, or anything like that."</p><p></p><p>"They are of His essence, Your Majesty."</p><p></p><p>"So He is their only parent?" asks Kit.</p><p></p><p>"Early in time, after the Creation," and like all the priests of the younger gods, he dodges the Creation thing entirely, "When Glordiadel and His Brother arose from the essence of the universe and took form, the energy that formed their beings were sufficiently different in and of themselves that portions of them separated out to create different consciousnesses. In the case of Lord Glordiadel, who was overflowing with energy, there were the three Children, and, of course, in the case of His Brother there were two."</p><p></p><p>"Wait, what?" asks Alistair, who has never heard of a second child of Paranswarm before.</p><p></p><p>"In the case of his brother, that would be Paranswarm, of course, there were two."</p><p></p><p>"Who were the children of Paranswarm?"</p><p></p><p>"Of course, the Weeping Woman, who is well known."</p><p></p><p>"And who is the one who is not well known?" presses Kit.</p><p></p><p>"His son. He's not part of their hierarchy."</p><p></p><p>"Please tell us more about Paranswarm's family drama and his disinherited son."</p><p></p><p>"He disinherited himself, as it were. He chose to step aside from the Lord of Darkness, and enter into the service of Lord Morgrath. Where he retains a position of some honor, I understand, although Morgrathian theology is beyond my portfolio."</p><p></p><p>"What's his name?" asks Kit.</p><p></p><p>"Or title," adds Alistair.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, his title! His title is 'The Breeder.' He works with the uruk-blood and the olog-blood to breed new species for Lord Morgrath. It doesn't give him the power of one of Morgrath's lesser divinities, but certainly gives him the equivalent power of perhaps a very powerful archangel or archdevil."</p><p></p><p>"Was that always his specialty?" asks Kit. "That doesn't with with the conception that I've had, at least, of Paranswarm."</p><p></p><p>"No, it doesn't. As I said, he exiled himself. Lord Paranswarm was not friendly to his ideas for the utilization of his power, and took back his name, and he left."</p><p></p><p>"We had been told by the great elves that the Weeping Woman was not, in fact, a child of Paranswarm," comments Alistair.</p><p></p><p>"I would not dare to make a comment on that."</p><p></p><p>"I see, I think."</p><p></p><p>"Our three, I assure you, are of the essence of Lord Glordiadel."</p><p></p><p>"And I take it that you are confident that Paranswarm's son was of the essence of Paranswarm."</p><p></p><p>"Yes. And the Weeping Woman claims to be of his essence, and who would gainsay her if he did not? Who are we as priests of His Brother to disagree?"</p><p></p><p>"Who else could she be?" asks Kit.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, my goodness." He blinks so rapidly it looks like his eyes are going to fly out of his head. "Well, there are some, not me, but there are some who claim she might be a child of Eiru, who shall remain nameless."</p><p></p><p><<He's rapidly wishing that we'd left him waiting for the rest of our lives,>> observes Alistair over the mindlink.</p><p></p><p><<Welcome to the Council, Reverend Canon,>> thinks Kit back in amusement.</p><p></p><p>"Related to that, we've been told basically two different things about the origin of Glordiadel and His relationship to humanity," says Alistair, moving to the next topic.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, only two?"</p><p></p><p>"One is, more or less, that when the universe was created, there were essentially these shards of the power and essence of the elven deities and those coalesced into the human gods, and then the human gods created humanity. The other version that we've been told is that there was Aphonion--there was the world, the universe, whatever--and then humans came about somehow, because apparently things come about somehow on this planet, and then they started worshiping ideas, and those became the gods. And I suppose a third is that we were told that both of those stories were correct. Frankly, I don't understand that one at all."</p><p></p><p>"The first is doctrinaire. To be clear, is what you're seeking, actually, an understanding of the relationship between the worship of a deity's servants and their power?"</p><p></p><p>"That's part of what we're curious about. But I also do like understanding things for the sake of understanding."</p><p></p><p>The theologian gives a small sigh. "Well, there is a fourth theory. I suppose you'd like to hear it?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes."</p><p></p><p>"I thought perhaps that was true. There is a theory among some scholars-- not necessarily scholars among the clergy, but among some scholars--that there was Creation, and there were the first of the elves and two of the elves happened to be brothers, and being true First Comers, they were incredibly powerful and they became the two Gods. Now, obviously that is not doctrinaire, nor accepted by the Temple."</p><p></p><p>"May I ask, are any of these theories formally proscribed by the Temple?"</p><p></p><p>"No. Oh, there is a fifth theory that's proscribed, but it's just too ludicrous to be considered, anyway."</p><p></p><p>"Could you share that, just in case we need to suppress it?" asks Alistair.</p><p></p><p><<Nice. Just asking for a friend,>> laughs Kit over the mindlink.</p><p></p><p>"There is a theory that is considered hereticus: That neither God actually exists, and that there's a pool of energy which can be called upon by the will of people, and that since most humans divide into a camp by following the Light or following Darkness, they have more or less formulated the Gods in their own image, and that those Gods have no objective existence at all. Only the energy."</p><p></p><p>"So that's really the same as the second theory, except that it maintains the energy is still inchoate and disorganized, instead of having taken on the identity from the worship of the Gods' followers."</p><p></p><p>"Correct, correct, and that, of course, is ludicrous, because both deities are deities of law, and it's nonsense that those would uphold a falsehood. I agree with the declaration of heresy on it that was brought."</p><p></p><p>"And people speak with them as entities, and get answers from them as entities, and I mean I haven't spoken with Glordiadel personally, but I've talked with both Time and the Utter Mother myself, and they were people. Well, not people, I suppose, but actual Gods, not just pools of energy."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, exactly right. Consciousnesses. So that is considered heretic, and it is believed by many of the chief church doctors that the attempt to spread that theory is an attempt to weaken the faith of believers, to pave the way for something unseemly. But other than that, all of the theories are acceptable, theologically."</p><p></p><p>"And, as you said, the first one is the standard teaching, but not to the exclusion of the other acceptable theories."</p><p></p><p>"Correct."</p><p></p><p>"And I take it that the Scriptures on this are obscure."</p><p></p><p>"Very. I've studied all seven verses that concern these things extensively, and, to be honest, Your Majesty, I've never come to a conclusion which one they support."</p><p></p><p>"I'm quite sure that I've heard those verses, and then been told that the words in them don't mean what the words normally mean, but they mean special meanings, and then that's about where I get lost."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, I understand. But that is the answer to those questions." He continues to blink rapidly and uncomfortably.</p><p></p><p>"So what, then, is the relationship between worshippers and the gods? I know obviously the gods provide power and blessings to the worshippers, and I've been told that if the worship of a god died out that they would not not fade away, but recede so that they no longer touched Aphonion."</p><p></p><p>"Diminish. Yes, with the exception being the two elven gods."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, I had been told that they were diminishing with their people."</p><p></p><p>"Deliberately. They have no interest in the rest."</p><p></p><p>"But for the human gods that diminishment is..."</p><p></p><p>"Involuntary. Yes. That's established. That is the danger."</p><p></p><p>"It's known that threats to their temples don't threaten them. They just threaten their connection."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, and of course this is the danger of heresy as well."</p><p></p><p>"That if it were to connect to something that wasn't them, that they would no longer have the connection to the true God."</p><p></p><p>"Exactly, and that something else could actually arise over time."</p><p></p><p>"As when Arthranax purports to be the Blue Star, so that people who seek to have a connection with the Blue Star actually maintain a connection with Arthranax."</p><p></p><p>"Correct."</p><p></p><p>"Regardless of whether the Blue Star had been consumed by Arthranax, it still could have done the same thing by just diverting the worship in the same way that some entities may be trying to grab the connection to what was Berta."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, exactly right, exactly right. And of course we have reason to believe that I believe you already know, that it's also managed to capture, at the very least, Anatar."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, and as you may or may not know, the princes-- the great lords-- of House Moriquendarim have departed this plane to seek to rescue Anatar."</p><p></p><p>"I didn't know, but I'm pleased to hear it. They may succeed."</p><p></p><p>"That is the assessment of everyone that we have spoken to about it, that they have a meaningful chance of success, but are far from assured of it. And that really, the longer that it goes without us hearing, the more likely it is that Arthranax is playing games with time, based on the fact that they are likely to succeed. So perhaps no news is good news, but..."</p><p></p><p>"We can but hope it is. That is all very, very bizarre, as I'm sure you know."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, it is. It is strange that we would wish Anatar well, but under the circumstances..."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, again, the enemies of our enemies..." comments Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"I think I have one last question about this. I've heard some people talking about the Arch, and the idea of things that are beyond the Arch versus Aphonion and things that are not. What does that mean?"</p><p></p><p>"Things that are within time, and things that are outside of time."</p><p></p><p>"So like eternal versus everlasting," comments Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"The Arch of Time. It's very vital for your world, for our world. And there are things that are outside of it, eternal and unchanging, or in some cases just eternal. It defines our reality."</p><p></p><p>"Are the other planes that are not part of this planar neighborhood, are those outside the Arch? Are they inside a different Arch?"</p><p></p><p>"They are not within this Arch."</p><p></p><p>"They are within an Arch, just their own Arch, while the eternal beings that are beyond it are simply outside all of that."</p><p></p><p>"Yes. That's not entirely clear with the Pariah Gods. That may be one of their limitations. But generally, you're correct."</p><p></p><p>"And then, I gather that when a god recedes, either involuntarily or voluntarily, that's understood as eventually leading to them being beyond the Arch, and that would mean that they are no longer able to affect this planar neighborhood in any way, and perhaps they've gone to some other planar neighborhood, or perhaps they are out in some eternal unknown, that's beyond the capacity of humans."</p><p></p><p>"Correct. I must admit, Your Majesty, I have never been questioned by a noble before who has shown such an understanding."</p><p></p><p>"It has just become vaguely necessary for us to understand some of these things."</p><p></p><p>"I am pleased that I can be of service to your understanding."</p><p></p><p>"Do you know anything of the plots and ambitions of demons and devils, and the like?"</p><p></p><p>"Something of it, although that is not my expertise. There is an expert at your local seminary. But what I can offer, I will. What do you need to know?"</p><p></p><p>"We believe that there are now seven major demon entities that serve the Eldritch. Or that are allied with the Eldritch, or some such. The Lord of Rams, the Abomination of Shurr, the Queen of Chaos, Membreal, Lord of Believable Lies, Urlodo, the Worm that Bores Beneath, and Jubilex. Perhaps the Seductress counts, but perhaps she does not, because her status is so unusual. We want to know whether that set suggests any particular sixth or seventh."</p><p></p><p>"That is six, not counting the Seductress. Given their priorities, and given Jubilex's involvement, there are logical ones and nonlogical ones. I would assume that the Lord of Worms would not be involved."</p><p></p><p>"Is that distinct from Urlodo?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes. The Lord of Worms is a demon lord deep in the Abyss, but has nothing to do with Urlodo. He is called the Lord of Worms because he's a worm demon. He also is sometimes called the Lord of Time, although he's not a lord of time. They are confusing down there, believe me."</p><p></p><p>"Very confusing," agrees Kit.</p><p></p><p>"If the Queen of Chaos is involved, that lets out the Lady of Shadow; she would never be involved in the same thing as the Queen of Chaos."</p><p></p><p>"And likewise we know that Malacat and the Horned Rat are not involved."</p><p></p><p>"I would certainly expect the Horned Rat to be uninvolved--they know where that leads. There is another demon lord, though I do not remember his name, only his title, that I would consider. They refer to him as He Who Gnaws. I believe he's in prison, though, so that makes it more difficult, but it may be worth investigating."</p><p></p><p>"Could he be going along with it in the hopes that it will get him out of prison?"</p><p></p><p>"Oh, that seems to be the Queen of Chaos's plan as well, so, perhaps, and she may have convinced him. I have no idea whether they can talk to one another there or not. But he has been in prison for some time because of his tendency to consume other demons."</p><p></p><p>"Which is very much in keeping with the Eldritch. Does he have a particular association with demon goats?"</p><p></p><p>"That was my thinking that you might wish to consider it. As for demon goats, I believe that would probably be Cyth-S'sug: Prince of the Blasted Heath, Lord of Goats and Fungus, Lord of the 567th Layer of the Abyss. I'm not completely sure of his level of the abyss, but I think that's right."</p><p></p><p>"That suggests at least two that are worth investigating directly," says Alistair.</p><p></p><p>"How do we investigate them further, though?" asks Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"I think that's a question for the demonologist."</p><p></p><p>"We were also wondering whether there was any connection between Urlodo and the fall of the South Kingdoms, or whether Urlodo might be seeking to usurp Borsh'tro's position, since we know that Borsh'tro is no longer as divine as he once was. Do you have any thoughts on that?"</p><p></p><p>"Urlodo is the cleverest of the great demon lords. His plans run for centuries, and are concealed beneath multiple layers. He could be behind the entire manipulation, for all I know. And he is arrogant enough, in my opinion, despite his reputation, so that he might think he could get away with it all."</p><p></p><p>"And the idea that he would want to maintain the facade that Borsh'tro was leading the whole thing, while at the same time developing cults of his own, so that he had the tighter connection and use that to his own advantage is very in keeping with his style."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, absolutely! He would never want anyone to know, ever."</p><p></p><p>"And more a coward in terms of not wanting to draw attention than a coward in terms of actually being afraid."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, there's no question in my mind that his cowardice is greatly overstated. He uses his creatures to do his fighting for him. There's no question of that."</p><p></p><p>"But again, that's strategic."</p><p></p><p>"Exactly. He very rarely will personally send an avatar into combat. But on the other hand, his forces are more likely to win combats than most others. I'll give you a good example. If you think of the yellow eums--the smallest of the eums, the least physically powerful, and the least honorable--yet they're the most likely to successfully kill their victims. They use poison, they use garottes, they attack from beneath the ground in the shadowlands, which is largely sand, as Your Majesty may or may not be aware."</p><p></p><p>"Is there a reason he has stayed primarily in the Shadowlands until now?" asks Dame Brionna.</p><p></p><p>"Borsh'tro ordered him to be."</p><p></p><p>"So he was pretending that Borsh'tro is still in charge, and that he is obeying Borsh'tro," says Kit, "but in reality probably influencing things elsewhere."</p><p></p><p>"He always had a presence elsewhere. His cults have been rooted out by the Temple of Paranswarm's Inquisition in nearly every Paranswarmian country. We have no reason to not believe they exist in our countries as well, but we don't have an Inquisition, and for good reason. The Inquisition tends paint with a very broad brush and believe that eradication is the best method of curing a cult. We don't know for certain what their death numbers are, since the Inquisition was reinitiated by the Grand Duchess of Ergmoth, but we believe it to be in the range of 400,000 globally."</p><p></p><p>"And that right there is why we cannot use an Inquisition in our lands to find such a cult."</p><p></p><p>"The Church agrees with you, Your Reverence," he replies, addressing Alistair with the honorific as Protector of the Faith rather than as Emperor.</p><p></p><p>Alistair sends over the mindlink, <<Finding cults of Urlodo needs to be a priority of the Halo.>></p><p></p><p><<Yes, I'll get them on that,>> replies Kit.</p><p></p><p>"That's certainly been informative," Dame Brionna says.</p><p></p><p>"I'm pleased that I was able to offer some clarity, Majesty, and counsel."</p><p></p><p>"Thank you. Does that conclude our questions for the Reverend Canon?"</p><p></p><p>"Wait a moment," says Dame Brionna, who has been looking through her notes during this conversation. "Who's the god of masks?"</p><p></p><p>"The Lord of Masks, as in the demon lord of masks, or the Lord of Masks worshiped by the drow?"</p><p></p><p>"The one worshipped by the drow."</p><p></p><p>"He is a son of the Demon Queen of Spiders. He is a reveler and a thief, with heavy emphasis on the thief. Mostly worshiped by males, I believe."</p><p></p><p>"Just there's a connection with some of the cultists of Urlodo. Would he work with the Worm?"</p><p></p><p>"Oh, very possibly, but he will never do anything that isn't in his mother's interest."</p><p></p><p>"I don't think we have any reason to suspect Lolth of trafficking with the Eldritch."</p><p></p><p>The others agree that they haven't.</p><p></p><p>"I wouldn't mind checking with a divination, just in case," says Dame Brionna. "But I think we can just ignore him."</p><p></p><p>As the Reverend Canon prepares to depart, Alistair asks, "Just out of curiosity, how are candidates for sainthood evaluated? How does that process work?"</p><p></p><p>"Oh, name, area, and portfolio are forwarded to the Holy See; a commission is appointed, who studies the miracles associated with the Blessed; they are initially declared 'Blessed,' and after a period of years, if there's a consistent demonstration of holy power, they are then considered for elevation by the Council of Hierarchs. And if the evidence is sufficient, they are elevated. Very straightforward, Your Majesty."</p><p></p><p>"Fairly, but fairly time consuming, it seems. A saint can then be active for quite some time before they would be canonized by the Church."</p><p></p><p>"Yes, correct, but they can be considered 'Blessed' in the interim, and even can have chapels."</p><p></p><p>"And I gather some deceased followers of Glordiadel are locally venerated as Blessed even before they have been formally declared so."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, yes, yes."</p><p></p><p>"And that's permissible within Church doctrine."</p><p></p><p>"Oh, yes, by all means. And there's also been a couple of confusing cases where figures that were not originally Glordiadelian were locally worshiped as saints of the Light. That took a little more sorting out. But yes, it all worked out in the end."</p><p>[cont'd]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CPaladin, post: 8951340, member: 7030144"] Session 153 (February 21, 2023) 6 Vaen After a peaceful week or so, Kit has a report from the Naughty Bits she dispatched to Enclaves, who have gathered a report on the Marchioness. [Attached] "These Naughty Bits are very good," Kit commences her report. "I mean, possibly that, too, but they are very, very good at getting information, and very politically aware, which you can see from their exhaustive report. The Marchioness is actually a Marchioness of Hell, dispatched by Lilith, Queen of the Seventh Hell, to serve as a money-maker in a pleasure palace owned by the Zorplona-Moriquendarim. Lilith agreed to this in exchange for a viable Noldor seed--which the Proconsul supplied. Our Naughty Bits think that Lilith may have also had other motivations for the deal as well. I think this might be quicker to deal with, because I have no idea what we can actually do. There may be more to do than I can figure out myself, but we have this information now." "This seems like a terrible plan on their part, I must say," comments Dame Brionna. "Yes, most deals involving devils are terrible," Kit agrees. "Also, if she's done it once, what's to stop her from having multiple offspring?" "And why does she want to have half-Noldor, half-devil babies, anyway?" asks Alistair. "That is a really good question. What advantage would she get from that?" "I think it's time to call in Dame Agatha, who, I believe, has a contract directly with this same Lilith." "I hate to admit that I agree," replies Dame Brionna. "It's not that I really like calling in that resource, but I think that she is absolutely the right person to talk to in this case." "The other thing about a Marchioness of Hell-- what we're talking about is an extremely major tempter devil, being set up in a high-end brothel. The potential for massive corruption there is enormous." "Oh, yes," agrees Kit. "I don't want to overly disparage my own judgment," adds Alistair, "but if they had done this a few years ago, the results could have been disastrous." "Yes, indeed," replies Dame Brionna fervently. "Anyway, let's call for Dame Agatha." "Good thing there hasn't been any temptation of that kind recently," comments Kit. "Now, how could anything tempt me when such a beautiful lady as yourself is mine?" "Oh, you know I love you, but I also know you." "Fair, and you know that I love you despite all that you know about me." "Anyway, let's get Dame Agatha in here." Dame Agatha is much brisker in responding to summons than the late Dame Constance was. "Your Majesty, you summoned me. Honored Councilmembers." "Indeed. We have some questions that we would like to ask you about a diabolical deal that we have found that one of our, let's say, allies but not a close ally, has entered into. Are you aware of the the Zorplona-Moriquendarim Enclave in the City of Enclaves? They operate a very high-end brothel in the Enclave of Glittertowers. This is not particularly surprising. It's the sort of services that the Zorplona-Moriquendarim provide to make a profit, especially now that they no longer engage in slaving in that region. However, we have found out that the, shall we say, star attraction of that brothel is one Lell, Marchioness of Night." "Ah. That's why she's become unavailable." "Yes, she is apparently physically present, and frequently occupied in every sense of the word in Enclaves." "Oh, she should command a very high price." "Apparently she does," comments Dame Brionna. "Also, apparently she is pregnant." "I assumed that it was Lilith who was pregnant," Alistair responds. "What we know, in any event, is that the Noldor who heads Zorplona-Moriquendarim was able to secure her services in exchange for providing some viable seed to Lilith. We don't know for how long he secured her services, and we don't know how strongly he secured her loyalty. The Lord Proconsul is very young, and he's a full Noldor. He's quite powerful for his age, and he's very young in the sense of being some few centuries old, not young in the way that humans would reckon it, but nonetheless." "So barely in puberty." "Indeed. He probably has no other offspring. I believe we think that one of his companions is his chief concubine, or some such, but I don't know if there is any meaningful bond there in the way that elves sometimes do and sometimes do not develop." "So. She's making a new play." "First, can I ask, to what extent can you discuss her plans without endangering yourself or without causing conflicts of loyalties?" "Cautiously," replies Dame Agatha with a grim smile. "She has for some time desired greater authority. A partially Noldor-blooded offspring, in a few centuries, might give her that opportunity." "How would it do that?" asks Kit. "As much as the Eldar and the Noldor are an arrogant people, there's some reason for their arrogance. They're part of the purity of early creation. Everything else came later, including the devils." "So it's essentially partaking of the essence of the two great elven gods as opposed to, for example, the essence of human gods." "Exactly right. I don't think she could do it with an Eldar, but with a Noldor, for the possibility of bringing some of Morgrath's power into her line, I can see her being willing to bargain away her chiefest servant for a while-- a century, perhaps." "The Marchioness is her chief servant?" "Yes, her chief of assassins." "What would they do with this child? When would it be a child?" "It will be a child initially. She will raise it, teach it loyalty to her, and she could then move up in the hierarchy by using its abilities when it's old enough." "I know that in the outer planes, deities can control the flow of time in their domains to a great degree. Can archdevils and the like do the same in the Hells?" "To a lesser degree, yes, she can speed the process. I'm not sure if she would. I do not even know if her plan will work, but I'm fairly certain, knowing her as well as I do, that that is her plan. Now, of course, this will make her vulnerable for a period of time, so that might move her to attempt to speed things up at that." "Vulnerable, because of the pregnancy?" asks Dame Brionna. "Her chief of assassins is absent, and it is Hell, after all. So the Marchioness also fills, well, your position, Dame. Whether the pregnancy would also make her more vulnerable, I don't know. She may be, but she is definitely without the full competency of her guard." "How likely would it be for the false Empress of Hanal to be aware of this?" "That's very difficult to say." "I do not count your mistress as our ally," clarifies Dame Brionna, "but I do count her as the enemy of our enemies." "And she is. I do not believe that the false Empress has any spies in Hell. In the Abyss, yes, but not in the Hells. Or at least so I estimate." Alistair raps his fingers against a table in thought. "Surely, if our people were able to get a positive identification of the Marchioness within days of their arrival, that cannot be a closely held secret." "She may not be hiding who she is. It's part of the draw." "We had heard of her as the Marchioness, even before we heard her full title, so I suspect that she is not." "But anyone who knows Hell's politics and what you're saying would recognize the weakness that represents in Lilith's court," notes Dame Brionna. "Oh yes, yes. I will endeavor to, forgive my bluntness, commune later with Lilith, and give her warning." "This is something for you to phrase, Your Grace." "Yes. I also think that we may wish to engage in a little bit of disinformation there to try to head this off. For example, we could spread the rumor in Enclaves that this is not, in fact, the Marchioness-- that this is indeed a sexual fiend, but not not, in fact, the Marchioness, and that people are being deceived. That would suggest that this is some sort of trap that's being set up in the Hells, to try to make them move a little cautiously. This whole thing is bizarre, so I don't know if this is a good idea. But..." "I can't think that it's a bad idea. I must admit, I did not expect this." Kit says, "We need to think about her reaction. It sounds like she wants to be known. So, if she hears these rumors, from what we know of her, it sounds like her reaction would be to double down, and boast about who she is and her power. Is that what we want?" "The other aspect of this is that our tendency will be to think of her as being a diabolical courtesan, of paramount status, because that's what she's being currently employed us. But if she's actually principally a diabolic assassin of paramount status, who simply has a sideline in using sex as a tool for her assassination purposes, then..." "Then I also wonder who she wants to kill in Enclaves," says Dame Brionna. "And that also means there may be people who can hire her for that. If we can find this out easily, albeit with a subject matter expert to aid us, there are others who know this as well. And so then there will be a steady stream of people seeking to hire her for assassination work." "Which work she can cover with her sexual work." "Of course. I'm sure that she would agree to accompany someone on a journey, for example, to be their companion and escort, and if somebody happens to end up dead along the way, well, who would think that it was her that was involved in that?" Dame Brionna asks, "Also, are there any young people in positions of power in Enclaves who are not particularly excellent judges of character?" "Also, unless they have bound her not to-- and given how this whole situation has developed it would surprise me if they had thought that far in advance-- unless they have bound her not to, surely she's encountering people who would be interested in retaining her services but can't afford to. She could then offer other sorts of deals, because, even if she had to make up the difference to the brothel's coffers out of her own pocket, surely she'd be willing to do that to gain access to somebody's soul or to get promises about things that they'll do when they have advanced into higher positions of authority. All the various blandishments that powerful devils use." "At the same time, I keep thinking that if we announced that I was taking a lengthy stay at a convent, to pray, and to commune with Glordiadel, and so forth, I'm sure that the number of expected assassination attempts would significantly increase as a result." "Also, the number of rumors that we had been carrying on would increase dramatically, but that's true." "I thought we had squelched those!" "I think we had, but that was before you started running off to a faraway convent for months at a time!" Kit nods her head in agreement with Alistair's joke. Dame Brionna sighs. "My point is that, in fact, what I was thinking is that people would assume that I had been sent there to collect some valuable artifacts or something like that." "Oh, that's true. There are people who will assume that she's there to serve some other purpose of Lillith's, which she may, in fact, be." "But there will also be people who will assume that even if she is serving another purpose, that it still provides an opportunity." "Isn't there a tremendously powerful evil artifact under Enclaves? A good one, an evil one, and a neutral one?" "No, it's an artifact of order and balance," says Kit. "There was an artifact of order--or really, of balance-- that we removed." "I thought that was the only one. Is there another?" Dame Brionna shakes her head at Kit and Alistair. "There were in fact three major artifacts under the City of Enclaves. The artifact of balance, which we had taken, an artifact of chaos, and an artifact of law." Kit nods, as she remembers. "So we're thinking, with these artifacts, could she be after the chaos one?" "I wouldn't think she would want a chaos one," replies Alistair. "But an archdevil would surely be interested in acquiring an artifact of Law, because that would provide direct power within the Hells, and whatever it can be used to do as well. But if things are already starting to come apart at the seams, with the artifact of balance removed, if the artifact of law were removed, it's all but certain Enclaves would be in civil war within days. Maybe days is an exaggeration, but it would not take long. And I don't believe that we have convinced Balansar to move in yet, although we're making some progress in that direction." "Who could we reach out to about that?" "My first thought is to tell Princess Curinirim, or maybe the Zorplona-Moriquendarim as well, that they must not allow the artifact of law to be removed. Except that they're so arrogant that they might not recognize the risk. She will find it hard to believe that anything like that could threaten to really change Enclaves, and she'll assume she could maintain stability through sheer force of her personality." "So who else in Enclaves would recognize the danger and be willing to take action? Some of the churches?" "They might. Or Meredith the Dazzling?" Dame Brionna and Kit both endorse that suggestion. "I think we need to have a conversation with Meredith the Dazzling about this. I also think we need to have a conversation with the Paranswarmians about getting proper regulation of any deals that are going on there. I don't want to pick a fight with the Zorplona-Moriquendarim, which we would do if we, for example, tried to have her banished by the Church. But the Temple of Paranswarm could legitimately come in and say, any deals here that are not for purely cash have to go through us and have to follow standards, because that's the rules and otherwise you'll be engaged in unlicensed diabolism, and we can't have that. That should at least be able to put a check on the Marchioness getting up to terrible things on that axis. So I think we talk to Meredith the Dazzling, and then we follow up with our Archbishop and their Archbishop." "And what message do we wish to convey to Lilith?" asks Dame Brionna. "Yes, what do you wish me to say to the Queen of Hell?" "What the f***?" suggests Dame Brionna, partially in jest. "Do we really want that explained under the circumstances?" replies Alistair. "I think that what we want to say is that we think that she should know that the Seductress almost surely knows that her chief assassin is otherwise occupied in Enclaves, and may attempt to use this, either directly or indirectly through a diabolic cat's paw, to strike at her. I do wonder if we could ask her, in the interest of coordinating against the Eldritch and in exchange for the warning that we're giving her, if there are things that we ought to know about what the Marchioness is doing besides the obvious?" "Offering it as a favor rather than as a bargain, or making a bargain?" asks Dame Brionna. "I think that I have already made one bargain with Lilith, and that I don't want to make any additional ones. And thus I think we want to do this as we're providing this information to you, because we think it might be useful, and because we have some shared enemies. Is there any information that you'd like to provide to us in that same vein? And if there isn't, there isn't. We can't promise we won't try to frustrate her goals, because, depending on what they are, we may directly try to do so, but then we can at least make sure we wouldn't inadvertently do so." "So we frame it as professional courtesy," says Kit. "Exactly. And she's a loyal Paranswarmian archdevil, right? So we also frame it as being part of a spirit of cooperation in and through the Ecumenical Council." "I shall do so," agrees Dame Agatha. "Expect me to report back later." "And I can't imagine that matters are so pressing, given that this has been in place for at least weeks, that we can't wait to get your report back before we reach out to Meredith the Dazzling. So I think, why don't we plan on doing that?" After Dame Agatha leaves, Kit apologizes. "Sorry. I thought that was going to be the quick one." "I thought so, too," replies Dame Brionna, "until I understood that she is Lilith's chief bodyguard. Not that I'm especially interested in the Queen of Hell's safety, but I don't want that power vacuum at the moment." "It does incidentally mean that if there was someone who we decided that we needed to have assassinated, who we thought was extremely difficult to reach, we might have a potential assassin to hire." "For what price, my lord?" "That's obviously the question, but..." "I'm just saying, I'm sure Kit knows people who know people who don't deal in souls." "We already tried some assassinations," Kit points out, "and it didn't go well. I would hate to dig ourselves deeper into bargains and prices that we were not really equipped to pay for more failed attempts." "No doubt," agrees Alistair. Dame Brionna then proffers the next report. "I received a report from the field army who we sent to try to cut off the slavers bringing people to the mine. The good news is that they were able to do that. The bad news is that the guards were chaos centaurs. Apparently, they're coming in from the Shadowlands." "That doesn't make things better," observes Alistair. "And they inflicted five to one casualties among our troops. It would have been even worse, if not for our mages and the priest who sent me this report. Also, we do have an issue with that. The commander of the field army refused to accept that they were not ordinary centaurs on the grounds that nobody's ever seen chaos centaurs outside the Shadowlands. So the chaplain thought to report directly to me. Among other things, I think the field army's banner is primarily a banner against evil--I think we should send one that is more focused on promoting Law against Chaos." Alistair thinks. "Let's see... who do chaos centaurs serve in the Shadow? Presumably one of the Six... I'm pretty sure they serve the Worm Who Burrows Beneath. Urlodo. I can't recall anything more about that, though. They're basically his only shock troops. That strongly suggests to me that Urlodo is in alliance with the Eldritch." "We know some of the other major demon lords that are, but we haven't identified them all," adds Dame Brionna. "I remember the last Commune. We ran out of questions." "And the devil that took Dame Constance's soul said the same thing, that there were seven in total." "We could do a targeted divination just to confirm that with Father Waters," suggests Dame Brionna. "Yes, one of the things on our to-do list that we never quite got to was counting up which ones we knew for sure and trying to identify the others," agrees Kit. "But now we have a candidate for one of the ones that we didn't know." "So, do we want to start by having a conversation with Father Waters about that?" asks Alistair. "And we could also call in the Doctor of Theology that we asked for but have never really consulted with. A Doctor of Theology from the Church, someone who has an expertise in in the deeper matters of theology than a regular priest-- this seems like something that might be worth involving them in as well." "My other question is, who do we know who has served in the Shadowlands?" asks Dame Brionna. "I know some of our nobles have, but I can't recall who offhand." "Because they might have a good idea if there are reliable tactics that people in the Shadowlands have been using for years against these chaos centaurs." "And also knowledge of what other creatures tend to go along with chaos centaurs, if those aren't the only servants of the worm who are being brought over," adds Kit. "If they have any dhoyles outside of the Shadowlands we have a different set of problems," comments Alistair. "Those are the enormous chaos worms of the Shadowlands." "I think if we had those we would have known already," says Kit. "Yes, probably." "What if they're in the mine?" asks Dame Brionna. "What if they're using them in the mine? Enormous worms? People love burrowing at high speeds." "When you put it that way, the whole nature of the Great Mine, where they're trying to dig out horrible unholy stuff does rather seem Urlodo-esque." "I think you're right. We haven't seen them, but that's because they're not using them to escort slaves. They don't need to." "Urlodo is also notorious for conspiracies. 'That bores beneath' is also a metaphorical thing. A great deal of the demon cults that seek to bring down the Shadowline from the far side and that sort of stuff is Urlodo, more, I think, than any of the other of the Six." "But it can be metaphorical, and also actual with giant chaos worms." "I agree. I'm just saying that... you know, the fall of the Southlands was exactly the sort of thing that he does..." "Disrupting people's true faith..." "And causing people to be corrupted and then causing a total collapse. After all, the foundations have already been destroyed, and so when the demons erupted out, it was already too late, because the people who should have been fighting them were already in no position to... I've never heard anything that suggested that Urlodo was involved in that..." "But Urlodo was not one of the beings that we were paying any attention to," comments Kit. "But from our perspective, he's mostly just one of the Six, and we don't even spend that much time worrying about Borsh'tro." "Let's do a little more investigating into that," says Kit. "With finding those nobles who have served on the Shadowline and getting more information about Urlodo specifically." The Council checks on whether the Doctor of Theology is available, and a functionary informs them that a doctor of canon law and theology has been waiting on the Council's availability, since they requested him some months ago. Each day, he arrives, waits in an antechamber, and then departs at the end of the day. "Oh no!" exclaims Kit. "What were we asking them about? I forget. Why did we call for them?" "One of the things we were interested in was some of the cosmogony questions," replies Alistair. "Relationships among the gods and that sort of thing. It partly came up because of the whole question of where Glordiadel's children came from. And questions like what exactly that relationship is between worship on the prime and the presence or activity of a god, because we know there's some connection, but it's a little obscure to us." "Oh, that's right," says Kit, as Dame Brionna nods along. "Stuff we wanted to know about, but not pressing on a day-to-day basis, which is why we haven't actually gotten around to doing it. Let's talk with Bishop Waters first, and then with the theologian?" Father Waters gives them a cheery greeting as he enters. "Good morning. Time seems to have been passing so rapidly recently." "Yes, it's been very pleasant that we've had some days when we can just deal with the routine and then relax a little bit." "Indeed!" Alistair launches directly into it: "We were curious what you know about Urlodo, the Worm That Burrows Beneath, and his chaos centaurs." "Well, I'm not a specialist in demonology. I do know that he is the one of the Six that's been most effective, despite the fact that one would not think he would be, since he's something of a coward. He was responsible for the fall of that Paranswarmian kingdom that was up against up against the Shadow. He's also been responsible for, oh, a number of disastrous turns in the different lands of Glordiadel, generally through subterfuge. The chaos centaurs are among his shock troops. You have to step back a mile and take a good look to realize that some of his creatures do not fit his reputation as a coward. For example, the great dhoyles look to him, as well as the chaos centaurs. He does, of course, have the yellow eums, but he has so much more. I consider him probably to be the most dangerous of the Six. He doesn't pound his chest, but he gets things done." "Do you think he might be purposely cultivating the image of a coward so that everybody else underestimates him?" asks Kit. "I think he may well be. He's always been their most effective member. In fact, quite often it's the others that put the kibosh on his plans with their activity. Why do you ask? It's not like he's here." "There are chaos centaurs active to the west of Canberry." "There are?" "Yes, around the Great Mine," continues Alistair. "I think we briefed you on that? The chaos centaurs are leading slave caravans in and out." "Urlodo is never active in anything where there's not a gain for him, that I can tell you. If there are chaos centaurs around the Great Mine, he has some presence in the Great Mine." "That's one of the things we were wondering," says Kit. "And we think that that means that he must be aligned with the Eldritch, if it's primarily an Eldritch operation." "He must have reached an agreement, and he might actually be clever enough to double cross them successfully." "It does occur to me... we've been told that Borsh'tro is no longer actually a god, that he has fallen to being some form of demon prince. Is there a chance that Urlodo has, in fact, supplanted him?" "You would need a specialist. I would not put it past Urlodo. He has a strong cadre of followers. He has cults outside the Shadowlands, which none of the others of the Six do." "It sounds like even if he hasn't supplanted him, he would definitely take advantage of Borsh'tro's demotion," comments Kit. "His discomfitting. Yes, oh, yes, they compete among themselves as much as they do with anyone else. It's one of their saving graces." "Do we know if he had any involvement in the fall of the South Kingdoms? It seems like his sort of thing." "We don't know, because so few hierarchs of the Temple of Berta survived. There were no hierarchs of Berta who survived who did not flee immediately, and therefore had no knowledge of what happened. It is, however, very much his type of operation, and he had reached an accommodation with Berta. That is known." "Which means that he was part of the alliance with Arthranax, which is consistent with his involvement with the Eldritch, as well." "Yes, I'm afraid that's true." "We've also been told that there are seven demon lords that are aligned with the Eldritch, and we are trying to count them and figure out which ones we know and which ones we don't. We know the Ram is; we know that the Queen of Chaos is; and now we know that Urlodo is." "That leave four others." "They might be counting the Seductress, but they might not. We've heard some references to goats, but I'm not sure if that's just misidentifications of the Ram, or whether that's a separate demon lord." "There are demon goats, though I'm not aware of a particular demon lord of goats. But as I said, it's not my speciality. " "Do you know of any others that we should particularly suspect?" "I would think Jubilex." "Demon prince of slimes." Dame Brionna says, "I feel like we've heard things reference Jubilex before..." Alistair agrees. "Yes, there was a rain of slime somewhere around Holy Cortose--the Holy See of Sytry. We did confirm that was connected to Jubilex." Dame Brionna comes back with a record. "Here we go--we have a record of asking the Archivist of Hell questions about the major demonic supporters of the Eldritch. The answer we got was: The Lord of Rams, the Abomination of Shurr, the Queen of Chaos, and Membriel, Lord of the 540th Plane, with power over water and believable lies." "That's very specific," comments Kit. "And notably is precisely what the Queen-Empress has been using, or rather the Usurper," adds Alistair. "Yes, it's all very plausible! Sure, there could be a third child of Thyastis." "Indeed, there was a third child. It's just the third child died at birth, essentially. So that gets us five, leaving us with two that we haven't counted." "Also, there is mention of another army deep in the Underdark of the southeastern part of the continent." "You were saying something about demon goats-- that they're a known thing, but they do not have their own lord?" "I am unaware of them having a lord. However, there are specialists within the church who would know more than I do. There are so many planes of the abyss, and so many different demons, it's hard to keep track of them all." "Yes, but now we're approaching knowing enough of them that picking out who might also belong in that group should be easier." "Yes, but that at least requires knowing that they exist." "Could you have an expert on such things attend on us?" "I could, and I will." "And we'll need to check that one carefully to make sure that they are not overly expert in such things." "Of course." "Set them up for tea with Aunt Cecilia, or have young Lord Brightspan show them in?" asks Kit. "I would think young Lord Brightspan would be better for that." "That's what I was thinking." [Out of character, the players observe that Urlodo and the Chaos Centaurs would be an awesome name for a band, with albums like "Eldritch Operations" and "The Worm that Bores Beneath." Jubilex would be a rival band.] They thank Father Waters, and call for the Doctor of Theology. Reverend Canon Raphael Mylan Gabriel de Libre enters. He is an elderly priest with a neatly trimmed small beard who looks like he was probably quite dashing when he was younger. "Reverend Canon. Thank you for joining us." "Your Imperial Majesty. It has been an honor waiting upon you." "We're sorry about that, but..." "Your staff makes a wonderful cup of tea, Your Majesty." "They do, they do." "I've had many of them. How may I help you?" "We had a couple of questions, some more in the way of general curiosity, and some that deal with some specific threats that we've encountered, and we thought you could provide insight." "I am delighted to offer what expertise I can, Your Majesty." "The first thing was that we were curious about how Glordiadel relates to His family members--His Children, and for that matter, His Brother. It seems surprising to us that we have a God of Light who is the Father of three Children, and yet there's never any mention of a mother of them, or anything like that." "They are of His essence, Your Majesty." "So He is their only parent?" asks Kit. "Early in time, after the Creation," and like all the priests of the younger gods, he dodges the Creation thing entirely, "When Glordiadel and His Brother arose from the essence of the universe and took form, the energy that formed their beings were sufficiently different in and of themselves that portions of them separated out to create different consciousnesses. In the case of Lord Glordiadel, who was overflowing with energy, there were the three Children, and, of course, in the case of His Brother there were two." "Wait, what?" asks Alistair, who has never heard of a second child of Paranswarm before. "In the case of his brother, that would be Paranswarm, of course, there were two." "Who were the children of Paranswarm?" "Of course, the Weeping Woman, who is well known." "And who is the one who is not well known?" presses Kit. "His son. He's not part of their hierarchy." "Please tell us more about Paranswarm's family drama and his disinherited son." "He disinherited himself, as it were. He chose to step aside from the Lord of Darkness, and enter into the service of Lord Morgrath. Where he retains a position of some honor, I understand, although Morgrathian theology is beyond my portfolio." "What's his name?" asks Kit. "Or title," adds Alistair. "Oh, his title! His title is 'The Breeder.' He works with the uruk-blood and the olog-blood to breed new species for Lord Morgrath. It doesn't give him the power of one of Morgrath's lesser divinities, but certainly gives him the equivalent power of perhaps a very powerful archangel or archdevil." "Was that always his specialty?" asks Kit. "That doesn't with with the conception that I've had, at least, of Paranswarm." "No, it doesn't. As I said, he exiled himself. Lord Paranswarm was not friendly to his ideas for the utilization of his power, and took back his name, and he left." "We had been told by the great elves that the Weeping Woman was not, in fact, a child of Paranswarm," comments Alistair. "I would not dare to make a comment on that." "I see, I think." "Our three, I assure you, are of the essence of Lord Glordiadel." "And I take it that you are confident that Paranswarm's son was of the essence of Paranswarm." "Yes. And the Weeping Woman claims to be of his essence, and who would gainsay her if he did not? Who are we as priests of His Brother to disagree?" "Who else could she be?" asks Kit. "Oh, my goodness." He blinks so rapidly it looks like his eyes are going to fly out of his head. "Well, there are some, not me, but there are some who claim she might be a child of Eiru, who shall remain nameless." <<He's rapidly wishing that we'd left him waiting for the rest of our lives,>> observes Alistair over the mindlink. <<Welcome to the Council, Reverend Canon,>> thinks Kit back in amusement. "Related to that, we've been told basically two different things about the origin of Glordiadel and His relationship to humanity," says Alistair, moving to the next topic. "Oh, only two?" "One is, more or less, that when the universe was created, there were essentially these shards of the power and essence of the elven deities and those coalesced into the human gods, and then the human gods created humanity. The other version that we've been told is that there was Aphonion--there was the world, the universe, whatever--and then humans came about somehow, because apparently things come about somehow on this planet, and then they started worshiping ideas, and those became the gods. And I suppose a third is that we were told that both of those stories were correct. Frankly, I don't understand that one at all." "The first is doctrinaire. To be clear, is what you're seeking, actually, an understanding of the relationship between the worship of a deity's servants and their power?" "That's part of what we're curious about. But I also do like understanding things for the sake of understanding." The theologian gives a small sigh. "Well, there is a fourth theory. I suppose you'd like to hear it?" "Yes." "I thought perhaps that was true. There is a theory among some scholars-- not necessarily scholars among the clergy, but among some scholars--that there was Creation, and there were the first of the elves and two of the elves happened to be brothers, and being true First Comers, they were incredibly powerful and they became the two Gods. Now, obviously that is not doctrinaire, nor accepted by the Temple." "May I ask, are any of these theories formally proscribed by the Temple?" "No. Oh, there is a fifth theory that's proscribed, but it's just too ludicrous to be considered, anyway." "Could you share that, just in case we need to suppress it?" asks Alistair. <<Nice. Just asking for a friend,>> laughs Kit over the mindlink. "There is a theory that is considered hereticus: That neither God actually exists, and that there's a pool of energy which can be called upon by the will of people, and that since most humans divide into a camp by following the Light or following Darkness, they have more or less formulated the Gods in their own image, and that those Gods have no objective existence at all. Only the energy." "So that's really the same as the second theory, except that it maintains the energy is still inchoate and disorganized, instead of having taken on the identity from the worship of the Gods' followers." "Correct, correct, and that, of course, is ludicrous, because both deities are deities of law, and it's nonsense that those would uphold a falsehood. I agree with the declaration of heresy on it that was brought." "And people speak with them as entities, and get answers from them as entities, and I mean I haven't spoken with Glordiadel personally, but I've talked with both Time and the Utter Mother myself, and they were people. Well, not people, I suppose, but actual Gods, not just pools of energy." "Yes, exactly right. Consciousnesses. So that is considered heretic, and it is believed by many of the chief church doctors that the attempt to spread that theory is an attempt to weaken the faith of believers, to pave the way for something unseemly. But other than that, all of the theories are acceptable, theologically." "And, as you said, the first one is the standard teaching, but not to the exclusion of the other acceptable theories." "Correct." "And I take it that the Scriptures on this are obscure." "Very. I've studied all seven verses that concern these things extensively, and, to be honest, Your Majesty, I've never come to a conclusion which one they support." "I'm quite sure that I've heard those verses, and then been told that the words in them don't mean what the words normally mean, but they mean special meanings, and then that's about where I get lost." "Yes, I understand. But that is the answer to those questions." He continues to blink rapidly and uncomfortably. "So what, then, is the relationship between worshippers and the gods? I know obviously the gods provide power and blessings to the worshippers, and I've been told that if the worship of a god died out that they would not not fade away, but recede so that they no longer touched Aphonion." "Diminish. Yes, with the exception being the two elven gods." "Oh, I had been told that they were diminishing with their people." "Deliberately. They have no interest in the rest." "But for the human gods that diminishment is..." "Involuntary. Yes. That's established. That is the danger." "It's known that threats to their temples don't threaten them. They just threaten their connection." "Yes, and of course this is the danger of heresy as well." "That if it were to connect to something that wasn't them, that they would no longer have the connection to the true God." "Exactly, and that something else could actually arise over time." "As when Arthranax purports to be the Blue Star, so that people who seek to have a connection with the Blue Star actually maintain a connection with Arthranax." "Correct." "Regardless of whether the Blue Star had been consumed by Arthranax, it still could have done the same thing by just diverting the worship in the same way that some entities may be trying to grab the connection to what was Berta." "Yes, exactly right, exactly right. And of course we have reason to believe that I believe you already know, that it's also managed to capture, at the very least, Anatar." "Yes, and as you may or may not know, the princes-- the great lords-- of House Moriquendarim have departed this plane to seek to rescue Anatar." "I didn't know, but I'm pleased to hear it. They may succeed." "That is the assessment of everyone that we have spoken to about it, that they have a meaningful chance of success, but are far from assured of it. And that really, the longer that it goes without us hearing, the more likely it is that Arthranax is playing games with time, based on the fact that they are likely to succeed. So perhaps no news is good news, but..." "We can but hope it is. That is all very, very bizarre, as I'm sure you know." "Yes, it is. It is strange that we would wish Anatar well, but under the circumstances..." "Yes, again, the enemies of our enemies..." comments Dame Brionna. "I think I have one last question about this. I've heard some people talking about the Arch, and the idea of things that are beyond the Arch versus Aphonion and things that are not. What does that mean?" "Things that are within time, and things that are outside of time." "So like eternal versus everlasting," comments Dame Brionna. "The Arch of Time. It's very vital for your world, for our world. And there are things that are outside of it, eternal and unchanging, or in some cases just eternal. It defines our reality." "Are the other planes that are not part of this planar neighborhood, are those outside the Arch? Are they inside a different Arch?" "They are not within this Arch." "They are within an Arch, just their own Arch, while the eternal beings that are beyond it are simply outside all of that." "Yes. That's not entirely clear with the Pariah Gods. That may be one of their limitations. But generally, you're correct." "And then, I gather that when a god recedes, either involuntarily or voluntarily, that's understood as eventually leading to them being beyond the Arch, and that would mean that they are no longer able to affect this planar neighborhood in any way, and perhaps they've gone to some other planar neighborhood, or perhaps they are out in some eternal unknown, that's beyond the capacity of humans." "Correct. I must admit, Your Majesty, I have never been questioned by a noble before who has shown such an understanding." "It has just become vaguely necessary for us to understand some of these things." "I am pleased that I can be of service to your understanding." "Do you know anything of the plots and ambitions of demons and devils, and the like?" "Something of it, although that is not my expertise. There is an expert at your local seminary. But what I can offer, I will. What do you need to know?" "We believe that there are now seven major demon entities that serve the Eldritch. Or that are allied with the Eldritch, or some such. The Lord of Rams, the Abomination of Shurr, the Queen of Chaos, Membreal, Lord of Believable Lies, Urlodo, the Worm that Bores Beneath, and Jubilex. Perhaps the Seductress counts, but perhaps she does not, because her status is so unusual. We want to know whether that set suggests any particular sixth or seventh." "That is six, not counting the Seductress. Given their priorities, and given Jubilex's involvement, there are logical ones and nonlogical ones. I would assume that the Lord of Worms would not be involved." "Is that distinct from Urlodo?" "Yes. The Lord of Worms is a demon lord deep in the Abyss, but has nothing to do with Urlodo. He is called the Lord of Worms because he's a worm demon. He also is sometimes called the Lord of Time, although he's not a lord of time. They are confusing down there, believe me." "Very confusing," agrees Kit. "If the Queen of Chaos is involved, that lets out the Lady of Shadow; she would never be involved in the same thing as the Queen of Chaos." "And likewise we know that Malacat and the Horned Rat are not involved." "I would certainly expect the Horned Rat to be uninvolved--they know where that leads. There is another demon lord, though I do not remember his name, only his title, that I would consider. They refer to him as He Who Gnaws. I believe he's in prison, though, so that makes it more difficult, but it may be worth investigating." "Could he be going along with it in the hopes that it will get him out of prison?" "Oh, that seems to be the Queen of Chaos's plan as well, so, perhaps, and she may have convinced him. I have no idea whether they can talk to one another there or not. But he has been in prison for some time because of his tendency to consume other demons." "Which is very much in keeping with the Eldritch. Does he have a particular association with demon goats?" "That was my thinking that you might wish to consider it. As for demon goats, I believe that would probably be Cyth-S'sug: Prince of the Blasted Heath, Lord of Goats and Fungus, Lord of the 567th Layer of the Abyss. I'm not completely sure of his level of the abyss, but I think that's right." "That suggests at least two that are worth investigating directly," says Alistair. "How do we investigate them further, though?" asks Dame Brionna. "I think that's a question for the demonologist." "We were also wondering whether there was any connection between Urlodo and the fall of the South Kingdoms, or whether Urlodo might be seeking to usurp Borsh'tro's position, since we know that Borsh'tro is no longer as divine as he once was. Do you have any thoughts on that?" "Urlodo is the cleverest of the great demon lords. His plans run for centuries, and are concealed beneath multiple layers. He could be behind the entire manipulation, for all I know. And he is arrogant enough, in my opinion, despite his reputation, so that he might think he could get away with it all." "And the idea that he would want to maintain the facade that Borsh'tro was leading the whole thing, while at the same time developing cults of his own, so that he had the tighter connection and use that to his own advantage is very in keeping with his style." "Oh, absolutely! He would never want anyone to know, ever." "And more a coward in terms of not wanting to draw attention than a coward in terms of actually being afraid." "Yes, there's no question in my mind that his cowardice is greatly overstated. He uses his creatures to do his fighting for him. There's no question of that." "But again, that's strategic." "Exactly. He very rarely will personally send an avatar into combat. But on the other hand, his forces are more likely to win combats than most others. I'll give you a good example. If you think of the yellow eums--the smallest of the eums, the least physically powerful, and the least honorable--yet they're the most likely to successfully kill their victims. They use poison, they use garottes, they attack from beneath the ground in the shadowlands, which is largely sand, as Your Majesty may or may not be aware." "Is there a reason he has stayed primarily in the Shadowlands until now?" asks Dame Brionna. "Borsh'tro ordered him to be." "So he was pretending that Borsh'tro is still in charge, and that he is obeying Borsh'tro," says Kit, "but in reality probably influencing things elsewhere." "He always had a presence elsewhere. His cults have been rooted out by the Temple of Paranswarm's Inquisition in nearly every Paranswarmian country. We have no reason to not believe they exist in our countries as well, but we don't have an Inquisition, and for good reason. The Inquisition tends paint with a very broad brush and believe that eradication is the best method of curing a cult. We don't know for certain what their death numbers are, since the Inquisition was reinitiated by the Grand Duchess of Ergmoth, but we believe it to be in the range of 400,000 globally." "And that right there is why we cannot use an Inquisition in our lands to find such a cult." "The Church agrees with you, Your Reverence," he replies, addressing Alistair with the honorific as Protector of the Faith rather than as Emperor. Alistair sends over the mindlink, <<Finding cults of Urlodo needs to be a priority of the Halo.>> <<Yes, I'll get them on that,>> replies Kit. "That's certainly been informative," Dame Brionna says. "I'm pleased that I was able to offer some clarity, Majesty, and counsel." "Thank you. Does that conclude our questions for the Reverend Canon?" "Wait a moment," says Dame Brionna, who has been looking through her notes during this conversation. "Who's the god of masks?" "The Lord of Masks, as in the demon lord of masks, or the Lord of Masks worshiped by the drow?" "The one worshipped by the drow." "He is a son of the Demon Queen of Spiders. He is a reveler and a thief, with heavy emphasis on the thief. Mostly worshiped by males, I believe." "Just there's a connection with some of the cultists of Urlodo. Would he work with the Worm?" "Oh, very possibly, but he will never do anything that isn't in his mother's interest." "I don't think we have any reason to suspect Lolth of trafficking with the Eldritch." The others agree that they haven't. "I wouldn't mind checking with a divination, just in case," says Dame Brionna. "But I think we can just ignore him." As the Reverend Canon prepares to depart, Alistair asks, "Just out of curiosity, how are candidates for sainthood evaluated? How does that process work?" "Oh, name, area, and portfolio are forwarded to the Holy See; a commission is appointed, who studies the miracles associated with the Blessed; they are initially declared 'Blessed,' and after a period of years, if there's a consistent demonstration of holy power, they are then considered for elevation by the Council of Hierarchs. And if the evidence is sufficient, they are elevated. Very straightforward, Your Majesty." "Fairly, but fairly time consuming, it seems. A saint can then be active for quite some time before they would be canonized by the Church." "Yes, correct, but they can be considered 'Blessed' in the interim, and even can have chapels." "And I gather some deceased followers of Glordiadel are locally venerated as Blessed even before they have been formally declared so." "Oh, yes, yes." "And that's permissible within Church doctrine." "Oh, yes, by all means. And there's also been a couple of confusing cases where figures that were not originally Glordiadelian were locally worshiped as saints of the Light. That took a little more sorting out. But yes, it all worked out in the end." [cont'd] [/QUOTE]
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Aphonion Tales: The Archducal Council -- Unedited notes; later posts are edited transcripts (posts MWF, update 3/1/23)
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