#tansul

[navpike]

i am STARING at the detail of omra having a different epitaph. not the shaper of the beastfolk, the awakener of them. there’s something there. that feels like it has to be important.

(image from beacon lorekeeper’s news letter)

[cassafrasscr]

So, I've seen a couple posts suggesting that Yanessa Halovar might not be a true-born Halovar, and that she was actually born a bastard, and/or may have originally been a servant in the Halovar household prior to the Shaper's War. And I think there's a lot of merit to this theory.

Yanessa is a known conwoman, and she speaks with a working-class accent with her family when they're behind closed doors (presumably her natural accent, since she puts on a much more upper-class accent when speaking publically). She's also quick to drop any semblance of upper-class decorum in private. But she's familiar enough with the culture and politics of noble society to be able to play their games with great skill. If she was actually a bastard of the original House Halovar, I wouldn't be too surprised, especially if she was the only surviving member of the family following the Shaper's War.

However. I don't think she's a Halovar child born out of wedlock. I think she's not a Halovar at all.

The theory that Yanessa was originally a servant of the old Halovars who passed herself off as a Halovar following the extinction of the House in the Shaper's War ties back to a lot of the evidence I mentioned already. However, I think there's one more piece of evidence that may have been overlooked. One that could be the clincher in solving this mystery and proving this theory fact.

The ritual the Tachonises were using to create an angel of death doesn't work on Halovars.

Now. Initially, I had thought this might have something to do with the Halovars being Aasimar instead of humans. However, an Aasimar descendant of the human house of Halovar would still carry the bloodline of the priestly houses, which was (if I'm remembering correctly) the only major stipulation for the sacrifice required to make the angel. Also, Goddard, Wick and his siblings should be the only Halovar Aasimars, since angelic blood was only introduced to the family with Yanessa's child/children. Filoneus (and any kids he might have) could also potentially be part-angel - though if he is, he bears very little resemblance to his brother, which makes me think he and Goddard might be half-brothers.

(We also know that the ritual apparently doesn't work on sorcerers - or at least, not on Tachonis sorcerers, but based on the correspondance between Primus and Segundus, that might have more to do with their connection to the underworld than with their innate bloodline magic.)

Now, a bastard of the Halovar family may not be eligible for inheritance (under normal circumstances), but they would still carry the bloodline. King Gus was likely made king of Timmony because he was the direct descendant of the previous ruling lord. If the previous ruling lord had no other legitimate children who could inherit, then, bastard or not, Gus would still be next in line for the throne. The bloodline is what matters here.

HOWEVER. If Yanessa is lying completely about being a Halovar, then of course the ritual wouldn't work on modern Halovars. They're not ACTUAL Halovars. They're frauds. And, given Yanessa's propensity to flat-out lie to even her own family, they don't even know yet that they're imposters.

[see-arcane]

Just finished rereading this post by @thedesertisjust for the third time and my brain is boiling. I have so much I want to ramble about but I don’t want to add another brick to that immaculate text wall, so I’m setting it here

The closing bit regarding Worst Timelines already lived might slip more into Murray’s wheelhouse of divination, what with being a view of All Possible Timelines. Whatever Azune’s source of impossible perspective/awareness is, it dosed him with a taste of Murray’s kind of vision. Showing a flash of what currently is and dangling a threat-suggestion of the many different results depending on how the interaction with the present goes. Same as that momentous occasion in bringing back Occtis Tachonis with that nigh impossible surgery. There was only one version of reality where that event took place as it did and Murray guided the way onto that version.

With the vision of the Halovar carriage around the corner, which might have caught Azune and Hal unawares and unprepared otherwise, the unknown voice and its boom of Remember was reaching out of its own accord—tugging some spectral leash, moving a piece on a gameboard—to avoid the timelines and threats that would have come about if Azune had not known it was there. Azune is hypervigilant to the point of paranoia; or would be, if he was not a years-long plant in a station of authority working with the resistance who now has even more to worry about for himself and others. But even being on guard during his walk with Hal? During basically all his excursions and every other moment of consciousness? He didn’t reach out of his own accord to try to divine anything. Guy doesn’t even have a paladin’s Divine Sense, let alone any shown habit of trying to reach out with anything other than standard perception, insight and magic detection.

What got airdropped to him was delivered by a separate intelligence.

Now let’s bring it back to the inspiring post. All that tantalizing talk of reincarnation braided into Azune’s fixation on memory. The idea that he has walked the Old Path before and, in a way that goes beyond the simpler reforging of the soul that we see demonstrated with the Hounds of the King, Azune finds himself being prodded by an unknown force to be more than just another life lived post-Path. It wants him to Remember something and is reaching out from wherever it dwells to guide and guard him. What is it that needs remembering as Azune Nayar that was not enough to know in an older life? What is buried there, preserved and waiting, that is so important to this outside entity that it’s pressing down on his brain, insisting upon the route he’s taking, upon his nearness to the Schemers themselves?

Something Else knows him, knows what he was, and knows there is a route it wishes him to follow.

Something Else wants him to go forward on its path, seen from above by it, shown only in flashes to Azune himself, and to Remember, Remember, Remember.

And that has me thinking.

Veer back and away, to a scene with the Soldiers. Thimble giving away a precious memory, selling it for needed intel. Kattigan assures her that he will remember it for her. Remember what?

Further.

Further.

Azune Nayar, the dutiful son. Azune Nayar, the useful thing. Azune Nayar, dedicated to family, by blood or otherwise, to the point of death; his or any others’. Azune Nayar, obsessed with memory, with kin loved and lost. Ever shadowing and worshipping and performing for the sake of his father(s).

 Further.

(Father?)

A boy forgotten in the chaos of the battlefield. Bleeding. Dying. His father’s face…

You begin to stabilize. You see your father's face. There's something.

"It's not. Going. To happen. Here.”

It is not his father’s voice. Yet it lifts him away from death. Lucky to have a second chance, wasn’t it?

Further.

Further.

A priest before his god who is his Shaper who is his—

“We will never be without you. Why would you give us tools to use in an age without you? I cannot understand it. Father, please.”

"Does the sun not vanish with the coming of each and every night? Ages like days, come and go in the long march of time. Know that a day may come where I am gone, but a day will come where I return."

I have been gnawing hard on the idea that Azune has some tie to Tansul, or at least to the old houses of the Obridimian Empire. Obridai stands out as most eligible. All this time I was pondering a connection solely by blood. Sorcery inherited from a Broken and Sundered House. But what if the connection is deeper than heritage?

What if the very framework of Azune’s character, his lived life in the present, is itself an echo of something he has already lived?

 Azune, desperate to be a useful thing to his mentor, his pseudo-father. Yes, Thjazi, he will give up his life in war for you. Yes, Thjazi, he will forfeit his identity and future for the sake of a ruse, planting himself within the enemy force of the Arcane Marshals to better serve the cause. Yes, Thjazi, he will do whatever it takes to make sure he escapes, no matter the cost. Yes, Thjazi, he will carry the banner and the cause, even with the beloved hero now dead.

Further.

Imagine.

Tansul, at the edge of death. His last loyal member of a divine house teetering with him. An Obridai? A champion? A priest? A soldier? Someone who looked upon the Shaper of the Sun the way Vaelus and her siblings looked upon Sylandri. Not just their god, but their deific parent. About to die, to leave, to set like the sun and bring Eternal Night.

And a plan is devised in those last moments.

The faithful son of the Sun will forsake his own place in Tansul’s afterlife for the sake of the god and his divine cause. For him, for Father, he will turn to the loathed druids’ practice and walk the Old Path. However many times it takes. However many lives must be lived. Someday, he will be born as something useful. A weapon to wield on Tansul’s behalf. A plant among the humans yet to come, that he might forge the way for the Shaper to return as promised.

He will forget himself, he knows. But he will make the gamble regardless. He will do all he can to remember himself, his fallen kin, his dying empire, his Father, for a thing remembered is not gone.

Tansul, dying, about to pull down endless dark and restless dead in all their worst forms upon the land, meets his eyes. Suns seeing suns.

(Far ahead, in a Faerie glade. A ranger speaks to a pixie, her memory fresh-sold.

“I promise you, I won’t let you forget.”

“Forget what?”)  

But a god is not a man and there is more weight to divine oaths. Tansul’s falls upon his loyal soldier-creation-child like a brand, seared into the soul.

You will remember.

God and mortal, Father and son, die.

The Old Path is walked. Perhaps more than once in the space of seventy godless years. Here is a soaring falcon with the sun against its back, rending some predator too near its nest of eggs. Here is a loyal dog tearing the throats of a master’s foes. Here is some swimming seaside creature who dies mauling a fisherman seeking to make trophies of its fellows. Whatever small lives they are, they are not the right one yet. But they all have the same eyes.

Eventually, a boy is born with that same perplexing gaze. The sunset in miniature—a perpetual dusk, never quite lost to night.

Right now, Azune Nayar walks the world only as himself. Knowing he must do right by his father(s), knowing he must make his life useful for it to have any meaning, knowing he will kill and die and lie and place himself wherever and however he must for those he loves and their great cause, knowing he has to Remember.

All while something past mortal Aramán is pulling strings to guide him along a very specific path.

One of Azune’s remarks in the closing of the Overture is running laps in my head:

“The past has a very interesting way of coming back to the present. It never goes away. But I'm learning that we shouldn't always be held prisoner by it.”

This, in a universe where we just saw Bolaire tidily box away a mortal soul in a spectral prison for the sake of riding its body.

A universe in parallel to famous Exandria, and the nightmare of Lucien Tavelle taking back his place over poor Mollymauk Tealeaf.

One has to wonder.

If an old soul remembers what it was—who it was—too well, and the agenda it took to the grave? What exactly does that mean for the soul’s present?

[danwhobrowses]

I feel like we need to address that ancient text about the Final Angel a bit more. Yes it's fortunate that the Tachonis were thwarted in making something like that but also, why did Tansul create a recipe for that? A terror for god and mortal alike? Sounds more like Tansul had a nuclear option to kill their fellow shapers as well as their creations.

[randombrainworm]

The fact that Tansul, Shaper of Humans is being regarded as a false deity by what seems to be the biggest human-centred religious organisation in Araman (CC) is so fucking good. Like. Everyone else, for better or for worse, admits that their Shapers were divine forces and they fought against them. Not humans, though. No, for them this was a false god, because how could they come from a being that was anything but good? How could they have to carry this burden? The shame, the anger, the responsibility? No, they are creatures of Light. They are good. Others can only aspire to be like them, coming from their tainted bloodlines.

(But they still can be redeemed, right? They just have to follow the Creed. They just have to listen to the preaching of Light's priests. The Light will save and shield them from tyrants. The Light won't let them suffer again)

[opalgoddessoflife]

Just learned about Transi aka Cadaver Monuments and this is 100% the aesthetic I was picturing for the Tansul Barrowdell and Tansul/the Tachonis I’m sick. Like look at these Gothic Body Horror Momento Mori:

There are some that are even more detailed than these two that I don’t even want to post because honestly they gross me out that’s how good they are. I haven’t felt like this since I first read Baudelaire for the first time.

[phantaskicks]

Day/night cycle & the four Obridimian Houses who served the Sun

After what we found from the Seekers' traveling through the Eternal Night and the Temple of Tannesar, specially with the ruins of the Obridimian empire and remnants of the human houses that did not survive the Shapers' War, I've been ruminating on what these houses could have focused on, considering Halovar and Tachonis and their roles as priestly houses to Tansul. And I realized it's no coincidence that Brennan mentioned two other major houses: Memnari and Kalystra, the latter which we saw the broken colossi that they controlled.

While there's still so much that could be revealed that may contradict what I've theorized, I feel very confident about the dots I've connected - each of these four houses represent a stage in the day/night cycle, defined by the position of the sun in the sky. These stages are: Sunrise, Noon, Sunset, Night. Now, two of these can easily be connected right away to the surviving Sundered Houses of Obridimia.

Halovar - Noon & Midday, when the sun burns the strongest and brightest up in the sky; hence why the Halovars are the priests of the 'flame' and their sorcerous powers focus on radiant, bright light (to the point of burning) and the capability to heal, give life like the sun sustains life below. The subsequent creation of the Candescent Creed and the concept of the 'Beam' are extensions of what their priestly duties and powers were under Tansul's rule.

Tachonis - Night & Shadow, when the sun sleeps deeply and everything is in shadow; With sleep and death often being closely related in myth, it makes sense that the afterlife for humans would be the time when Tansul sleeps, when the sun can no longer give them life. As the Shaper of humans, it makes total sense the afterlife for souls of humans during Tansul's reign would be lead by the priestly house of Tachonis, focused on death rites and leading the spirits to their 'rightful' place as ferrymen of sorts. Tansul's sleep was night, and so his afterlife (or lack thereof?) is the Barrowdell of Eternal Night, a permanent place of sleep and undeath. (reminds me a little bit of Elden Ring and how sleep and death are tied together in the lore as well hehe)

Which leaves us with... Memnari & Kalystra - Sunrise and Sunset, but of course I don't know for sure which is which yet. Sunrise being the 'rebirth' of the sun every day, and sunset being the equivalent of 'falling to sleep'.

HOWEVER... I'm not the only one who's made the connection that Azune Nayar is a human sorcerer, and that his unique eyes mirroring a sunset most likely tie him to one of these two fallen human houses unless proven otherwise in the campaign. The question is which one?

I'm leaning towards Memnari mostly due to the naming/phonetic similarities; Azune Nayar, Mayali Nayar... replace their last name with the house and you get Azune Memnari and Mayali Memnari, which fit well together. Couple that with the repetition of the use of the vowels 'A' 'E' 'I' and the consonants 'M' and 'N' in all of these words and I lean heavily towards Memnari being the Sundered Obridimian House of Sunset, given Azune's sunset eyes.

I'm not ruling out completely that they may be Kalystra descendants by the way, but the naming/spelling of Kalystra makes it so I lean less that way. The 'Y' is present in Mayali's name and their surname Nayar, however the 'K' is not, and a sequence like '-ystra' doesn't entirely follow similar spelling conventions and phonetics. My detail-oriented nerd ass is definitely showing here, and there's no doubt Obridimian words and names must have likely gone through quite the change from generation to generation, even more so with these two houses being effectively 'wiped' after the Shapers' War.

There's no way to know until we get a direct confirmation, and this is all fun theorizing on my part! But I feel very confident about the day/night cycle stages directly being tied to a specific Obridimian house and that influencing the focus of their priestly and/or sorcerous powers.

Let me know what you think! I'd love to hear other perspectives on this!

[trailertrashgrog]

brennan tell me about the queen of demons what happened to the queen of demons i really just need to know about the queen of demons