Lore

Scions of the Fallen

“You’re a flash in the pan 

I'm the great I Am”

—Bowie, Blackstar

Forgetful avatars of forgotten gods, with one foot in the gutter and the other in the stars. Equally blessed and cursed, tethered to a long chain of incarnations they don’t yet know of. 

Karma’s a bitch.

Fitting a kernel of eternity into a mortal frame is a messy affair. Maybe it should be little surprise that Scions often wind up a bit “off”. They are every bit as transient, fragile, or resilient as any other mortal — they are mortals after all, with a passenger. 

Each incarnation is flawed and skilled in somewhat different ways, a different Aspect, called back to life in the present, whenever and wherever that happens to be.

Each a unique instance, no matter how many times they have forgotten who and what they are. Which part of their forgotten past will rise to the surface, and what falls by the wayside?

The Ascension

“I’m only human, and I have no doubt Spock will outlive me by many years. I can only hope that, once in a while, when people look at Spock's visage, they might sometimes think of me.” —Leonard Nemoy

Mortals endeavor, and then they fall. Such is the inevitable trajectory, like a train running along tracks in a circle: every epoch must end. The crux lies in what lingers amid the ashes. 

Paradoxically, it is this capacity for loss that spirits revere and yearn for in mortal existence, while mortals themselves dream of eternity, neither fully able to comprehend the torment of the alternative. 

There is something symbiotic about this dynamic. In each generation, a mere handful seem to become vessels for the Fallen's machinations, a kind of mutant capable of channeling a sliver of their actual power. At the same time, after so many incarnations, the Fallen themselves have been fashioned in humankind’s own likeness. 

A theory even has it that the Aspects of the Fallen are an amalgamation of humanity’s collective psychic residue, the left-overs from after the Feyn have tried to scrape the bowl clean for another trip around the sun.

Ascension edges the generations ever closer to the divine limit, never fully arriving, always progressing. As the connection to their Aspect strengthens, Scions come to discover echoes of who they were and what they might become, ultimately either succumbing to their Aspect’s fatal flaw, or, more rarely, transcending it. While all humans possess this power in latent form, only those who are Scions, those otherwise bound by a pact with an entity, or the rare adepts that master arcane methods of direct manifestation who can wield the force of Ascension in their daily lives. 

Not that this is not necessarily a positive thing for all involved. Upon surpassing a critical threshold of Ascension, the might of their Domain is unleashed—or inflicted—upon the world. When the herald of Divine Madness awakens, things can get a little hectic. 

Strangers When Scions Meet

“Blank screen TV

Preening ourselves in the snow

Forget my name, but I’m over you...”

—Bowie

Another Scion is a familiar face in a sea of strangers, even if you can’t recall from where. Regardless of their shifting alliances across incarnations, it is often that the key to rediscovering their alternate lives and future potential resides in the Others. Encountering another Scion evokes an unrelenting itch in the back of the mind, often ultimately leading to ascension or disintegration. 

Despite centuries of myth and legend woven in their wake, the Fallen themselves remain nameless entities. Names are after all a human convention. But through our own myths we can come to approximate them. 

Incubating within human hosts for millennia, the Fallen have profoundly impacted the lives of their mortal vessels while simultaneously coming to understand themselves through a human lens. Whether opposed or allied in successive incarnations, they are the sole beings likely to help them recall who they have been, and who they might become. Each incarnation is distinct, a new facet, a fresh lesson to absorb once their life concludes. 

These entities beyond the looking glass collect the stories of their Scions, safeguarded like sacred scripture in their eternal dream in the Underworld, a single candle that cannot be extinguished. 

For them, these memories persist, whether etched in stone or wood, or buried in bone ash, their ongoing stories inflicting themselves time and again upon the world, unless the Feyn can catch their spirits in their transit through the Land of the Dead, and commit their tales to the fire. 

Identity is tattooed on emptiness; a series of potentials, variations on themes. It can be no coincidence that whenever one of the Fallen have become renowned, the apocalyptic destruction that heralds the end of an age was often near at hand. 

Through countless incarnations, they strive to deceive the ultimate tricksters: the agents of Death itself.