Alannis, from Apotheosis, a roleplay on RPG

Domain: Knowledge

Sex: Male/Female – reflecting the impartiality of Knowledge, given to men and women alike, Alannis is an androgyne, and capable of appearing as either sex with equal ease. Temples to the Crowned Catharsis generally depict the divinity as marginally male, however.

Titles: The Crowned Catharsis, the Font of Knowledge, the Sovereign Immaterial.

Abilities:

Godly: - (These are the greater powers that the deity possesses, to be applied only in the execution of their domain’s role and solely affect mortals. Improper and unnecessary use of these powers is forbidden.)

-Renaissance: Alannis controls and embodies all knowledge, sacred and profane alike. The patron of scholars and the stately march of learning, his Renaissance exalts people and cities, kingdoms and empires, to new heights of knowledge and mastery. It is by his command that mortals may raise themselves from the caves, by his will that they raise their sorcerous towers to the sky and ordain the schools of magic.

-Interregnum: The darker side of Alannis’ nature, what the Crowned Catharsis grants he can just as easily take away. He can plunge those who have attracted his ire – by hubris or scansion – into a Dark Age where records and history, all that has gone before, is lost. On a single – or group – of lesser beings, it has the effect of reducing them to drooling idiots and madmen, who no more know their own name than they do the kingdoms of Heaven. Foolish mortal magi, who sought to storm the very gates of Heaven itself, have been subjected to this down the ages.

Avatar: - (These are the lesser powers that the avatar can channel effectively without revealing the deity’s full reality and breaking the ruler of the Heavens’ command.)

-Magus Nonpareil: With all the knowledge of the world behind him, Alannis is not limited by the schools of magic that mortal sorcerers labour to study. To him, magic and mastery are there merely to be shaped to his whim, turned aside or reinforced according to his will. He favours crippling curses and cantrips in the main – many of them exceedingly cruel – along with the crushing golden power of solar magic.

-Call to Arms: Preferring not to fight himself if at all avoidable, Alannis frequently calls down his host of powerful angels, all the myriad ranks of the blazing Radiant Servants – close-helmed, fire-winged beings plated in golden light that are sworn to the Crowned Catharsis. This allows him to deploy his magics in peace.

-Lethe: Alannis can rip out and obliterate knowledge and memory from a mortal or a lesser divine servant, or implant false ones to encourage them to do his bidding. It will not work on higher divinities without the help of other gods.

-Divinity: Like all the gods, Alannis may project his consciousness onto the mortal plane, to walk through the astral planes or speak in luminaries’ dreams. He may also manifest, although exceedingly rarely, in a physical form, to oversee matters of critical importance to his dominion, and when upon the earth he can warp reality to suit his whim, save for in another god’s holy places.

Appearance: As an androgyne, Alannis appears as slight and somewhat sylph-like, ambiguous in almost every way. His features are refined and slightly distant, with a Cupid’s-bow mouth of a startling red, the colour of fresh blood, under preternatural eyes that blaze with the golden light of wisdom. Ash-blonde hair washes about his face, loosely bound in gold and ruby clasps.

His fingers are long and elegant, perfectly-manicured in any situation – although if he appears in his more dangerous, and less-seen female aspect, they have an unsettling suggestion of claws about them. He is not an imposing god in terms of his physical presence, standing at five foot four, but his power and bearing command attention when he wills it.

He dresses formally and well, by mortal standards, in gold and silver, tailored precisely to his form. Attendant spirits and sigils of forbidden knowledge seem to swirl through the folds, hypnotic and alluring, promising all the secrets of the world in return for service.

If the divinity’s female form is more pronounced, his face sharpens from the amiability it normally seems to radiate, becoming altogether more devious and much more dangerous. Alannis has observed that, while men may achieve great things, beautiful women have done the same simply by smiling at powerful men – and in his more secretive spheres of intrigue and secrets, he finds it useful. In whatever form, a shimmering, shifting golden glow often mantles his head and shoulders, the distant glow of divinity.

He is not often depicted so, but Alannis is possessed of eight wings of radiant energy, a shimmering and shifting aurora of light and shaped maybe. Most of the time they’re hidden and cowled, concealed from mortal and immortal sight.

Personality

Personality:

‘We are Alannis, the spark of inspiration, the engine of creation and the very inspiration of intellect! It is by our will that you raised yourself from the mud and by our blessing that you are greater than the animals which came before. You will know me by my steps, by the prosperity I bestow; in my wake I raise you to exalted heights. Books, ink, paper and learning, these things are sacred unto me, the Long Hunt for understanding, our benediction. Worship us, and taste of all the fruits of knowledge.’ ~Excerpt from the (Encyclopaedia) Aeterna, the holy book of the God of Knowledge.

As a god, Alannis is courtly, lordly and aloof to mortals who come to petition at his court, expecting obedience and obsequy. Most of the time, he keeps to his word and his rewards are great to those who render him service. On the flip-side of the coin, however, Alannis has plans within plans – and not all of them benign. Patron of intrigues and secrets as well as knowledge, dealings with him can sometimes be a gamble.

It is generally accepted on all the planes that Alannis knows more than he’s letting on.

As an avatar, he is fey and capricious, as easily found in the courts of lords and kings as he is in libraries and universities. The thrill of life he finds in such places, the plots and plans of the movers and shakers of the mortal world, are like a heady drug to him, and he glories in them.

Equipment

Equipment:

-Tabula Rasa – the blank slate upon which Alannis writes his will and power. It normally appears as a heavy, red leather-bound book with the God of Knowledge’s intricate crest stamped upon it.

-Sceptre – more of a cane than anything, this elegant spire of wood with an angel’s-wing head in gold holds more power than any artefact of mortal creation. In Alannis’ hands, there is no greater instrument of sorcerous might; in those of his champions it has a bloody history indeed. Alannis seems to like to play games with his Sceptre; at any time, three or four would-be wielders are vying for its possession. It has toppled ancient cities and centres of learning, and raised others in their stead many times over its long existence. It is said that so much blood has been spilled for the sake of Knowledge that the originally-white wood of the Sceptre has become the colour of dried blood. Currently, it is in the mortal world, unclaimed, and mages are scrambling to discover its location.

-Panoptic Eye – a fixed artefact, in the highest tower of Ephemeris, Alannis can use it to look upon the world and the other gods. The only realm permanently obscured to him is that of the highest creator – the others must maintain barriers to his Eye to block his sight – which is expensive and time-consuming. While fixed, Alannis’ avatar can make a lesser Eye that borrows some of the properties of the greater whole, with a glass globe and some arcane sigils, although it is less-precise and powerful.

History

History: Little is known of the history of Alannis – the Record-Keeper obscures much of his own apotheosis. He has had a hand, however, in the rise and fall of many nations down the centuries, and is credited with the gift of magic to the mortal races. Thus, most magic-users pay homage to him. It was his idea to encourage the apotheosis of five mortals to act as a counter to the five Fallen Gods. Also in recent history, and of more interest to mortals in general, Alannis’ Sceptre is causing great waves among the sorcerous elite of all the races, and teams from three great university cities are scouring the Hanleyn Mountains for clues as to its location. Others are fighting on the plains, each sure they will be the first to find it and be judged worthy in Alannis’ sight.

Other Important Information: Alannis’ festival day, Siris, falls in the very hammer of winter. It is a day when scholars and skilled workers down their pens and ledgers and cut loose – although in many places everyone else now follows suit. There are parades in the streets and impromptu parties; the temples break out their famous and potent red wines and distribute them through the cities and towns where the god is worshipped. It is a day of excess and hedonism, giving thanks for the knowledge that has kept them safe over the past year. The origins of the innocuous festival, however, are less salubrious, a celebration of his darker aspects. Over the centuries, the more solemn festival day associated with Knowledge in the late autumn has fallen out of use and Siris rose to ascendancy, its original purpose forgotten. Nevertheless, the tradition of pouring out one’s last glass of wine to the altars of Alannis has survived.

Alannis is also the close advisor of the Goddess of Chaos, helping her to decide the conflicts of the world, since her chaotic nature and foresight aren't enough. This gives him a considerable amount of power, since he can influence another deity in the execution of her primary duty. This was also crucial in gaining the support of the faithful gods in his scheme of replacing the straying gods.

Description of Personal Realm: Alannis’ realm in the Heavens is known to the greatest of mortal magi and gods as Ephemeris. It is where the brightest mortal luminaries and the most Machiavellian souls go when they die, a vast realm of rolling countryside and glittering cities, every hilltop crowned with a library or university, every mountain topped with a wizard’s tower.

Alannis has a fondness for cherries; the trees are ubiquitous throughout the realm and the fruit is found on every table. It is idyllic for seekers of knowledge, a haven for them. They are free to study whatever they wish, for as long as they wish, with no restrictions. While very beautiful and glorious, full of roses of so dark a red as to be almost black and with a scent that promises all of summer, Ephemeris, like everything the God of Knowledge attends, has its darker side; the realm is an intricate webwork of policy and counter-policy, of plotting and intrigue between the shimmering courts of every city. Everyone in Ephemeris has some sort of title, be it Professor or Grand Duke, and more accumulate with time. A snub can be deadly in the realm.

The greatest city of them all in Ephemeris is fabled Sunshadow, in the very centre of the realm, a beautiful city drowning in roses arrayed around Alannis’ gargantuan fairytale library-palace, Keep Ephemeris itself, a forest of sunny Gothic towers reaching for the burnished sky. The libraries there hold secrets that would crack the world were they ever known by mortals, and in the very highest tower, the Panoptic Eye, Alannis’ greatest artefact, rests, gazing out at the bright realm. Here, too, in vaulting archives, lie the Akashic Records, that ocean of knowledge accumulated by sentient beings over the centuries.

Other cities are militant Burinberg on the Plains of Valgona, the home base of the Radiant Servants who burn through Ephemeris’ skies on wings of the aurora, where no mortals dare to go without dark glasses and protection, or iconoclastic Gagarin where sorcerer-lords labour in their fortified towers atop the seven mountains and snipe at one another in Faculty meetings, raised three miles into the sky.

The great silver gateway to the realm, Castle Conjecture, is overseen by Alannis’ shadowy seneschal, Casiran, a Radiant Servant marshal plated in moonlight and with wings of electric blue. It is on an island at the very edge of Ephemeris, isolated from the rest of the realm by the Mercury Sea, a quicksilver ocean that serves as a barrier and transfer point to the other realms, depending on Alannis' will. There are only two ways across the Mercury Sea to Burinberg and the rest of the mainland; either an arching causeway usually covered by the argentine waves - only used when Ephemeris goes to war or some other great event brings a massive influx of people to the realm - or a small fleet of bronze-hulled xebecs with sails of spun light and shaped maybe, sleek and nimble, which do the main work of ferrying new arrivals to the mainland and the Crowned Catharsis' agents to the gates of Ephemeris and beyond.

The golden sun never sets on Alannis’ idyllic pleasure-realm of Ephemeris, the pinnacle of scholarly leisure, the intellectual’s Elysium.

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Alannis

0 · 243 views · located in The Hanleyn Mountain Range

a character in “Apotheosis”, as played by Duchessa

Description

Personality

Equipment

History

So begins...

Alannis's Story