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Auroral Exalted – Chosen of the River of Souls, Lethe

Long ago, there was a great ribbon of light that wove in and out of the stars of the Primordial sky: gentle Lethe was the youngest of the Incarnae and by and large the most inconsequential. While it was to the Maiden Saturn to snip the threads of Fate and govern death, Lethe was left to manage the processes Saturn initiated. It was through his ministration that mortal stars were consumed into his auroral being, cleansing their souls and keeping record of all that had lived in Creation just as the Maidens planned all that would be.

When the time came for the Usurpation, the Maidens took their young brother aside and told him of the role that he would have to take: in the madness of possibility, lonely Jupiter saw how the deaths of Titans could stopper the mechanisms of death itself. While they could never forsee the twisted world-tombs of the Neverborn, the Maidens knew that Primordials could not die by violence alone. When the Exalted were created, twenty shards were imprinted with Lethe’s pattern. The Aurorals were, like the Dragon-Blooded, an experiment in Exaltation Design on the part of Autocthon: each shard was built from the framework of a complete mortal soul and grafted to them—permanently. When an Auroral passed, his soul would ascend into Lethe and be reborn: not fully cleansed as a proper soul would be, but Essentially the same, albeit with a new name, face, and life.

If the Auroral Exalted had succeeded in their first—indeed, only—appointed task, the Neverborn would have fallen gently into Oblivion.

Clearly, this didn’t happen.

In their first mission, the twenty Exalted descended into the newly formed Underworld, armed with Essence and Charms and great Artifacts worked from their lesser magical material, hepatizon. In an instant, glimpsing the vast mausoleum-forms of the Neverborn, the Aurorals were filled with a knowledge that they had prepared themselves for the wrong sort of challenge: their own Essences were gentle ones, attuned to the cycles of rebirth. The very existence of the Neverborn had already begun to crystallize Death into a static form, unyielding and merciless.

And one, the most recently slain, reached out from the firming confines of its sarcophagus and grasped the Shepherds, lashing out against the only remnants of Creation that the once-Primordial could reach in his death throes.

So far as Creation was concerned, that was the end of it. Saddened and enraged by the loss of his Chosen, Lethe strove to break his Geas and attack those remaining Primordials. The poor god was captured and lobotomized into a mere mechanism by She Who Lives In Her Name. The River of Souls fell into the Underworld, an impotent machine of rebirth. The Aurorals were listed as Killed In Action, assumed to have fallen into the Void.

All things considered, they would have remained forever, inert statuary adorning the world-tomb of a Neverborn if it hadn’t been for the lusts of the Black Nair Concordant. The Celestials who cracked open the very remnants of the Neverborn thought nothing of the lifeless shells that rested at the far corners of that being, assuming them to be little more than decoration. But those shards fled the Mouth of Oblivion, passing sadly into the River of Lethe.

It has taken countless centuries for these shards to wash themselves of the taint of constant proximity to a Neverborn. In the end, it was the Dragon-Blooded who unintentionally gave these would-be Anathema the strength to finally return to the world. As the Wyld-Hunt slaughtered newborn Solars, their souls passed through Lethe, tarrying at the request of the nascent Aurorals who recognized in them the trappings of greatness and passion, the very reasons that they themselves had been chosen to become Shepherds of the River of Souls. With each Celestial Exalt who passed into reincarnation, the Aurorals increased in boldness and form: they gathered up the Essence of life and built new bodies for themselves.

Few, if any, realize that the Aurorals have returned to the world at large. Their powers are far less impressive than those of the other Chosen: they are the Consoulers to the Sidereal’s Viziers: compassion to temper their Fate-bound convictions.

Death does not weaken an Auroral: those incarnations of its soul who have passed tarry at the edge of the River Lethe, guiding souls and advising those who would listen. Aurorals may freely cross into Lethe when traversing the Border of any Shadowland, day or night, though this is an exploitation of the nature of the Underworld rather than an intended feature. Before the War, Lethe was found in the sky above: now that he is below, many of their power have taken on unintentional functions.

Only two castes exists for the Aurorals, and more than any other Exalt, this distinction is a passing one: upon death, an Auroral can restructure the grafting site of its Exaltation and change castes. The Hun-Caste are the default state of the Aurorals: the consoulers, spiritual shepherds, and archivists of Creation. The Po-Caste were intended as a mode of desperation wherein an Auroral could become a fury in defense of the processes of rebirth or in vengeance of the natural order. Since the formation of the Underworld, the Po-Caste have also taken on a great deal of power in emulation of the nature of ghosts.

When Autocthon constructed the Fallen-Stars monument, it was equal parts tribute and cautionary tale: of the “Exalted” who had been lost in the war, only the Aurorals had proved a connection between Chosen and Incarnae—and that had been the inverse of the tale he’d told as the effective destruction of the Aurorals sent Lethe into an uncontrollable madness. When he took the names of the lost Incarnae with him, he effectively scoured the history books of Lethe’s true nature and the tragedy of his lost Exalted. Only the Incarnae themselves likely retain any memory of the Aurorals.

Shepherds in the River of Souls: Playing the Aurorals

Powers of the Twofold Soul: Charms of the Aurorals