Latest revision as of 01:10, 9 June 2010

Sadagares, the Celestial Worm

The stars of Malfeas are utterly unlike those of Creation. They pulse and throb and dance, flowing across the skies like schools of phosphorescent jellyfish. Unlike the cold, dead stars of Creation, the Malfean stars are alive, for they live in Sadagares. While there is no destiny in the Demon City, the Celestial Worm’s ever-changing constellations express the will of the Yozis, and so the demon astrologers brave madness to study its movements. Blindly, Sadagares writhes across both earth and sky, and its squirmings shower the Demon City with falling stars. - (Quendalon)

Command, Pronouncement
Progeny Count: 2:2:1
Back to A Taxonomy of Madness

• Ketu-Mula, the Blazing Chain (Quendalon)
  The demon Ketu-Mula appears in many places in many forms, all of them forged of black Malfean iron spattered with brilliant jewels. Each of his shapes is a thing that binds: a ring, a collar, a badge or a crown. Whosoever dons the thing that is Ketu-Mula gains great power, but in doing so is shackled to a path ordained by the Yozis. When summoned, he instead wears his mortal shape: a middle-aged man, wiry and lean, with iron-dark hair and eyes like sharpened steel. Shafts of light flash from the folds of his cloak, for his heart is a well of squirming stars. His calligraphy is breathtaking in its elegance, and if he should write an edict in his own hand and affix it with his seal, those who open and read it are compelled to obedience. Ketu-Mula is a shrewd and honest counselor, but he resents being summoned; when he returns to Malfeas, as a parting gift, he always presents a cruel and painful truth to his summoner.
  • Merach, Reflective, Thief of a Thousand Destinies (Quendalon)
    The demon Merach holds a talent unique among the Malfean incubi. In the throes of passion, he may draw forth a lover’s destiny in the shape of a star. Some destinies he confers upon other lovers; some he keeps in crystal phials, to give to other demons or to store on the high shelves of his drifting copper palace; the rest he swallows, so that their purpose and meaning are forever lost. His mortal forms are many and varied, of every possible permutation of race and gender, and in each he is infinitely desirable. Those well versed in the lore of Malfeas can recognize him by the ever-shifting mark on his forehead which he conceals beneath his hair. It is said that he once loved a maiden of the Lunar Exalted, whose destiny he stole at the Yozis’ behest, and that though she will not have him, he pines for her still.

• Zhae'de'Glae, the Beetle that Devours Worlds (Nero's Boot)
  Sadagares is a watery star-titan, and the spring from which it flows is the Beetle that Devours Worlds, known to the wise and the mad at Zhae'de'Glae. A hundred yards tall, and four hundred yards long, Zhae'de'Glae is a black beetle who vomits Sadagares into the skies of Malfeas. Idiot and without mind, Zhae'de'Glae exists only to eat, so that it might continuously vomit forth the Celestial Worm. Many are the black cultists that seek the Beetle's favor, for it's all-devouring hunger may be turned against those whom the cultists desire to perish.
  • Ur-Shool the Jade Chain of Destiny, Warden (Nero's Boot)
    Ur-Shool is the Jade Chain of Destiny, a whirling weapon of white jade that annihilates all the destinies of those it attacks. Ur-Shool was once the mentor of the Five Maidens, teaching them the secrets of the Loom of Fate, but when Sadagares was imprisoned in Hell, Ur-Shool went mad, and his source, the demon prince Zhae'de'Glae went mad as well, for the destiny of the Beetle that Devours Worlds had ended. Ur-Shool may take human form, but in doing so, he limits himself to destiny's grip, and as such is loathe to do so. When he approaches, Sidereals bleed and wail, and as he leaves, destiny cracks and warps.
    • The Roots of Star and Sea (Nero's Boot)
      Born of Ur-Shool's devouring maw, the Roots of Star and Sea bear the likeness of men, but there the similarities end. For the Roots of Star and Sea are trees shaped into the form of men, frozen in place, trapped within their own frames, screaming silently but unable to escape. Only when the five days of Calibration shine across Creation can they move and speak, and during these days, all Malfeas weeps. The Roots of Star and Sea are cruel things, and all they touch or that touch them know pain and nothing else for all their days. Magics can cure this, but thaumaturges lack the skill of gods and Exalts.

Comments

I'm not entirely sure what to do with Sadagares. I like the imagery involved, but I'm not sure what he should do or signify. Would he be better served as a force of pure chaos and irrationality, an outright negation of astrology and destiny as embodied in earthly stars? Or should he be tweaked to provide a twisted reflection of destiny, so that while his maddening movements do not indicate what will happen, they convey what the Yozis desire to happen? - Quendalon

I would go with the last one, partly because I see Astrology-Negating as a thing of Isidoros ('Twisting the Skyes'), and partly due to the fact of what being the desires of the Yozi means. Since most of them wish to leave the prision, it means it is probably a sort of taskmaster and advisor both to the Ebon Dragon; Since sometimes their wishes conflict(like SWLIHN trying to stop the others from being mean and destroying things she wishes to order) he probably arbitrates between their disputes. And it has some interesting caveat for Djinn-style demons. Wonder what that would be as an added keyword to the other two, though... Desire? Need? Advancement? Arbitration? ~GoldenCat

The existing keywords would disappear, replaced by, say, Control and Proclamation. That makes Sadagares the counterpart to Cecelyne; she lays down universal laws, while he pronounces specific edicts. She Who Lives In Her Name, by forging and stabilizing the hierarchy, provides the underpinnings for both. Other, more dynamic Yozis, such as Malfeas, Isidoros and the Ebon Dragon, then use Sadagares as their mouthpiece; he is their herald, the Nyarlathotep to their Azathoth (only with the degrees of intelligence reversed). - Quendalon

Revised. - Quendalon