TheThousandAscendingSorrowsOfInfinity

The Thousand Ascending Sorrows of Infinity

Background

Within the thousand, thousand interlocking, folded-in infinities which lie within the souls of men, there are places where the shadows of turning wheels of ingenuity, inifinite streams of awareness, and the scudding, foamy clouds of dreams intersect, casting sharp, dark blacknesses; there are other places, shadowed by crusty cliffs of memories or sealed away in pockets by thick layers of regrets, where no light of the mind has ever been; and there are the buried, foul oceans and nighted, cancerous jungles of the subconscious, hidden beneath all the thin veneer of humanity which mortals and Exalted observe.

Many long cycles of existence ago, there dwelt a Solar sorceror, and it was into the subdued and buried madnesses and evils of the mind that he burrowed, using powerful magic and rituals to leap into the endless complex vistas and pavilions and deserts and jungles of the inner worlds. He lavish in dreams of passion and nightmares of horror, dig laboriously through banks of crusty regret to fine jewels of hope. From all around Creation, he was known as the finest of all doctors of the mind- for he could repair the shattered brain and assuage the sorrows, helping people to overcome their troubles. But he could also destroy- in his deep experiments of the mind, many folk disappeared who were never again heard from.

But as he dug deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the mind, one thing became more and more clear to him- that the mind, while a complex construct, is like a delicate facade of carven logic on a temple of wild emotions, and all overlaying vast and endless abysses of madness, beyond any conception, the stamp of the primal Essences which the Primordials could only fold into slightly more composed beings. The Solar became convinced of this, and, in his realization, came to further conclusion that there could be no true logic, no true understanding, that everything was truly madness, and that it was wrong for the Primordials to impose order upon it.

When his murderers came, he recieved his final and greatest understanding- that because the world was only madness, it was necessary that it be destroyed, for with the acts of the Primordials it had become tainted utterly with order, and was doomed to an existence of reason and construction. In dying, he sold his name to the Neverborn, joining their dark crusade to bring Oblivion to all. His hope was that he might, in this fashion, destroy the world, and then create a new one of pure, untainted chaos. And in this way, the Thousand Ascending Sorrows of Infinity was born.

Description

This Deathlord is known as the Thousand Ascending Sorrows of Infinity, or, for those less inclined to the grandiose, the Blackened Sun Emperor and the Colossus of Rust.

The Deathlord is confined to a cyclopean, pillar-like stone throne, made from a shattered stela that was embedded in the ribs of one of the slain Primordials. Carved upon this throne is a mandala so complex and incomprehensible that mortals cannot look on it but that they die. Most of this throne is draped in a silky red cloth to obscure this mandala, and it is only unleashed when the Blackened Sun Emperor bids it so. Vast amounts of sculptured monsters, demons, gods, and endless hordes of the gruesome dead are carven into the tall arch above this throne which makes up the top of the throne chamber, and these sculptures gesture, gaze, and move occasionally, with blasphemous glee. Above his throne leers a titanic sculpture (suggestive of a huge and alienish man with an incredibly angular face) made from rusted iron with black jewels for eyes, whose long, thin, frightening arms curl around the Deathlord's throne almost protectively.

The Deathlord himself appears underwhelming when compared to the incomparable vastness of his throne chamber and the hugeness of his throne. He is tall, in a mortal way, and wide shouldered, with strong muscles on his sleek chest. His arms are likewise muscular, and are tattooed with symbols prized from certain dark scrolls which are now thankfully lost beneath the sea in an iron chest which cannot be opened. About his waist, there is a long kilt of purple which drapes to the ground, obscuring all of his lower body, and which is woven of shadow-thunder-silk of spiders which dwell only on the steps of the porticoes of the Neverborn. His lower body is never seen beneath this draping but beautiful kilt. The most arresting thing about the Colossus of Rust is his face- it is absolutely tranquil, young, human in every way, and handsome, though not amazingly so. His shaggy, long, silvery hair has a curiously splintery look about it. His eyes are inviting and violet in tone.