Cytherea

Cytherea, the Mother of Creation

Once, before gods and men rebelled against their betters, there was Istareth, the Birthing Flame, who danced upon the surface of Creation as a shining fire. So radiant was Istareth and the glories she brought forth that mortal beings willingly cast themselves into her, burning in transformative ecstasy. But now Istareth is no more, and Cytherea, the betrayed Mother of Creation, burns deep within the bones of Malfeas as a great funeral pyre. The light of her flames sears the eye and their touch is agony, yet even now, from time to time, a lesser demon will throw itself upon the pyre and cry out in passion as it dies.

Note: While Cytherea exists in canon, she is not described, only named. Mara and the bisclaverets are described in the Storyteller's Companion, but they are not assigned to any particular Yozi. The description of Cytherea given here, and the placing of Mara among her souls, are entirely my own invention and should not be taken as canon.

Memory
Progeny Count: 3:8:6
Back to A Taxonomy of Madness

• Zahanna, Who Betrays That Which She Loves, Fetich Soul (Kalisara)
  Although the greatest souls of the Yozis are often marked by inhuman glory, the heart of Cytherea appears entirely human, a lovely and wistful maiden with hair flowing to her feet. She is soft-spoken and graceful, and all who look upon her come to love her; yet those whom she loves in return are doomed to ruin.
  • Mara, Defining, the Shadow-Lover
    • Bisclavarets
  • Aza, Warden, the Heart's Assassin (Kalisara)
    Aza is also known as the Merciful One and the Lover Untouched By Passion, and she appears as a slender, androgynous being sculpted from ice, with eyes of sapphire and hair like frozen mist on the wind. In battle, her motions are languid and precise, and she slays her opponents without any detectable emotion, whether pleasure or distaste. Aza may kiss a mortal once, to take away all pain of the body; twice, to take away all pain of the heart; and thrice, to freeze their soul and kill them instantly. The Heart's Assassin never speaks unless commanded, and her desires and motives are unknown.
    • Kitari, the Heart-Eaters (Kalisara)
      When Aza slays a person with her third kiss, she inhales their soul as it leaves their lips, and may breathe it out later as a cloud of frozen mist that coalesces into a kitar: a great cat, perhaps the size of a panther, but snowy white. Much like its parent, its eyes are of sapphire, and its teeth and claws are carved of ice. A kitar behaves in almost all ways as the animal it resembles, save that upon making a kill, it will tear open its targets chest and devour its heart. It takes no other interest in the body. Kitari are effective hunters and guardians, and are often summoned for that purpose.
  • Metronium, Indulgent, the Masked Harmony (Kalisara)
    Metronium has the form of a man, tall and graceful, garbed richly in silks and cloth-of-gold; a feathered hat is pulled low over his brow, a velvet mask covers his face, and his hands are gloved, so that not an inch of flesh can be seen. He carries a set of pipes upon which he plays music to break the heart and set the feet to dancing, yet even when he does not play, the music can be faintly heard in the background. In truth, the Masked Harmony has no flesh beneath his finery, and his music is all the body he possesses.
    • Barra-kith, the Fair Revellers (Kalisara)
      Barra-kith are beautiful youths and maidens, human in form save for their opalescent eyes and their long silken hair, which billows out like a great cloud. The scent of incense, honey and wine hangs about them, and they are graceful dancers. They are sweet-tempered, obedient creatures, eager to please their summoners, yet on occasion the touch of starlight or some other thing drives them to madness, and they will seek to force anyone they see to dance with them until his heart bursts, and he dies.
    • Iluria, the Never-Ending Echoes (Kalisara)
      From time to time, when Metronium plays a melody upon his pipes, it does not die but takes on an existence of its own. Iluria are living strains of music, lingering in the air and summoned by sorcerers to inflame or soothe emotions. An iluri may be any sort of melody, from a love song to a battle march.
  • Chindo-Urna aka Glamorous Composition, Expressive, Glazier of Emerald Nights (FourWillowsWeeping)
  • Khorshid, Messenger, the Charlatan with Brazen Tongue (Kalisara)
    Khorshid is a man clad in black, appearing pleasant enough and friendly of manner; when he speaks, his tongue can be seen to be made of gleaming brass. With this tongue he speaks honeyed words, promising love and friendship and happiness to those who listen to his advice; the wise know him for a trickster who takes delight in causing trouble and ignore him, but there are always those who are fooled by his words.
  • Thulutha, Reflective, the Worm that Gnaws the Heart (Kalisara)
    Six of Zahanna's souls are beautiful - even ice-wrought Aza is a creature of grace. The seventh, however, is an undisguised monster, a serpentine beast whose fangs drip venom and whose scales are stained with blood and rust, and Zahanna has banished it from her presence that she may not look upon the darkness in herself. Thulutha lairs deep within Malfeas, in black tunnels where demons fear to tread, and devours beautiful things that are weaker than it.
    • Naganah, the Serpent's Teeth (Kalisara)
      A naganah is a lovely woman from the waist up, sly and seductive, with a husky, whispering voice; she will take great care, however, to hide the lower part of her body, which is coil upon coil of a vast serpent's tail. For this reason naganah seldom move unless they have already been recognised, but curl themselves within voluminous robes and entice their prey to them with eyes and voice.
• Akanta, The Thorn In The Mother´s Womb, 5th Soul Of Cytherea (Sindaen)
  Akanta is the feral older brother, dressed only in primitive garb that is really a pair of moth wings that he cannot use to fly, who carries a grisly dagger made from a thorn of Cytherea. His primal features are between those of a wolf and a jaguar. His eyes are poisonous to behold, for they shine whith the wonders he beheld while in Cytherea´s womb. From a distance, he looks more like a savage husky old man. In the Demon City, there are strange barques resting atop of malformed rock islands in the desert Cecelyne. In each of these barges the Thorn In The Mother´s Womb promises to take those brave enough back to the Mother´s womb, when The Silent Wind stops blowing and Cytherea, the flame, quenches again to let her daughter Amphitrite rain again and flood Cecelyne so the barges can traverse the waves of the primordial sea of Kimbery into the Cave-Womb of Cytherea to behold her wonders and be remade and given birth again. Akanta is fierce and ruthless neptunian, frequently offering "passengers" to the forgotten horrors that chaperone his ships, who some say are his own children.
  • Amimone, Reflective, The Cadaverous Joy (Sindaen)
    Deep in the Endless Desert, an unwary traveler might find a large pelagic carcass rotting in the mad green sun. Inside its gargantuan ribs there lies Amimone, who knows the stench of death and the lure of cannibalism. Some demons are enticed by her perfect, green rotting whale-fat skin, her maggot-like anarchic fingers or her long, dripping pus-white hair. Those who can stand the stench of her carcass-palace are invited and cherished for one full week, to delve and burrow into the unhealthy rotting flesh of the behemoth. After that week, when the mad Celosia and her demon flies begin to bite, all guests are expected to leave, for soon The Cadaverous Joy will ride the waves and depths of the Sea That Marched Against The Flame. Moments after Amimone first hears that the rains of Amphitrite are aproaching, she enters the heart chamber of the behemoth she lives in. She softly whispers the song of Cytherea to its still heart, and it slowly begins to beat, and new primordial whale blood flows regenerating the defiled carcass until it becomes a predatorial siaka-whale monster again, waiting in the Endless Desert for the first wave to come. Inside him Amimone dwells, guiding the mind of the monster to swim the acidic waves beneath the Barques of Akanta. Sometimes, sorcerers call her to battle, and Amimone rides an ebony chair atop the siaka-whale in the oceans of Creation and wields a single dire-lance harpoon made from the ribs of the monster. Some others summon her deep in the desert for shelter. Inevitably, all those who consume the rotting flesh of the Siaka-Monster hear a faint, primal voice in their dreams, "I am Ekater, who was born the twin and became the lover, then the prey and finally the banquet of the Cadaverous Joy". Whenever Amimone whispers the song of Cytherea to Ekater´s heart again, thos who have consumed the rotting flesh will be suffused with primal blood again, albeit for a brief time.
    • Kyristes, The Scorpion Maggot (Sindaen)
      Standing as large as a lion, with pus-white chitinous carapace and beady red eyes, the Kyriste resemble crab-like scorpions who are born from the obscene fecal pools inside Ekater's gills, where Amimone passes her waste. Very few things are more revolting than a Kyristes, for they can only feed on the decaying meat of their own victims and only when they have melted the skin with their acidic venom. The Kyristes are fierce but stupid beasts, and having no other use for the bones, they indulge in building complex tiger-pits made of sharpened bones to lure victims into them. Perharps their only talent is that they can craft bone as easily as a spider weaves her silk. Sorcerers in need of a guard dog or a trapper sometimes summon these horrid creatures. As strange as it may sound, a Kyristes is also an excellent swimmer, and some wyld touched tribes of the Western oceans of creation use them as breathing tanks, armor and propelling devices for deep sea expeditions. The Kyristes will be most happy to lay an egg inside the diver´s lungs, each carrying a thousand new, small albino scorpion-maggots.
• Amphitrite, The Rain Of Birth, 6th Soul Of Cytherea (Sindaen)
  Coming Soon...
  • Celosia, Messenger, The Hive Of Flies (Sindaen)
    Coming Soon...

Other Theories Of Cytherea

AlsaceAndLorraine/Cytherea - Cytherea, the Sleeping Mother. Kalisara/Cytherea - Cytheream, the Funeral Pyre.

Comments

Descriptions to follow. (Kalisara)

Zahanna's description is not yet complete; there's a fair amount of story I made up for her, and the writer's heart rebels at pruning it into a listable size. ;) Four Willows Weeping, I added Chindo-Urna / Glamorous Composition in after reading your Lexicon entry; feel free to edit as desired. (Kalisara)

Kalisara, we've made a custom of splitting off long descriptions onto their own subpage; this allows us to keep these pages legible, while also having deeper, in-depth discussion on particular demons.

I would love to know more about these demons; they're mysterious and charming. - willows

Khorshid is a spammer. He keeps sending me emails offering me all sorts of things that will make me happy and fulfilled in my love life, if I only open the mysterious file attached to the message. He deserves to be demonised. (Kalisara)

As with the demons I created for Adorjan, please feel free to correct spelling errors, since english is not my native language.

Fixed spelling and some grammar. Also, these are very cool demons; mine tend to be too human. I like the more exotic ones. (Kalisara)

Does anyone know who wrote up this description of Cytherea? Current best practices are to put alternate versions of canonical Yozis on their own pages to avoid confusion, and I'd like to know who to credit this one to when I do so. - Quendalon

While we're here it's probably worth mentioning somewhere that Dreams of the First Age effectively linked Cytherea to the Forest Witches Sea of Mind. - Enchantress