Sunday, June 24, 2018

Shadow of the Demon Lord: Kosmograph




A Kosmograph is a magical rendering, the place where it is painted primed in a special mixture of brain and marrow and then painted upon using oil and menstrual blood as a medium, of Urth's Sun and the nine worlds that orbit it. 

At a glance, it is extremely realistic, even as many who view it do not understand celestial dynamics or even realize that they are looking upon their own solar system. 

After that initial shock wears off, inevitably, the next thing the viewer notices is the large shooting star (many do not know what a Komet is) moving coreward towards the Sun (thus far, the Komet has moved past the Blind Eye and Tempest and is moving towards Depth). 

Finally, as the renderings scale is burnt into the mind, the eye finally notices that the whole image is moving, lovingly, hauntingly displaying the the orbit of the nine planets and countless moons in their ponderous journey around the Sun.

In the last six years, the Cult of the New God has found four Kosmographs, the first in the attic of a townhome in Sixton in the Northern Reaches. The attic had belonged to a retired Professor of the Stargazer Society, Madeleene Dare and it's presence was reported by her nephew, Phillip, after the townhome was left to him, upon her death. At first, several investigators for the Cult thought that Madeleene had access to some form of magic unique to the Society. When that quickly proved untrue the Inquisition was brought in. A young Sojourner named Diffidence Gideon had a childhood friend, a scribe for the Cult named Eggard Holmes who she knew was brilliant. Their investigation found evidence linking the rendering to mirror discovered fifty years prior that was used by a doomsday cult known as the Order of the Komet.

Since then, Kosmographs have been discovered in a cave in the Holy Kingdom and an apartment in Caecras, itself. Finding the magical painting in the Capital caused the leadership of the Cult to make a hard decision, they chose not alert the Emperor until they had a better understanding of what they had discovered.

Recently, a pigeon arrived from the village of Asylum, reporting several murders, cultists wearing strangely painted porcelain masks, and a new Kosmograph on the ceiling of a slain toddler's room in farmhouse. The Prelate who oversees the region where Asylum lies, immediately sent word for Gideon, now an Inquisitor in her own right and the brilliant scribe.

The one sure bit of information gleaned from each Kosmograph is that the ominous Komet is getting closer to Urth.

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