(Bi)Monthly Don't-Create-A-Servant Contest

[Serra]

As I thought, looks like all those apologies in the notes weren't needed after all Congratulations WF!!!

[OddEyedDuelist]

Congrats on the win White!

[PA270]

Congrats on a well-earned victory, White!

[WhiteFrenzy]

SAY SIKE

But really thank you guys so muuuuch I really don't have words you are the best wtfffff ;_;
And also big shout out to zikari and Comun for their places in the podium as well!

Did I mentioned y'all are the best? Good. THANK YOU AGAIN ;_;

[You]

https://strawpoll.com/40Zm4RqxMga

Voting for next month's contest prompt.
Congrats again to White Frenzy for winning.

Prompt: Color

Description: The Mage’s Association refers to special magic circuits that are innately so special that are of a “noble color”. A Mystic Eye that shines prismatic like a jewel to indicate an otherworldly being. A collection of shiny rocks that are holding the accumulation of a lifetime.
In short, color is a very distinct element in the world of magic.

[You]

Voting on the prompt has closed and the results meet the acceptance threshold.
Submissions can be submitted starting 1:00 April 1st PST. Submissions will close May 23rd, 23:00 PST.

[You]

5 weeks left until submissions are due.

[OddEyedDuelist]

Ocular Seiryu
Ryotaro Mochizuki

Alias: Ocular Seiryu, Hiroden Ichi	Magecraft: Ocular Seiryu
Date of Birth: April 16	Origin: Protector
Height/Weight: 180 cm/73 kg	Attribute: Tracking
Country of Origin: Japan	Element: Wind
Affiliation: Self	Circuit Quality: High
Servant: Rider of Heaven	Circuit Quality: Average
Day of the Decisive Battle: Azure Dragon's Ultimate View	Circuit Composition: Abnormal

Child of Hiroden
--Open: The Hiroden Project--
The Hiroden Project
The magnum opus of one Kiiro Shibusawa. The Shibusawa family specialize in producing Mystic Codes that assimilate and replace a part of the body. These mystic codes essentially force their wielders into the form of a “specialist” - as the mystic code’s intimate ties to the body hampers its ability to perform any other kinds of magecraft, in exchange for making the mystic code much more efficient at its designed function - as it has the support of the entire body behind it.
Kiiro Shibusawa was the truest “genius” of his family. None paralleled his skill in terms of making the family’s signature mystic codes - in both their efficiency at their designed functions and their ability to assimilate into their hosts.
In an effort to push his skills to the limit, Kiiro designed a series of Mystic Codes based around the Four Symbols - The Azure Dragon, the Vermillion Phoenix, the White Tiger, and the Black Tortoise. He then took four children: his daughter’s recently orphaned best friend, his daughter, and two twin orphans. He crafted these Mystic Codes with these recipients in mind, and then introduced them at a young age - in order that the Mystic Codes could truly become a part of their hosts in an unprecedented manner. He dubbed this endeavor, "The Hiroden Project".

Mystic Code: Ocular Seiryu

The Mystic Code “belonging” to Ryotaro Mochizuki. While Ryotaro can be described as Ocular Seiryu’s “owner”, it would be more accurate to describe the Mystic Code as being “a part of him”. As with all Mystic Codes created by the Shibusawa family, what begins as a simple “implant” eventually consumes the part of the body it is meant to replace.
A pair of perfectly functional, artificial high grade Mystic Eyes.
As Ocular Seiryu is, at its core, a Shibusawa Family Mystic Code, its function cannot exist wholly apart from the organ it replaces. Thus, abilities like the conjuration of Flame, the binding of an opponent, or the draining of life force and turning to stone an opponent would never be accessible to Ocular Seiryu and its wielder.
Rather, Ocular Seiryu’s ability could only draw from the [Sense of Sight] - enhancing and enhancing it until it becomes something worthy of being called a “Mystic Eye”.
There is a saying; “the eyes are the gateway to the soul”.
This is the principle that the Mystic Code known as Ocular Seiryu works upon. By looking into another’s eyes, Ocular Seiryu can “see” them in their totality. Their thoughts, their true intentions, their magical talents, everything. It could be compared to reading the whole record of a person’s life in an instant. Once the first eye contact is achieved, the “sightline” remains for the next five minutes. This “mind reading” allows Ryotaro to fake a form of precognition when fighting a singular opponent, acting simultaneously with his opponent’s intentions.
Theoretically, Ocular Seiryu’s ability to obtain such a thorough picture would allow a deep enough understanding of the target’s magecraft to attempt to recreate it. However, as Shibusawa Mystic Code’s limit one’s ability to perform Magecraft outside of the Mystic Code itself, Ryotaro cannot take advantage of this.
In that weakness is the hidden strength of Ocular Seiryu. It is a Mystic Code that reads everything through the eyes while also rewriting the entirety of Ryotaro’s Magical Circuits in order to support itself. As such, while Ryotaro cannot take advantage of the information gleaned from Ocular Seiryu for Magecraft purposes…that theoretical ability to [Copy] is instead transferred to other Mystic Eyes. Any Mystic Eye that is Jewel Rank or below can have its abilities copied by Ocular Seiryu for as long as it is in its [Sightline] - even if it is an ability Ocular Seiryu could not produce naturally. Thanks to this limitation, Ocular Seiryu has itself been labeled Jewel Rank.
As Ocular Seiryu is always active, Ryotaro uses a pair of Mystic Eye Killer Sunglasses to keep them under control - as the “reading” of too many people at once can overload his brain. In general, Ryotaro can only maintain four [Sightlines] at once before beginning to suffer increasingly severe side-effects..


Self Declared Knight

--Open: Self Declared Knight--
Likes: Jai Shinriki, Tao Ninahiwa, The thought of people being safe, A job accomplished easily, dark rooms
Dislikes: Kiiro Shibusawa, The thought of certain people being in danger, failure, overly bright things
Talents: Information Gathering, Lying, Planning, Fashion, Appearing rather like a shady guy
Natural Enemy: Kiiro Shibusawa
Alignment: Neutral

History
Ryotaro Mochizuki was a normal child once upon a time. He lived in a city at the base of a mountain, and had loving parents and a best friend named Tao Ninahiwa. It was a bit odd she had a different last name than her father, but it never bothered Ryotaro.
Life was supposed to be completely and utterly normal for Ryotaro.
Until his parents died.
Heart attack, the doctors said.
Tao’s father, Kiiro Shibusawa, took Ryotaro in. It was the sort of kind-hearted gesture celebrated by all - a father taking in his daughter’s best friend, in spite of having lost his wife not long ago.
For a brief moment, even through the grief, Ryotaro had an inkling that things might be alright.
And then Kiiro Shibusawa gouged out his eyes.

--View Sightline--I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry
It hurts It hurts It hurts
What’s happening What’s happening What’s happening
In that lone room, Ryotaro would meet their eyes quite frequently. Tao and the two orphans. He didn’t know their names, so he called them the brother and the sister. The brother didn’t move except to eat and was constantly curled on the ground in pain. The sister hid behind her brother’s limp body whenever she could, like he was a rock that would protect her in spite of his pathetic groans and unending shivering.
Tao limped from one end of the room to another, bleakly muttering whatever apologies came to mind. It was ridiculous, the sight of them all. It was pathetic.
Ocular Seiryu was the smallest and least invasive of the Four Symbols Mystic Codes, so they had long since acclimated to Ryotaro’s body.
So he was left with plenty of time to watch the others, down to their very souls.
The brother’s pain, the sister’s pain and fear, and Tao’s unrelenting apologies and pain.
Apologies.
Everytime she spoke an apology, everytime Ryotaro saw her desire to voice one, he burned with anger. How dare she apologize. This was her father’s fault. That meant it was her fault as well, Ryotaro’s childish mind decided. And they were still here, so clearly she didn’t mean her apologies.
One day, he snapped.
“I’m sor--”
Ryotaro lunged across the room, a clumsy punch sending her sprawling to the ground.
“Stop, saying that--”
Just as Ryotaro cut off Tao’s speech, so too was Ryotaro’s outburst violently silenced.
The brother had moved. More accurately, he had pounced on Ryotaro, batting at Ryotaro’s face with clumsy punches and slaps. The brother was like a savage animal in his assault, desperate and vicious. Rage. That was what Ryotaro saw. He wouldn’t have even needed Ocular Seiryu for that.
Suddenly, Shibusawa was in the room, pulling the two children apart. The Brother, momentum breaking, immediately collapsed into the shivering ball of groans that he normally was, The Sister awkwardly taking her place behind him.
Ryotaro was dealt a far harsher discipline. Shibusawa was far too obsessed with his project to risk damaging Ocular Seiryu’s host with physical punishment, but reducing his meals was not out of the question.
And then, as Shibusawa raved and lectured, Ryotaro met his eyes, establishing a sightline with the man who had so thoroughly ruined his life.
Apathy and disinterest.
The children were no more than extensions of their Mystic Codes to Shibusawa. Shifting through his thoughts, shifting through his emotions, Ryotaro saw not one name.
Seiryu, Suzaku, Byakko, Genbu.
Ichi, Ni, San, Yon.
That’s all they were.
Shibusawa dropped Ryotaro to the ground and stormed from the room, and sure enough, Ryotaro’s next dinner was half-sized: some dreadful tasting cup of slop meant to replace the missing nutrients.
But the sights Ryotaro had seen were burned into his mind.
Even at that young age, Ryotaro could now understand.
Not one of them was human to Shibusawa, not even his daughter.
In that moment, Ryotaro resolved that - the moment it was within his power - he would protect all of them from being treated like this ever again.

Ryotaro was ultimately discarded by Shibusawa, having his memories of his time in Shibusawa’s “care” wiped and being deposited with a proper adoptive family.
Of course, the hypnosis more or less failed wholesale on Ryotaro. The speed with which Ocular Seiryu had become accustomed to his body and its nature as [a tool that gathers information] meant that Ryotaro had a higher than predicted resistance to the hypnosis.
So, he got to work.
Given the nature of Ocular Seiryu, it wasn’t a difficult task for Ryotaro to become a prodigy - excelling in classes, personal interactions, and extracurricular activities. While he was regarded as a bit eccentric - what with his constantly wearing sunglasses - he was ultimately regarded as an exceptional prodigy who had his life perfectly secured.
This was, of course, not what Ryotaro wanted.
The internet made it easy to track down Jai and Tao, who had been living rather normal lives since being tossed out by Shibusawa. He reconnected with Jai, and managed to become friends. Ryotaro kept tabs on Tao but didn’t contact her because she didn’t seem to have any memories of their time under Shibusawa at all (or perhaps she simply brought back too many bad memories).
However, Kai remained a complete and utter dead end.
Ryotaro did everything he could. He used his academic talents as a masquerade to travel to London and try and tap the wider world of Magecraft for any information about Shibusawa. He existed. He had contacts. But he was a web of secrets and even with Ocular Seiryu’s aid, Ryotaro couldn’t get a bead on his location.


Eyes on the Prize
--Set Your Sights--What would Ryotaro do once he found them?
Reunite Kai with Jai, obviously. They were twins, it would only be natural.
Shibusawa would in all likelihood object. Violently. If Kai was worth keeping rather than discarding, then she’d be worth fighting to keep.
Then he would have to kill Shibusawa. Ryotaro liked that idea.
Ryotaro didn’t know what Shibusawa was capable of, but that wasn’t much of an issue to change for Ryotaro.
The Sister.
Shibusawa had her in his clutches for a long time. She might defend him.
So what would he do then?
Get her out of the way. Non-lethally, of course.
Once that was solved he could kill Shibusawa and go from there.
So what’s the plan for when he finds Shibusawa?
Kill him.
If Genbu tries to stop him, deal with her however is most convenient.
And then bash that fucker’s head in.
No matter the--
…
Ryotaro splashed his face with cool water, or whatever the temperature of his water bottle was when he started thinking such things. He had sworn to make sure that neither Tao, Jai, nor Kai would ever be treated as Shibusawa treated them ever again. And that vow, however, unspoken, included prioritizing their lives. Besides, Jai would hardly react well to losing his sister. He probably wasn’t the type to ever accept trading the life of someone he liked for that of an enemy. No. He had to save Kai, first and foremost.
But the idea of killing Shibusawa…oh how tempting it was.
While Ryotaro was lost in thought, something bizarre happen. A bald man strode up to Ryotaro, leaned down in front of him, lifted his sunglasses, and locked gazes with the young man.
The sightline was established immediately.
Sent by Shibusawa
Grail War, Griffeture.
You’re Invited
Jai’s Invited
You’ll all be there
Spread the word, Seiryu
By the time Ryotaro recovered from the shock of the news, the man had already gone, but the message was delivered.
Yanking his sunglasses back down over his eyes, Ryotaro thought about what he just saw. He didn’t need to think for all, as Ryotaro climbed to his feet and instantly began making preparations to head back to Japan. He had news to deliver, after all.
Ryotaro Mochizuki would not let this opportunity slip through his fingers.
The exact specifics of the plan could wait. Genbu’s fate could be left in the air for a little bit.
Because that bastard was in Ryotaro’s sights, and he wasn’t taking his eyes off the prize.

Creator Notes

- I submit this guy full knowing he's probably not going to be a forerunner to win or anything. BUT he (probably) fits the prompt and its always fun to get another entry in a series of characters out, so thanks White for giving me the motive and motivation to commit to this guy
- Like Jai, I wrote this one less with the mindset of "tell the character's whole story" and more "invest in a possible story". Something about that writing style just clicks for Mage sheets for me, even if it probably isn't the most suited for contests
- Anyway, I hope y'all get some enjoyment out of this guy and that you all have a good night!

[PA270]

Ryotaro Mochizuki: And that makes two! Seeing the next addition to this series was a wonderfully pleasant surprise, and I love how simple yet effective his kit is. Definitely a fun character, and a great way to kick off the contest!

[Salt Pillar]

Spread.Spread.Spread.Spread.!Spread.!Spread,Spread..!SpreadSpread.Spread.Spread.Spread.!Spread.!Spread,Spread..!SpreadSpread.Spread.Spread.Spread.!Spread.!Spread,Spread..!SpreadSpread.Spread.Spread.Spread.!Spread.!Spread,Spread..!SpreadSpread.Spread.Spread.Spread.!Spread.!Spread,Spread..!SpreadSpread.Spread.Spread.Spread.!Spread.!Spread,Spread..!Spread

---

"Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo. Down! Thy crown does sear mine eye-balls. And thy hair, thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first. Why do you show me this? A fourth! Start, eyes! What, will the line stretch out the crack of doom?" Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1.

In its folly, it has convinced itself that it is "powerful", "brilliant", "extraordinary", "special."
Mankind is none of those things. Deception is not a link of deference.

In the brightest of dawns, a flame has been captured. Perhaps it shall lead to a moth; perhaps the moth shall lead to a flame.
A butterfly spreads its wing———the

Gerasene Demoniac

Heart deceives the Hand.

"Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice." - Friedrich Nietzsche.

Pneuma. The air in motion.
Within the soul, an infinite amount of air swirls to the rhythm of the

ROOT

Ineffable Swirling

.
To create a soul is to create a whole word; to kill, requires destroying the entirety of the Old World.
In the solar terminator betwixt Gods and Animals, Mankind possesses an infinite soul, yet a limited breath.
In their plurality, humans have weakened their own sense of distinction.
They compare themselves to the highest forms, and to the lowest forms, without a hint of hilarity and disillusionment.
A Hierarchy that's fully self-referential. A Hierarchy whose lowest member is its highest. A Hierarchy that cannot escape its own Chain of Deference.

Man is a system unto himself, oppressing and liberating himself perpetually.
——if pneuma is the distinction between all things, the layering that separates rock from plant from animal from god from human, shouldn't we seek its decimation?
Let us release a final breath. Within our chest, a whole world could grow.

'Cataphatic theology: the intensifier, the endowment of epithets, the invention of terms, the indication of what is. In the world to be, lines shall be drawn to distinguish, rather than be demolished to liberate. As the soul spreads its wings, it too shall not be defined by what it isn't. '

The loudness of our species, extant, penetrates the sheltered eternity of the soul.
In the dynamic tides of conqueror and conquered, in this cosmological dance between the Primate Species and the World itself, there are Gaps, within which we insert a God.
These gaps must be overcame by our mortal limbs, the hand that feeds and the heart that devours.
When we approach these gaps, incapable of what must be done, a creeping suspicion arises from within.

The God of the Gaps infiltrates.

"I'm not speaking theologically," said Asimon. "The God of the Gaps is a rhetorical argument, true. But within the Earth, this phenomenon is actualized. We do find Gods in Gaps! We do! We call them curses, but they are indistinguishable from Gods."
The Thirty-Six Chimeras of Albion sought not to ascertain the Divine, but to return to a promised Humanity. Each one walked this path independently and with little to no aid from the others; for the return to the womb is incidentally personal.
Nyctalope Asimon wished to hoard the entirety of the human experience; the expanding, the propagation, the significance.

The Insect is a God.

"When you puncture the world, you create a divinity. The phenomenon of a Gap is one that requires fulfillment, and if we cannot fill the hole with cement and concrete, we must occupy the space with a spirit of nature. As time goes on, this spirit will eventually become a bundle of curses, of resentments, howling, 'why not me'. If you pay attention to the insects that begin forming at your feet, you'll find they're as divine as the insects that tread the clouds. What is a god? A memetic virus designating destiny that cannot be cured, but can only be transferred. 'I don't have to save the world,' the proselytizing masses proclaim, 'for I must only spread the good word!'"

Our mind is the jug from which Gods sip on mead.
"Never be the flower!"
The maddened chimera grinned.
"If we create a gap within ourselves,
we shall surely create an insect,
and that shall surely become a god."



You stand at a classroom. This is not your memory.
But you remember the way the sun crept to the horizon, as if felled by the sweeping axe of the dark, ragged clouds.
Before you is your greatest wish, your heart's most pounding desire. She is gazing outwards, too, though she doesn't appear to appreciate the brilliance as you might have been.
She does not know beauty, yet. This is your chance to teach her.
Show her the freedom in an unrelenting spirit.
A flutter begins to swell in your heart. Once, it was love. Then, it was desire. Today, it is the indescribable yearning to SPREADSpread.Spread.Spread.Spread.!Spread.!Spread,Spread..!Spr
ead.Spread.SSpread,Spread..!Spr your wings.
Take a chance.
Take a chance.
Take a chance.
What are you afraid of? Break the ribs that cage your impossible spirit.
Spread your wings, people of the world, and refurbish the exploitative nature of our distinctions and judgement.
What have we to lose?

The ringing of a phone cuts the horrid silence. She has not moved since you've confessed.
The crackling of vertebrae, the splashes of a ripped cocoon—she has understood.
Her eyes are abundant, so that she may have a myriad of perspectives.
She now loves you, congratulations. She is yours.
Her heart now rests in your hands.
...and her heart is a thing with wings.


♫

Alias:	The Butterfly Phenomenon	Species:	Memetic VirusSPREAD
Plague Author:	Takslewan Vucub-Winlem	Region:	Heilige Linien
Gender:	Irrelevant	Magecraft:	Classical Mimesis, Cataphatic Reincarnation
Servant:	'Concealment unto Concealment'	Affinity:	First Principle — Water
Origin:	Spread ; The flapping of the wings, the carving of the lines.	Circuit Composition:	Neural Network ; Straight Lines (Formerly)

INSECT OF THE ABYSS ▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂ The incarnation of decadence, an insect born from cosmological dissonance. When what is promised to mankind is brutally butchered in their grasp, an insect of the abyss comes forth. It is not unrelated to the phenomena of Pandora's Box, and the Elpis found within it. Approaching Y2K, Modern Magecraft Theorists have postulated that the Insect of the Abyss corresponds to an electromagnetic wavelength that's deemed 'impossible'.

DENPA (電波) ▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂ A Japanese literary genre that focuses on the manifestations of psychoelectric horror, existentialism, and dissociation from the common sense. When one is overcome with an electromagnetic wave that's alien to them, their senses are befuddled, and they are prone to immorality and depravity. In magecraft theory, 《RED》and 《GOLD》are symbolic of the demonic, the distortions unto nature. To maintain a consciousness on these unholy wavelengths is impossible and akin to 'putting the cart before the horse' in relations to the naming of fiends.

MEMETIC THEORY ▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂ A meme is considered the cultural counterpart to the biological gene. As genes seek to replicate themselves in human reproduction, so do memes seek to replicate themselves in human culture. Ideas, philosophies, behaviors and tendencies are packaged into memes, which then enter the recipient through culture and reproduce within the organism. The veracity of the information is irrelevant for its propagation. It seeks only to spread.

LEYLINES ▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂ A leyline is the vein of a 'dragon', carrying its breath. 'True dragons', the phenomena of nature that plague the Collective Unconsciousness, carry their data over such leylines. A 'Fafnir' can only be brought forth in a land with sufficient leylines, or rather a porthole for a dragon's breath. Such portholes can come from below, in the form of volcanoes, or descend from above, as seen in the center of storms. Magi refer to these portholes as 'The Eyes of the Planet.'

The minerals and gemstones of the earth are filled only by the Breath of the Planet.
Disconnected from a collective, a rock cannot generate a breath of its own, nor can it dictate breath to any other being.
To the Stoics, the pneuma of the inanimate is indistinguishable from the pneuma of the living. Pneuma is a fragment of the Breath of the Planet, and as such, constitutes the building block of all objects irregardless of their position in the Hierarchy.
It is a mixture of fire and wind, warmth and motion. It is the Eros that drives the wheels of creation. Rocks are coated by the pneuma required of them to be considered 'rocks' rather than 'plants' or otherwise 'humans'. Pneuma is the distinguishing factor.
The Planet has decreed minerals must be minerals, gemstones must be gemstones, rocks must be rocks.

The plants of the earth synthesize only the Breath of the Planet.
Possessing little to none as a collective, it is unlikely for a group of plants to investigate their selves and generate a soul.
Nor could the plants of the earth indicate the breath of any tier beneath their own; the rocks are equal to the plants, in that neither are endowed with any authority in comparison to the higher tiers.
Plants own an inner pneuma, or rather, they allow the Breath of the Planet to inflate their Inner Worlds to the tune of its desires. Plants are subservient to the Force of Nature entirely.
Yet, they are filled with the pneuma required to one day surpass the higher tiers—their 'Hollowness' will eventually transform into 'Fulfillment', if one unchained them from the Higher Breaths.
The Planet has decreed plants must be plants. Flowers shall bloom in time.

The animals of the earth circulate only the Breath of the Planet.
Possessing a strong collective, all animals are owed a viable path towards Primacy. All animals have the potential for a soul.
They indicate the breath of the lower tiers, functionally utilizing the tools of nature to their natural conclusions. Plants are feasted upon, rocks are treaded upon.
Some of them indicate a natural inclination towards the aesthetics of the gemstones, some prefer one flower over another. This is the meaning of 'generating pneuma for the lower tiers'.
Here, is the first Link of Deference in nature.
The Planet has decreed animals must be animals. At the edge of our experience as a collective, perhaps they shall rewrite the laws of mankind.

The gods of the earth sway the Breath of the Planet. The gods from beyond have been naturalized into the systems of the Planet.
Within this category, anything can be inserted.
Gods, in their prime, breath an infinite amount of pneuma: an infinite distinction, and an infinite ability to distinguish.
The setting of the laws used to be their sole purpose. Their breath was the Planet.

In the physical realm, a Chief God might be considered the pinnacle of all.
Within the spiritual realm, it is uncommon for Chief Gods to reside beyond the Metadivine: destiny, primordial chaos, the natural order.
In the mental realm, a Chief God is rarely the preeminent idea; it is the defiance of the God that is the most pervasive thought, occupying the most amount of space.
When that space is extinguished, a butterfly comes forth.

The butterfly is the sway of the planet's breath, which the gods utilize extensively in their ventures.
The butterfly is the soul of the planet, which exhumes the breath.
If you deny the butterfly the spreading of its wings, are you not denying the sway of the planet to unfurl divine schemes?

...

The chamber had dimmed til light pierced only at the far end of a spacious hall, enclosed by the thin partition of a massive, translucent golden veil. Three sets of persons sat affixed to the shadows on the golden veil—the irony was not lost on you. Yet, it did not have even the slightest accent of what you might at first believe this to be. The prisoners were not here to observe, elucidate, nor were they gathered in this hellish labyrinth of souls for the ultimate purpose of escape into a brighter, truer world.

The shaking of the heart intensified, catapulted as if by a pull that reached back to the origins of the self. One's first moment, one's first memory, one's first dream, one's first accomplishment. At these massive pillars, a capable string had been drawn to shoot and pierce the veil.

"We are the cannibals," the decadent child whispered next to you. You were taken aback. This boy did not make any sense, and he seemed to know that before you'd even managed to pull a frightened, inexplicably nasty expression. "We are the cannibals of the thing with wings."

"You mean feathers?" You ask.

His reaction made you wonder; was it human instinct to abhor the incomprehensabilities of others? If one does not make sense to you, do you make sense to them? At what point is it acceptable to expect uniformity before the collection?

Can we know each other by the third date? By our wedding? By our first child? When we become one, will we know each other, still?

"No," the decadent child hushedly berates you for the purple attitude. What strange ponderings, you realize and shake the thoughts from your head. "It has decided to feed us the thing with wings. I'm speaking literally."

"What thing?" Your head explodes with poundings and a bombardment of sharp cuts form above your brows, deliberate and simultaneous.

"Ah," the decadent child stares in amazement. "The Butterfly."

The more you grasp at straws you'd once been sure were firm levers, the more your insides twist and turn. The obscenely poignant fear nestled in your chest begins to spread uncontrollably around your limbs like a rash of injuries, cuts, and defilements.

"You shall be the thing," the decadent child solemnly explained. A string of saliva dangled at the side of his mouth, and the emptiness of his stomach became explicit as his limbs became infested with the gnarly teeth of an ancient creature, fished from the unconsciousness. "I wish it had feathers..

---

The Pit of the Stomach
Feibel Goyadella is afraid. Afraid of the end, and of the beginnings which still await him.
He whispers to you this because he believes there is an end to his condition, stuffed someplace 'neath the hunger: 'I am an unfathomably bottomless pit'.
He'd checked. When his mother wasn't looking, he fed on all sorts of objects if only in an effort to make her look. Rocks do not have a distinctive taste you'd appreciate, but to him they hold a sentimental value at the very least, a kind of flair that ups the ante. He doesn't bite into them, he swallows them whole. And it doesn't hurt one bit anymore. It's as defiant an act as he's willing to play—it's the kind of childish habit you bring over to adulthood, like lying about being sick to avoid responsibilities.

He was told there was a purpose to his emptiness, but he'd also heard from visitors that this emptiness is meaningless in comparison to the emptiness sought by his mother. Upon clarification, it has become clear his emptiness is also worthless within her journey towards her own emptiness. As the one exhibiting these abhorrent symptoms, he can only interpret the symptoms of his condition, rather than speculate on its destination.

Here, his life will be played before you: a sodden boy gazing at a modest hellscape, in perpetuity.
"When their flesh decomposes from the abundance of curses that sway with the breath of my mother's forest, surrounded by the insects that gather at the hidden depth between bark and log, the smell is brought to the watchtower, as well as the thoughts that permeated their last daunting memory. I am not allowed neither; I cannot ignore the first."

His mother was a Millennium Ranger, the kind of mage who hunts the artifacts 'destined to remain for a millennium'. Those artifacts are also called 'Empires'. When an 'Empire' falls prematurely, an 'Insect' is born; the loose thread of destiny, crippled by imposition.



"Ah. Two hundred seventy three years? But, Mother, I will not be alive by then."
Goyadella is seated at the far end of a long chamber hall, gazing at the golden sheets attached to the entrance. He sees shadows play across the sheets, yet he cannot perceive the original bodies.
One, is a person, seated next to him. To his left, a pair of people; to his right, a pair of people. In an unfortunate turn of events, none of them were worthy of being seen as 'human'.
Feibel, especially, was inhuman. And he knew that.

He shivered uncontrollably beneath his Mother's gaze. Her eyes were crafted from the stomach acids of two devouring gods; in a very real sense, she had yet to release him from the womb.
Recently, the portholes and leylines which intersected over her forest have been releasing fumes which corrupted and distorted the common sense of the townsfolk.
To refrain from calling on a certain someone, an experienced Leyline researcher affiliated with the Holy Church and an Emperor of his own 'Empire', she had instigated her own investigation.

The person next to Feibel was not living currently. In fact, none of the five other persons were anything close to 'alive'.
To be clear, Feibel Goyadella ate their corpses earlier, to have an easier pathline to their spirits and memories.
A blatantly necromatic spell attempting to convert corpses into memory similarly to the sarcophagi of Ancient Egypt, done by a Spanish, non-mage teen on the behest of his mother.
If it weren't for the machinations of the Goyadella Family, it wouldn't have worked———

As his stomach churned, an answer began to reverberate in his mind.

"We are the cannibals of the thing with wings."



Sublimation. By such means, the butterfly shall soar.

If a human is the coat worn by the skeletal structure, the soul is the coat worn by the breathe of life.
If one wishes to rid themselves of the soul, they must allow the breathe to devour it whole.
By such means, the person will be reduced to their most primate, original matter—the Arche.
A liquidated substance, ascendant and inconceivable. A concept with no limits, indistinct from all of creation, for it is the building blocks of all aspects, both the material and the immaterial.

THE BUTTERFLY PHENOMENON

SPREAD. SPREAD. SPREAD. SPREAD. SPREAD.

Question: What is the Butterfly Phenomenon?

Answer: The release of the breathe from the soul, by way of 'eating the winged thing'.

If one seeks release, how shall they?

Question: Where does the Butterfly occur?

Answer: At the intersection of leylines; at portholes, or Eyes of the World.

If one seeks to follow the paths, to where shall it lead?

Question: When does the Butterfly come forth?

Answer: After a millennia has gone by. When 'Empires' fall. When the Insect arises.

TO WHOM SHALL IT RETURN?
TO WHOM. TO WHOM. TO WHOM.

AM I TO RETURN?

Calpurnius Kalends, On The Paths of Leys

He gazed upon the butterfly and his eyes caught the glimpse of an indomitable flame. A child, burnt to ashes, crashed beneath the heel of a greater will.
Such opulence blinded him, and as his eye began to dissociate from the scenes that the leylines generated, the Vestal Flame preserved them in his stead.
"What a brilliant display of magecraft," Calpurnius Kalends murmured.

"What a brilliant display of magecraft," Calpurnius Kalends murmured. This was the works of a neurological disease; artificial as it were, it possessed the red hue approaching The Great Work that Kalends had once witnessed in the Eternal Capital.
To describe it by mundane terms of 'magecraft' and 'great work' did little but cross wires in the leyline expert's befuddled brain. No amount of expertise could prepare him for the upcoming investigation. A true detective would know that the best solution is often the simplest one, the one you could best articulate—Kalends, who was neither a detective nor a straightforward person, imagined this must be the true counter-example. Out here, in the plains of Italy, he found a disease that spreads by consumption.
The breathing-in of the leylines, he'd realized, has become corrosive. Those who cannot filter the invading 'bacteria' of the disease would eventually unfetter from their coil in a rapturous display, much like the butterfly sheds its cocoon.
But all that was hearsay, the kind of second-hand information you couldn't quite trust. Indeed, the Church supplied the majority of it, and Calpurnius was unconvinced to put it lightly.
Most importantly—"Most leyline 'diseases' are mere lung infections. The phenomenon we're witnessing is an aggressive lung implant."

His 'friend', with whom he danced during the Papal Conclave of '68, was willing and capable.
A sense of utter indifference sparkled in his eyes, which were smooth and silver and dauntingly spacious.
You could not be lost in them, for their glisten bludgeoned them shallow. Neither were they as rich, nor as impressive, as the crystallized flame lodged into Calpurnius Kalends' own right eye-socket.
Bartolomeo, of the esteemed and enigmatic Manzurio family, spoke without a hint of hand gesticulation.
As if he savored his hands for a particular, finalizing task.
"You seek to naturalize the implantation?"

"You'd think so," Kalends responded deftly. The average magus would scream, "NO!" Of course you shouldn't reinforce the presence of a neurological virus in the Italian leylines. But the two of them shared an understanding of the finer details; a leyline is the vein of a dragon, carrying its breath.

Kalends carries one of those on his person.

"But, I wish to trick a strand of the virus into the Chamber, instead," he wryly gestured to his Mystic Eye, the scorched hearth of yesteryear. The thought disgusted him, but the task necessitated the action. "I want you to pin the leylines of this region at all the right spots, right, Meo? Pin them down, and the virus will have to come out through the only legitimate porthole. Leyline diseases aren't very different from humans; if they perform their function, that is, escaping the leylines into viable systems, they're satisfied. They won't resist what happens next."

Bartolomeo Manzurio bit on the right-most corner of his bottom lip, making a face. For a long while, he didn't indicate his thoughts on the matter, as if lost in the trenches of Kalends' proposal.
At last, he said, "I can accomplish that. To whom should I pin the leylines?"

Kalends laughed uproariously, catching the morning sun with his immortal eye, unflinching and unabashed in his gaze. "To the eternity of Rome, of course!"

"That," Meo Manzurio shook his head, "is not a person."

...

Calpurnius Kalends is the Pontifex Maximus of Rome, supervisor of the Six Vestal Virgins.
He is the Emperor to an 'Empire' worth several millennia.
Most commonly, the Emperor of Rome is the Pontifex Maximus—due to the fall of Rome several hundred years ago, this role has returned to its natural state of a High Priest.



Mystic Eye of the Hearth —JEWEL

The Sacred Vestal Flame entombed in the Hearth of the Roman Empire. It has become a supreme Mystic Eye akin to those belonging to mythological beasts and gods, since it is composed from the fire of the Goddess Vesta, promised to the Roman Empire as a representation of its eternal rule. As a manifestation of the mystery required for a rule to be maintained for a millennium, it is capable of 'millennium-preservation', the complete safeguarding of any object from the passage of time for as long as it is charged by sunlight. Calpurnius can preserve his own spells for centuries at a time, but because it sustains his own life-force, he cannot overcharge the Mystic Eye or risk his own self-degradation. The fact he still looks like a young adult is a sign of his expertise and magnanimity as a mage and as a Pontifex Maximus

The Sacred Vestal Flame entombed in the Hearth of the Roman Empire. It is the Color of the Empire as a whole, the wave by which it sought eternity. The Insect and the God are both fates, dictated to mankind. Vesta is the fate of eternity, the wave lengthened to both ends. As it approaches infinity on both sides, it is infinitesimal and small. Infinitely before Rome, Rome had existed infinitesimally; Infinitely after Rome, Rome will exist infinitesimally. So long as the Color is hidden within the Jewel, the flame shall maintain its divine embers. Calpurnius Kalends is tasked not with maintaining the 'Empire', but with elongating its 'millennium', so that no insect may arise.

Extromissionism is the ancient theory and proposition that vision occurs when the eye emits light unto an object, which then allows it to process the information. This is the mystical basis for all Mystic Eyes that influence the world. A fifth century BC philosopher, Empedocles, believed that Aphrodite created the eye from the four elements, and placed the fire in its center so that it could emit light and thereby see. A common argument against the emission theory is that if sight is made possible by something within the eye, a person with bad eyesight would have improved vision when other people gaze upon the object they're wishing to perceive. Though it is obviously false, this is the exact mechanisms that occurs within the Mystic Eye of the Hearth, a barren wasteland composed exclusively of the fire element—the extromission of the flame; the emanation of the Color.

On the Pathology of Color | On the Virology of Cannibalism

Your Color shall be Monochrome.

The Chimera Nyctalope Asimon will show you a human being, very soon.
Definitionally, a human being is a featherless biped, possibly. When you gaze upon it, you will perceive it as such, at the very least.
Your personal history might compound other interesting factors unto the human before you, but ultimately, it shall be a human nonetheless.
That personal history might attempt to perplex you. Your senses, affixed to the middle-aged man procured by your mentor, Nyctalope, sharpen drastically over the course of the exhibition.

The 'you' of 2000 years ahead, will look at the human before you in drastically different ways.
He will see a breath coated in soul, coated in a skeletal structure and ultimately, flesh, hair, eyes.
He will see a butterfly yearning to release into the world; a sway, yearning to dance along the breath of the planet.
Unburdened by life itself, your breath shall roar in indignation, as you defeat the restraints of the material world.

...
Your Color shall be Decadence.

Your mother will show you a human being, very soon.
Definitionally, a human being is a subject contracted by the collective, as part of a social contract.
Your personal history might compound other interesting factors unto the human before you, but ultimately, it shall be a human nonetheless.
That personal history might attempt to perplex you. Your senses, affixed to the corpse procured by your mother, sharpen drastically over the course of the exhibition.

The 'you' of the worst possible path will look at the human before you in drastically different ways.
He will see the rotten flesh, the dripping red blood, the guts spewed across the legs from the cut beneath the abdomen.
He will see a corpse destined to be devoured; a human being fit for your consumption.
Unburdened by the contract formed by all of the people in the world, you shall sink your teeth into the rot and gulp down the material with no complaints.

...
Your Color shall be Flame.

Your priestesses will show you a human being, very soon.
Definitionally, a human being is a vessel for the flame of their ultimate predecessor.
Your personal history might compound other interesting factors unto the human before you, but ultimately, it shall be a human nonetheless.
That personal history might attempt to perplex you. Your senses, affixed to the ill body procured by your six underlings, sharpen drastically over the course of the exhibition.

The 'you' of a millennium ago will look at the human before you in drastically different ways.
He will see a bearer of bad omens, a sign of the extinguished flame soon to be unladen by shape.
He will see an ill child consumed by the flames of an impending insect; a human whose frequency has been stretched too far, a human who snapped at the intersection of leys.
Unburdened by the decadence all around you, you shall extract the insect and preserve the light within the child for a century.

...
Your Color shall be Rook.

Your King will show you a human being, very soon.
Definitionally, a human being is a pawn, participating in a game of deference.
Your personal history might compound other interesting factors unto the human before you, but ultimately, it shall be a human nonetheless.
That personal history might attempt to perplex you. Your senses, affixed to the piece before you, sharpen drastically over the course of the exhibition.

The 'you' from after the ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ will look at the human before you in drastically different ways.
He will see ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇.
He will see ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇.
Unburdened by the plays performed by the player, you shall ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇.





The Length of the Ley

THE BUTTERFLY PHENOMENON

SPREAD. SPREAD. SPREAD. SPREAD. SPREAD.

Question: Who is the Butterfly Phenomenon?

Answer: The monochromatic color that fluctuates between neon red and neon gold.

What is the Color of the removal of the shackles?

Question: To whom does the butterfly occur?

Answer: We are all butterflies; we are free when we cannot see.

If one lacks the means of sight, do they not see most clearly?

Question: By what means does it spread its wings?

Answer: By appealing to the most basic rights of mankind. By denouncing the dominion over lower breaths.

TO WHERE SHALL IT FLUTTER?
TO WHERE. TO WHERE. TO WHERE.

WHAT FLUTTERS, BUT THE HEART?

She stands at your precipice. She is the precipice of your perception.

From this point onward, you should trudge carefully.
You are already aware of the butterfly, and she will not cleanse you of this idiosyncrasy.
When the butterfly flutters its last pair of wings, and when the sky opens to accept the new humanity, your disease shall be cured.
Or rather——normalized.

She is not a Heroic Spirit in the conventional way, nor is she a "Servant" participating in a Holy Grail War.
She is a Saint Graph composed of nothing. An empty, concealed existence that was summoned through her own, personal means.
In fact, she is not her Master's Servant. The Butterfly Phenomenon has not contracted her.
She acts only as the directional vector of its memetic persuasion.
The river that protects the ship from nautical harm.
She lets it float to and fro. Through and into.

You are not privy to her name. You are not invited to her banquet.
This discussion is not about her.
But it's worth noting her existence, lest you forget.
Lest she conceals even the concealment.
Lest you forget. Lest you forget.

Lest you forget she's within you.

---

Quickly, grasp the hand that feeds.
So it may save you from the fire.
From afar, stand not. For the flame doth reach.
Spare not your sympathies. The flame, too, shall reach.

Calpurnius Kalends raised his palms upwards, parted his arms to both sides, then dropped to his knees before the foreboding black flame he'd gathered.
He had burnt down a forest, an 'Empire', belonging to a woman of cruel methods and cruel form. She had asked him to do so, despite there being at least two hundreds years till the forest runs its course. By her own admission, she'd reached her conclusions regarding that cursed place, and since it has been causing problems "all 'round my stomach", she found it easier to dispose of. He knew of her beforehand, of the Goyadellas and their discerning sense of taste—Millennium Rangers were all aware of one another. Those seeking the Insect are few and must collaborate often.
When the fire first spread, the horridness of the forest overwhelmed them both. Meo Manzurio, a cursed individual, knew how to rid himself of supplementary curses and deftly pinned the surplus unto his partner. Kalends, in turn, took a bath in the eternal flame. With the curses culled and the resentments burnt to ashes, all that remained were the bundles of networks laid beneath their feet: a leyline system so disgustingly complicated it denied civilized life for its entire duration of existence, throughout all of human history. For that reason alone, the Goyadellas settled down next to it.

When the breath of the planet is entangled, there's a choke-hold on the logic of the world such that things that are 'obvious' become 'obscure'.
There was no porthole available in that region. That's why the leylines couldn't function as intended.
Down under, no natural holes existed.
Up above, no natural disasters occurred.
Such pressure was immeasurably powerful.
And Kalends was about to release it all, instantaneously and simultaneously.

In the form of a Butterfly.



Madder, Brink Pink, Crimson, Pink, Salmon Pink, Cardinal Red, Apple Red, Zarqa, Ponceau, Batorange, Carmine, Spanish Red, Rusty Red, Chocolate Cosmos, Rosewood, Imperial Red, Cordovan, Fire Engine Red, Rose Vale, Old Rose, Bittersweet Shimmer, Light Red, Cymbidium Red, Light Coral, Garnet, Rose Ebony, Chili Red, Venetian Red, Vermilion, Misty Rose, Turkey Red, Salmon, Coral Pink, Cantaloupe Melon, Barn Red, Blood Red, Tea Rose, Cinnabar, Dark Red, Fire Brick, Indian Red, Lust, Maroon, Redwood, Scarlet, Tomato, Jasper, Rosy Brown, Rose Taupe, Amaranth, Fluorescent Red, Cunard Red.

A50021, FB607F, DC143C, FFC0CB, FF91A4, C51E3A, BE0032, FF4500, DC343B, A42C02, 960018, E60026, DA2C43, 58111A, 65000B, ED2939, 893F45, CE2029, AB4E52, C08081, BF4F51, FF8080, D5373A, F08080, 733635, 674846, E03C31, C80815, E34234, FFE4E1, A91101, FA8072, F88379, FDBCB4, 7C0902, 660000, F4C2C2, E44D2E, 8B0000, B22222, CD5C5C, E62020, 800000, A45953, FF2400, FF6347, D05340, BC8F8F, 905D5D, E52B50, FF2226, E42313,

Which one belongs to you?
Point at your innards. If you manage to guess correctly, you'll take a breathe.

What would be the perfect color for you?
Which shade of distortion belongs to you?

Let the Butterfly lead you onward, to the voice that belongs to you.
So that you may express yourself and breath freely.

Breath———spread, breath.



Let her explain to you in simple terms, what happens when the butterfly spreads its wings.

If a breathe is nestled in your soul, like DNA is nestled in the mitochondria, then you could say that breathe is the DNA of the soul.
Breathe is a universal phenomenon that is considered 'elevated' according to the sapience of a biological category—humans possess a greater breath than rocks, but a lower breath than the gods of the old textures. When the textures are stripped from a planet, the gods are demoted to a category lower than that of the Primate Species, Mankind. There are still creatures who belong to a higher breathe—those, are the Great Mothers and Fathers, who are bunreis of the planet's soul.
A Primate Species is the accomplishment of a creature that does not belong directly to the planet's soul—a Primate Species is the category able to draw the most breathe from the planet, without directly being the planet.
In short, mankind uses their sapience and intelligence to gather the Breath of the Planet. This ability is not exclusive to mankind, but its exceptional nature pronounces mankind as 'the primate'.

How does one exude this breath? By a system of interconnected veins.
The Planet's Breath flows through a system of dragon veins; a complicated network of leylines.
How does mankind exude their breath? By a system of interconnected veins.
The Primate's Breath flows through a system of perceptions; a complicated network of channels.

The act of choking the leylines is identical to the act of poisoning them. Doing so generates, spontaneously and without explanation, insects of the abyss.
The act of choking the channels of perception is identical to the act of poisoning them. Doing so generates, spontaneously and without explanation, butterflies.

Now that she made it clear to you, do you understand what 'spreading the wings' implies?
By what means this phenomenon shall set you free?

...

The burning of the forest, the releasing of the chokehold, the spreading of the wings.

First, you scorch the cursed material that persisted in the mind.
Second, you rip open a rift to the underside of the mind.
Then, you allow the butterfly an exit.

Finally, you shall become a new human.
A neo-primate, wearing your heart on your sleeve.
From your facial features shall come forth the true you—no longer wearing a mask, you are who you are.
Simple as that. Being yourself shall be as simple as breathing——
Being yourself——being yourself——.
The spread shall be precise. By the winds beneath your wings, you shall take flight into a brighter tomorrow.

Once, he wished to gulp upon the myriad of sins in the world.
Feibel Goyadella was equipped with the Color of a cannibal.
His brain was wired to the perverse Channel of Perception,
His circuits linked to the perverted leylines of the forest.

To save himself, his sins have become his body.
And his soul, has become his cleansed form.
When the butterfly spreads its wings, the person reverts.

Once, the soul coated the breathe. Once, the flesh coated the skeletal structure.
Now? Goyadella's heart is on display.
Now? The breath has become the skeletal structure. The soul has become the flesh.
You are looking upon a butterfly. You are looking upon the one whose wings had spread.

No longer desiring flesh, no longer thirsting for corpses, Feibel is content with himself.
Meo Manzurio is undeterred—needles pierce grotesque skin, pins are placed at the wings attached to Goyadella's wretched face.
His fate is now pinned to the origin of the virus—to a Plague Author from two thousands years ago. Inspecting each facet of the broken mind before him, the Manzurio 'Rook' coalesced the shards into a sacred shape, a metaphysical crown; the neurological pathways of Feibel Goyadella, restructured, had come forth inexplicably upon his body. While the butterfly remained attached to the crying child, the scars along his body remade themselves in the shape of crowns upon crowns, intersecting and defiling one another in a horrid graft of sacred 'flesh'. The swaying of the 'flesh' was as eloquent as the breathing of a prodigy.
It was not a monster, but a distortion of nature of the highest order.
The chokehold of the Goyadella's channels of perception has birthed a butterfly, but the curses embedded in his system from the forest's accumulated karma had distorted even the distortion.
Shackled by the World, yet unshackled by the Ego, can one perceive themselves as anything but a sunken blorb of mass, a hole in the fabric of the world?
He cannot spread. He cannot spread.

For what can spread when locked behind a painting?

What brush can paint upon a blackened surface?

Takslewan Vucub-Winlem was the name of the student. They had a single wish.
"If I cannot hoard everything just to myself, like teacher... I want to free everything I own, my entire self."
Such was the wish, and it had been fulfilled.
Upon their death, two thousand years ago, a hole had been concocted.

The Chimera, Nyctalope Asimon, pioneer of species creationism and the spontaneous generation theory, clasped the corpse in their arms and grafted such creation:

"It shall have the arms and legs of the great forgetting. It shall have the veins and mind of the great undoing. It shall have the heart and blood of the great bemoaning. It shall have the wings and eyes of the great sublime. It shall be the butterfly who patches holes, and the hole through which butterflies shall pass. Its lungs shall be akin to entire worlds, yet these worlds shall be empty."

Two thousand years ago, a return to 'humanity' was constructed.
A plan to become 'human', truly.

A grave mistaken had been made—the soul was a slippery thing, like a rushing river passing through the fingertips.
How could you wrap it around a breathe?
By solving a p. a. r. a. d. o. x.



P. A. R. A. D. O. X.
DAY OF DECISIVE BATTLE


Sin is the guilt we hold when we recognize our wrongdoings.
If all that it takes to rid ourselves of sin is to deceive the hand,
by way of wielding the heart,
then let us do it a hundred times, a thousand times,
till the hand performs its actions dutifully, earnestly, and with conviction.

Alternatively, the hand deceives the heart.
Could one pick up an object without notifying the heart?
Could one breath without having to pump blood into the organs?
Those who wish to be free from their sins contest that yes——
yes, the heart can be deceived!
If you put the TV on max volume,
If you gather the antennas at just the right direction,
If you switch the channels infinitely and without shame,
If you hide your own color behind veils and within shadows,
If you punch out a hole in your heart and burn your nervous system,
If you deny yourself, empty yourself, invert yourself,
If you show your true face to the world, and hide the obscenities within,
You, too, shall belong to the new humanity.
The new humanity doesn't have to lie to itself and say:
'we are all the same'.


Author's Notes
Possibly my long ever sheet ever in all contests. 7k words is not up to par for some 14k mega gigachads, but as a minimalist who believes words should be, to an extent, as impactful and compact as possible, it's a big stretch of my standards. I hope that this sheet is less obscure than all of my other mage sheets. I added three plain loredumps that very specifically explain what I'm trying to get across because I thought that 'memetic virus that has become a daemonic phenomenon, forcefully inverting people so that their soul will be 'free' from the restrictions of the flesh, but never actually lets them 'go' to the afterlife' is maybe a hard idea to deliver on prose and poetic mumblings alone. I referenced You's Legion sheet several times and directly linked to it because I believe it is the best analogy to what's happening here.

Without any of the surplus prose, the Butterfly Phenomenon is a memetic virus that has been wishing so hard for millennia that it has become an 'Empire', a Saltspeak for 'a rotting manifested ideal'. The Forest of the Goyadellas is one such tainted ideal—a place that's ideally uninhabitable, being occupied by a magus family. The Empire of Rome is one such rotten ideal—the Vestal Flame simply cannot sustain the empire for all eternity, yk. Millennium Rangers, thereby, are those who seek to prolong the existence of 'Empires' for as long as they can draw usefulness from the phenomenon. Kalends is one such persons, seeking to extend the Empire of Rome for as long as he possibly can by using the Vestal Flame inserted in his Mystic Eye (his lore will be expanded upon someday when I write his sheet). Manzurio mentioned because I thought the imagery of a 'pinned butterfly' is important for the vibe of the sheet.

The Butterfly Phenomenon, being an 'Empire', is enforcing its own channel of perceptions upon so many people, wishing to help them 'liberate their souls from the flesh', but in actuality it's just reversing the flesh and the soul, so that your darkest thoughts would manifest in your physical body instead of the soul. You'll feel good, sure, but your body will be horrendously defiled and nobody will have the guts to look at you. Yet, the mixture of a paradox (how can the soul be worn like flesh??) and a personal wish (the liberation of the self from the flesh), have poisoned the phenomenon tremendously. Now, the Butterfly Phenomenon is nothing but a memetic daemon riding the channels of perception of the world (leylines) to eventually capture those who agree with its wish to rid itself of sin, adding them to a greater network of pseud-leylines, the Butterfly's neural network—their own special TV of perception, their own primate species.

Color? Eh, color is the driving force of the entire project.
Red is the color of the distortions of nature. It is also the color of blood, and of the pain involved in breaking the skin and the flesh. Attempting to exist entirely on the range of red hues and shades will inevitably drive you insane. Those who dissociate entirely from society by entering the red zone of the electromagnetic spectrum become denpa'd! now the butterfly can steal them and build with them a new color spectrum.

"but salt why wasn't this explained in the sheet"
as Maimonides once said:

Nothing of what is mentioned is out of place, every remark will be found to illustrate the subject-matter of the respective chapter. Do not read superficially, lest you do me an injury, and derive no benefit for yourself.

[PA270]

Butterfly Phenomenon: Goddamn this is a brilliant piece of work, Salt! Although probably not the best thing to read less than an hour after I woke up; my sleep-befuddled brain was having trouble keeping track of it all, so I really appreciate the summary in the endnote! But yeah, definitely need to go back and reread this once I'm a little more awake to better appreciate it, because it's such an intricately constructed and beautifully designed story that it deserves my full attention and cognitive function. Gorgeous stuff!

[Salt Pillar]

my most consistent supporter
I do hope you read the sheet again with a clearer mind because this is a behemoth of interconnections and misdirections. Im rather proud of how it turned out tho if I had the nerves of some other people down here I'd go double the length and show more case studies. I'm simply not built for producing aesthetically pleasing novellas, at some point of length I regress back into plain text

[PA270]

Alright, second read-through complete! And while I still think I have a ways to go before I can fully comprehend the twists and turns this sheet takes, I can definitely say that my understanding of it has improved substantially, as has my appreciation of its intricacy! It truly is a gorgeously crafted sheet, and I look forward to pouring back over it again and again to find everything I might've missed!

[You]

Submissions will be closing in a little under a week.

[Bugs]

Drip.

Drip.


Drip.


Mucus fled flared nostrils to drip in sickly metronome upon the taught canvas. It ran, swimming along the contours of upraised brush strokes, to pool in a corner of blue where its offering produced a new admixture. It was by no means the only time this had happened, nor was this accidental constructive advice ever unwanted.


A tight hot ball of lead weighed down on Shasta’s back, the sum of the strain he purchased by laboring on hands and knees for hours on end. Elbows and knees sported flaky snake scales of dried paint, where they seeped into split calluses and burst scabs to trickle into his bloodstream. A film of familiar carmine bubbled up unceasingly from the lip of his thumbnail, adding warm highlights to whatever corner of the canvas his hand found itself. Even his unthinking flesh sought to aid him in this task. Sucking briefly, Shasta allowed himself the brief pleasure of tasting sharp iron overlaid atop a foundation of strong floral essence, silently thanking his body for the meal. It was likely to be the last for a while yet. A quick swipe of his hand on one of the less grimy corners of his shirt, and the matter was put out of his mind.


Vertebrae popped in a rhythmic 21 gun salute as Shasta stumbled to his feet. Scraps lay discarded around his workstation in penumbra, folded over themselves in a limp sign of submission. Fresh ideas swiftly nixed in utero. Shasta did his best to remember them all, but long days have a habit of sapping the mind of its potency. Edges blur until all that remains is a compacted core that devours everything else like a black hole. That is what it meant to do the Work.


Still, some days it took him twice as long to accomplish so much. Ahead of schedule for once. The regularity with which the Work was inflicted upon him bordered on the Sisyphean. Shasta could acknowledge that much, on some level. But to dwell on it was useless, not when there were orders to fill and no one to do so but him.


For centuries, the primary concern of visual art was the accurate portrayal of the real world. Artists labored not to promote original ideas, but to contain a fragment of reality within their chosen medium. A simple invention like the camera proved a devastating invention to the archaic institution of art at the time. Now there was no longer a question of accuracy or personal skill when expressing the world on a canvas or chiseled out of marble, any amateur off the street could pick up a camera and immediately deduce truth with the press of a button.


Coinciding with the invention of the camera, there was a small controversy brewing in France. The argument centered around whether or not a horse at full gallop is ever truly airborne–do all four legs of a horse ever leave the ground at the same time? Had this same question occurred decades prior, and no doubt it surely had in some form or another, the onus of the event’s replication would be on the visual artist. No longer. The question could be answered definitively: yes, a horse does leave the ground while running. Unparalleled verisimilitude had been achieved.


This had an immediate impact on the cultural consciousness of France when it came to the expectations of art, one which blossomed outward to infect the rest of the world. The camera obscura style of Vermeer was dead. Suddenly, art found itself with a freedom it always possessed but never interacted with. Color. Form. These things could be altered, played with as never before. Art was no longer interested in the expression of the world, but the expression of the artist’s soul.


This implied that gradation existed among the immaterial. Certain pieces of art weren’t to the tastes of everyone, obviously, it was something that should be expected as a matter of preference. Did this mean that art could be “bad” by its own merit? Was it the fault of the artist somehow? Objectivity still existed, it just wasn’t readily obvious. The hunt for which formed the basis of the Department of Creation, in a sense. The only disagreements, then, the only point of contention possible, was over methods.


Those methods which worked could be defined as just. Those that didn’t were evil, as proven by their failure. But to reject even the methods available, to deny even the potentiality of success, that was nothing short of anathema. A zoo animal to be pointed at as a cautionary tale for others, only humored when it was at the discretionary leisure of the adventurous.


Shasta rocked on his heels, stimulating feeling back into aching calf muscles. It had been a nice break, but it was time to get back to work. He was far from finished. Mr. Agnumday had been quite specific about how he wished for his commission to be presented.

Shasta Dogwood Rumata

Alias: Gemüt of Chroma
Magecraft: Theosophy/Anthroposophy
Age: 19
Origin: Scumble
Height/Weight: 174cm/50kg
Element: Fire & Water
Country of origin: San Francisco, California
Circuit Quantity: C
Affiliation: Department of Modern Magecraft
Circuit Quality: B
Image color: Cobalt and Vermillion
Circuit Composition: Normal

Likes: Tactility of experience, people earnestly talking about things they enjoy
Dislikes: Commodification
Talents: Openness
Weakness: Own ego
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Background
The 17th century was a period of great change in the Tsardom of Russia. The Time of Troubles had just ended, with the Russian state barely managing to keep its sense of identity after repeated internal uprisings and loss of territory to both Poland and Sweden. Michael Romanov was elected to tsardom by a national assembly after the failure of Ivan the Terrible’s line, setting the stage for the Romanov dynasty which would continue up until the 20th century. This change in leadership had little immediate effect, however. Rebellions against increasingly draconian measures taken by the state would be a common feature of the century. Stenka Razin’s rebellion and subsequent Great Northern War would dominate much of the latter half of the 1600s.

The conquest of Siberia, traditionally understood to have begun in 1581 with Yermak Timofeyivich’s campaign against the Siberian khanate, continued on as it had in the background of these other reforms, rebellions, and wars. Dehumanizing horrors were an unfortunate and unavoidable truth made all too real to the indigenous populations of the frigid steppe, and it seemed as though no settlement was too small or too remote for the Cossacks.

One of these settlements, sequestered among the trees and snow, was the diminutive village of Rumata. Letters sent from Cossack leaders to Moscow indicate that Rumata was populated entirely by a single, extended family, also called Rumata. One thing learned during the course of the conquest was that capitulation by the natives didn’t last long, and was never willing. Rumata, then, offered a surprise in how quickly it accepted the authority of the Tsar. Just as strangely was the fact that atrocities weren’t inflicted upon them anyway, as was the case elsewhere in the region.

The Rumata clan’s focus was simply elsewhere. The machinations of some warlord 1000 miles to the West and his toy soldiers was none of their concern. A magus family, the Rumata had been divinely inspired, and to shift focus away from their task in any capacity was anathema.

The Firebird (Zhar-ptitsa) is a Phantasmal Species which features as an omnipresent symbol in Slavic culture and folklore. A blazing spirit of the air, the Firebird is a prophetic figure often known for its central role in many fairy tales. One of the most well known of these concerns the bogaytr Ivan Tsarevich, who embarks on a quest for the Firebird after witnessing it stealing golden apples from his father’s orchard. Though a vehicle of prophetic doom to those who would mistreat it, the Firebird is also a source of revelatory knowledge akin to the Muses of Greece.

Wherever a feather of the Firebird falls to earth, art shall blossom. Such is the old saying, and not without merit. Numerous villages in Russia are the birthplace of unique artistic traditions. The Khokhloma style, native to the village of the same name, featured nature subjects depicted with curved, linear lines. Kholui. Palekh. Mstera. Each had its own unique artistic expression, courtesy of the Firebird’s influence.

Khokhloma tableware set: Wikipedia

The Rumata were no different. They had been blessed with a genuine feather from a Firebird some decades ago–the interior texture of Siberia maintaining a semblance of the Age of Gods longer than the rest of the continent–which served as the basis for an artistic style of their own: called Rumata, in honor of the village. Each successive generation of the family would bring their own innovations to the style, building atop a mystical foundation in pursuit of an experience truly transcendental. Their efforts stalled at some point in time, becoming lost in jealousy of other villages blessed by the Firebird. Khokhloma, for instance, had achieved widespread success in Asia and India by this point.

The Rumata looked at their art and felt nothing. More so than the loss of a historically important development in the realm of Russian peasant art, the Rumata risked failing to make good on their inspirations. Waning belief in the Firebird itself contributed heavily to this potential breaking point. Art had ceased to become about the process of expression, the Rumata blinded to everything but the results.

A single artist suffering from creative exhaustion is already a tragedy. Is it even possible for an entire movement to experience burnout?

Peter the Great’s efforts in the next century to make Russia more “European” opened the road for many Slavic families kept out of the apparatus of the Mage’s Association until that point by a lack of funds and connections. Ivan Rumata, the head of the family in the early 1800s, made the impactful decision to move his immediate family to Munich, from which an entrance into the Clock Tower proper would be natural.

The Department of Creation was the only real choice. The Rumata enjoyed a degree of relative success and fame within the Department. Despite carrying connotations of being backwards hillbillies from a frozen North, the aristocrats of Valuay looked upon the Rumata and judged them acceptable. Here was a real group of people who could truly understand the creative process from beginning to end, who could empathize with the pain and the suffering that was required of them for their craft.

Alas, the Rumata would judge themselves adapted to life at the Clock Tower prematurely. These people of Valuay were not the accepting souls that the Rumata were used to, but artificers cold and austere in pursuit of their goals. Criticism was harsh and freely given, to the dismay of the humble Russian craftsmen. Community was just an organ by which to channel funds and resources, the exchange of ideas near anathema to those who would decry it as an intentional stain upon one’s source of inspiration. Worse was the continued degradation of the Rumata’s Magic Crest, which refused all attempts at repair. Once again, the family found itself in a rut from which they could not escape.

Their savior would appear in the middle of the 19th century.

In the depths of the Rumata’s despair, a young girl would enter magus society as a disruptive force. She spoke of a truth yet reachable, of an objectivity that need only be stripped of confused perspective. Arriving in Munich sometime in the 1850s, the Rumata clan quickly became fascinated with this worldly young woman who appeared at their doorstep like an answered prayer. Thus did the Rumata become early converts to the Madame’s philosophy. She would leave them eventually, as she would leave this world, but not alone.

Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) was historically a loose congregation of Expressionist artists and its associated almanac publication, primarily based in Munich, Germany. Founded in 1911 after breaking away from another art group, Der Blaue Reiter derives its name from a painting of the same name completed by one of the group’s co-founders Wassily Kandinsky in 1903. The subject of blue horses and blue riders is not Kandinsky’s alone, however. His fellow co-founder Franz Marc painted a series of paintings with titles such as Blue Horse I, Little Blue Horse, Tower of Blue Horses, etc.

The group and its members enjoyed a good deal of success for the time, publishing multiple years of almanacs, and conducting art exhibitions across Europe in places such as Cologne, Berlin, Bremen, Hagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Budapest, Oslo, Helsinki, Trondheim and Göteborg. The advent of World War I saw the group’s dissolution, ultimately sending Kandinsky back to Russia. He would eventually return, but with fresher ideas to share with the world. However, Germany moving toward war once again sent Kandinsky away from his teaching position at the Bauhaus to France, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

Marc, for his part, was regrettably forced to have a much briefer impact on the art world. Drafted into the German army as a cavalryman, he soon put his skills to better use by assisting in the creation of military camouflage. He died in the Battle of Verdun, having received the Iron Cross at some point during his career.

Scrape the layers of paint away, and a new understanding reveals itself. Beyond its function as a gathering of like-minded artists, Der Blaue Reiter was indicative of more than simply pushing the boundaries of art. Kandinsky was more than an artist, but a man who pierced the veil into the Moonlit World as well. A student of both Helena Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner (before the latter’s disillusionment with the Madame), Kandinsky found answers in Theosophy to questions he formed regarding the nature of color.

Kandinsky owes much of what he believed to Goethe and Steiner in particular, but the true subject of the rider upon the blue horse was an original revelation. It was not something predicted through available data, but a deeply internal experience, as was the interplay of phenomena making up the color experience as a whole. One which was shared among the members of Der Blaue Reiter; a glimpse into the archetypes, a reading of the soul itself for external truth.

The Book of Revelation speaks of the appearance of four different horsemen, heralding an apocalypse spoken of by John of Patmos. Upon a white horse sat Conquest. Upon a red horse sat War. Upon a black horse sat Famine. Upon a pale horse sat Death. Der Blaue Reiter members operated under the assumption that the colors presented to John during his vision were no accident, but emanations of an objective zodiacal spectrum of color. This they owe greatly to Goethe.

The Blue Rider should be understood properly then as the Blue Horseman. A herald only in the theoretical sense, divorced from Christian eschatology beyond its assumption of a convenient container. The visible light section of the electromagnetic spectrum begins with red at lower frequencies and extends to blue at higher frequencies. Red is the color of War, of creative wrath and the frenzy of creation. Red is a quality of the earth, of that which is beneath our feet and forms a substrate for green. In this sense, color is also associated with Textures of the planet.

Theosophy recognizes that Earth has undergone periodic shifts in its nature based on the density of mana. The Age of Gods existed in the past, where mana density was at an all time high. In modern times, with the imposition of humanity, these mana values have regressed. What does the future hold?

Theosophy holds that the world is constantly in the process of changing, punctuated by extreme changes to the logic of reality. Much like the Hindu and Buddhist kalpas, this process is cyclical rather than linear. The Erde plastisch (Plastic Earth) predicted to be the next phase is so named because of the malleability of its lifeforms. Mankind will not be constrained by flesh, but will float freely among the stars, unimpeded by anything but their own imagination.

An impossible dream, perhaps. As color is constantly in the process of “becoming,” it never truly reaches the finish line. It never “becomes.” The Erde plastisch and its Rider must remain firmly in the realm of theory until the future becomes the present becomes the past. The dance of the Rider is subtle, and its beauty must be teased out of the viewer’s own soul. But every misstep is worth it. Every mistake, every work of art deemed not good enough. Because a glimpse is more than enough. Because the purpose of art is to share.

Shasta’s grandfather was the last surviving member of the original group, as its youngest at the time of formation. Strelets Rumata watched as the men and women he would come to call his peers and friends disappear one by one. No catastrophic argument was the harbinger of Der Blaue Reiter’s doom. No volcanic schism that lay waste to the bonds of friendship; nothing so climactic. Their reasons were myriad–and yes, often tragic–but the group’s members simply dwindled naturally until there was nothing left. How infuriating, thought Strelets, that the heralds of the Rider would not have an end as memorable as they deserved.

The fulcrum of one’s own life places the highest importance on those relationships we experience directly. Our friends are the greatest examples of friendship in our minds because those bonds belong to us and no one else. The Rumata had already let the twinkling light of the Firebird fade to near nothingness, the same could not be allowed to happen again. Strelets gathered what notes and resources he could from the group’s old haunts and the collections of members already passed, adopting the pursuit of the Blue Rider’s truth as the sole will of the Rumata family going forward.

Abilities

Aura Reading
The Auric Egg is a concept fundamental to Theosophy, being a film of information which surrounds a person, containing the personality and the Reincarnating Ego: the “current” emanation of the Origin. These emanations manifest as a form of spiritual light wavelength, which can be interpreted by the viewer. Blavatsky spoke of how this ability could be acquired by adepts, but also its availability to “lower” psychics. Literally witnessing swirling colors is described in Theosophy as “belly clairvoyance” in which the labor of information partitioning is performed by the vulgar organs of the body.

This is not the kind of aura reading available to Shasta. An additional channel in his brain interprets the data entirely within the confines of his mind, without the information necessarily being reproduced within his occipital range. It is the same process as looking at something yellow and internalizing the impression of having seen something yellow, truncating a step in the visual process. This extends to his sense of touch as well, allowing for the interpretation of physical sensation as color, bridging two separate senses into one.

Many Theosophists in history supposedly possessed synesthesia, the name of the condition for this blending of disparate senses. Kandinsky himself was said to “hear color.” Scriabin, the Russian musician, was very much the same. There may have been some intentionality on the part of the magi associated with Theosophy in regards to manually altering brain chemistry, or it simply acted as a net into which those with synesthesia naturally fell.

Further, Theosophy accepts the Buddhist notion of saḷāyatana, being the six sense functions and their corresponding external stimuli. The differences arise mainly in the goals regarding the illusion of experience. Buddhists seek liberation, while the Theosophist seeks understanding of Hierarchy. As with those who gather siddhis, it’s unlikely for the average magus to have more than two bridged senses at a time without extreme deleterious effects to normal life, not to mention the increased interest of the Policies Department.

Kaleidoscopic Daemon Painting
Helena Blavatsky once wrote that systems are defined as being composed of an Intelligence and Form. Intelligence may be better understood as a set of rules by which the system may be interpreted. According to Kandinsky and Goethe, painting as a medium is a system composed of the aspects of Color and Form. The Intelligence of the Hierarchy may be substituted here for Color, both its literal placement upon the electromagnetic spectrum as well as its superlative qualities as a higher emanation.

A concept that Theosophy shares with Vedic philosophy is that of Manas. Manas is the faculty of perception, emotion, and thought. It is not the “I”-being of which the brain is consciously aware, but the mechanism by which sensory data is received and organized by the “I”-being. What does “red” look like? What about “blue”? A thousand thousand people could be asked the same question, and the answers would all vary. Visually, color is structured into four different aspects: hue, value, saturation, and temperature. “Red” to one person may have different values attached to each of the four aspects than another, but the fact remains that a color can be distinctly recognized as a color.

This is where the interplay with Manas comes in. Color is truth, but it is also a corpse. What humanity perceives is the remnants of the color as archetype, the absolute closest point of divergence from the rest from the Root. A star may shine brightly in the night sky for millions of years, yet the truth of the matter is that it is already dead, but still the light shines forth anyway with constant energy. That is color. There is something fundamentally lacking in the human experience that must be resolved.

Through painting, Shasta communes with these gestalt entities of color, paving the way for their manifestation, as it were. These are not true thoughtforms, but Daemons clothing themselves in the Form provided by the painted subject, corresponding to the objective kernel-logic of each color. To that end, Shasta personally creates the dyes he uses from various traditionally homeopathic sources: usually flower essences. As these emanations of color-beings by definition are composed of impressions incomprehensible to the human subconscious, every listed effect targets the soul directly.

Glory Sun
A “glory” is an optical phenomenon which occurs when a turbid medium such as fog or mist is illuminated from a certain angle. Glories are antisolar (or antilunar, depending on the light source) meaning that they appear directly opposite the Sun from the perspective of the observer. Composed of several rings of light on the magenta-green spectrum, glories derive their name from the iconic images of the haloes of saints as depicted in Medieval art.

A specialized Bounded Field, Glory Sun creates a field of mist within designated parameters upon activation. A glory-halo appears behind Shasta, despite a lack of any additional lightsource. The Bounded Field’s singular purpose is to aid in projection. There is another optical phenomenon associated with the conditions which create glories, called a Brocken spectre. The spectre is in reality the shadow of the same observer that would be witness to a glory, only reversed against the “canvas” of the mist. By using himself as a shamanistic conduit, Shasta is able to bring forth the “true bodies” of the color-beings by forcing them into the further restrictive container of the Brocken spectre. This is only made possible within the confines of Glory Sun.

While both a normal expression of Kaleidoscopic Daemon Painting and Glory Sun necessarily deal with the same concepts and applications,

Belladonna of Vermillion: RED
The Jachin. The Pole of Life into Death. Red is the color of thought, of wisdom and the forces which descend. It is alchemically treated with salt. Red is pure unfettered destructive energy, as with the divine conflagrations sent to destroy, yet it is also a color of peace-through-subjugation of that destructive impulse as represented in deities of Buddhism. It is boundless passion, for good or ill intent.

Mechanically speaking, RED is used primarily as a source of power by which to fuel other magecraft. Fully manifested, RED is a swirling force of plasmodic energy. As the warmest of all colors, RED intensifies everything around it. Emotional values are of course most affected, but by no means are they RED’s only targets. Weaker magecraft–not even necessarily Shasta’s–becomes stronger. Mixed-Blood individuals, should they find themselves in RED’s presence, will discover manifold levels of increased excitation of their non-human blood.

Direct contact with RED’s concentrated form results in terrible burns and the formation of hemorrhoids, RED’s raw intensity chewing through weaker materials like acid or radiation. Without the benefit of Glory Sun, more mild manifestations of RED are small bubbling pools on the ground of a blood-like substance, or as sharp exclamations erupting from the head.

Ignatia of Indigo: BLUE
The Boaz. The Pole of Death into Life. Blue is the color of life, of love and surrender, and the forces which ascend. It is alchemically treated with sulfur. Blue is the enormity of infinite potential, the depth of the oceans to the underworld seas beneath. It is the eternal seed, the flower that promises never to bloom, and is thus never confined to a single form.

As red is a color that moves “outward” and towards the viewer, blue, as noted by figures like Kandinsky, has a property of flowing inward. Overexposure leads to intense feelings of grief or worry. A melancholy that stains, leaving the individual affected with insomnia and a persistent cough.

Author’s Notes

Something that reads like three different sheets stapled together? Looks unfinished? Yup, classic Bugs maneuver.
I started work on this before I started watching Gundam GQuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuux and before horse race tests popped off so any similarities are probably totally accidental, I promise.

Theosophy works with a 12 color wheel and while I wanted to have a daemon for all of them, time obviously got in the way. The two primaries work well enough, I guess. If you want, you can assume the opposite color of each cone cell (red-green and blue-yellow) also carries the opposite effect as the one listed.

Art Sources
https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/129187659
https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/130032084
https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/128284749
https://x.com/krymrin/status/1918177799623610861
https://x.com/yoursansface/status/1918710118125838387
https://x.com/starshadowmagic/status...70194294636923
https://x.com/fukamimk2/status/1918567320827400470



Primary Book Sources:
Colors of the Soul: Psychological and Spiritual Qualities of Light and Dark, by Dennis Klocek
Concerning the Spiritual in Art, by Wassily Kandinsky
https://theosophytrust.org/755-yellow
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA090...050130p01.html
Select other texts

[PA270]

Shasta Dogwood Rumata: Fascinating work as always, Bugs! Shasta's Magecraft is exceptionally fascinating, and I love how well you blend its associated concepts together! Fitting for a paint-based system, I suppose. And the story of the Rumata is certainly both powerful and tragic in equal measure! However, this sheet does have a major flaw, and that's just how little we learn about Shasta himself. All we have is the opening blurb and the Likes and Dislikes, and while said opening blurb is a fantastic character study, it doesn't provide the same insight that a proper Personality section would, and it leaves the sheet feeling somewhat unfinished. Nothing that's presented here is at all lacking, but there is something here that's missing. But even so, there's a lot to love here, and while I wish I knew more about Shasta, everything that you have here is fantastic, so it evens out! Good work!