MARKET OF THE VANITIES: Jaunt Info

[powersthatbe]

MARKET OF THE VANITIES
Revisiting Purgatory
January 17 - February 26

The Market of Tech Duinn sits on a hill just above the banks of the river Styx, on the edge of the Asphodel Meadows. Oaths sworn over the black water of the Styx cannot be broken, making the Market a favored location for Heaven & Hell to bargain with one another, although few angels and demons reside there. Sithen, the half-fallen angels whose only crime was to refuse to fight demons, consider it a center of culture, and often use it to trade Demesnes (feudal land grants among the Sithen which comes with supernatural powers, like an angelic Grace or demonic Dignity, but with added real estate). But that is not why it is there. Dhuosnos, the Old Man of the Market, a powerful Sithen who claims the hill as his Demesnes, first weighed and codified Virtues and Vices as tradable commodities 1,800 years (or 140 Eschatons) ago.

Strange as it may seem in these latter days, he conceived of the trade as a mercy to the Peregrines - lost souls caught in Purgatory - because they entered the afterlife with no wealth to match the Immortali (humans who have achieved undeath or eternal life, and thus keep their souls forever), and no station like those Angels, Demons, and Sithen use to measure their relative worth. The Market has always been a friendly place for Peregrines, and since the beginning of the Asaph Eschaton (which started with the speaking of the Name in Melasurei), it has been a place Peregrines rallied. In times of old, Dhuosnos sold four Princedoms to the Market - one to the Angels, one to the Demons, one to the Sithen, and one to the Immortali.

Now he has sold a fifth, to the Peregrines - and they pass and trade it between them, rather than appointing a single spokesperson. But six positions on the Market Council means votes may be deadlocked (for of course, Dhuosnos keeps a vote for himself), and so he is considering the sale of a seventh Princedom… and Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory have all noticed.

The growing Peregrine presence at the Market could nearly be considered an army. The Demons would pay almost anything for the power to bind it to their service; the Angels, to redeem these lost souls and bring them to Heaven - whether they wish it or no. The Sithen fear a third front in the war waged across their homeland; the Immortali fear being outnumbered by a group who no longer needs them for survival & who may grow wealth to threaten theirs. And the Peregrines - they seem to wish something different with every passing day, every new argument.

All creation is sending their subtlest diplomats and agents, their most coveted treasures, to this place on the banks of the Styx, where everything is for sale, all contracts are binding, and all sales are final. Who will gain a second seat on the Market Council - and what other bargains, trades, and sales may be made in the shadow of that distraction?

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FACTIONS

[powersthatbe]

Angels: Winged and halo-ed beings, messengers, servants, and soldiers of The Divine. Righteous, but not always benevolent, the Angels stationed in Purgatory never forget how far they are from home, finding the place strange, misguided, inhospitable, and tragic. It is a constant danger to their sense of themselves, a trial and a temptation, too miserable but also too vibrantly alive in ways the land of the dead should not be. Angel wings are generally white, but may also come in bright, natural colors. Angels in the Market are often particularly resentful of the authority of the Sithen, as Dhuosnos asserts his prerogatives frequently and forcefully.

Demons: Adorned with horns and tail, the more powerful also sporting wings (but never the bright-colored or stainless wings of angels), Demons are the fallen, rebels against the Divine, beings to whom independence is more important than harmony. Some are sadistic and malicious, some chaotic and hedonistic, some simply too passionate to be governed. Purgatory suits them - but the necessary limits and restrictions they must suffer to remain in the Market do not. Demons in the Market cannot help but feel that Dhuosnos ought to have been a Demon, for his defiance of other norms and mercenary outlook, or an Angel, with his autocratic insistence on authority.

Sithen: The Sithen all made a choice. Angels chose to serve the Divine; Demons to rebel. Sithen disobeyed only one divine command: to make war on the Rebels. For that, they were cast out and despised by both sides of the war. Now, countless ages after it began, they have claimed the scorched battlefield between Heaven and Hell as their own country, bribed both sides for the right to the land, and depend upon both sides to use them in diplomacy, espionage, and trade, pacifist mercenaries eking out a living in a warzone. Some Sithen are serene as angels, some as resentful as demons. Most have gossamer wings and long, pointed ears, but some share or mingle angelic or demonic traits instead; Sithen with illusion as a part of their Demesnes may appear as Immortali or other celestial beings, for a time. In the Market of Tech Duinn, Immortali & Peregrines are welcome, Angels & Demons tolerated, but more than anywhere else save the Queen’s Court, Sithen rule. Some Sithen are unused to this status and authority, and often shocked by how Dhuosnos & others throw their weight around. Others are emboldened to the kind of confident hierarchy Angels so often display elsewhere.

Immortali: Not everyone dies. A few humans or other mortal beings escape or cheat death, whether through Divine heritage or magic, curses or blessings, defeating or evading an Angel of Death… many of these eventually enter the Land of the Dead in any case, unable to finish their spiritual journeys in life, and end up foreign nationals in Purgatory. Unbound by the careful rules of the warring spiritual beings here, Immortali spend their afterlives collecting wealth, pursuing their dreams, or in whatever decadent manner may suit them. Some Immortali may have visible non-human traits, at player discretion. They are comparatively rich and carefree, but never able to forget that they do not belong, not in any realm. The Immortali of the Market tend to be those who have something they desperately want that centuries or millennia of life have not enabled them to procure.

To the casual eye, any Investigator in the Market will appear to be an Immortali. They revive upon bodily death, answer to strange beings who cursed them with strange magics, and wander the worlds on mysterious whim. While their specific nature and purpose is unlikely to be guessed, for those who have been here millennia pursuing immortal agendas, nobody is really likely to care who they are.

Peregrines: The lost souls of the dead, those who were not taken or claimed by any rulers of any overworld or underworld, Divine or Diabolical. Before the Asaph Eschaton, Peregrines gradually drifted and lost substance and memory, until they became wraiths, unable to speak and even lacking solid flesh unless they drank mortal blood or immortal ichor. Now, all Peregrines have flesh granted to them by the power of the Name - grey skin, eyes, and hair that do not fade with time, though any memories they lost before are still gone. Now that Peregrines do not need to trade their Sins and Virtues for blood & ichor - they may still do so, but only if they choose to - the markets of Purgatory are unbalanced, and the Peregrines are beginning to accumulate wealth and power as a faction. Many Peregrines are still enslaved to Sithen, demons, or Immortali, having sold themselves before the Name gave them flesh. Angels & Demons still seek control over their souls.