Ascendants¶
"It is not often an ascendant of Arya offers herself up as a willing sacrifice in my own domain." — the archdemon of Gor'Turra, in the Dreams of Inwe
An Ascendant is a being whose energy a god has joined permanently to the god's own Astral Shard, so that each strengthens the other. Ascendants are the gods' lieutenants, consorts, champions and heirs: the beings mortals meet when a god acts in the world, the keepers of a god's shrines and secrets, and in the Fifth Age, with so many gods dead or sleeping, very often the last of a pantheon still awake. Elder Gods do not make Ascendants; they make servants carrying a fragment of themselves, the -spex, and the Fifth Age has learned to fear those too.
The Ascended¶
Ascendancy is the highest of the Astral Contracts by which a shard-holder shares power (see Astral Contracts). The lesser contracts, Ordination and Covenant, can be revoked at will; Ascendancy cannot. It "joins the Ascendant's energy with the energy of the shard in a multiplicative fashion. This increases power both for the shard holder and for the Ascended. This attachment is permanent and cannot be completely revoked by the shard holder." The 2022 Nature of Magic calls it an Astral Covenant, a symmetric and transitive binding between Ascendant and shard, and counts the Ascendant among the beings who wield Elder Magic "through the ownership/dominion of an Astral Shard. A God, Ascendant or Eldritch."
"Consorts, Angels, Demi-Gods and powerful and loyal servants are often Ascended. Normally, Ascended are either other Einar (have their own inherent Astral power) or other beings of immense power such as Primal Dragons." The Izhtarus of the God Wars bought the loyalty of Primal Dragons and a few arch-wizards by "granting them Ascendancy and other power in return". A god who loses its shard to another is itself demoted: "Upon commencement of the ritual, the original owner's power is relegated to that of an Ascendant." Fifth Age scholars count "fallen ascendants of dead gods" among the three kinds of Demigod.
Ascendants of one god keep their distance from those of another. In the Dreams of Inwe, when Inwe needs a favour of Khemeia, she reflects that "there was probably no need to even call in this favor … you could have just invited her … but Ascendants have a natural distrust for one another that makes that sort of thing difficult." The Ascendants of the Kalari nonetheless met for countless millennia on the Dias of Algahanni, "a tiny astral speck which connects to a surprising number of shards across the Kalari pantheon", bound by the Sacred Codex and the Algahanni Accords. Their last recorded council, during the Hollowing, broke up when Aion, Ascendant of Kalar, refused to hear of taking dominion of the Mithis plane from his sleeping master: "Should you move against any speck of dust owned by Kalar, know that I will be waiting and will not suffer you!"
The Fallen¶
"A Fallen is a once Ascended being who has been cast out by the shard holder. The Fallen has a shadow of their former power (about ⅓) but in all other ways continues to act like an Ascended, both granting and receiving power from the shard." Because Ascendancy cannot be wholly revoked, a god cannot be rid of a Fallen; it can only diminish them. Arya cast one of her Fallen into the Vernal Warrens, a realm whose gatekeeper is the Sylvilagus Eweleun, and Inwe counted that Fallen the only Ascendant of Kalar left who might side against Aion. When Aion wondered how an archdemon had gained partial dominion of a Kalari shard, his first guess was "probably a corrupted Fallen". Angwen, the spiritual successor to Orandos in the Sancturi-era notes, is called "now the Fallen", and a piece of Orandos merged with her when he died (see Anariel).
Avatars and Incarnates¶
An Ascendant is not the god's own body. Powerful immortals can also "inhabit multiple forms using multiple spirits simultaneously (often known as Avatars)"; the extra forms are mortal forms, and when one dies the spirit remanifests at the immortal's true form. Gods use Avatars "to travel into dangerous situations and use telepathic links between their forms to coordinate". Nicoleta, the Araxian High-General of the Sancturi Campaign, served Seth'Arax as his Avatar.1
The Divine keeps both. Her Ascendants "live among the mortals. Each is a dragon of various colors." Her Incarnates, "similar to ascendants", stand at the head of her sources of magic, above her priests and paladins.
Ascendants of the Kalari¶
The Kalari raised many, and the Fifth Age is littered with their orders, shrines and graves.
- Kalar. Aion, "always the reasonable one", steward of the Dias of Algahanni. Most other Ascendants of Kalar "have joined Kalar in the god-sleep". Selaphiel the Watcher, "a weakened ascendant of Kalar", woke in Alghert to negate a Hollow. Aeradris, Mother of the Arctic Sun, is named a Kalar Ascendant in the Marshford notes. Barantus was "a legendary demon-hunting Kalari paladin".
- Orandos. Nine Ascendants, each with a knightly order; the roster and the orders are Knight Orders of Orandos. Grand Master Izrail the Dawnfury leads the Order of the Sanguine Dawn; Malakh, Valkanon, Israfel, Jesuriah, Zophiel, Verchiel, Aphaeleon and Xaphan each head another. Orthyss Brightcaller was banished or destroyed by the Eldritch sage Phaendar "and was never seen again". When Orandos died he split his shard among "those he had dominion over (his followers and Ascendants)", making them Scions of Light.
- Arya. Inwe, High Priestess of the Raven Keepers before her Ascension, keeper of the Brooch of Azsuri, founder of the Knights of the Dragon Lotus, killed at last by Nicoleta. In the Sancturi notes Arya, "working full time to keep the Earth alive", keeps one Ascendant as a helper to the races "commanded to work with the Dark Gods and their pantheon", and another holds the Verdant Ring in hiding.
- Khardas. Khemeia, whose "hatred of dragons was legendary" and who destroyed the primal red dragon Vixseranyol in her lair; Hurin Deepstrider, son of Thoruk of Clan Argentwall; and Oirgav and Wravikon, slain by the Eldritch berserker Luiranar in the battle for the Radiant Throne.
- Moros. Hesperos the Guide, the Evening Star; Equidna the Guardian, jaguar guardian of the dead; and Ulchre the Gatekeeper, the Stone Warden of internment. Each had a wing of the Temple of Kae-Ferrel in Anoth-Urulien (see Moros).
- Nyx. Monan, "his features hidden under a deep hooded robe", who answers every question with "Secrets must be kept."
- Arcantus. Khadri the Lightstone Ascendant, whose journal of the holy sites of Arcantus survives; Arcantus divided his piece of the Mithis Heartstone among four Ascendants, and all of them are dead.
- Anariel. The 2016 roster of her Ascendants is kept under Earlier accounts below.
Outside the Kalari, Amu'Solk, the Sun God at the head of the Sancturi Pantheon, is an Ascendant of Necatus; Horak, who razed the Temple of the Earth-Heart, was an Ascendant of the orcish gods (see Agrob'Anzut).
The servants of the Elder Gods¶
"Elder Gods do not have Ascendants … they had servants and their most prized servants contained a fragment of themselves. These powerful god-spirits are named with a -spex postfix." Each Elder God's kind of servant carries its own name:
| Elder God | Servant | Nature |
|---|---|---|
| Nox'Somn | Evruspex | the Sleepers or Wakers, put into eternal slumber and woken "with extraordinary psychic abilities" when needed |
| Teneb'Urat | Goruspex | "a being granted powers of Darkness, Charm and Venom" |
| Teneb'Vari | Necruspex | "a being granted powers of Darkness and Death" |
| Amun'rak | Caeluspex | "a being granted powers of Air, Fire and Lightning" |
| Seth'Arax | Ulraspex, the Pitch | souls Seth'Arax has consumed and intertwined with his own, manifested as black ooze that infects and controls (the 2019 profile calls them Thur'Arax) |
A -spex is a fragment of an Elder God, and dangerous in proportion. A Necruspex of Teneb'Vari lies imprisoned beneath Alyr-Emuien in Arne'Athosia, in a prison "constructed by Kalar himself" that no one living knows how to repair; its corruption spreads through the forbidden forest and its cultists are led by it, "which players have no hope of taking on". A Goruspex fragment of Teneb'Urat lodged in a mortal grows toward complete control of its host, and can be removed only by killing the host or by exorcism in a dedicated temple of the Elder God with an attuned vessel to receive it. The Pitch is described under Araxians.
Earlier accounts¶
The 2016 profile of Anariel, Lady of the Morning, lists her Ascendants with the orders they lead: Benthus, a former priest of Orandos, with the Illuminated Circle; Tuorm, perhaps dead, and Calassa, a former priestess of Kalar, with the Order of the Exalted Sun; Nexagar, "First Apprentice, Lesser God of Blue Fire", with the Deacons of Azure Light; the orc paladin Bogrash with the Drautdil Duskriders; Mharlezan with the Emerald Heralds; Telephior with the Sunstone Sentinels; and Azrael with the Vindicators of the Dawn (see Orders of Anariel). It adds that her Fallen came "From Kalar, Orandos Ascendants." The 2026 revision lists Azrael as a god in his own right, Lord of Undead among the Rakkarim; which reading stands is an open question on that page.
The 2014 and 2022 Cosmology documents add that when a shard is stolen outright, "the original owner remains an Ascendant (usually Fallen)"; the 2022 Cosmology revision that followed drops the parenthesis and says only that the owner is "relegated to that of an Ascendant".
Gap
No source describes the rite by which a god raises an Ascendant, what an Ascendant looks like, or how long one lives apart from the god. The Rakkarim, the Dark Gods and the Unaligned are given almost no named Ascendants.
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Nicoleta's history is told in the Sancturi Campaign chronicle. ↩