Conscience¶

"In order to protect the Creation, Conscience attempted to lock him in. Desire rebelled and both gods fought each other without mercy."

The father-god. The binding, ordering will that holds the Creation together — and the jailer of his own son, Desire. Where Desire is appetite and dream, Conscience is restraint and structure. Their war, fought before Time, is the conflict Cadwallon physically sits on top of.

Who/What He Is¶

Conscience is one of the primal forces the Chroniclers name before the gods became "individuals." He embodies preservation, order, and the protection of the Creation against the chaos of unchecked desire. He is not worshipped under the name "Conscience" anywhere — like all the gods, he wears dozens of masks across the civilizations of Aarklash.

In Cadwallon's terms, Conscience is the god behind the cults of Felicity, Pain, and Destiny — the three Cadwë faiths are all, unknowingly, facets of him (and of his struggle with Desire). His avatars include the gods of:

Tir-Nâ-Bor (the Boar) — the dwarven defenders
Akkylannie (the Griffin) — the templar empire of Light
Other Light-aligned and Destiny-aligned faiths across the continent

The Wounding of Desire¶

The founding act of the local cosmology: Desire — born deformed and destructive from the union of the first gods — caused the loss of many living beings until he found refuge in a cave. To protect the Creation, Conscience tried to lock him in. Desire rebelled. The two gods fought without mercy.

Conscience cruelly struck his son, inflicting 22 dreadful wounds. Desire fell, and Conscience cast him into an abyss before sealing it — sacrificing part of his own divine essence to do so.

Those 22 wounds become the 22 arcana. That sacrificed essence becomes the lock on the prison. The abyss is directly beneath Cadwallon.

The Labyrinth and the Lock¶

When Vortiris and the Ophidians nearly freed Desire, Conscience responded by building the [[Labyrinth]] — an inextricable divine maze around the prison cave — sacrificing still more of his essence to condemn the access. This is why the Labyrinth is not merely a maze but a divine one: time-warped, expanding, made of the substance of a god's self-sacrifice.

Why It Matters to Cadwallon¶

Conscience's influence is load-bearing

Conscience's presence over Cadwallon does real work in the present day:

It disrupts dark rituals — the Akkyshan witches' working at Bloody Creek stalls because "the dark principle has problems concentrating around Cadwallon because of the influence of Conscience" (see The Akkyshan Offensive)
It shapes the spiritual geography — districts where Maloth (Conscience's dragon) extends influence brighten toward Light
It is half of why faith works strangely here — only avatars of Conscience or Desire can call miracles in Cadwallon

The stake of the Rag'narok

If Conscience dies in the Rag'narok elsewhere on Aarklash — or is sufficiently weakened — the lock on Desire's prison fails. The 22 wounds, the abyss, the Labyrinth: all of it depends on Conscience continuing to exist. Cadwallon's metaphysical neutrality is, at bottom, the world holding its breath over whether the jailer outlives the war. (see The Game of the Gods)

Relations¶

Desire — his son, his prisoner, his opposite
Maloth — the Dragon of Light who sided with him against Vortiris
The Labyrinth — built from his sacrificed essence
The 22 Arcana — the 22 wounds he inflicted
Utopia of the Sphinx — Maloth's allies, who guarded the prison on Conscience's side
The Cadwë cults of Felicity, Pain, and Destiny — his unwitting worshippers