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Incarnates

"After thousands of years in exile, the gods continue to wage war through their champions — Incarnates — and their most faithful allies."

The mortal champions of the gods. Since the gods themselves cannot walk Aarklash (the curse of Time forbids it — see The Game of the Gods), they act through Incarnates: mortals possessed, empowered, and made into living instruments of divine will. Incarnates are among the most dangerous beings in the Rag'narok — and Cadwallon has a peculiar relationship to them.

What an Incarnate Is

An Incarnate is a mortal chosen by a god as a channel for its power and purpose on Aarklash. The god cannot manifest directly without suffering the curse of Time, so it pours a measure of itself into a champion who can act. The Incarnate gains tremendous power and becomes a focal point of the divine game.

Incarnation can be:
- Sought — a faithful champion offered up or aspiring to the role
- Imposed — a god seizing a useful mortal
- Brief or lasting — from a single decisive moment to a lifelong binding

The Founding Incarnation: Vanius

The most important Incarnate in Cadwallon's history is Vanius. When Sophet Drahas's Acheronian forces nearly took the elven ruins, Desire woke, panicked, and chose Vanius as his Incarnation — pouring his 22 divine elixirs into Vanius's tarot deck. Vanius wielded that power to win the Battle of the Wall of Earth, then retained traces of the Incarnation even after Desire withdrew. (see Vanius the Founder, The 22 Arcana)

This is the model: a god, unable to act, reaches through a mortal at a decisive moment, and the mortal is never quite the same again.

The Cadwallon Anomaly: The Unincarnable Duke

Why no god can take the Duke

The gods have tried, repeatedly — "for fun, out of meanness, or as a challenge" — to incarnate the Duke of Cadwallon. None ever managed. The Duke is the vessel of Cadwë spiritual energy: the accumulated will of a city that refuses the Rag'narok and rejects the gods' game. That collective will fills the ducal seat so completely that no single god can force entry. The Duke is a null square on the divine board — which is exactly why the office is so strategically precious, and why Den Azhir being a [[dramatis]] (an already-shapeshifting, identity-fluid being) makes him an even stranger occupant of an already-strange throne. (see Cosmology, Duke Den Azhir)

Incarnates in Cadwallon

True Incarnates rarely reside in Cadwallon — they are great travelers, celebrities of the Rag'narok who pass through the City of Thieves for a few days at a time. In game terms, only exiled characters may count an Incarnate as a contact — they are figures of continental significance, not neighborhood acquaintances.

Some Incarnates who touch Cadwallon's story:
- Lyka'i the Freed — the Wolfen bounty hunter of The Howlers; an Incarnate and Pariah
- Various Contacts of the Rag'narok — Incarnate celebrities representing the Confrontation/Rag'narok figures, who occasionally rest in the city
- Sophet Drahas — a being of comparable power, though his status is complicated by his curse

Power Level

Incarnates sit at the very top of the power scale (Potential 10–13 in game terms — "the greatest heroes of the Rag'narok," who "can fend off the Militia of Cadwallon on their own"). A free league does not fight an Incarnate and expect to win. It survives one, negotiates with one, or serves one.

Relations

A god comes knocking

A minor god, frustrated at being unable to take the Duke, decides a free leaguer PC would make an acceptable Incarnate instead. The offer comes with terrible power and the slow erosion of self. Refusing a god is its own kind of dangerous.

See Also