Aeons

While mortals possess the gift of free will, both logic and emotion influence their decisions. The paracletus serve the aeons as agents who connect with mortals and study the influence of emotions (particularly the dualistic nature of raw emotion) upon mortal behavior. They wander the planes seeking mortals with particularly strong emotional or logical capabilities (characters with high Charisma or Intelligence scores). Once a paracletus locates such a creature, the paracletus remains nearby, studying the target’s relationship with emotional and logical input and choices. Often, the paracletus will use its emotion Aura on the target in order to study how outside influences affect the subject. Unfortunately for the target creature, whether or not the paracletus uses a helpful or harmful effect is, for all intents and purposes, a matter of random chance—even though to the paracletus’s complex reasoning, nothing is left to actual random chance. If presented the option, a paracletus avoids direct combat, and uses its emotion Aura to influence situations. If pressed to defend itself, it flies at opponents, slamming into them and discharging an electrical jolt of energy in addition to buffeting with its crystalline components. The crystals that orbit a paracletus are solidified aspects of logic, while the swirling vapors and lights that make up its central mass are manifestations of raw emotion— when a paracletus is slain, both the crystals and vapors fade away into nothingness. A paracletus can be chosen as a familiar by a 7th-level neutral spellcaster who has the Improved Familiar feat. A paracletus familiar does not abandon its mission to observe emotions and logic at play, but it does follow its master’s orders—this is one situation where the application of a paracletus’s emotion Aura need not be random. Although the central mass of a paracletus’s body appears to be made of light and energy, it is in fact solid, and feels strangely like electrified flesh to the touch.

Enigmatic and ephemeral, othaoses are stewards of the balance between light and darkness. Othaoses seek out supernatural sources of light and dark that unnaturally prolong exposure to one or the other and work to restore the natural order. They may be encountered studying sources of light or observing large objects casting shadows—they’re just as likely to assist in the repair of a light source as they are to seek the destruction of an object casting too much shadow. These aeons also scout for breaches between the Material Plane and the Plane of Shadow, seeking to mend these rifts whenever possible.

The strange theletos is the guardian of the duality between freedom and fate. Slavery is no more of an issue to a theletos than is true freedom, but without one, the other cannot exist. In areas where slavery is rife, a theletos might aid in freeing some slaves, while in regions where slavery has been abolished, this strange being works to subjugate many creatures with its own mind-controlling spell-like abilities—often encouraging them to further undertake acts of slavery themselves. The theletos is also a guardian of fate and prophecy, and while for some creatures it might allow glimpses of futures, others who peer into the future almost seem to cause the aeon physical pain. The theletos cannot explain why one seer might be allowed to divine futures while another should not—it knows only that some prophets should be denied this pursuit. A theletos is 5 feet tall and weighs 100 pounds.

Akhanas bear charge over the duality of birth and death. They perceive the existence of living things as crucial to maintaining cosmic balance. They also understand the profound inf luence living things have on the cosmos, and if left untended, its ability to create terrible consequences. In this circumstance, life must give way to death. Akhanas wander the byways of the multiverse, constantly on the hunt for imbalances in life. How they judge these imbalances is not well-understood by non-aeons, and the aeons are singularly unmotivated to justify akhanas’ decisions when inquired about them. As a result, the focus of akhanas’ attacks and attentions usually seems arbitrary or even random to most creatures—they do not always focus their attentions on the strongest or the weakest members of a group. An akhana stands 5 feet in height and weighs 120 pounds. Its strange central body seems vaporous, but is weirdly solid (and slimy) to the touch.

The bythos are guardians of time and planar travel—indeed, to bythos, the act of aging is nothing more than a highly specialized method of travel. Although bythos themselves have no additional method of traveling through time, they scour the multiverse, hunting for creatures that do have the ability to time-travel and may have abused this ability. Far more often, though, bythos seek out abuses of planar travel, such as tears in reality, regions where planes overlap, or creatures that abuse the use of planar travel. In some cases, such distortions are ignored, but in others, a bythos or even a full tribunal comes to assess and repair the damage. In most cases, “repair” is analogous to the death of the creature responsible for the distortions, but placing such creatures in temporal stasis can also solve the problem. While a bythos’s body may seem to be made of smoke and vapor, it is strangely solid to the touch, feeling not dissimilar to dry stone. A bythos is 13 feet tall and weighs 600 pounds. While mortals possess the gift of free will, both logic and emotion influence their decisions. The paracletus serve the aeons as agents who connect with mortals and study the influence of emotions (particularly the dualistic nature of raw emotion) upon mortal behavior. They wander the planes seeking mortals with particularly strong emotional or logical capabilities (characters with high Charisma or Intelligence scores). Once a paracletus locates such a creature, the paracletus remains nearby, studying the target’s relationship with emotional and logical input and choices. Often, the paracletus will use its emotion Aura on the target in order to study how outside inf luences affect the subject. Unfortunately for the target creature, whether or not the paracletus uses a helpful or harmful effect is, for all intents and purposes, a matter of random chance—even though to the paracletus’s complex reasoning, nothing is left to actual random chance. If presented the option, a paracletus avoids direct combat, and uses its emotion Aura to influence situations. If pressed to defend itself, it flies at opponents, slamming into them and discharging an electrical jolt of energy in addition to buffeting with its crystalline components. The crystals that orbit a paracletus are solidified aspects of logic, while the swirling vapors and lights that make up its central mass are manifestations of raw emotion— when a paracletus is slain, both the crystals and vapors fade away into nothingness. A paracletus can be chosen as a familiar by a 7th-level neutral spellcaster who has the Improved Familiar feat. A paracletus familiar does not abandon its mission to observe emotions and logic at play, but it does follow its master’s orders—this is one situation where the application of a paracletus’s emotion Aura need not be random. Although the central mass of a paracletus’s body appears to be made of light and energy, it is in fact solid, and feels strangely like electrified flesh to the touch.

Lipikas—also known as the Lords of Karma—are among the highest order of aeons. Unlike other aeons, their duality springs not from opposition but from understanding that all actions and reactions are the crests and troughs of the same cosmic wave. While it may seem to a casual observer that the Lords of Karma simply wander the universe looking for random events of importance, from the momentous to the mundane, what they are actually observing is the rhythm of causality, the way that one action becomes another and affects everything in the grand scheme of reality. Whatever they find, they inscribe in the cosmic memory of all aeons, and occult scholars believe that this cosmic memory finds its way to the Akashic Record, deep within the heart of the Astral Plane.  These powerful creatures not only observe and report; they also meddle. Lipikas consider themselves the judges of willful karma, sometimes manipulating the cycle of mortal lives and reincarnations. This often leads to friction with psychopomps, other agents of Purgatory, and those who would steal, use, or destroy souls—such as daemons and night hags. The reason for the aeons’ interest is difficult to ascertain. There seems to be no overriding philosophy concerning the nature or purpose of the souls lipikas manipulate. This has led many occult scholars to theorize that the lipikas’ connection to the Akashic Record is more direct, going so far as to suggest that these aeons are its agents.  Lipikas use their specialized abilities to interact with specific entities across the planes, especially ones who have been or are fated to be reincarnated—often at the lipikas’ own hands. Sometimes the aeons act as guides to such creatures, while at other times they set these subjects upon a new course entirely undirected. Unlike others of their kind, a lipika uses some bits and pieces of language to convey its messages—though often in a pidgin of all known languages that have existed or will exist—and takes considerable time and care when communicating with its subject, at least compared with other aeons. Lipikas give their subjects guidance on how to adjust their actions within their current forms to achieve some karmic imperative or progression of personal enlightenment. Often such advice seems to contradict any sense of intuition, reason, or cultural concepts of morality. A lipika is just as likely to chastise a righteous person for her charity and goodness as it is to scold an evil creature for its misdeeds. To the lipika, the balance of alignments and morality is inconsequential beside the realities of action and the bonds of cause and effect.  When not focused on performing a specific task, lipikas deliver messages, omens, and portents to both those who seek their wisdom and those who do not. These messages are often signs of enormous events of great significance that might not occur within the recipients’ lifetimes, but the lipikas maintain that the subjects’ actions are nonetheless inf luential. At other times, lipikas appear merely to guide reincarnated souls or spirits destined to be reincarnated. A lipika that is focused on a specific task—whether observing a significant historical event or delivering a message to another being—typically ignores other creatures unless they attempt to delay it from performing its assigned task, at which point it may become violent in its reactions. While it seems they would rather manipulate events subtly, lipikas are capable of great force when faced with those who would thwart their plans.  On rare occasions these aeons appear and create conflicts, claiming that great damage to the multiverse is being done by actions taken by a civilization—actions that are often so minute their consequences might seem arbitrary to the subjects of the aeon’s attention. Worse still, the appearance of a lipika can herald the coming of even greater displays of aeon power. Sages of occult lore theorize that the information lipikas inscribe into the Akashic Record directly informs the agenda of the concept or entity known as the Monad, and that this information is disseminated to pleromas—more powerful aeons who are direct representatives of the Monad. If this theory is correct, the information scribed by lipikas is of grave consequence to entire civilizations, as pleroma aeons are tasked with acts of creation and destruction that can sometimes impact entire worlds. Those who subscribe to more traditional theories of the multiverse see the connection between lipikas and pleromas in more direct terms. If a lipika cannot accomplish its goals, it calls in a pleroma to enact the strange and inexplicable will of the aeons, often to devastating ends. However, the goals of lipikas are typically so abstract that their intervention often seems random, and few mortals have figured out how to placate them.  Lipikas stand about 13 feet tall but rarely weigh more than 200 pounds—their bodies seem to be hollow. Little distinguishes one lipika from another except the patterns upon their forearms and the colors of their palm-eyes.  

The pleroma is the most powerful of all the aeons. As a manifestation of the opposing acts of creation and destruction, a pleroma exists in a state of flux, its very form shifting between creation and oblivion within the ebon folds of its vaporous cloak. One who gazes upon a pleroma could spend days studying the continual changes of its form, which most resemble the shifting of celestial bodies within the universe sped up to a pace at which the swirling of galaxies and the tumble of planets form a strange dance. Pleromas view the concepts of creation and oblivion not so much as separate processes, but rather as two parts of a cyclical passage that everything in existence must explore. Pleromas guide this progression, ensuring everything remains balanced, such that whatever is created can be destroyed, and that nothing becomes so static that these two processes slow to a halt. For everything that attains a state of semi-permanence, there must be many more things that do not, or rather that cannot ever be reformed into a state of permanence. While pleromas believe in eternity, they understand that eternity is cyclical and infinity is something that repeats itself. Therefore, eternity and infinity are states that can be changed, or altered, if only slightly. Pleromas maintain such changes are necessary to keep the cosmos from becoming static and unbalanced, a state they refer to as apocalypse, or the end of everything. Of all the aeons, pleromas possess the strongest connection to the entity or concept they refer to as Monad. All aeons believe themselves to be extensions of this entity, and while they act freely and independently of the entity, they always act within the constricts of its will or needs. This behavior is not so much a state of servitude as a symbiosis in which the actions of the pleromas are universally beneficial to both themselves and the entity they are part of. Pleromas describe Monad as the sentience of the multiverse, from which all things are created through the recycling of everything that ever existed. Pleromas typically travel alone. Their arrival in a region almost always heralds some sort of dramatic change. They pay little mind to the wants and needs of other creatures, and remain entirely focused upon their primary task. They avoid conflicts of ethics, wars, and similar pursuits, save when manipulating such events would help to restore the balance between creation and oblivion. Should any be so foolish as to attempt to interfere with or sway their work, pleromas immediately retaliate by bringing all of their significant powers and devastating abilities to bear until the intervention is destroyed.