Soldiers of Charon

The **Soldiers of Charon**, or the **Sons of Charon**, are a warband in the Twilight Age and into the Second Trilogy Era, and are based out of Charon, a moon of Pluto.

Members are initiated into a sort of mystery religion based around their leader, who calls himself *Mortemus*, the Latin for Death. The central theme of their mythos is Death's defeat of mortality through return from the grave.

At their height, they numbered several hundred. Despite being one of the larger warbands during the Twilight Era, they rarely operated outside of Charon's local space and only in extreme circumstances outside of the Rim.

Death is actually Exades.

## History

### Foundation

Exades, in the eons after the Lightning War, spent much of his time dwelling on the failure and defeat of Ruin. He used the rage, pain, anger, and hatred of all his most base passions to fuel his eons-deep meditation in Sol System, where he sat upon Charon, the moon of Pluto. He gazed into the infant Earth and saw life, and determined to rule the Jewel Planet for himself. But the El'yon were watching, and Exades knew this, and the El'yon strengthened the burgeoning life upon the primordial Earth.

Exades and his fallen associates fought the El'yon, and there was a great war fought in Sol System over the control of the Jewel Planet, Earth!

The El'yon warriors dominated Exade's forces, and Exades himself fled back to Charon. There, upon Charon's surface, Exades poured his rage, hate, and anger into the writing of a blasphemous book of scripture called *The Grimoire* in his own blood. It was a book of apparent power, providing instructions and signs and sigils for many rituals. He disembodied himself and bound his spirit to a black stone and waited upon Charon. The El'yon continued to guide the Jewel Planet's development, preserving it's fragile and vital life and civilization.

This black stone was the very same black stone originally created by Ruin, to which all the other black stones in Solverse were bound.

This is around the time of the Sumerians on Earth. Sumerian religion developed from their interactions with the El'yon and observations of the Solarian War.

### Foundation Period

During the Foundation Period, Exades reawakens when the *Grimoire* is discovered and a cult founded on Charon based around it's teachings. The cult, following the blasphemous rituals found within, re-awakens Exades who is then able to interact with his followers by projecting an illusory physical form.

They are responsible for the death of the parents of Cera Vivian Nicks, wife of Jaymeson Nicks.

### First Trilogy Era

The Soldiers of Charon become allied with the unity government during the Solar War and are enlisted to attack Protectorate forces at Jupiter from their base in the Rim. The Consortium's use of the warband is a direct result of the Protectorate allying themselves with freebooters such as Bil Jax and the independent freebooters based out of Trafalgar, Venus.

### Twilight Era

The Soldiers of Charon were destroyed by the Sons of Andromeda founded by Manufa in *Helios*. Manufa had become known as King Manus and he commissioned the semi-legendary figure Heracles to defeat the warband, which he did successfully using a combination of sheer might and savage trickery. The defeat of the Soldiers of Charon is preserved in the epic poem Heracliad penned by Hephaesteus the Great, which becomes the overmyth of the collective consciousness of the eventual settlers of Hyperion.

Following their defeat, Exades fled Sol System and is not heard of again until the rise of Hiteria. The dynastic line of the Sons of Andromeda fails when the one who defeats Exades on Charon claims the black stone for himself out of greed. The stone betrays him, leading to his death (much like Isildur and the one ring).

The stone disappears from history until it finds it's way to Marlemium, where it lies hidden until the Last War.

## Rites

### Ritual Sacrifice

Each time a human life is taken, a hymn is invoked from memory and both body and soul alike are dedicated to Exades. The body is ritually scarred and mortified with each line recited until, at the final line, the victim's essence is bound between the Empyrean and Empirical Verses and the anguish and suffering of body and soul alike sustains and empowers Exades.

*A Song of Shadow*

*The Rite of Invocation*
Hear me, O Death, whose empire unconfin'd

extends to mortal tribes of ev'ry kind.

On thee, the portion of our time depends,

whose absence lengthens life, whose presence ends.

Thy sleep perpetual bursts the vivid folds

by which the soul, attracting body holds :

common to all, of ev'ry sex and age,

for nought escapes thy all-destructive rage.

Not youth itself thy clemency can gain,

vigorous and strong, by thee untimely slain.

In thee the end of nature’s works is known,

in thee all judgment is absolved alone.

No suppliant arts thy dreadful rage control,

no vows revoke the purpose of thy soul.

O blessed power, regard my ardent prayer,

*and human life to age abundant spare.*