Zeralith

"*You believe you fight for good - for peace and justice. And yet your very existence reaps naught but chaos and heartbreak. You are vanity.*"
— Zeralith

**Zeralith** was a celestial entity, one of the original offspring of Coda and Rhea who remained loyal to Moros in the Titanomachy and was thus denied godhood in Emanation. As one of the 10 dark titans cast from Eden, she faithfully served the Ancient Fear along with her brothers and sisters for thousands of years, earning the high rank and honorific "Lightbringer" due to her triumph in the Second Titanomachy. Though her true host has been lost to time, she generally preferred to take the form of a middle-aged Granchian woman who was known by the pseudonym Solvanas.

On Aquila, Zeralith was known as one of the occult gods who comprised the pantheon of the Old Ways. Generally associated with the Sun, piety, longevity, and the punishment of the wicked, her devotees often paid tribute to her in the hopes that she would protect them from disease and persecution, and regarded late spring and early summer as her most important season of patronage. She was referred to with a number of titles and monikers, most frequently the "Angel of Death," to prevent using her name in vain. Indeed, in the arcane language of the gods used by mages in their ritual incantations, Zeralith roughly translates to death-seraph.

Zeralith was known by the Templars as Solvanas, whom they believed to be a wholly distinct entity from her occult counterpart. In the doctine of the Church of the Heavenly Mother, Solvanas was considered an important ally and emissary of Rhea who spoke to her mortal supplicants on her behalf when she was unable to manifest herself. The legend of Solvanas was deliberately constructed by Zeralith, who used humanity's reverence for the Mother to manipulate them to her own ends.

Through the many years of the Father's dormancy, Zeralith and her siblings Dantalion and Therion served as the de-facto leaders of the forsaken titans, sharing power in a tense and sometimes outright contentious triumvirate. A rift in the ranks formed when Dantalion took it upon himself to steal the Heart of Coda from the rebellious gods and, rather than use it to resurrect Moros, shared its secrets with humankind; on Aquila, the mages of Celephais were entrusted with the art of magick, beginning the enduring religion of the Old Ways. Enraged at the prospect of mere mortals wielding the powers of creation which rightly belonged to the Father and his chosen, Zeralith laid the groundwork for a master plan to reclaim the secrets of magick from the mortals and bring the traitors' progeny to heel.

The titan began her quest by journeying to the city of Celephais and posing as a benevolent emissary of the elder gods. Ignorant of her true nature, the mortal leaders were quick to bend the knee when she delivered an ultimatum to offer up one child to sacrifice as penance for their collective sins, or suffer the wrath of the gods for their insolence in wielding the forbidden arts. She chose this punishment out of scorn for the mortals, desiring one of their own to experience the pain inflicted upon Moros when he himself was sacrificed as a child due to the sins of his people. Her true methods were even more sinister than she had warned the ignorant humans; Zeralith struck a bargain with her slothful and vain brother Plutus, who was unconcerned with the happenings of Emanation and content to dwell within his palace of extravagance forever. In exchange for dominion over all the gold and silver beneath Aquila, Plutus would possess the forsaken child and use his mortal vessel to bury the entire city and its citizens deep within the earth. Thus was the mage city of Celephais lost to time, and the legend of Hades - the body of the child used by Plutus to destroy thousands of mortal souls - was born.

Though Zeralith succeeded in burying Celephais, she had not foreseen that the secrets of magick had already disseminated out into the wider world, and whilst she was consumed with her zeal to destroy the mages, Dantalion had sown the seeds of the arcane throughout Aquila and dozens of other worlds. In the throes of outrage, she first resolved to hunt down every errant mage one at a time, but quickly realized the futility of her efforts. Instead, she elected to take a page from her brother Dantalion and set into motion a grand act of treachery only to be executed after generations of careful preparation.

Some centuries later, word spread like wildfire amongst the titans that the Father had begun to stir once more, his spirit having nearly fully recuperated after being torn from his original vessel by the gods. Zeralith and her siblings were called to arms and ordered to prepare themselves for war against the rebels with their dream of a restored Eden finally in sight. With Dantalion having long since gone into hiding, the remaining titans were spread incredibly thin. Zeralith was taked with eliminating Avromemnus, god-king of Aquila and protector of the stolen Heart of Coda recovered from Dantalion; reunited with his Heart, Moros could be fully restored both body and soul, allowing him to tear Emanation apart with ease. However, even with her command of the arcane, her mortal vessel of choice would avail her little in a straight confrontation with the god.

Zeralith thus enlisted the aid of Hades, whom she coerced into producing a blade of the purest celestial steel found in the underworld. The weapon was dubbed Invidere, the Envious, and fittingly given to Avromemnus' son and heir Makrozoia who had long desired to usurp his father. With the royal court thrown into chaos upon the abrupt regicide, Aquila was left undefended, its protector for millennia slain by his ambitious only son. The Ancient Fear launched its incursion upon the world shortly thereafter; spearheaded by the Chaos-Dragon Diocretius, the unholy servants of Moros arrived en masse through dimensional rifts which bridged the void between Emanation and the Beyond, where the Father and his minions festered. Zeralith was thence left to her task of retrieving the Heart whilst Diocretius wreaked havoc upon Aquila with his dark hordes.

She discovered the Heart within the region of the Slip - a parallel dimension to Emanation - ruled in trust by Avro's devotees purely for the purpose of keeping the relic as far away from the clutches of the Ancient Fear as possible. With it secured, she thereafter presented it to Coda's dormant host trapped in the Aether, allowing his displaced consciousness to assume its mighty corporeal form once more. Before he could exact his revenge upon Emanation, however, Moros was met in combat by Dantalion, who emerged from hiding to formally defect from the Ancient Fear and halt the Father on the eve of his ultimate victory. Their battle ended in an unceremonial stalemate when Dantalion forcefully banished himself and Moros outside the bounds of Emanation to prevent the Aether from destroying all of creation. With the Father silenced, his servants were sapped of their strength, putting an abrupt end to the incursion. Zeralith escaped into the void to recuperate, but Diocretius was slain by the mortal heroes of Aquila, causing his massive body to fall from the heavens and collide violently with the earth; the unnatural and devastating continental shift which followed came to be remembered as a turning point in Aquilan history.

Zeralith operated in the shadows for some time after the fateful confrontation, traveling across many worlds searching for shards of the Father's soul and carefully sowing the seeds of his eventual return. After Moros' consort Rhea temporarily escaped her bonds, Zeralith laid the groundwork for a new approach. Whilst on Aquila, Rhea amassed a sizeable cadre of devoted followers who believed her to be a manifestation of the earth's will, come to bring humanity to salvation. When she was eventually reclaimed by the will of the void, Zeralith presented herself to these devotees, claiming to be the emissary of the earth-mother who would guide them in her absence. She manipulated them with ease, using her primordial magicks to appear as a singular avatar of Light with power far beyond mortal limits. Her name to them would be Solvanas, emissary of the Mother, and her new followers would go on to form the original Templars.

## Personality and traits

As a loyal child of Moros, Zeralith was primarily motivated by her desire for retribution for the Great Desynchronization, the event which destroyed Eden and formed Emanation. However, unlike many of her cohorts, she was largely disinterested in violent revenge against the gods, and instead sought to take their worlds from them and work towards the eventual restoration of Eden. Prior to the Titanomachy, she was regarded as one of the most fair and peaceful children of Coda, and retained her rigid sense of justice afterwards. She viewed the worlds that the gods had created, particularly Aquila, as naturally inclined towards chaos and destruction, and believed all humans to be simple creatures who required a strong and even hand to control them so they would not destroy themselves and their world. To this end, she orchestrated the rise of the Templars, whose sole purpose under her guidance was to unite Aquila under one religion and one order, eliminating any dissidents - particularly those who practiced the Old Ways - who posed a threat to peace in her eyes.

Though her goals ultimately entailed the virtual enslavement of all humanity, she did not act out of malice or contempt from her perspective, and she was even known to give aid to mortals whom she believed to be pure of heart or whose goals aligned with her own. She was a master manipulator and harsh administer of justice, yet merciful at heart; she did not begrudge humanity for the sins of the gods and in some rare cases even took a liking to certain mortals. The dark titan took at least one mortal consort throughout her life, though the individual's fate is unclear. To those who were willfully ignorant or motivated solely by material desires, however, she could be exceptionally cruel.

## Combat profile

As a primeval titan, Zeralith's potential strength was nigh-unparalleled, but in the mortal plane she was unable to manifest her true form, especially when Moros was in a state of dormancy. Thus, on Aquila she utilized a woman named Solvanas as her spiritual host. Due to this constraint, Zeralith was not physically immortal in the sense one may expect of a god, and therefore was theoretically vulnerable to mortal weapons. In the event of the expiration of her mortal host through combat, her spirit would temporarily dissipate before eventually re-assimilating in the Aether.

Zeralith was keenly aware of such risks and as such acted with self-preservation in mind at all times. She was a master of the arcane to a far greater extent than any human, particularly in the realm of healing magicks. Her preeminent control over living quintessence allowed her to cure wounds and ailments in even the direst of circumstances, and possessed the ability to conjure potent shields of Light to protect herself and others from impressive amounts of damage. Though capable of utilizing the dark arts, her passive nature compelled her to rely essentially entirely on the holy magicks. That said, while it is an ability quite strongly associated with black magicks, she was a singularly effective practitioner of necromancy; her proclivity for healing extended even as far as the soul, allowing her a measure of control over the quintessential energies of living things be they confined to a physical host or otherwise. Though true resurrection is impossible, necromancy could be utilized to sense the memories of the dead, pacify errant souls, and conjure ghosts - imperfect replications of deceased persons - to act as servants.

Her mortal vessel of choice availed her little in feats of physical strength, and so she exclusively used her staff of Light or grimoire of ancient magick in combat. *Solon* was her primary tool for both utility and combat, a scepter made from the bark of Ezekiel's Tree in Eden gifted by Moros himself to his favored daughter. The scepter's material and maker made it a wholly unique weapon, capable of manipulating quintessence with ease and serving as the only fitting conduit for the dark titan's power. *Republic* was an arcane tome written by Zeralith herself, containing hundreds of pages of runes, incantations, and ritual sigils of her own making.

 Aurora
 Revivify
 Galvanize
 Energy Drain
 Enfeeble
 Animate

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