Oracle Essha

The **Oracle** **Aster** (*ay-shuh*) is the eponymous founder of the Asterian religions and the First Oracle of Iden.

## Visions

### Essha and the Giants / Reclamation of Essha

The Giants stole the Moon from the sky, God's left eye with the power of Foresight. The eyeless Giants passed the Eye among them, scrying glorious visions of the future God (Iden) promised the world. When he placed the Sinister Eye in his empty brow, the Cyclops Golacinth used the Sinister Eye to visit his own glory in the future, only to discover his last sight would be the Chosen of Iden confronting him. Golacinth also foresaw the atrocities and suffering wrought upon the Temporal Lands by Mankind, and the Cyclopses resolved to cleanse the infestation of these mortal exiles. Fearing their witnessed demise at the hands of this Chosen, and the havoc that Mankind would foster, Golacinth decreed the genocide of humanity, and his companions went to bloody work.

The Giants began hunting down and wiping out humans from the Temporal Lands, and Iden, half-blind and helpless, sought out a champion to help recover the Sinister Eye. Iden discovered or was discovered by the youth Essha, who agreed to rout the treacherous Cyclopses and restore God's Sight. To help him in his quest, Iden lent Essha the Dexter Eye (the Sun) which possessed the power of Hindsight. By glimpsing into the past, Essha tracked where the Cyclopses had been, following their path of destruction. With His Covenant proposed, Essha embarked on his holy mission. Iden heeded Essha not to use the Sinister Eye once he claimed it, warning the human that the immensity of the Posterum (future) would be too much to handle for his mortal mind.

Wielding his claymore, Essha cut through the sightless Giants, who were operating on the commands of the current possessor of the Sinister Eye, the Cyclops Golacinth. By exploiting the Sinister Eye, Golacinth deftly outmaneuvered Essha for many years, always two steps ahead of him. Essha chased the Cyclops around the world for many years, claymore in hand and Iden at his side.

> << How does Essha finally catch up to Golacinth? >>
>
>

> >> (?) Essha tricks Golacinth with a game or riddle. // (?) Essha sneaks up on Golacinth from behind and gouges out the Sinister Eye.
>
>

> >> Essha steals back the Sinister Eye from Golacinth and leaves the Giant blind once again. <<
>
>

> >> (?) Essha slays Golacinth. //  (?) Iden imprisons Golacinth. <<
>
>

At long last, having finally recovered the Sinister Eye, Golacinth convinced the Chosen of Iden to scry into the future. As Essha peered into the events yet to come, he glimpsed innumerable blessings and terrors, watched the tapestry of time unfold before him—and then, at the end, Darkness. At the very end of time, Essha trembled at the sight of Oblivion, "a sea of starless black" engulfing the world, and his heart sank in despair.

Essha recognized the Darkness as God's work and believed he and Mankind had been deceived by this one-eyed deity. Anticipating this terrible future, Essha took the Sinister Eye for himself for the purpose of "guiding Mankind through the coming Darkness", placing it in the center of his brow and breaking the Covenant.

Once again betrayed by His servants, the spited Iden—now completely blind—swore vengeance against Mankind and the Scions of Essha (Oracle Cycle) who would inherit the stolen Sinister Eye, retreating into the shadows where He promised to unleash an "unending night" on the world.

### Second Violation

* Vision of Oblivion
* founding of [Gomorrah]/Eloviden
	+ Theology debate: did the Second Violation incur the Oblivion of [Gomorrah], or did it predict its inevitable coming?

After committing the Second Violation against Iden, the Oracle Essha absconded with his divine treasures into retreat. Having witnessed the world engulfed in darkness, Essha felt obligated to save his fellow man from God's wrath. With stolen glances at the forbidden realms, the First Oracle built a refuge in his own time, built on his visions of future comings. Essha intended a city mortared by marvel, a gleaming citadel of humanity that radiated with the core of genius and compassion. Eloviden, where towers of glass drank in the good sun and pestilence withered in its bud. Mankind was summoned to this refuge, Eloviden, and in masses they came, drawn to the enchanted glories Essha unveiled before their time. The attendance of Iden faded, and in His place Essha reaped the adulation of his fellow man for saving them from the darkness.

But the atrocity of Eloviden ended in horror. As Essha's plagiarized heaven grew grander, the absurdity of this time-lost sanctum clashed with reality itself. It had no place in the world, no destiny in God's Divine Itinerary. Eloviden and all of its anachronisms flared arrogantly in navel of the world, which could no longer tolerate the city's existence. One unfated day, the City of Wonder was devoured in fire, and all its secrets and their keepers scorched to ash.

> Oguhavak, city of flame, city on fire, burning city

## Notes

\*\*

Theological themes

The question of causality:
- Was Essha's access of the Sinister Eye what triggered the Dark Future to manifest for humanity, a corruption of Heaven/the Future?
- Or was Essha's betrayal of Iden what damned Mankind to God's umbral vendetta?
- Or, was the Dark Future always there to begin with, independent of Essha's epiphany.

Eli Feedback:

ThePirateEli: (11:07:20 AM) i like the riddle idea the best

kuzzzzco: (11:07:22 AM) Essha goes on to be a dick, stealing secrets from the future to create a utopia built upon anachronisms (technology, wisdom, etc.) and his abuse of the Foresight reacts badly and invites the divine wrath, etc. destroying his plagiaraized Heaven.

kuzzzzco: (11:07:46 AM) And then the next oracles are his reincarnations, like the Avatar of ATLA.

ThePirateEli: (11:07:49 AM) what a punk

kuzzzzco: (11:09:49 AM) Riddle, eh?

kuzzzzco: (11:10:01 AM) I'll have to think of something...'

ThePirateEli: (11:10:04 AM) right

kuzzzzco: (11:10:06 AM) I'm not the best with these

ThePirateEli: (11:10:07 AM) that's the hard part

kuzzzzco: (11:10:57 AM) It has to be simple and clever

kuzzzzco: (11:11:38 AM) Tricking the cyclops into removing the eye himself..

kuzzzzco: (11:11:55 AM) btw, Sinister and Dexter mean 'left' and 'right' respectively.

ThePirateEli: (11:12:11 AM) does it

ThePirateEli: (11:12:22 AM) didn't know that

kuzzzzco: (11:12:40 AM) Sinister only took on the meaning of evil and untrustworthy because left-handed people were considered treacherous.

ThePirateEli: (11:12:52 AM) cunts

kuzzzzco: (11:15:26 AM) lol

kuzzzzco: (11:15:32 AM) It was an interesting little thing to learn

kuzzzzco: (11:17:17 AM) I'm iffy on how to handle the Dexter Eye. I have it right now that Essha kept both, then his successor (who was able to look into the past and witness Essha's treachery) atoned for Mankind by giving God back the Dexter Eye, but then got cold-feet and kept his future-seeing powers.

kuzzzzco: (11:17:57 AM) But when God got back his Dexter Eye, the memory of His betrayal was refreshed and it burst into angry flames. Hence why the sun is a ball of fire.

ThePirateEli: (11:19:52 AM) :o

ThePirateEli: (11:20:00 AM) so the sun is creeping on everyone

kuzzzzco: (11:20:55 AM) Another possibility would be that the sun stayed in the sky during Essha's mission, guiding him from high above, and Essha individually never possessed it—

All of mankind has some inkling of hindsight; I have memories, I can remember things, recall past events or people, but those memories are incomplete and distorted.

kuzzzzco: (11:21:06 AM) So idk how to go about that.

ThePirateEli: (11:21:23 AM) right

kuzzzzco: (11:23:01 AM) Yep! It's observing all of Mankind's past deeds and sins and judging. The whole "Don't look into the sun" phrase is analogous to "Don't look back (the past)."

ThePirateEli: (11:23:21 AM) oh

ThePirateEli: (11:23:22 AM) that's pretty cool

ThePirateEli: (11:23:41 AM) i like it a lot

kuzzzzco: (11:26:42 AM) Moongazing is "looking forward"; people think they might get clues about their futures by staring at the moon.

kuzzzzco: (11:26:53 AM) And crystal balls are designed after the moon.

kuzzzzco: (11:28:03 AM) God punished the Oracle Cycle with the Curse of Obscurity, so that any and all visions they receive are cloudy, vague, abstract, and confusing.

Donny Feedback:

donowitzdante: (10:37:56 PM) I like it

donowitzdante: (10:38:18 PM) zun/moon religionz are cool

donowitzdante: (10:38:40 PM) I think imprizonment would work better with the corruption againzt Aden angle

donowitzdante: (10:38:41 PM) for Poly

donowitzdante: (10:39:37 PM) zo zinizter, thoze left thingz

kuzzzzco: (10:39:51 PM) yay! you know the hidden meaning of sinister!

kuzzzzco: (10:40:30 PM) And yeah, the imprisonment offers some interesting options. The Last Giant~

donowitzdante: (10:40:34 PM) I've looked into heraldry before, where dexter and zinizter are involved

donowitzdante: (10:40:35 PM) Yeah

donowitzdante: (10:42:20 PM) would be cool to zee a bit of expanzion on how ezzha waz convinced

kuzzzzco: (10:43:49 PM) To access the Sinister Eye?

donowitzdante: (10:44:00 PM) yeah

kuzzzzco: (10:44:31 PM) Like a temptation thing~

kuzzzzco: (10:44:32 PM) hmmmmm

kuzzzzco: (10:44:35 PM) good idea

kuzzzzco: (10:49:33 PM) it's not like there's even a

kuzzzzco: (10:49:42 PM) "How to make a riddle" tutorial either.

kuzzzzco: (10:49:54 PM) It's entirely about how clever you are as a person T\_\_\_\_T

donowitzdante: (10:51:01 PM) Well, like, the mythoz doezn't really zeem to focuz zo far on Ezzha being a trickzter, which iz what riddlez in theze zortz of thingz emphazize

kuzzzzco: (10:52:47 PM) Essha is a hero figure. He's clever, moral, flawed. I neglected a lot in the summary because I just wanted feedback on what was there

kuzzzzco: (10:55:01 PM) One version of his initial meeting God is him discovering the helpless, half-blind deity somewhere and them exchanging stories about their lives.

kuzzzzco: (10:55:17 PM) God reveals how He created the world, the Giants, and Mankind

kuzzzzco: (10:55:40 PM) or.... I could have it just be that Essha figures all that out on his own when he uses the stolen Dexter Eye.

donowitzdante: (10:56:13 PM) Hmm

donowitzdante: (10:56:21 PM) I think I'd prefer the firzt verzion

Santi Feedback:

Not really feedback, just some initial ideas that branched off what you described. We can do more feedback-esque stuff some other time (especially once I’m home). Either way, keep the ideas growing and don’t be afraid to start drafting some stuff that we can edit!

With enough access to hindsight, one essentially has access to foresight if one possesses logic and a sense of time. Time moves forward and patterns emerge. In this way, the future is predicted inductively based on past events. In the same way, the moon itself does not produce light, it merely reflects the light of the sun. The future is founded on the past and in a certain way reflects it.

Essha, a mortal being living in the Temporal lands possesses an ability foreign to a timeless being: an understanding of the logical progression of events through time. Accessing hindsight and his innate human ability to build off what is known to predict what can be known allows Essha to eventually find Polyphemus.

You don’t have to make up your own riddle. Sometimes, it’s solid to just go with a classic, and the sphinx’s riddle is so apt in this case. An undying being has no concept of how mortality changes a person. He wouldn’t understand how a single being can be one way in the morning, another way in the afternoon, and a third way in the evening—in his mind, the being is all three at once. In an interesting twist, this riddle also deals with the progression of the sun and the eventual rise of the moon.

This of course brings up the question of how Polyphemus could understand what foresight offers if he has no sense of time. I suppose Polyphemus can only see the future, and all that future collapses in on itself. As moments pass by, they no longer exist for him. All at once he sees everything he will ever do, including his confrontation with Essha and his ultimate defeat at the hand of Iden. All these events exist simultaneously for him, but as events occur they simply cease existing for him.

Before he steals the eye, he is blind. Blind and timeless, he exists without understanding who, what, or how he is. He doesn’t even know how or why he stole the Sinister Eye. A thoughtless brute that moves ignorantly through the universe. The lights only went on once he had the eye, and even then he exists purely in his simultaneous future.

You can honestly always just say the riddle wasn’t recorded (or maybe even recordable?). Fitting in with the conception of what I’ve described above, and the fact that Polyphemus doesn’t understand time in this conception, the riddle could be something as simple as “What happened five minutes ago?” which is a Bilbo-esque bs riddle, but whatever. You can always dress it up. “Why did you take the eye in the first place?” Essha can know, he has hindsight. The event where Polyphemus acquired the eye no longer (and, really, never did) exists for him.

Which brings us back to the question of what the light represents. In this conception, light is understanding or information. The eyes literally shine a light on the people in the universe. The change in light (like shadows—>sundials) signifies the passage of time. Polyphemus doesn’t comprehend change because all the light he sees from the future exists simultaneously, or eventually, not at all.

Essha, a being that exists in time is able to build inferences from past events. He is eventually able to use this ability to induce Polyphemus’s movements. Mortals possess the power of Memory. They can see the change in the light. They innately possess their own hindsight (they, after all, were not blind like the giants), but with the Dexter Eye they gain access to the universe’s hindsight.

Iden, an all-powerful Being, is able to wield both hindsight and foresight while also understanding the flow of time. A timeless Being with the power to comprehend time and Memory.

BASICALLY: Maybe just play around with what it means to be timeless and how that would work and how that’s different from what it’s like to exist in time. Most of what I said doesn’t make sense. We can figure out the riddle later. But that’s just an idea. None of this necessarily plays well with what you’ve already got, just remember that you can still present the story in a way that makes sense to us and works because we also have a sense of time, just being aware that the perception of the story is vastly different for Polyphemus and Iden. Like, yeah, Essha can have an argument with Polyphemus that progresses like a normal argument and follows logic and progresses in time. But we can’t necessarily understand how the perception of that argument would be for a being that can only see the future.

Eli Feedback 2:

ThePirateEli: (8:48:24 PM) anyway, my thoughts on the timeless thing

ThePirateEli: (8:48:31 PM) (and i'm drunk, so i may be getting stuff confused)

ThePirateEli: (8:48:46 PM) but possessing foresight, the sun

ThePirateEli: (8:49:03 PM) it doesn't really seem to make sense to me to not possess a concept a time

ThePirateEli: (8:49:22 PM) since the sun is kind of the quintessential measurement of time for man kind

ThePirateEli: (8:49:45 PM) the day, rising and setting of the sun, is sort of the basic way we measure time passage

ThePirateEli: (8:51:27 PM) since i think you said the sun in the sky allows god, or whoever's holding it to observe mankind

ThePirateEli: (8:51:49 PM) but i guess it makes sense if he's observing the present day earth, and also all of the future, to have difficulty discerning

kuzzzzco: (8:52:08 PM) The sun is the Dexter Eye, the embodiment of hindsight

ThePirateEli: (8:52:12 PM) oh

ThePirateEli: (8:53:03 PM) the moon also rotates on a daily cycle ofc, but

ThePirateEli: (8:53:51 PM) night is time for sleep, i guess when the moon is present, it might not be observing the 'earth'

ThePirateEli: (8:53:55 PM) but dreaming of the future, or whatever

kuzzzzco: (8:54:12 PM) rite

ThePirateEli: (8:54:25 PM) and, well

ThePirateEli: (8:54:39 PM) dreaming totally goes with not comprehending the passage of time

kuzzzzco: (8:54:45 PM) The time when all that does not exist, all that is possible (dreams), frolics in the minds of men.

ThePirateEli: (8:54:53 PM) right

ThePirateEli: (8:55:41 PM) it's a pretty good theme

kuzzzzco: (8:58:14 PM) I hadn't considered the dream aspect, though

kuzzzzco: (8:58:18 PM) I love it

ThePirateEli: (8:59:45 PM) it seems to fit with the theme of not fully understanding predictions and having to interpret them

ThePirateEli: (8:59:54 PM) since dreams are also weird and ambiguous