The Mansus

*'Staircases rise in grey rainbows; windows wait.'*
 *'A Painting of the Outer Mansus'*

**The Mansus**, also known as **the House of the Sun**, or **the House without Walls**, lies above **the Bounds** in the invisible realm. For a mortal to enter, they must first pass the riddle of the Stag Door and become recognized as one of the Know. Ascending even further requires deeper knowledge. Light leaking from the Glory illuminates the passages and chambers of the House in cobalt hues. Most of the Hours rule from within the House, and several have specific chambers that serve as a center of power or dedicated place of worship and responsibility.

**The Mansus** is divided into sections by **the Doors** which it is said to have seven - the White Door, the Stag Door, the Spider's Door, the Peacock Door, the Savage Door, the Kingskin Gate, and the Tricuspid Gate - although the Peacock Door being a genuine Door is sometimes disputed and the Summit Gate is included instead of it.

## The White Door

**The White Door**, also known as **the** **Gate of Ivory**, or **the Bone Door**. Those who pass the White Door lose their voice, their mouths sealed like a healing wound. Through this door many of the Dead pass into the House, wandering in silence until lost. Despite being one of the proper Mansus-Doors, the White Door and the area around it seems like an "outskirt" of the House, as the entrance is not restricted in any way (in contrast to all other Doors), and whoever passes it is not considered a true adept until they enter the Stag Door. The Ligeian Morgen holds **St. David's Key**, which when encased in ivory opens the White Door. When encased in black sapphire this key may also open the Summit Gate, to the House of the Moon.

* **The Bounds**: A misty labyrinth that surrounds the invisible realm and separates it from mundane dreams. One is always required to traverse it to reach the Wood or the House, and the White Door is one of two Doors directly accessible from there (the other being the Stag Door).
* **The Lodge of the Sage-Knight**: A Pavilion overlooking the Bounds, where the Lantern-Long Teresa Galmier currently dwells. The lodge's namesake has long since passed higher, and is believed to be a Name of the Red Grail.
* **The Orchard of Lights**: A garden of glowing fruits and peaceful mists, which the Sun-in-Splendour once walked. His fragments still wander here on occasion, and it is renowned as a place of beauty and rest.

## The Stag Door

**The Stag Door**, also known as **the Horn Gate**, **the Hunter's Gate**, and **the Adept's Door**, bars entry into the lower chambers of the House. It is a ridged barrier of bloody horn, bearing scars from when humanity rebelled and forced entry into the Mansus. The golden head of the Name Ghirbi watches over the Gate, and to pass one must answer his riddle. It is one of the two Doors (the other one being the White Door) that is reachable directly from the Bounds. **The Forest Key** held by Medusa also opens this Gate.

* **The Painted River:** A space above the Orchard of Lights and the Bounds where the Vagabond painted the River from memory. It was through this River that the Twins first entered the Mansus after drowning themselves.
* **The Ascent of Knives**: Also known as **the Sharp Stair**, **the Mother of Mirrors**, and **the Feast of the Grail**. While considered the bloodiest trial of the Watchman, it has been sacred to the Sun-in-Rags and Meniscate since the Intercalate. One who dies and ascends the stairs may enter the former's service as a Maid-in-the-Mirror. Beneath the stairs wait Empousai, who hope to feast on the blood shed by those who walk its steps.

## The Spider's Door

**The Spider's Door**, also known as **the Bloody Gate**, **the Serpent Gate**, and, informally, **the Wrong Door**, requires the spilling of fresh blood for dreamers to pass. It is sacred to the Mother of Ants and is opened by **the Key of Night**, which the Hooded Princes once used to travel between Histories. The Key is now held by their daughter, Sulochana the Ligeian.

* **The Silken Sands**: A whispering gray desert within the House. It is inhabited by "arced, unseen, slow-steeping residents", and contains the Spider's Door.
* **The Malleary**: The workplace of the Forge of Days, and the location where the Intercalate occured. It is a place of fiery transformation, from which none emerge unchanged.
* **The Concursum**: The crossroads of the Mansus, also called **the Chamber of Ways**, **the Chamber of Revelations**, **the Chamber of Choices**, **Conclusions**, **Beginnings**, **Endings**, **Mirrors**, and **Histories**. Once, the highest rites of the Church of the Unconquered Sun were performed here. Many of the Hours can often be seen passing through this chamber.

## The Peacock Door

**The Peacock Door**, also known as the **Gate of Eyes** and **Pride's Dismay**, as well as **Vak**, both the goddess and the language. The Peacock's Door shines like an amethyst mirror. It has been likened to an abrasion on the House, or some sort of treasured point of entry, like mouth. Its status among the Doors is curious, and some consider it an abomination, or at least unseemly, while also being called the most admirable of Doors. A vision from the Priest Legacy depicts the rending of the Peacock Door, possibly during the assault of the first Know. When the Thunderskin ascended, he entered the Mansus through the Peacock Door, an honor denied to the Twins for an unknown reason. It is the highest point that mortals may reach in the Mansus. There is **no dedicated Key** that opens it, and it's sometimes speculated that the Peacock's Gate isn't a proper Door of the House.

* **The Glassgarden**: A cold, pale garden in the upper portions of the Mansus. The Peacock's Door stands amongst the long-dead frost blossoms.
* **The Red Church**: The domain of the Red Grail, where her Names congregate to debate, create, and perform desires of all sorts. The Flowermaker is also known to visit from time to time. Its pews are bone, its windows are ruby glass depicting various appetites in scenes from life, and its golden altar beats like a heart.
* **The Worm Museum**: Located within and without the Mansus, for security and safety. The Museum displays various Worms, monstrous creatures from Nowhere that breed in the corpses of dead Hours, dying by never dead. The location is guarded by the Colonel, a station significant enough that even the Lionsmith does not challenge him here. The Hours supposedly keep the Worm Museum open to mortal in the hopes of inspiring revulsion among adepts towards Worms.
* **The Lesser Crossroads**: Two knotted roads crossing, under the shadow of an oak, behind the Peacock Door, and beneath the Concursum. The lesser Crossroads is a location used in the Apostle Entheate Legacy, where the Witnesses gather in the Light of the Allure.

## The Tricuspid Gate

**The Tricuspid Gate**, also called **the Three-Valved Door**. To enter the Glory requires one to pass the Tricuspid Gate, a rite which is necessary for most to ascend to immortality and beyond, though in some cases this is simply a formality. In the Lantern Apostle Entheate Legacy it is opened Outwards by **the Key of Days**, which is held by Klêidouchos the Ligeian.

## The Savage Door

**The Savage Door** is an old wound once employed by the gods-who-were-stone, and, possibly, even by the Hours who predated them. The Savage Door is used in the Forge Apostle Aestuant Legacy, and is opened with **the Biting Key**, which "was known in an age before other gods", and held by the Ligeian Echidna.

## The Kingskin Gate

**The Kingskin Gate**, a Door accessed both in the Heart path of the Dancer Legacy as well as the Grail Apostle Obsonate Legacy. In both cases it is opened with **the Flaying Key**, which has been present at the birth of everygod-from-blood. Marinette the Ligeian now holds the Key, having devoured whoever held it to aid the Moth's ascension at the Grail's behest.

## The Summit Gate

**The Summit Gate** is a door that leads to the mysterious House of the Moon. It is the possible seventh Door of the House, if you exclude the Peacock Door from the list. Some speculate that the Summit Gate is just another "mode" of the White Door (the former being compared with "the migraine moon" and "a mirror", implying possible association with the Meniscate, keeper of the House of the Moon) and, like the White Door, it is opened by **St. David's Key**, but only when it's housed in black sapphire instead of ivory. The Key is held by Ligeian Morgen.

## Other Notes

* Before the Lithomachy the Mansus likely had a different shape and different doors. The Forge of Days is credited with opening the ways and transforming the House into its current form.
* The White Door and Stag Door are references to the Gates of Ivory and Horn, which come from Greek literature and represent false and true dreams respectively.
* The association of the Gates of the Mansus with parts of the body may be inspired by Chakras, focal points of meditation that represent the path to spiritual enlightenment and inner peace. Originating from Hindu traditions, Chakras were later adopted into Western esotericism.

## Sources

1. ↑ A Mansus-Glimpse
2. ↑ Read 'The Rose of Waznei'
3. ↑ Stag Door's Riddle
4. ↑ Read 'The Gospel of Zacchaeus', Chilly Lessons, #spirit\_winterd\_edge
5. ↑ Way: The White Door
6. ↑ Entering the White Door
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 The White Door
8. ↑ A Way Back Through Dream
9. ↑ Approaching The White Door
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 The Way to the Stag Door
11. ↑ The Lodge of the Sage Knight
12. ↑ “Got your book. Pretty good condition..."
13. ↑ The Orchard of Lights
14. ↑ Way: Through the Stag Door
15. ↑ To the Stag Door
16. ↑ The Stag Door
17. ↑ At the Stag Door, Again
18. ↑ The Painted River, Read 'The Larquebine Codex'
19. ↑ The Ascent of Knives, Mantra of Ascent, Maid-in-the-Mirror
20. ↑ Way: The Spider's Door
21. ↑ Read 'The Watchful Tantra'
22. ↑ The Way to the Spider's Door, Entering the Spider's Door
23. ↑ The Spider's Door
24. ↑ Read 'The Encircling Tantra'
25. ↑ Wrong Door
26. ↑ Approaching The Spider's Door
27. ↑ The Malleary
28. ↑ The Concursum
29. ↑ Read 'The High Mysteries of the...'
30. ↑ Way: The Peacock's Door
31. ↑ The Peacock Door
32. ↑ Glassgarden: Approaching The Peacock's Door
33. ↑ Read Grese's 'A True and Complete Accounting...'
34. ↑ Read 'Against the Sisterhood...
35. ↑ The Way to the Peacock's Door
36. ↑ The Vision of the Peacock
37. ↑ Read 'The Morphy Codex'
38. ↑ Glassgarden: Not Enough!
39. ↑ The Red Church
40. ↑ The Worm Museum
41. ↑ Locate the Crossroads, The Lesser Crossroads
42. ↑ The Incursus, The Conflagration of the Heart, Feast of the True Birth
43. ↑ Endings: The Incursus, The conflagration of the heart, The feast of the true birth
44. ↑ The Gate Opens Outwards
45. ↑ THE DAWN
46. ↑ The Last Dance, The Kingskin Gate
47. ↑ Three, IN THE HOUSE OF THE MOON
48. ↑ The Summit Gate
49. ↑ Read 'The Book of Dissolution'
50. ↑ Gates of horn and ivory