The Cantharide

The Cantharide
"We call upon the Cantharide, who breaketh through."
Origin	Flesh
Titles	Countless: the Blistering Grace, the Emphasis, the Damsel-In-Relief, the Apophenian, The Name of Names, but most of all... The Vain Glory
Names	Helen of Sparta (the Cloud-Made) Lucrezia Borgia
Aspects
Date of arrival	unsure yet
Owner(s)	Erised

When she first descended from the Glory, she was the litteral embodiment of the undeserving Hour, who hadn't been through the same process than all other From-Flesh. Thus she was known to only utter cryptic statements and making impressive, yet ultimately empty miracles take place, to cover up.The other Hours didn't expect more of her. In fact, they almost had a tinge of admiration in their disdain, because she was faking it, but faking it good. Most human cultists crave more seeming transcendance and meaning than the true occult, uncomprehensible nature of most other Hours. She was good at keeping the masquerade of Hours being benefactors to mankind, and not powerful enough to be a menace in their own right. A perfect PR, of sorts.

But of late, this has changed. The Cantharide's pseudo-truths actually seem to hold more and more occult truth, as if she was truly channeling the immense powers she claimed she did. And to only make it worse, even she seems to have no clue why.

Principles

Moth is for the Name-as-Self, as much a core feature of the being as it is a simple mask, removable and replaceable in a whim. Most human words and titles are of this category, which the Cantharide excels at affecting. When a lawyer or a politician plays upon words to get away, when a spy creates a cover, or a writer designs a character so fake it’s real, their phrases are anthems to the Cantharide.

The Mechanism and the Cantharide both are oracles, bound to reveal truths to those who beseech them, but also able to warp the truth they scry.

Lantern is for the Name-As-Truth. The Lantern is the platonic ideal, the unstainable and perfect Truth hidden in the meaning. Those are not the mere names used by humans and their mutable selves: those are the names and titles of deities, the transcendent tenets of their legend, be they awe-inspiring or terrible, alluring or gruesome. Such appellations are true and unchanging in any point of any History. The Cantharide can’t modify or replace them, for theyre written in the ink of the Glory, but it’s within her power to exalt them, or subvert them, ever so slightly. For beings involved in the occult, When poets or scholars sing praises, when journalists slander, there grows the seeds of the Cantharide.

The Captain discovers the truth during his journeys: but for to those truths, he gives no Names. The Abbess purges the souls of the deceased: but save for their sins, she doesn't name any part of them The Eye sees all, but speaks not.

Grail (or Knock) is for the Name-As-Call. In all esoteric traditions, the true name of a being is a way to bind it, to appeal to it, to access its secret nature and merge. The Name-as-Call is Ecstasy when shouted in pleasure: it is Addiction when obsessively repeated. When your lover calls to you in a muffled moan of pleasure (or a shrieking shrill of fear), when a witch spits it in a curse or whisper it in blessing, the weight of their claims on you is the Cantharide’s.

The Fruitbat takes your desire and makes you forget it, by making you happy with what you have. The Dongolopticon takes your desire, becomes an even-better version of it, and makes you realize what you truly need. The Grim takes your desire and uses it to torture you, so that the pain makes you feel less guilty for your desire. The Cantharide takes your desire, and makes it so big and all-encompassing that you're not its subject anymore, just its spectator.

Worship

Mark

I'm hesitating between Ecstasy, Trance, Nexion/Nexus or Immanence/Transcendance

1. Temptation: Immanence:
2. Dedication: Immanence:
3. Ascension: Immanence: A beacon shines upon my brow, not alight itself, but spreading darkness wherever my eyes don’t abide. I know this to be the First Mark.
4. Ascension: Immanence:
5. Ascension: Immanence:
6. Ascension: Immanence:

Servants

The Bassarides amongst the trees. The Nepheliads over the sea.

Locations

The Histories

Cretan Minoan Era? Renaissance? Libertine Era in France?

About the Wassail

What They Hide

It's an open secret that the Cantharide is changing, since her sudden arrival in the Mansus.

Her power does not wane, however, in any shape of form. In fact, it's rather the opposite: it seems to keep taking forms more and more refined and exaltating.... whose complexity seems to baffle even herself.

Her frequentations also indicate a shift. Dhile initially drawn to each other Hour like a moth to a flame, eager to see how her stimulating powers would influence them, she now seems to restrain herself, talking to each Hour only in secret, and individually, as if she had grown ashamed of her insistant need for symbiosis.

And of course, all the other Hours wonder. If it only took a couple minutes to turn a human witch into a full-fledged Hour, how stable (and more importantly, how sustainable) is such a metamorphosis ?

Relationships

• The Piper:
• The Firstborn:
• The Weft:
• The Distinguished:
• The Prince Consort:
• The Warp:
• The Hill Queen:
• The Captain:
• The Instinct:
• The Solemn:
• Brother Grimalkin:
• Abbess Sunset:
• The Skinner Box: A teacher, a mentor, and one who knows her all too well. There's no love there, only need and bitter seeds.
• The Stillwater:
• The Heart-Felt Fantasy:
• The Gilded Insect:
• The Mechanism:
• The Dongolopticon:
• The World-Carver:
• The Eye:
• The Remnants:
• The Millions-Upon-Millions:
• [[]]:
• The Blight Abiding:
• [[]]:
• [[]]:
• [[]]:
• [[]]:
• [[]]:
• The Stillborn: