Abbess Sunset (Original)

Abbess Sunset
Origin	FNORD
Titles	Abbess Sunset The Sun-Eyed Maiden She-Who-Vowed
Names	none
Aspects
Date of arrival	circa FNORD
Owner(s)	Anaconda With Sword

(This is the Abbess Sunset concept as it appeared in the first incarnation of the Third Fansus.)

Abbess Sunset (The Sun-Eyed Maiden, She-Who-Vowed) is the Twelfth Hour of the Fansus, created by Anaconda With Sword. Her aspects are Lantern, Edge, and Winter in decreasing order of importance. Abbess Sunset primarily presides over the journey of the soul after death, but is invoked by doctors, priests, caretakers of the dead and by those seeking to learn the future. Military strategists and teachers of the arts of combat also call upon her.

Her tarot card is Justice.

Description

Appearance

When seen in the Wood Within the Walls, Abbess Sunset typically appears as a great, jade-green, red-eyed mantis shepherding the shapeless souls to their rebirth. For all purposes that she is called upon for, this depiction suffices. The memories of the Dead view her in as many different shapes as there are souls in existence, and perhaps some besides. The caretakers of graveyards and catacombs, as well as priests and doctors, use images of her as a red-eyed, stern-faced, female religious leader. When diviners and oracles decorate their shrines to her, they choose a starving waif dressed in rags, with red eyes that seem to glow.

Principles

Lantern, for the clarity of purpose and vision; Edge, for the strength to cut the path; Winter, for the conclusion that cannot be avoided. Everything has its place, and Abbess Sunset will guide it along the path to where it must go. The principles that make her well-suited to guarding the souls of the dead from all who might take them make her a fierce and unstoppable warrior when needs be. Although she is not Death itself, she can be challenged by the dying for possession of their soul. Her game of choice is sparring. No one has yet defeated her, but it is only necessary to make a good enough showing that she does not feel that her time has been wasted. What one chooses to do with their soul after winning it from her- and if they can keep it -are none of her concern.

Worship

Cult

The Abbess is the primary Hour of the Keepers of the Pale Gate. Their leader's title is the Prophetic Swordmaster.

Mark

FNORD

Servants

Names

The Thurifier

"..."
Aspects: 12, 12; Devourer
Temptations: 10, 2, 4

  Summon a misty Name of the Abbess:
  The silent Thurifier wields his weapon with implacable might, ever-cognizant of the sins he must purify. Lantern will light his path here, and the chill of Winter will inform him of who he must serve.
  
  The faceless man says nothing, even now. The great thurible simply moves back and forth upon its golden chain. With spikes on every inch of the thurible and hooks forged into the links of its chain, it's a mystery how he holds his weapon without shredding his hands.

The Aspergifer

"Do you have what is Owed?"
Aspects: 12, 12; Deciever
Temptations: 10, 2, 4

  Summon a patchwork Name of the Abbess:
  The mismatched Aspergifer has ever taken the Toll when her mistress is occupied, and cannot be denied. Lantern will light her path here, and the sharpness of Edge will inform her of who she must serve.
  
  Her form is a bundle of carved bones, wood, and other mismatched bits and pieces tied together with a tarnished silver chain; hardly anything one might expect of a Name of the terrible Dusk-Archer.

Shangdi-zhi

"Please keep moving."
Aspects: 12, 12; Devourer
Temptations: Unsummonable

  The delicate Shangdi-Zhi patrols the wall around the Abbess' domain, aided by mirrors and mazes of bronze that bewilder and disorient any that would breach the wall and avoid the Gate and its Guardian.
  
  This little paper Name is sometimes many things, and yet he is sometimes but a single thing. Right now he is a single, origami mantis, made of paper as sharp and sturdy as the finest steel.

Nushen Hao

A grinding of gears. Nothing more?
Aspects: 12, 12; Deciever
Temptations: Unsummonable

  The watchful Nushen Hao keeps count of the Dead, those within the Abbess' domain and those that are bound for it but not yet within the walls. Sometimes, when the Abbess is occupied and the need is great, it leaves the ground.
  
  A blue metal loops and twists around itself like a tangle of vines, or a bramble thicket. At the very top, Nushen Hao's great unblinking eye stares towards the path which all the Dead must walk. Sometimes it pulses out eldritch messages to the sepulcher beyond.

Kuma

Silence, as always and as ever.
Aspects: 12, 12; Devourer
Temptations: Unsummonable

  The weary Kuma once bore a different name, in another time, but there is only one who would remember that now. Sometimes it lifts itself up from the soft earth and trundles one place or another in its mistress' service. Usually, it sleeps.
  
  The mossy rubble was something, once. Here and there one can trace out the carvings left behind by those Dead and Dreaming who didn't know better than to leave the traces of their existence behind.

Locations

The Fansus

FNORD

The Histories

FNORD

Items

Tools

FNORD

Ingredients

FNORD

Books

• The Eleventh Indictment
  • Description: This indictment has been written on a delicate, rice-paper scroll, bound with a silver chain. The calligraphy is beautiful, and the illustrations bring to mind heroes and myths more than they do murder.
  • Start Text: The story begins with a warrior-monk travelling to a new land in order to ply her trade. She befriends her shadow, and swears to at least tolerate her shadow’s brother. The first task set to her by the eight emperors and empresses of the land is to slay ten demons plaguing the populus.
  • End Text: After slaying fiends and monsters for the rulers, the warrior is set to a final task. In order to properly become one of them, they demand that she sacrifices her shadow to become the new sun. Out of love for her shadow, she and her shadow’s brother mutually slay the eight emperors and empresses.
  • Gives: FNORD

About the Wassail

How They Feel

What happened has happened, and she cannot change the path. It is clear that their killer was not preoccupied with fairness and law. There will be consequences for that act, some day.

Who They Blame

Assuming that each of the Nine was slain by a different sword, more than the Weft and the Warp are to blame. She names a different killer for each of the Stones, although she has been known to change her mind based on new information.

What They Hide

She was created to fulfill a singular purpose. Did she ever manage to complete her singular task?

Relationships

• The Piper: You could have stopped it. Surely, you could have stopped it. I don't understand why you didn't.
• The Firstborn: On any other being, that tenacity would be endearing. Still… Maybe it would be boring without him. Maybe.
• The Weft: There was no justice in what you did. Perhaps there was justification, but you had no right to take vigilante action.
• The Distinguished: This seems like it will go wrong, in a hundred thousand ways. And yet, she kept her vow. And yet, she always retrieves each soul, and mourns when they are damaged, and chides them when they are stained. I await the disaster. I cannot permit myself to like one who will be concluded without return.
• The Prince Consort: FNORD
• The Warp: There was no justice in what you did. Perhaps there was justification, but you had no right to take vigilante action.
• The Hill-Queen: Individuality of thought and spirit is what makes a psychopomp’s job necessary. Without it, my cycle becomes meaningless. And the bitch scares my Shadow.
• The Captain: I might understand, at least in pieces. Honestly, I cannot even tell if it was hypocrisy or not. I certainly cannot blame you for your feelings. But what you did? There was no justification in that.
• The Tessellate: A child of the Hematite. She does good works, but the Hematite was always so... I worry about her. It's just hard to start the conversation I would wish to have.
• The Solemn: My shadow, my friend, and my erstwhile companion. Our friendship is a complicated thing, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. The best thing that ever came of this place.
• Brother Grimalkin: The Solemn precedes him, and he precedes me. It’s an extremely complicated thing. But, I’d rather him caterwauling than him dead. He is important, not that I'll ever tell him that. A good cat, I suppose, on a very short list.
• The Skinner Box: The Omnipede wants it put in the Ossuary. The Blight-Abiding wants it for whatever reasons the Coward Sun might have. If it comes to it, then I'll bring it to the Omnipede myself. But I'd like to know what it does, what it did, first. Even if I can't understand.
• The Stillwater: It’s not the Tenfold Suns. That is the best thing I can say about it. I never served this one, thankfully.
• The Heart-Felt Fantasy: I do not understand. Maybe I never will understand. Perhaps I am wholly incapable of comprehending it. My Shadow likes it. The Omnipede likes it, too. That’s good enough for me.
• The Gilded Insect: What an ass. He scares my Shadow, he toys with the Cycle's corpse, and worst of all I have to pretend to tolerate him. Someday, someday I will be permitted to shoot him.
• The Mechanism: What. What?
• The Dongolopticon: I am not as offended by its return as I was by the Blight-Abiding’s, but the Dead should stay Dead.
• The World-Carver: Thief! If I catch you, I’ll bring what you stole back to my Shadow, and do not doubt that I’ll bring your head with me to give to Grimalkin.
• The Eye: Don’t fuck this up, or I’ll shoot you down, too. I killed nine suns before you, and I do not fear killing eleven.
• The Recollection: Speaking of things that ought to stay Dead; this and what it attempts to revive.
• The Millions-Upon-Millions: The bodies go to the Omnipede, at death, and by the Omnipede they are recycled and returned. It’s a sensible cycle.
• [[]]: FNORD
• The Blight-Abiding: Die. Die. Die. And then die again. And once you die, stay dead, damn you. I’ll shoot you again, don’t think that I won’t.
• The Cantharide: Leave my Shadow alone. Do not touch him, do not gaze upon him, do not even hear his voice, or I will kill you.
• [[]]: FNORD
• [[]]: FNORD
• [[]]: FNORD
• The Fruitbat: A decadent thing, lost in its own intoxication. There's nothing that requires my action. But I would like it to stay away from me.
• The Mare-Night: She’s endearing. It’s odd, truly, for one such as her to have such optimism and compassion, but I do hope she keeps it.
• The Stillborn: Why? Why? Why? It shouldn’t be. I ought to shoot it down once again… But Gravedigger says not to. I suppose, as long as it doesn’t eat anyone, it can stay.
• The Weave: FNORD
• The Tenfold: My former Lord and Master. Father of the Damned Suns. My feelings are complicated, even now.
• The Hematite: FNORD
• The Mangled: Dearest Father of Heroes, dearest Mother of Monsters, dearest, dearest, dead.
• The Cycle: Perhaps the Omnipede would be upset to hear this, but I don't particularly miss the Cycle. I much prefer the Omnipede.
• The Bait: FNORD
• The Unmade: FNORD
• The Avulsed: Dearest Mother of Heroes, dearest Father of Monsters, dearest, dearest, dead.