The Monument

The Monument
Origin	Stone
Titles	The Ruin-Remembering, That-Which-Remains
Names	The Whispering Keeper, the Pale Knight, the Ashen Emperor
Aspects
Owner(s)	SRN

“We know now that before the Mansus, there was not Nowhere for it remembers, for it was, and now I remember too. Unlike it, I was not, I merely am. But perhaps one day I will have been.”

Ioannes Kiasidaris, the Whispering Keeper

The Monument was, and it is. Almost certainly, it also will be. When the Other Place ended, it ended brutally, but it did not end finally, nor did it end completely. The Monument was a thousand things before it was a God-From-Stone. It was a palace, a library, it was just a slum and even a ruin back then, but before the Subsumption it was a thousand buildings, a thousand silent, unmoving constructs. When the old world was overthrown, so was its stasis. It woke, bleary-eyed, but clear-minded, one of the first Gods from Stone. Memory is deep and memory gets everywhere, and it claims to remember the past, in fits and bursts, but more than that it seeks to restore the past. It is the god of the nostalgic and historians, those who seek to reclaim ancient truths, long-forgotten texts and stories, but more bitterly, more coldly, it is the god also of revanchists and reactionaries and fascists, those who seek to reclaim past empires, to reclaim old subjects. Its power manifests as an ironclad resolve and a memory that allows nothing to escape. Even its fully human followers are impossibly strong as they strain the human body to truly insane limits, unlocking reserves of strength many humans never will uncover. Time is also very little to it, this Hour that remembers so much more than its age, and the currents of the aeons twist in strange ways around it. Its followers have been known to appear in history far before they were known to have been introduced to the occult, or even born. Whispers echo of its final ambition, to twist the currents of time enough that it can see the past, or perhaps, just perhaps, save it…

Description

The Monument is everything of the world destroyed by the Subsumption. A mere stone lying by the roadside, or the cyclopean ruins of the Grey City. Its will manifests as a trembling of the walls and voices whispering in your ear... if you do not offend it. Never has the Monument truly gone to war. It is too static a creature. But many a foolish treasure-hunter irreverent of precious relics or scholar of the occult too careless in his steps has found himself staring into the dark, hollow eyes of a skeleton that certainly does not look quite human...

Worship

Cult

The Ancient Circle is the association of those who will not forget. Historians and archaeologists here rub shoulders with the foulest kind of fascist and reactionary. Members of the Ancient Circle are blessed... or cursed, with a vise-like memory that lets nothing escape and a knowledge of histories that they should not know. Recently, however, faultlines have begun appearing in the Ancient Circle between those who seek to remember history and those who seek to restore it. Some whisper that this reflects a conflict between the Monument's mind itself, a struggle for the very fate of the Hour...

Mark

Note: Some sort of ruined-nobleman origin?

Temptation: History: It occurs to me that I could rebuild what was long past.

Dedication: History:

Servants

The Pale Knight An empty, hollow suit of bone-white armour powered by ancient magics and sorceries and machinery, this was the first of the Highest Laboratory's children to be reawakened.It serves as the foremost military Name of the Monument, its strange runic sword carving eldritch, ancient scars and the machinery within it hiding a dozen secret weapons and techniques, in the form of gulfs of impossibly radiant fire, plumes and spires of black magic, and other, stranger things...

The Ashen Emperor The right to be called Ashen Emperor is a bloodline and a title, not a person. From Justinian's pact with the Monument onwards, the power of the ancient Hour flowed within the his blood and that of his descendants, but it only wakes in one. A member of House Iulianos ascending to the throne of Old Byzantium takes along with the emperorship this title, and the status of Name, and they cease to become themselves in entirety, but the will of their bloodline and ancestors.

Locations

The Mansus

• The Grey City
  • You could see this from kilometers away, the great, pale, eerie spires and cyclopean towers, looming over the empty roads. I passed through the gates last night and was consumed by fatal melancholy and memories of my life. I remembered my mother, so long gone, and how she had smiled. I still remember that now, and the peace remains in my heart.
    • Contentment
  • I passed the gates last night, overcoming my tears. I found my way to a building that perhaps was a library and saw the inscription upon its walls. A prophecy of what would be, places that would be built upon its ruins, and the memory still lingers in my mind
    • Low tier History lore
  • I had resolve in my heart last night and I strove to made it to the center of the Grey City last night. A great citadel dominated it, one that rang with the cries and crashing of long-lost battles. I breathed in the air of battle and splattering of blood and part of it remains with me today.
    • Low Tier Edge influence
  • I had ambition in my bones last night and I climbed and I climbed the tallest spire of the city. I gazed up to the sky, to the great light of the glory high above. Now, even as I wake, the memory of its light warms my mind, a pale image of Glory
    • Low Tier Lantern influence

• The Highest Laboratory

Once, there was a people before the Subsumption. They built wonders and marvels and this was chief among them. A great laboratory near the light of the Glory to construct magnificent inventions and creations that would change the world forever. Its great height saved it from the majority of the Subsumption, but it is still in ruin, much of the delicate machinery decayed and destroyed without the maintenance of the old civilization, but still within it a million glorious creations that have not been yet equalled await, silent, unawakened, ready for the touch of a user.