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| title = The Hearthkeeper
| card =
| quote = "We call upon the Hearthkeeper, for whom the fires stay lit."| origin = Light/Blood| titles = The Feathered Sculptor, The Crafting Flock, Ever-Weaver
| names = The Illuminated Architect
| aspects = {{Aspect|Heart}} {{Aspect|SH}} {{Aspect|Forge}}
| owners = [[User:a-braid-of-serpents|a-braid-of-serpents]]
}}
The Hearthkeeper is an Hour of [[The Fourth Fansus]] and a Wyrmchild, born from [[the Old Wyrm]] and FNORD[[Mother Songbird]], the Old Wyrm's love and counterpart. After the Collision, they are an Hour of hearth and community, and of dedication and strength required to keep both alive.
==Description==
It’s not surprising then, that many of their favoured are either resourceful crafters and builders, who labour to maintain and breathe life into the communities to they belong to, or prominent members of these same communities: leaders, advisors and chroniclers who often shape their people, consciously or not, into the designs the Hearthkeeper has reserved for them.
This relevance of home leads into the prominent place hospitality, and the code that rules it, have on the Hearthkeeper’s followers and the Hour themself: it could be considered the closest to a sacred text they have, and on places where the Hearthkeeper’s influence is strong, they are meticulously enforced. A less known face of the Hearthkeeper is the one that smiles at nomads, wanderers and homesteaders: the kind of people who, perhaps more than anyone else know the value of home and community, and who are resolved to create one for themselves, for many times, their attempts to do so have resonated through the Histories.
==Worship==
===Cult===
*'''Ancient and Noble Order of Stonemasons''': An ancient organization of sculptors, architects and builders with roots on the Pre-Collision Histories: the order’s main purpose was to act as network of mutual support and contribution between artists touched by the Hearthkeeper.
Largely defunct following the Collision, with members and resources assimilated by other , newer cults of the Hearthkeeper.
*'''Company of the Lonely Road''': A relatively young off-shot of the Hearthkeeper’s more well-established cults, the members of the Company have dedicated themselves to ensuring the main roads(or other routes between settlements) of the post-Collision Histories remain open and passabble. To this end, they build and supervise chains of waystations and watchtowers, and escort the travellers that attempt to journey through them.
===The Mansus===
Near what once was the heart of the Mansus, there lies a vast waste of dust, rubble and broken masonry: a memorial to a fallen sculptor, and the wonders the sculptors of a bygone world created. The figures of dramers and Know can often be seen journeying through such a forlorn landscape, shifting through the desolation and ruins in their search of lost knowledge or the insights about the Histories that came before the broken statues and monuments can provide.
There are many more, though, who walk though well-worn treads that mark semi-permanent paths through the wastes, coming and going from the Hearthkeeper’s abode: an impossible structure carved from raw Mansus-stone, standing taller that any of the cyclopean, half-ruined monuments that make up its surroundings, and whose structure seems to change its disposition with each soul that visits its halls. The structure is in itself an architectural impossibility, something that couldn’t be built outside the surreal dreamscapes of the Mansus, and a blend of architectural styles inspired by the many, many branches of the Histories: both traits it shares with its ruined surroundings.
That’s where the resemblances begin and end, however, as the soft and elegant shapes of each part of the structure have nothing in common with the gilded and ornamented renmants that stand just outside their abode; just as the Hearthkeeper was changed and remade during the Collision, so has the essence of their works changed with them.
Its many windows are filled with with warm light, and the place itself seems to radiate a soft, comforting warmth, in a sharp contrast with the bitter, melancholic cold of the surrounding wastes. Dreamers will often find the great, engraved doors thrown wide open, for the flowing, curved runes and sigils subtly engraved all over the walls and offer protection enough against any danger, and it’s the Hearthkeeper’s will that everyone is to be welcome at their abode, as long as they follow the laws of hospitality.
And indeed, this place of power has long been considered a refuge by mortal dreamers and Long alike: a safe port in a storm where to plan, discuss and meet potrential allies for further forays into the more unstable parts of the Mansus. Long and spirits aligned with the Hearthkeeper attend all who reach their patron’s abode, providing advice to any new arrivals and rest and recovery to all who may find themselves in need of it. Many more flit and scurry through the labyrinthine, warren-like halls, carrying out constant maintenance labours, and also keeping a watchful eye on the guests assembled there for any breach in the laws of hospitality that rule the place.
===The Histories===
===Influences===
'''A Fluttering of Wings(Heart 6, Decays to Restlessness)''':
Today, my heart beats with unusual urgency: I cannot stand to stay still, nor to to keep my hands idle My thoughts are ablaze with the need to do something, anything, to improve my life and the lives of those close to me.
===Books===
==Secrets==