Incanterium
A response letter from Alluvius Ruskin:
Kythron, Your letter arrived at a good time — recently back from Outlands where I encountered a weird sect of petitioners that spake of “The Great Loop.” Claimed all souls eventually return to their starting point. Not by reincarnation, mind ya’, but time folding back on itself! Regarding Ouroboros, have indeed encountered references, though never as a deity per se. More as a principle. Or force of nature. Mebbe’ check yawntee lore, wot with all their snake worship and whatnot. Wasn’t there legend of “The First Serpent Who Will Be Last” or whatever? Seen similar motifs in ancient Baatorian texts, too. Gotta’ caution, though. The Incanterium’s discomfort with your research may be well founded. Heard whispers of other cults that worship loops an’ rings and recursion likewise your own obsession with the topic. All went barmy, the whole lot. I know yer type, though — so I’ve enclosed copies of 3 texts that might interest you: - Planar Chronology and the Wheel of Time — Magister Peren - Serpent Symbolism in Outer Planar Cultures — Same Author And some fragment of some codex I acquired from a githzerai monastary, mentions spirals, which is kinda’ like rings I guess. Study carefully, old friend. Some knowledge comes with a price. — Alluvius Ruskin
Ouroboros
Kythron discovered fragmentary texts about Ouroboros. His journals progress from academic curiosity to growing obsession.
- Notes about Cult of Ouroboros activity near the tower:
- Cult revered a snake god, one that ate its own tail.
- Found reference to ‘Ouroboros the Eternal’ in pre-Faction War texts. Described as ‘the serpent that devours its own tail, the circle that never breaks.
- It appears the cult considers the number 27 to be holy. The number 26 is reviled and flawed.
- Theory: Ouroboros is actually a representation of the principle of the Unity of Rings.
- Theory: The Rule of Unity of Rings… what if it’s not metaphorical? What if rings, circles, cycles are fundamental to reality’s structure?
- Theory: The Unity of Rings is actually a reference to the principle of recursion.
- Evidence: Tested recursive spell formulae. The magic doesn’t just repeat—it builds upon itself. Like time feeding back into time.
- Locate the recursive spell formulae, but will take a long time to decipher (if Conrad takes interest).
Feywild
Hundreds of years ago, the Seelie Court’s domain briefly overlapped with the western forest near his tower. Kythron witnessed time distortion effects and became convinced this was evidence of temporal recursion.
- Intricate details about etiquette in various Feywild domains. This is information the party may need to one day Recall to avoid breaching etiquette.
- The Seelie Court has visited before! Though it was actually to the forest to the “twest.”
- The Feywild being able to overlap the Beastlands seems to go against the current cosmological model, wherein the Feywild should only overlap the Material plane and its many worlds.
- Known: The Seelie Court was once known to travel across the Outer planes at a whim, in particular: Ysgard, Arborea, and the Beastlands. However, they’ve since established a more permanent residence in the Feywild.
- Known: Powerful archfey are capable of creating their own demiplanes, which typically maintain some or all aspects of the Feywild.
- Theory: The ruling archfey of the Seelie Court may be able to temporarily “claim” territory in other planes as an extension of their domain. Not a permanent alteration, but more like projecting their presence, authority, and influence across planar boundaries.
- Theory: Within “claimed” Seelie territory, archfey might maintain a network of linked fey crossings to temporary/mobile domains maintained by archfey, particularly the wandering Seelie Court.
- Theory: Could archfey also control flow of time within their domain? Do they have to be present to cause that time acceleration?
Final Entry
- Final entry (open in logbook on desk): Wizard goes on a quest to look for archfey, and hopes to make a deal to have that archfey send them to the end of time. He takes his most important notes and letters with him. He first wants to go to Sigil to meet with Alluvius Ruskin, but since “his usual method” isn’t currently viable, he heads to Yygdrasil to barter with the ratatosk.
- His usual method of going to Sigil is planeshifting to a teleportation circle within the Tower Sorcerous. For some reason, it’s failing. He suspects the tuning fork he usually relied on must have become warped, and so left it to Dym to see if they could salvage it.