Main MenuBack to Main Wiki
Nobilis Background Miscellanea Other Back to Main Wiki |
Cant of the Warmains
Warmains have no personal Estate or "Chancel": they can only work Domain and Realm miracles via a Focus or a Gift. Their power is, technically, not the same as that of Nobilis and Ymerae — while Powers and Imperators draw their miraculous abilities from the essential nature of reality, the magic of the Warmains is tied strongly to a kind of "anti-nature", the "dark side" of Imperial and Noble magics. Under most circumstances, accordingly, Noble miracles cannot target Warmains directly (and, since they're full Excrucians, it's very hard to affect them with Imperial miracles as well). Similarly, they cannot usually target Powers directly, and the Auctoritas of a Warmain or Power will affect the miracles of the other. The Warmains must understand the people they face and the nature of Creation itself. They claim that everything they destroy lives on in them, but one being in particular. When a Warmain kills for the first time, it takes on the shape and devours the mind of the one it murdered. It does so a second time, when it slays its first Noble or Imperator. It changes a third time only if it kills someone for whom it has a profound respect. The change in the Warmain that comes with each new shape is a deep one (and dangerous as well—there are rumors that occasionally a Warmain's loyalties turn and it must be "put down"). This is the Tempering, in which Warmain and victim are alloyed, and which ends with an Excrucian who understands the nature of this world without losing their commitment to ravaging it clean of life and beauty alike. Tempering is a level 4 Aspect miracle for a Warmain. The Hollyhock God must decide whether a Power can perform the act; few have been willing to experiment. Some Warmains cannot recover from this act while in Creation. Others can let their inhuman inangelic beauty shine through and their Excrucian nature with it. |
