Stellar Ascended
Throughout the Realms, certain Humans have had the honour of being cast up into the sky to become stars. Death does not touch the mantle of these honoured beings' clothing, nor does moth nor rust destroy. This form of immortality is both honour and inconvenience until the human in question can figure out how the cosmos functions.
Nobody wants a star roasting the planet. In the case of Orion, nobody wants him back in the first place.
It remains the most prevalent method of immortality available to the human race, even given its rarity. Yes, in the olden days, divinities like Zeus Olympia chucked people up into the sky like drum circle hackey sack players in the 1990's, but as the powers of the Realms dwindled through the Mystic War and with the onset of The Mystic Truce, none have witnessed a newly Stellar Ascended human in centuries.
I posit to the throng that the power to create Stellar Ascended no longer exists, for it required too much belief and faith in fallen gods. That, or more humans are named via numerals and every astrophysicist who names stars KB-989 or some such moniker has more stories to tell and I ought to pay closer attention.
But what would I know, I'm a book.
Transmission & Vectors
The breath and intent of enough gods to see the deed done.
A strong throw. You think I jest!? How else do the gods get a body into the vault of stars, while it metamorphoses into a stellar body?
Causes
Usually either deeds worthy enough to be remembered, or one heck of a 'whoops sorry about that, here' consolation prize.
Symptoms
Immortality.
The insatiable urge to shine and conflagrate in the heavens.
A certain affinity to magic.
Astral travel.
Prognosis
Turning into a star in the heavens, with a certain ability to take on a human form once in a while.
Hosts & Carriers
- Psyche Ourania-Areia
- The Pleiades
- Orion
Prevention
Be forgettable or rude.
No deity, spirit or principality will go to the trouble of transforming someone into a living star, if they're mundane or worse, a jackass.
Cultural Reception
These are the stories folk and humans remember across eons. There is a reverence to the Stellar Ascended, which is seldom found elsewhere.
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