Quietu
The Great Librarian
The role of the god Quietu is the oldest of all mortal-born deities, with their first incarnation appearing before the Elemental Four at the dawn of recorded history. In modern times, they quietly oversee the College of Whispers, hoping to make death an easy transition both for its victims and those it leaves behind.
Divine Domains
Upon first ascending, Quietu was a goddess of Death, History, and Knowledge. Since that time, the next two incarnations have also added Institutes of Learning and Foresight to the list. They have long stood for the betterment of all mortal-kind through information. They are one of the very few gods to technically operate globally. While most of their domains are centralized within the human-populated nations of Duwallen and Stirge, anyone aware of Quietu's death rites and love of knowledge can ensure that they end up within the College in the afterlife.
Tenets of Faith
In life, Quietu asks little more of a person than to learn all they can, inspire a love of learning in future generations, and wherever possible, teach what you know and how you know it. Upon death, their requirement is much simpler, but also more specific: A book must be given to the local graveyard's archives (or in cultures where these aren't a common institution, any form or library or public place of learning). Whether this book was one of the deceased being's favorites, something they wrote themselves, or simply the tale of their life; so long as it provides insight into something the person thought was of value, it will serve as the entrance fee into the College of Whispers.
Physical Description
Body Features
All three incarnations of Quietu have been humans, though the first was a Duwallish woman (long before their kind went two separate ways) and the modern one is a Stirgan man. They appear as skeletonized beings, wrapped in thick robes that appear at first to be fur-lined leather, but are in fact reams of parchment and tufts of shredded paper, all completely covered in writings of the mortal world, of all languages and forms of handwriting. Their bones are clean and bleached white, but spattered here and there with jet-black ink, particularly around the hands. Both male incarnations have also worn beards - odd as they might look on otherwise bare skulls - with the modern incarnation's being long enough to very nearly drag along the floor when he walks.
Apparel & Accessories
Quietu carries two important relics. The first is a staff composed of several lengths of bleached driftwood, lashed together with simple iron rings and joists, holding up a small cross beam from which hangs an ancient oil lantern. Every available nook and cranny of the staff is stuffed with writing quills, leaking their ink down the staff's length and across the god's bony hands. The second is a book, said to contain snippets of 'history yet to be written', as the current incarnation calls it. These are portents of the future, ever-changing and vague even in the few moments where they can hold still long enough to be read. For someone as ancient as Quietu, the similarities between the various futures its lines suggest are enough to paint a startlingly clear vision of what is to come. To most everyone else, however, a given line will only be useful until it is read, at which point the mere fact that someone knows what was to come causes the future to change.
Comments