The Speculation

Or the Bleeding Serpent to some

The Muse of Spies and Bureaucrats

Divine Domains

The Speculation, or Bleeding Serpent to some, is an embodiment of all things suspicious, classified, paranoid, and possible. They’re that stranger that dresses in dark clothes and drives a plain van, the locked filling cabinet of a government minister, and the nigh-impossible plans of every nuclear-toting dictator.

Artifacts

The Speculation usually manifests its Vectors in mundane things that can be linked to the government or to journalists, the former because it usually originates there, and the latter because they spread it. Documents, physical photographs, encoded files, notes from private meetings, and even simple pens can be connected to Speculation. These usually get spread by word of mouth to various pieces of journalistic equipment, including microphones (handheld, boom, ear-wire-with-finicky-tape, lapel, those really skinny ones, etc.), cameras, TelePrompters [see the case of Red Star Eagle and the CamelCipher {yes I swear that’s right}], and satellite dishes [see the case of Red Star Eagle and the Dragon in the Stars {poor jack can’t catch a break}]. Among the most famous of these vectors is the Dripping Boom-Mic of New York. Created unintentionally by the joint actions of Robyn ‘Freeze-Frame’ and Harry ‘Boom-Stick’ across three Layers of the Earth. It constantly drips pure black printer ink, and compatible implements filled with this ink always print or write conspiracy theories, bureaucratic documents, or forged signatures.
Occasionally, the Speculation can create digital Vectors. It is one of the few Eras to definitively do so; Splendor, Contradiction, Wanderlust, and Fluctuation have been recorded doing so as well.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

The Speculation is most often connected to serpents, tentacles, locks & keys, stars, the moon (specifically a crescent moon), dark liquids, eyes, mouths, and generic ‘Lovecraft Eldritch’ imagery. There is a significant overlap between imagery associated with the Speculation and that associated with the Mimic; specifically, eyes, mouths, and liquids. This suggests a possible deeper connection between the two; both are associated with being ‘watched’, but in a different way than the Songbird, as well as being unaware.

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

The Speculation, or Bleeding Serpent to some, is usually described as a Quetzalcoatl-looking thing with fangs in a mouth bolted shut with a manacle, tentacles ‘just everywhere there is a hole’, two to six wings, six to sixteen insect-like legs towards the tail, and a tail that ends in a ‘gaping whirlpool or black hole or something that has a big ol’ eye in the centre’. They usually also have a gaping chest wound, from which pours ‘a darkness, or perhaps a color unlike any seen on earth, with few stars among more eyes, and claws, and teeth, and tentacles, and a moon that was bleeding and also alive’. Additional features sometimes or sometimes not mentioned are pyramids along their back with eyes on, illegible documents being sucked into the previously mentioned ‘gaping whirlpool’, carvings that resemble the symbols for biohazard and radioactivity, and having pupils in the shape of crescent moons. The last one may be a recent development related to the hit podcast Welcome to Night Vale, which features several conspiracy theories as truth.

Divine Classification

Era of the Earth, New Guard

Religions

• The Great Church of the Serpents

Age

The idea was around for as long as paranoia was, but it coalesced during the Cold War

Gender

Usually referred to ambiguously, but no-one’s asked yet

Eyes

Numerous and varied, though most are reptilian or feline

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Mostly greenish snake skin, black and white feathers, some insect exoskeleton, and lots of tentacles