The Sun's Throne

I was not permitted to gaze upon the Throne for more than a minute. The priests explained that it was for my own safety, to prevent 'undesired blooming.' I can say little, besides to express my disappointment. I was promised a spectacle. The sickly thing on the Throne was little more than a macabre comedy.

— A visitor to the Sun's Throne

Far, far to the South, there is a great continent of shifting sands, vaster than any other landmass on the Pariah's Tides. On this landmass, there exists a nation by the name of Panchaea, which stretches across much of the continent's coast, and pierces deep into its heart. At the Southernmost reach of this nation, there is a temple of strange and ancient make, marble atop mud brick, architectural styles clashing and mixing. To the South of this temple, there lies a great plain of dead and twisted trees intermeshed with thorned and barbed vegetation, all clothed in black and brown. Following the parched and cracked bed of a dead river yet more Southerly, one at last reaches a great stair, steps stretching high into the sky, around which edifices of marble and brass lay corroding. At the very tip of this stair, as South as one may ever travel, one at last reaches the fabled seat; upon it sprawls a rotten thing that is not, and never has been, the Sun.

Stolen Splendor

The Sun's Throne was not always such a dismal sight. Countless ages ago, perhaps the most accurate usage of the phrase 'before the Sun set in the North,' the Throne was indeed occupied by its namesake. The Sun, the South Wind, shone its light across the Tides, and all was good. The temple was occupied by its most devoted creations, who seared its greatness into their retinas and offered it oblations as thanks for its life-giving light. The plain was rich and green, growing wild with all varieties of flora and fauna, sprung to life from the waters of the river, which flowed sweet and golden with the amber ichor of the Sun, flowing from the Throne itself. Indeed, the Sun's light shone across all the great South, and the Pariah's Tides as a whole, allowing all to grow.
Then, the Old Man kidnapped the Sun, and all was plunged into darkness. The plain withered and died, and indeed all across the Tides, without the life-giving light of the Sun, life failed. Almost all the beings that had sprung from the flesh of Dead Athanasius of their own accord starved and expired, and few besides those who had been protected by the Winds survived. The temple fell dark, the offerings rotted to dust, the candles all burnt to nothing. The river ran dry, the coagulated Sblood that remained quickly taken by scavengers. The throne was empty.

A Macabre Moon

The Sun's Throne remained Sunless for a long time, until the ambitions of the Moon's Father drove Icaria to the South. He hoped to build a new Sun, and aimed to use the Sun's former residence as its home. His people negotiated with what remained of the Panchaeans, and began to build the thing that would one day be the Stillborn Moon. Unfortunately, what was meant to be a temporary occupation extended when the Moon's Father was killed and the Moon was left unfinished, an abomination of wax and wood and feathers instead of the manmade perfection it was meant to be.
Requiring constant upkeep and Sblood in order to keep functioning, the Stillborn Moon turned the Sun's Throne from a place of worship and wonder for life and beauty given physical form to a place of eternal palliation for an ever-dying, malformed idiot-god. A new temple was built atop the old one, and the once-impressive Throne was overtaken with the edifices of industry, constantly importing corpse-wax and algum and feathers and Sblood for repairs and sustenance of the false Sun. The river once again ran, but rather than with the freely-given blood of the sun, it was with the sick effusions of the Moon, seeping into the soil and poisoning the plain with a cruel half-life. The old faith still holds on, but its grip is tenuous, and constantly plagued by the presence of the Icarians. They hold faith that one day the Sun will return from the North, and replace this diseased impostor, though that prospect seems less likely by the day.

RUINED SETTLEMENT
Postdiluvian Period

Founding Date

Antediluvian Period

Type

Outpost / Base

Population

~300

Related Materials

• Moon-Pus