Kruphix

God of Horizons

Kruphix is the enigmatic god of mysteries, horizons, and the passage of time. His followers claim that he knows not only everything that is known at present, but everything that has ever been known by anyone.
Quiet surrounds Kruphix like a shroud. Standing apart from the other gods, he speaks rarely, even to his most favored followers. When he does communicate, it is often as a barely audible whisper. Kruphix can speak with a booming voice directly into the minds of all the other gods simultaneously, though, doing so when something threatens the cosmic order.
Kruphix’s true form is more abstract than that of any of the other gods. He appears only in star-filled silhouette, usually as a hooded, four-armed figure of indeterminate species and gender. Two of the stars in his “body” often shine brightly, suggesting eyes. Kruphix’s starry silhouette sometimes takes the form of a bird or a whale.

Kruphix’s Influence

Kruphix holds dominion over everything unseen or unknown. He is associated with the horizon—the brink of the unknown—and with navigation. His followers include scholars, sages, and a handful of sailors who have an inclination toward the mystical.
Perfect understanding is like the horizon: easy to move toward, but impossible to reach. Kruphix knows everything that has ever been known on Theros, so he and only he decides which secrets should be loosed upon the world, and which must be kept forever hidden. He has existed since before mortals occupied Theros and numbers among the few who understand the role of mortal belief in shaping the younger gods—a concept even most gods don’t fully comprehend.
Kruphix is the only being who has the ability to seal the borders between the mortal realm and Nyx. He uses this power to safeguard the mortal world from reckless divine meddling and enforce the balance of power among the gods and their faithful.
Because of his lack of followers, many mortals consider Kruphix a minor god, even obscure. To the other gods, however, he is a force within the pantheon, worthy of both respect and wariness.

Kruphix’s Goals

More than any other god, Kruphix simply is. He seeks nothing but to oversee the acquisition of knowledge, maintain the cycles of time, and uphold the divine order. He views his fellow gods as petty and vengeful, and he opposes anyone who tries to obtain power that would upset the delicate balance of the pantheon.
Kruphix is the eldest of the gods and sees it as his responsibility to rein in the excesses of his younger siblings. Unlike Heliod, Kruphix knows that he isn’t powerful enough to impose his will unilaterally. Instead, he plays the other gods against one another and serves as a mediator in their endless disputes. He takes care to ensure that the other gods view him as impartial, which he considers essential to maintaining his authority.

Divine Relationships

Kruphix strives to hold himself above the disputes of the gods, but like any other god, he has both rivals and allies. Chief among the former is the sun god Heliod, whom Kruphix sees as an arrogant, dangerous threat to the balance of power among the gods. He seldom acts against Heliod openly, preferring to warn others about the sun god’s efforts to seize power at their expense.
Since every mortal soul must eventually pass beyond the horizon and into death, Kruphix respects both Erebos and Athreos. He sees Erebos as a necessary check on Heliod’s power, and he even allowed Athreos to continue his vital work on the fringes of the mortal world when he bound all the other gods within the fabric of Nyx. Erebos and Kruphix blame one another for Klothys's recent emergence from the Underworld, a situation neither seems able to control.
Purphoros loathes Kruphix for temporarily hobbling his mind following an attack against Heliod, but Kruphix holds no grudge against Purphoros. That particular punishment upset the balance too far in the other direction, and Kruphix is more likely to side with Purphoros than Heliod in the future.
Of all the gods, only Klothys truly concerns Kruphix. He hoped that she would remain secret and secluded in the Underworld, and he doesn’t know what her emergence portends. She is the only other god whose existence predates mortal belief, and though he is unlikely to draw her ire by manipulating destiny, he doesn’t know how her return will affect the pantheon.

Worshiping Kruphix

Many pray to Kruphix when they need to find something lost, but few dedicate themselves to his worship. Cults devoted to Kruphix fiercely guard their secrets, and their initiates refrain from drawing attention to themselves. Some followers and champions of Kruphix travel the world in secret, searching for hidden truths. Many use secret signals to enable them to find safe lodging with other worshipers nearly anywhere.
Rituals honoring Kruphix are usually performed at boundaries, both temporal and spatial: shorelines, riverbanks, equinoxes, and sunsets. One of the god’s greatest festivals is the Agrypnion (“the Watching”), which marks the end of winter and the close of the year.

Myths of Kruphix

Kruphix appears in stories in an ancillary role, often as the impartial judge who ends a conflict between gods. Initiates in Kruphix’s mystery cult know other stories in which he plays a more active role, including special versions of well-known legends, but they seldom share these tales with others.

The First Nyxborn

According to one tale, it was Kruphix, not Purphoros, who was the first to fashion living Nyxborn creatures from the fabric of Nyx. Kruphix created the divine artisan Nykthos and ordered him to build altars to the gods. Nykthos’s story isn’t widely known among mortals, but the Shrine to Nyx is still called Nykthos in his honor.

Kruphix’s Warning

When Purphoros attacked Heliod in a destructive rage, Heliod demanded that Kruphix intervene. Kruphix constrained the forge-god’s mind and memory in punishment for his attack. He warned all the gods that if they threatened the mortal realm with their disruptive quarrels, he would bind them to Nyx for as long as he saw fit. As of yet, no god has dared to test Kruphix’s threat, but there are certainly those among them who might try if they could see a way to retain their own powers.

The Silence

When the squabbling of the gods threatened the world once more despite Kruphix’s warning, he etched all their names—including his own—in the bark of his great tree at the edge of the world. Immediately, the gods’ oracles could no longer hear them, their blessings faded, and the night sky held only unmoving stars. The great Silence of the gods serves as the backdrop for numerous tales of heroism and sacrifice. Many alive today witnessed the sky go dark and the temples grow quiet. Most consider the Silence a terrible mistake that led to the rise of the usurper god Xenagos, but followers of Kruphix know that it was a grim necessity to prevent far worse calamity.

Theophilian Mysteries

Some of Kruphix’s worshipers don’t identify with their inscrutable deity, but with Theophilia, a legendary naiad who entered Nyx and whose transcendent encounter with Kruphix each initiate strives to duplicate. The naiad’s journey is celebrated in hushed chants as blindfolded initiates are led across a boundary—often stepping into a river or over a low stone wall, an act that symbolizes crossing the horizon. Then the blindfolds are removed as the faithful intone a paean to Kruphix. The hope is that Kruphix will choose to reveal himself at the climax of the ritual, whether by the appearance of some omen or in a personal epiphany. Such a revelation isn’t always positive, though, as Kruphix often imparts a glimpse of cosmic truths for which mortals have no possible context.

Kruphix’s Champions

Alignment: Usually neutral Suggested Classes: Bard, cleric, druid, monk, ranger, wizard Suggested Cleric Domains: Knowledge, Trickery Suggested Backgrounds: Hermit, outlander, sage, sailor
Most champions of Kruphix seek to learn the secrets of the universe and maintain the balance of the world. They largely view the other gods as petty and seek to separate themselves from divine squabbles.

Kruphix’s Favor

Kruphix’s champions are less his agents than his charges, and he is loath to release them. Even those who leave his service often find themselves unwittingly aiding his agenda for years to come.

Devotion to Kruphix

Kruphix doesn’t demand adherence to any philosophy, and the reasons to follow him are as numberless as the stars.

Earning and Losing Piety

You increase your piety score to Kruphix when you expand the god’s influence in the world in a concrete way through acts such as these:

• Keeping a dangerous secret despite personal cost
• Revealing a critical truth at an important moment
• Mediating a major dispute or conflict
• Aiding the weak or impeding the strong

You decrease your piety score to Kruphix if you diminish Kruphix’s influence in the world, upset the balance of power, or make him look biased or petty through acts such as these:

• Revealing a secret that should remain unknown
• Selfishly refusing to share information
• Showing favoritism toward any other god or group
• Furthering the aims of another god in defiance of Kruphix’s will

Kruphix doesn’t care about the righteousness of a cause, only about upholding impartiality in both appearance and action. This sometimes means that his followers stay out of situations that seem morally straightforward, such as refusing to help a squad of hoplites finish off a band of vicious raiders.