The Bow of Frozen Time

Shining in daylight like silver, the bow glitters, even in absolute dark, as if it were reflecting light from some other realm. Magnificent, set with orb-like gems and formed of loops and flourishes in the light, flexible and silver-bright metal of its construction, the bow is clearly a right Royal weapon. Gaudy, even, and unmistakable on the battlefield. Whoever wields it must do so in the sight of all and hope the grandeur of their actions lives up to the opulence of their arms.

History

According to Aeth legend, the Bow of Frozen Time was the gifted weapon of a King indeed; the Tsar-Celestial, ruler of the Night Sky. In tales so strange and ancient that they seem like dreams or children’s stories, the Court of the Star-Tsar was a semidivine regency of some forgotten Realm of Esh where Aeth of great power mixed with Half-Gods, Tulpas, Lifian, Quileth, Fey, Elementals and more. Here, Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness, gifted the Star-Tsar with the Bow of Celestial Fate, and with the Arrows of the Comets Heart, (long since lost and scattered to the Waste), to aid him in his war against the Court of Ruinous Skies. Allied with Yggsrathaal in the Final War for Reality, the Court of Ruinous Skies was made up of fat, red and bloated stars, Black-Hole Elementals, Cherenkov Angels and all other foulness which bred in the black of the sky. The Tsar strung the Bow of Celestial Fate with the cord of his own soul; the silver thread which springs from the heel and ties a cosmic wanderer to their mortal form while they journey through psychotropic space. Then he took up the Bow, and his Aegis of Burning Suns and rode forth on Ooboomba, his Supernova Elephant, blasting the Court of Ruinous Skies and Yggsrathaals minions with coronal ejections from Ooboombas trunk and with the burning Arrows of the Comets Heart. All this took place long ago, the tales claim, and on a level of reality inaccessible to Somon. (Most Somon believes this to be deluded lunacy or just outright nonsense.) Of what remains of that, perhaps imaginary and symbolic war, the Shield of Burning Sun, the Arrows of the Comets Heart and Ooboomba all are lost, yet the bow remains, fallen like a star into the mortal world.

Powers

The Royal Curse The Astrolabe Bow, a timeless weapon from a finer reality, is a Royal weapon. So Royal, so Noble and so magnificent is it, that no king or Queen may see the bow handled or owned by another without being consumed by jealousy. Its majesty and glamour is so great that its existence outside their control threatens the very marrow of their identity. They will always desire to look upon it, and having seen it, will always wish to possess it. Whoever carries the Bow into a royal court must carry it shrouded and have reasons and excuses prepared as to why the ruler may not see it - excuses that are not refusals, for who would refuse a Queen? To See the Stars The most beautiful, singular, and perhaps the purest power of the Silver Bow is that whoever touches it, while they stand beneath a night sky, may see in-full an image of the stars as they appeared in Ancient Times. In modern Uud, the sky is often overcast with clouds of thick glooming ash and grey mist, and when stars do appear they are often few, distant and obscured by Yggsrathaals shimmering grey entropic veil. But the Orrery-Gems of the Silver Bow carries with them so perfect a record of the cosmos before Yggsrathaal that, it is said, they know, if not the power, to remake the night sky itself from nothing. So whomever merely touches the bow beneath a night sky may see a sky, black as a cave, spattered with great wreaths of stars like churning milk, spotted with whirling planets and interstellar cosmic gates as it was in ages past. Stopping Time The bow stops time for its wielder. There are dangerous results. As the bow is strung, an arrow nocked, and the bow itself drawn, time slows down, ultimately becoming almost completely still at the fullest draw. This alone is enough to make the wielder an extraordinarily good shot, they can take their time drawing a bead on a target, even a moving one, and are especially and unusually good at shooting into complex situations, like a melee, as they can stop and think about the developing positions of their point of aim. To anyone not holding the bow, they also seem to draw and fire incredibly quickly, doing so in pockets of time bled from the sky itself by the bows celestial power. There are great challenges for the bow’s safe use. The time drawn from the cosmos must go somewhere. By the bows intended to design this extra time is driven into the arrow nocked and from there plunges into the arrow’s target, filling the wound with Age and making each shaft a deadly entropic bomb. The arrow will itself age with this extra time. Its edge may be blunted. If the arrow is made of common or simple materials, or if the bow is kept fully drawn for too long (a feat of strength indeed) then the arrow may perish in-flight or even while drawn. If the arrow never reaches any target at all or perishes on the bow itself, the generated time will lash-back and drive itself into the body of the wielder. Their hands will wither with age, and even their body may age. If they held the bow drawn for long enough, the chronal blowback on its release could kill them with old age. These effects are usually temporary, the aging slowly passing away over minutes, hours or days, depending on the natural constitution of the wielder, but continued unskilled use can slowly add more and more extra hours to whoever shoots the Silver Bow, aging them visibly ahead of their friends and allies. Arrows Because of this, its safest and most advantageous to fire arrows made of noble materials, silver or gold, with heads of crystal or obsidian, rather than perishable steel. (These would also match the magnificence of the bow itself and please any Aeth observers). The Arrows of the Comets Heart, gifted with the bow and long since lost, were said to burn like comets themselves, their heads emitting a comet’s tail which spread outwards to the direction of flight. These arrows were said to curse and seal the fate of those they struck, either destroying them outright or caging them in a prison of circumstance and fate which could only close slowly like the workings of some great celestial clock. So did the bow earn one of its primary names. String The powers of the Bow are also said to vary according to how the bow is strung. Made for the whims of a great ruler and a noble court, the Celestial Tsar themselves would string and re-string the bow depending on their varied needs. When strung with simple cord, the bow commands its martial aspect, doing direct and obvious damage at high speed. If strung with hair, the bow is said to inspire those who look upon it, increasing the glamour and charisma of its wielder, sharpening their nobility and regality, making them seem valorous, poetic, and beautiful. If strung with pure silver, the bow is said to enter its magical aspect, able to shoot through the effects of spells. In this state the bow can even sever the soul-thread of a cosmic wanderer, separating them from their body. Though this is incredibly dangerous to do since it will not destroy the soul itself and should that immortal entity survive its body’s death, it may haunt and harry the wielder through alien dimensions. When stringing with the soul-cord of its wielder, the bow takes on its true God-Power, capable of striking and wounding entities of great power and science, even those customarily immune to the power of the mortal world. But it would take great Thaumaturgic skill to carry out such a ritual and the archer would risk, with each shot, not only their life but their very soul.

The Bows Place In Aeth Culture

The Celestial Tsar is believed (by Aeth) to have been an Aeth themselves, and their treasures and all treasures of that time are deeply embedded in the Aeth psyche and Aeth culture. When the bow has been carried in the past, it has almost always been by Aeth heroes. Aeth in general (and very conservative, high-statues, and cultured ones at least) will not be pleased to see the bow in the grimy, lumpen, sweating hands of a non-aeth. At least until they have faced the Seven Rods of Rulership to see if their soul is fine and elevated enough to wield such a weapon without besmirching it. (Not all Aeth are into this 'testing' bullshit, but the ones that are can be a problem, and until the tests are passed, some powerful and traditional Aeth will assume the right to simply take the bow from the hands of any non-Aeth. It is not theirs, they are not worthy.) The Seven Rods Of Rulership

Perception - a test of illusion and the ability to see what is real.
Decision - a 'moral maze' test
Purity - a test of temptation.
Self-Sacrifice - self-explanatory really
Glory - effectively a test of wealth and personal aesthetic.
Valour - a test of simple courage.
Leadership - a complex, and often long-term test.

The tests are absolutely not fair in any way. Glory in particular is little more than a test of wealth and is also decided by judges rather than any set criteria. The other tests can be set in any order, without telling the bearer which is which, interlaced with each other and can be hidden, paused, and then restarted on a whim. If the bearer does pass the Seven Rods (which no non-Aeth ever has), their award is a sparkling Chelengk - a clockwork rotating diamond spray that goes on your hat like a plume. Some might claim that the Chelengk of Rulership looks incredibly stupid, but no-one could possibly claim that its bearer is not NOBLE. In fact, the noblest motherfucker around...

Somon Legends Of The Bow In Blackwater Culture

(Aeth totally ignores Somon legends and claims relating to the Bow, viewing them as idiotic and deluded taproom talk.)

A shadow king of the Aeth saw the bow and lusts for it desiring only to keep it and hide it away in his shadow kingdom where it glitters in the darkness like a star.

A cult of Somon astrologers is desperate to possess the bow in order to see the stars and so divine the future of Blackwater.

One legend says the holder of the bow can summon twinned silver celestial hawks, birds whose spirits were bound into the bow at its creation, giving it a form of avian intelligence.

Another claims that whoever wields the bow may make a claim on the loyalty of any creature of the night sky. Though these are few, apart from bats.

The cursed astrolabe gems; some Sophonts claim the gems set into the bow are cursed so that, if they are stolen, they lead whoever owns them into dark and terrible fates, resulting in their inevitable return, either by chance or by the sad owner desperately trying to free themselves of the curse.

Related to this is the Tale of the Star Thieves, a group of vagabonds hired to steal the (already stolen) gems back from an innocent Princess who had been given them by an evil adviser who sought her destruction.