Amnesia Wiki:The orbs

"Mmm. It's terrible. Absolutely terrible."

This article is a draft page for the page The orbs. It will replace the information that can currently be found on that page when it is finished.

"Soon I will spill that blue water and split the egg, the atom, my soul!"

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reason: Article is rather long; perhaps the "History of the orbs" should get its own page?

Orb
An orb being held with one hand
Inventory icon(s)
General information
Properties	Allows for instantaneous travel across great distances and across worlds Summons The Shadow, if not properly handled Various mental effects
Other names	Peculiar relic (Daniel) Stone egg (Edwin & Enoch; Oswald Mandus) Sphere (Various)
Created by	Unknown
Amount	Many are known to have have existed on Earth throughout history, but only four individual orbs can be confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt. In the Other World, at least seven can be confirmed to have existed.
Game information
Type	Puzzle item
Inventory description	The Dark Descent: Its texture and color are constantly changing. Rebirth: A strange orb, found in an old laboratory.
Usage	The Dark Descent: Used to assemble an orb, allowing entrance to the Inner Sanctum. Rebirth: Used to open up portals on several occasions.
Appearances
The Dark Descent	Tomb of Tin Hinan Choir – Main Hall (Three pieces) Transept (Three pieces) Chancel
A Mach-ine for Pigs	Mentioned
Rebirth	The Laboratory (Found) The Chamber of Pillars (Last used)
Justine	Mentioned
Remem-ber stories	With the Blessing of a King

“

It was waiting for me. Enclosed in dark nothingness, I felt myself drawn to the mystic light.

”

Daniel, in his diary^[src]

The orbs are a collection of powerful, esoteric artefacts of unknown origin that may be to teleport across great distances, including between worlds; but are also known to cause great disturbances in the minds of their holders.

One of the most remarkable features of the orbs is that their handling may summon an invisible eldritch entity referred to as the Shadow to hunt down and retrieve the orb, often resulting in the death of the wielder along with anyone they've come into contact with since first getting their hands on it. Though this creature can't be spotted with the naked eye, it can make its presence known through a red, pulsating fleshy substance it leaves behind on surfaces. Once the Shadow catches up to the orb, the artefact tends to return to its original location.

It is unknown who originally created the orbs, or if they even had a creator in the first place; but their existence has been known to the people of Earth since at least the 1st century CE, when the Roman mystery religion Mithraism was founded. The followers of Mithras were the first people on Earth to have been known to successfully harness the power of the orbs, and they created large underground temples known as Mithraea all around the world to hold the mysterious artefacts.

Orbs are also known to have been present in the Other World since at least the death of Empress Atua. They were extensively studied by lead alchemist Temaku and his apprentices, and the Otherworlders eventually learned to manipulate orbs without invoking the Shadow.

Properties

Appearance

“

He tried to fit the pieces together, but like the sand dunes, they shifted when you weren't looking.

”

Loading screen, The Dark Descent

The physical properties of orbs are known to be fickle and ever-changing; with even pieces of a shattered orb appearing to possess paradoxical, contrasting properties – such as a simultaneously smooth and jagged texture, and colours appearing simultaneously washed and rich. Prussian occultist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa described the orb he encountered as an "[...] impossibility, an artificial paradox captured within stone". They appear to be made out of a crystalline material; and though they are known to possess colour-shifting properties, they are usually depicted and described as being light blue or translucent.

The sizes of known orbs range from small enough to be comfortably held with one hand, to large enough to fill both of one adult male's cupped hands. While still in its place in a Mithraeum, an orb may emit a high-pitched ringing noise and give off a brilliant blue light, with this luminescance possibly being responsible for their common portrayal as light blue. These effects seemingly die down after the artefact is removed from the temple.

Besides these alleged properties, little is known of any other aspect of the orbs. Oswald Mandus claimed to be able to "smell" the orb or its effects, but this was most likely a figurative "smelling," based on the context. No one else has claimed that the orb has any smell or described a smell associated with an orb.

Opening portals

“

Remember Temaku's lessons, Mihara. Master the orb. It is your focus and discipline that will open the portal and allow objects to be sent through.

”

Note from Kita, Rebirth

Utilised correctly, in combination with the right equipment, an orb may be used to open up "portals" or "gates", allowing the user instantaneous interdimensional travel between predetermined locations, functioning similarly to a Traveller's amulet. However, since an orb doesn't need to rely on pre-existing rifts when opening up a gates between worlds, they are much more stable and do not cause distortions in the flow of time. Thus, they are a lot safer to use, as the main drawbacks of travel using an amulet (namely the risk of either "slow teleportation", where great amounts of time pass in the outside world after stepping through the rift; or instantaneous aging, where the traveller's body ends up aged significantly after travel) are circumvented.

Opening up a portal does however require extensive setup beforehand in order to attune the orb properly to its associated star (unless this star already happens to be aligned). Machinery needs to be constructed to facilitate this, and further machinery needs to be set up in order to channel the orb's powers into the space where the user wishes the portal to form. All this machinery needs to be regularly maintained and fuelled by sufficiently large amounts of vitae.

Shattering and mending

Agrippa's orb, which was later broken by Alexander and reassembled by Daniel.

“

The pieces wouldn't fit together, as if they weren't from the same object. Could I have imagined it all? Was there ever a complete orb?

”

Daniel's diary, 22 June 1839

The orbs, fickle and fragile artefacts as they are, are prone to shattering or disintegrating if handled improperly, resulting in orbs having become more and more rare as time goes on. In order to handle an orb without risking its destruction, the user needs sufficient expertise in the mythic arts, as even making physical contact with one might cause it to break or consume itself otherwise.

In 1799 CE, Alexander of Brennenburg attempted to use an orb to open up a portal from his base in Brennenburg Castle to the Other World, causing it to break into six pieces, rendering it unusable for the creation of portals. Similarly in 1839, British explorer and archaeologist Daniel discovered an orb in the Tomb of Tin Hinan, which shattered upon touch.

What is remarkable about this latter situation, however, is that Daniel managed to repair the orb after returning to England, something thought impossible due to the ever-changing nature of the orb pieces. He would later go on to repeat this feat during his stay at Brennenburg Castle, restoring the orb Alexander had shattered 40 years earlier, and proving that the first instance wasn't a fluke. Both times he used tar as an adhesive to hold the shards together. This adhesive then apparently ends up being pushed out, as the pieces seemingly merge together on their own when assembled properly.

The orb's shadow

Main article: The Shadow

“

The shadow is a sluggish thing lagging behind the wielder, killing anyone or anything in its path to reclaim the Orb.

”

Daniel's diary, 4 August 1839

The orbs are mysteriously safeguarded by an ethereal warden, which is usually referred to as the orb's Shadow, or more simply, The Shadow. This imperceptible entity may end up summoned if an orb is moved or otherwise mishandled by an inexperienced wielder. If summoned, it will follow in the wake of the person who carries the orb, commonly resulting in their death as well as the death of anyone who they've come into contact with since obtaining the orb.

Just as with the orbs, there is no information on the origin of the Shadow or why it safeguards the orbs. It takes no physical form and doesn't appear to be able to communicate, but it reveals its presence by the pulsating red organic tissue it leaves behind on surfaces, as well as the deafening roar that often accompanies the spawning of this tissue.

While it is not known if the Shadow is a conscious being or not, it appears highly driven and will usually stop at nothing to reclaim a stolen orb. However, even though it does not abstain from brutally slaughtering whatever crosses its path – be it human, animal, beast, ghoul, or inhabitant of the other world – it does not always kill everyone who steals an orb, even if it catches up to them. For instance, after Agrippa discovered an orb in Prussia in 1525, after catching up to him the Shadow merely transported Agrippa several hundred miles, depositing him in a grassy field outside of Genoa, far away from the temple and without the orb in hand.

The followers of the Mithraic faith were the first on Earth to discover how to unshackle the power of the orbs from their Shadow, and after the fall of the faith, the Dutch occultist Johann Weyer was the first to figure out how to properly handle an orb without invoking its Shadow. The alchemists of the other world's Empire had also discovered how to unlock the power of the orbs without invoking the Shadow, a knowledge that Alexander of Brennenburg brought with him for his exile on Earth, and which eventually brought him into contact with both Weyer and his mentor Agrippa.

It is not known whether all orbs are guarded by the same Shadow or each has their own Shadow. Nevertheless, the results of mishandling any orb are expected to be more or less the same – a painful, gruesome death – and avoiding it is the result of either a person's own occult expertise in orb-handling, or else, a miracle.

Effects on psyche

“

As I write, my thoughts are drawn to my nightmares, in which a most disturbing sound calls to me. A sound defying description, a voice from the void. The last few weeks have been awful, with so many sleepless nights, dreading a repeat of those horrid dreams.

”

Daniel's diary, 14 July 1839

The orbs are known to have debilitating mental effects in the minds of some of their carriers. These take the form of disturbing nightmares and visions, causing insomnia and paranoia; or powerful feelings of anger and hatred, which are known to have influenced wielders into committing unjustified acts of violence.

Even the broken pieces of an orb can be quite powerful– in the words of Cornelius Agrippa, they "practically leak madness [...]" and Baron Alexander of Brennenburg came to repurpose a set of pieces of a broken orb for torture of human victims in his attempts to gather vitae.

Soapstones

Main article: Soapstone

“

–– The star-shaped soapstone stained by his blood, fell to the floor with a sonorous thud. Blame me not, for I was but a child; with careful ambition, I dared a smile. Rest in peace, papa.

”

Justine, phonograph recording

Weyer's map, with the star symbol clearly visible in the lower right corner.

Due to their connection with the stars, the symbol of a star has come to be closely associated with the orbs, and is therefore commonly found in areas or objects pertaining to the orbs. One of the most notable instances of the use of the star symbol is in the soapstones, which are relics that are some times found at the entrances to Mithrae.

At least two of these stones are known to exist: one of them was removed from the entrance to a Mithraeum underneath an old church in Calais by Sokal, a French soldier, in 1558 CE. This stone was handed down through the centuries until it ended up with Captain Ambroise, a French officer, who then passed the stone on to Thurston Herbert while stationed in Algiers in 1839, after seeing a drawing of the stone on a map belonging to the historian. This aforementioned map would guide the reader to the Tomb of Tin Hinan, and was itself created by Johann Weyer—the same Dutch occultist who Sokal and his two squadmates had escorted to the underground temple in Calais in 1558.

The second soapstone was in possession of French physician Monsieur Florbelle, and the very same stone was used by his daughter Justine to kill him in February of 1839 CE. His gravestone can be found in the Crypt underneath his house, and the stone itself is at the base of his tombstone.

Curiously, the strange soapstone appear to have various mental effects on the people that hold them. According to Captain Ambroise, the stone handed down from Sokal had "[...] fueled the men in his family with great spirit, but also madness" and "inspiration to the point of obsession." This reflects with the case of Justine, whose father, in possession of the stone, became obsessed studying her mental condition.

History

Origin

“

Moving that orb was like pushing a star in the night sky. It wasn't supposed to happen. The Shadow isn't some vengeful spirit, it is the universe catching up with itself.

”

Loading screen, The Dark Descent

It is not known whether the orbs came into existence as the results of natural processes; or if they were created, and if so, by whom and for what purpose. However, since well before the Common Era, the orbs are known to have been present both on Earth and in the Other World.

A clue to the origins of the orbs may be in their association with the heavenly bodies. Indeed, the followers of the mystery religion Mithraism—popular among the Imperial Roman army from about the 1st to the 4th century CE—knew about their connection to the stars, and constructed great underground temples known as Mithrae (singular Mithraeum) to house the orbs. According to Agrippa, the followers liked to imagine the dark walls of the cavern to be the dark night sky, and the orbs to be stars themselves, which "[...] allow[ed] them a real sense of connection to creation", suggesting that the orbs might have existed since the birth of the universe itself.

Their connection to the stars were further cemented by Agrippa's disciple during the 16th century CE, Dutch occultist and physician Johann Weyer, who had figured out how to properly wield the orbs and later went on to gather a whole collection of orbs. As retold by British archaeologist Thurston Herbert, Weyer had written a treatise on the orbs, which mention that an orb could be used to open a rift, as long as the orb is aligned properly with its star.

Other World

At least seven orbs have been mentioned in historical connection with the Other World.

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Classical era

The orbs were known to mankind at least as long ago as Classical Antiquity, and were most likely encountered even earlier. Around the Mediterranean and in parts of Europe, the Romans encountered the orbs, coinciding with the popularisation of mystery religions, thought to have been imported from the Persians and popularized among the ranks of the Roman military. The Mithraic religion in particular, also known as "Mithraism" or the "Cult of Mithras," celebrated and worshiped using the orbs in special underground temples known as a "Mithraeum" (plural Mithraea). Sometimes the Mithraeum could be as simple as a few rough-hewn chambers in a small cave; sometimes they could be elaborately carved and decorated subterranean temples rivaling their aboveground Roman counterparts. Supposedly, the Mithraeum represented the Universe, and the orbs were the centre-piece, implying some kind of creative, or at least affective, power thereover belonged to those orbs.

The Cult of Mithras was popular, though not dominant, among the Romans roughly from the 1st to the 4th century CE. The Mithraic religion was then suppressed by the largely Christianized empire and thereafter died out as a religion, many of their mithraea left still occupied, and most likely defended, by the orbs.

A globus cruciger, as one medieval symbol of regal authority both spiritual and temporal.

Across the latter Roman (then Byzantine) Empire and their European successors, the Globus Cruciger (Latin for "cross-bearing sphere") was a common medieval symbol of power and authority. The Globus was a common symbol of the universe by the time of the Romans. Meanwhile, the Globus Cruciger was depicted in contemporary art as held by saints, by priests, by angels, by kings, or by Jesus Christ, the message being that this person had incredible power over the entire universe, as it fit into the palm of their hand. Though the origins of the use of the orb in particular as a symbol of the entire universe were lost to the obscurities of time—and may have had its analogies with more ordinary spherical symbols of power, such as the Sun, the Moon, or the Earth itself—even the Medieval Christian world saw fit to proclaim its own power by adding the cross to the globe, showing (in their eyes) the dominance of their God over the orb of the universe.

Later, the Tuareg people of the Saharan desert and the Sahel region, related to the Berbers, attributed their mythical founding to one leader, a woman of great stature and power known as "Tin Hinan," in the 3rd century CE. Unusually for a culture in the region, the Tuareg are matrilineal, a cultural fact doubtlessly reinforced by their founding myth. Some number of the Tuareg worshipped and obeyed the commands of a living being they referred to as Tin Hinan, who was in fact the Otherworldly Empress Tihana, projecting herself in a ghostly form more sensible to human minds.

One Tuareg site home to an orb, situated in its underground chamber, contained evidence of Roman hands in its deeper construction, such as columns and other typically Roman architectural features, though it also contained elements of traditional Tuareg tombs and of some strange alien style; this Tuareg site was later uncovered by archeologists and discovered to be the Tomb of Tin Hinan. Though abandoned, it too was clearly a site used by humans for religious purposes, as its features conformed to those found in European mithraea. Other sites known to the Tuareg may have existed or not, but in any case the Tomb of Tin Hinan eventually lost its status as a functional center of worship for the Tuareg, save for the few worshippers of a related tribe, the Kel Hanan, still paying homage to the mythical Great Queen—though possibly not the same "Great Queen" as the other Tuareg, as Professor Herbert would later speculate. This most likely occurred with the medieval arrival of Islam to the area in the 7th century CE, under the Umayyad Caliphate.

14th-16th centuries

The exact dates of when any particular orb site became defunct are not known. Each had apparently fallen into ruin by the late Middle Ages and its observers dispersed, apparently owing to the spreading influence of, and persecution by, the dominant monotheistic religions of Christianity and Islam.

The revival of interest in the occult and mystical across Europe that occurred in the late Medieval and early Modern period coincided with revivals in art, scholarship, and history there, popularly known as "the Renaissance." Contemporary studies of the Greek mystical Hermeticism of Late Antiquity, the Jewish mystical Kabbalah tradition, Christian demonology and angelology, the Iranian religion of Zoarastrianism, pagan mythology, and European folklore in general were treated with excessive interest, if not universally with respect, during this time, coinciding with waves of witch trials.

One of the great popularizers of esoterism in this era was Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, who discovered an orb during his travels around northern Europe early in the 16th century CE, in an underground edifice in the woods of Prussia. A mystic himself, Agrippa was possibly the first human to lay his hands on an orb in centuries, perhaps even the first human to encounter one in as long, as by that point, many mithraea had been subject to plunder.

Only Alexander of Brennenburg was known to have had similar contact at around the same time, most likely the same orb as Agrippa. After Agrippa's encounter with the orb, Alexander was the one who managed to retrieve it and take it to his castle at Brennenburg, where it would remain. It is at some point after this juncture—more than a decade, since Agrippa, traumatized from his encounter with the Shadow, could not even communicate about his experience with Johann Weyer, his pupil and confidant—that the two began co-operating on seeking and researching the orbs, in order to use them to open a portal and travel through to worlds beyond.

Agrippa's pupil, Johann Weyer, was deeply interested in the orbs and followed his master's teaching (in fact, he greatly surpassed him) in the esoteric arts of finding and of controlling orbs. By the end of his time on Earth, Weyer had collected numerous orbs from abandoned cavern-temples across Europe—including that of one beneath a Norman church, at Calais. He used those orbs to travel across worlds freely, so well had he mastered their use.

Meanwhile, the Mesoamerican culture commonly known as the "Aztecs" encountered the mystic orbs and placed at least one in a great jungle temple, called the Temple of the Stone Moon, indicating a similar relationship, that of reverence and worship, with the artefacts, though their version of the religion included periodic human sacrifice. The Aztecs especially celebrated the postponement of the end of the world, for another "fifty-two years," in the so-called New Fire ceremony, during which the old was thrown out, the new was brought in, humans were sacrificed, and bonfires were lit to inaugurate the renewal of the cycle. The Aztec culture and empire reached its zenith roughly between 1300 BCE and 1500 CE, after which it was destroyed by the arrival of Europeans to Mesoamerica in 1519 CE, specifically by conquest of a Spanish expedition under Hernan Cortes.

17th and 18th centuries

Alexander's Orb Chamber underneath Brennenburg.

Around 1704 CE, Alexander, who was eager to return to his Otherworldly home, meanwhile grew frustrated with the slowness of his own pace and the limitations of keeping his operations secret from human authorities. In his haste, he broke the only orb to which he had access. This event stymied his progress for a long time, as he was unable to mend the orb and had no replacements.

Alexander then, at some point, preserved the aging Agrippa in an immortal kind of husk-like state, so that he could have access to his colleague's expertise for future research. He also did this as a hedge against Weyer, who had used his own orbs and travelled to the Other World in spite of Alexander's wishes, and who insisted that Agrippa be freed from his imprisonment before Alexander could be helped. However, so long as Alexander did not have an orb and knew not where to obtain a new one, he was unable to pursue his goal of returning home. Nevertheless, Alexander made some preparations for complying with Weyer's demand, and Weyer for his part somehow supplied the Baron with a Kaernk, a creature whose secretions were necessary as an ingredient for the tonic that would release Agrippa from his suspended state of life.

Early 19th century

By the 19th century CE, the orbs had fallen almost completely into obscurity. Only a select number remembered their existence, let alone knew anything concrete about them. Besides Alexander of Brennenburg, the immobilized Agrippa, and the transcended Weyer, one other apparently came to know something of the orbs, an English professor of archaeology named Thurston Aloysius Herbert. Herbert communicated with eminent researchers and learned men, including Alexander. It is not known what they might have discussed, but Herbert acquired access to Weyer's notes somehow, possibly through the provision of the Baron Alexander.

At some point during his tenure at the University of Cambridge, Herbert gathered enough information to conclude the likely location of the ancient Tomb of Tin Hinan, where an orb might be found. He apparently convinced the "British Museum" in London of the importance of this site, since they "signed and paid for" an expedition to Algeria to find and excavate the Tomb. His passport to the French-controlled Algeria was provided by the influence of his colleague, psychologist Monsieur Florbelle, sometime before the 2nd of February, 1839. His research assistant Daniel accompanied him there.

Once in the city of Algiers, Herbert retrieved a map of the area near the prospective site of the Tomb, provided by a local friend, Faraj. After leaving the city for the desert, the two traveled south with a number of local laboring assistants, including men named Abdullah and Khaled as well as a boy named Rashid.

When they located the Tomb, Daniel observed that the slab used on the entrance to seemed "like a safety measure," as though the heaviness or thickness indicated how impractical it would have been to moved even once more, let alone repeatedly.

An orb, floating in the ruins.

During the excavation of the ancient Tomb's burial chamber, on the 17th of May, Daniel became trapped by himself in thhe orb chamber and encountered an active, whole orb there. Entranced and without any sense of time, he picked it up and accidentally dropped it, breaking it into pieces, thereafter passing out; he was rescued by Herbert's team shortly thereafter. Herbert, frustrated with Daniel's apparent incompetence, sent him back to England, via Algiers, in order to recover and to remove him from interfering any further with the excavation.

Daniel left Algiers after three days of waiting on a sailing ship to Gibraltar, a British colony, and thereafter to London aboard the SS Hortensia, taking the orb pieces with him. The SS Hortensia took him to London, passing Portugal, where he suffered an accident by somehow falling into the Atlantic Ocean, but was fortunately hoisted out.

The orb shards, “leaking madness,” likely influenced Daniel’s unwaking actions as well as his dreams.

Daniel researched the orbs.

Late 19th century

Brennenburg excavated, orb sent to Oswald Mandus

The orbs within the machine.

20th century and crash of the Cassandra

Tasi's orb

Even as late as the French conquest and occupation of the nearest fortresses, the Kel Hanan still reportedly worshipped and allegedly sacrificed French soldiers. However, given the description provided by Sergeant Fournier in his note of two "skinned" and tortured soldiers left to die in the desert, in all likelihood the culprits were not the Kel Hanan, but rather Ghouls.

Usage by Main Characters

An orb may give people who can control its power over the Shadow, though their experiences vary. Agrippa, Daniel, Weyer, and Mandus did not die after recovering their respective orbs, and likewise, Alexander was able to handle orbs to a certain extent without invoking the Shadow's punishment.

Daniel

When Daniel touched the orb in Algeria, he saw visions of an alien world and seemingly kept him alive while entombed for over an hour. After Daniel touched the orb, it shattered, the pieces somewhat inert but disturbing him by their continual physical morphing.

Additionally, contact with the orb, or perhaps the influence of its pursuing Shadow, seemed to give him persistent nightmares that plagued Daniel, from Algeria to London to Brennenburg. Dreading these recurring nightmares caused him to suffer severe insomnia, to the point where he visited Doctor Tate for the express purpose of obtaining sedatives. A disturbing sound, which Daniel characterizes as "defying description" and a "voice from the void," recur within the dreams. After one "exhausting" nightmare, Daniel awoke and reassembled the shattered orb perfectly, after trying and failing to do so for roughly 10 days. Daniel admitted he had no explanation for how he finally came to understand the method of reassembly, only saying that he knew "somehow," leaving open the possibility of supernatural influence towards this knowledge.

Oswald Mandus

When Oswald Mandus touched the orb in Mexico, he received visions of the future, especially of events in the approaching 20th century. Besides a few specific horrors, what exactly the orb showed him, in what sequence and to what extent, is ambiguous. It may have either primarily showed the most horrific acts of the future—such as the brutal deaths of Enoch and Edwin Mandus as young adults fighting in the First World War—or showed him a wide variety of future events, but with Mandus only remembering the most profoundly terrible. Either way, the scenes of future atrocities from the orb affected his mind and personality severely, since those were the visions that drove him to murder his sons as a kind of euthanasia. Likewise, these visions were what drove Mandus to create the Machine as a sordid solution to the even more sordid future he foresaw.

Continued exposure to or use of the orb by Mandus, added to the stress of a serious, fevered infection he caught in while in Mexico, may also have contributed to the fracturing of his mind and personality, creating the alternate self, the Engineer. Whether it was the orb or infection which actually created this separate personality in Mandus, and whether it simply fomented his individuation and separation from Mandus's whole self, are unclear.

Tasi Trianon

For unknown reasons, nothing happened immediately to Tasi Trianon while she was touching the orb. Because she was unaffected, she was able to carry the orb to different locations, though pursued by the Shadow all the while. When she placed it in the portals of the Alchemist's Chambers and the Portal Chamber, she saw images of distant places like the village near Al-Mamaru Fort and Paris.

Known orbs

According to Agrippa, there were very few orbs left on Earth by the time of The Dark Descent, as many had been lost, broken, or collected by the occultist Johann Weyer, who had become quite expert at both finding and controlling them. In the Amnesia series, however, at least six orbs can be identified based on the direct interactions of named characters. It is unknown whether any of these orbs are in fact the same orb, but it is easy to conclude that all six cannot be the same single orb (as two individual orbs make appearances in The Dark Descent, as well as an additional orb found in an undisturbed temple and two more in the Other World in A Machine for Pigs and Rebirth, respectively).

Prussian orb

This orb was first discovered by Agrippa in a hidden Mithraic temple in the Prussian woods near Altstadt, in or around 1525 CE. It was quickly retrieved by the Shadow after he tried to escape the temple with it, and remained there until the late 1500's, when it was rediscovered by baron Alexander of Brennenburg. It was shattered in the early 1700's when the baron unsuccessfully attempted to use it to open up a gateway to the Other World, but he later came to use the shattered pieces for torture of prisoners.

The orb was reassembled by Daniel in 1839, and subsequently evaporated after it was used to gain access to Alexander's Inner Sanctum, which at the time was protected by the Libra orb.

Tin Hinan tomb orb (the Libra orb)

The Libra orb was first discovered by Daniel in the Tomb of Tin Hinan during an excursion in 1839. His interaction with the orb caused it to shatter, but he was later able to mend it after travelling back to England. At the behest of Alexander of Brennenburg, he then brought the orb to Brennenburg Castle in Prussia, where Alexander came to use it in an attempt to open up a gateway to the Other World.

The orb came to be known as the Libra orb between the years 1854 and 1856, during a joint effort between the Olde England Historical Society and the University of Königsberg to excavate the Brennenburg castle ruins. The orb was rediscovered and retrieved from the ruins, and subsequently became the subject of a legal battle between the Prussian state and the OEH Society, the result of which is unclear.

Algerian salt mine orb

Another orb was found and retrieved by professor Thurston Herbert at a shrine in some nearby salt mines, during the same 1839 archaelogical excursion to the Tomb of Tin Hinan that produced the Libra orb. At an attempt to evade the Shadow, the professor used this orb along with vitae to open up a gateway to the Other World, where he ended up trapped and subsequently died.

The orb was presumably retrieved by the Shadow after this.

Calais church orb

The first of many orbs that would come to end up in the posession of Johann Weyer, this orb was discovered in 1558 in an underground mithraeum accessible through a church crypt in Calais, France. It was found by Weyer and retrieved with the help of three French soldiers, two of which would come to be slain by the Shadow after one of them grabs the orb.

Weyer, along with another soldier by the name of Sokal, would end up escaping the crypt with the orb intact. It can be presumed it later ended up among his large collection of orbs.

Aztec "stone egg"

This "stone egg", presumed to be an orb, was discovered in 1899 by British industrialist Oswald Mandus in the Temple of the Stone Moon, in the jungles of previously-Aztec Mexico.

Curiously, exposure to the orb didn't summon the Shadow; but instead caused Mandus to experience visions of the future, resulting in severe mental trauma in Mandus, who responded by killing his two sons in an attempt to "spare them the horrors of the coming century". He subsequently brought the stone egg back to London, where his condition continued to grow worse.

The status and location of this orb is unknown. Mandus at one point mentions in his diary that he has an "egg [he's] laid [himself]" on a mantelpiece beneath his garden, which would suggest it's located somewhere within his compound.

Trivia

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