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Opening up a portal does, however, require extensive setup beforehand in order to attune the orb to its associated star, unless this star already happens to be aligned properly for travel to be possible.<ref>''Rebirth'' – [[Notes (Rebirth)#Explorer's Note (4)|Explorer's note]]</ref> The orb also requires a space where a portal can form after activation, and the machinery needs to be fuelled by sufficient amounts of [[vitae]].<ref>''Rebirth'' — [[Notes (Rebirth)#Leyden Jar Note|Leyden Jar Note]]</ref> |
Opening up a portal does, however, require extensive setup beforehand in order to attune the orb to its associated star, unless this star already happens to be aligned properly for travel to be possible.<ref>''Rebirth'' – [[Notes (Rebirth)#Explorer's Note (4)|Explorer's note]]</ref> The orb also requires a space where a portal can form after activation, and the machinery needs to be fuelled by sufficient amounts of [[vitae]].<ref>''Rebirth'' — [[Notes (Rebirth)#Leyden Jar Note|Leyden Jar Note]]</ref> |
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=== Shattering and mending === |
=== Shattering and mending === |
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<!--If someone is uninitiated in using the Orbs or inexperienced in the mystic arts, the Orb will either evaporate away to nothing or, far more likely, shatter.<ref name="The Orbs Agrippa Dialogue 2a" /> The shards or pieces of a broken Orb will behave very strangely.{{Cite}} They change color, shape and texture, but ever so slightly.{{Cite}} Orb shards bleed madness and can be used as instruments of torture in and of themselves.{{Cite}} |
<!--If someone is uninitiated in using the Orbs or inexperienced in the mystic arts, the Orb will either evaporate away to nothing or, far more likely, shatter.<ref name="The Orbs Agrippa Dialogue 2a" /> The shards or pieces of a broken Orb will behave very strangely.{{Cite}} They change color, shape and texture, but ever so slightly.{{Cite}} Orb shards bleed madness and can be used as instruments of torture in and of themselves.{{Cite}} |
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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{{em}}a painful, gruesome death{{em}}and avoiding it is the result of either a person's own occult expertise in Orb-handling or else a miracle.<ref name="Letter Regarding the Discovery of an Orb" /><ref name="The Orbs Agrippa Dialogue 2b" /> |
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{{em}}a painful, gruesome death{{em}}and avoiding it is the result of either a person's own occult expertise in Orb-handling or else a miracle.<ref name="Letter Regarding the Discovery of an Orb" /><ref name="The Orbs Agrippa Dialogue 2b" /> |
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== History == |
== History == |
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Revision as of 14:33, 25 November 2021
The orbs are a collection of powerful, esoteric artefacts of unknown origin that, when utilized correctly, may grant the wielder the ability to cross great distances instantaneously, including between worlds;[2] but also may cause madness in the mind of its holder.[3] Improper handling of an orb may cause it to fall to pieces,[4] but may also summon an eldritch entity referred to as the Shadow to hunt down and often kill its wielder, along with anyone they've interacted with since first coming into contact with the orb.[5]
The Shadow is a mystical and not very well-understood entity, invisible to the naked eye and only making its presence known through the red, pulsating fleshy substance it leaves behind on surfaces.[6] Once the Shadow catches up to the orb, the artefact returns to its original location.[4]
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 known people to harness the power of the orbs, and they created large underground temples, known as Mithraea, all around the world to hold the mysterious artefacts.[4]
The Orbs are also known to have been present in the Other World since at least the death of Empress Atua.[7] They were extensively studied by lead alchemist Temaku and his apprentices, and the Otherworlders eventually learned to manipulate the orbs without invoking the Shadow.[6]
Appearance
“He tried to fit the pieces together, but like the sand dunes, they shifted when you weren't looking.
”
The physical properties of an orb is known to be fickle and ever-changing; with even pieces of an orb appearing to possess paradoxical, contrasting properties – such as a simultaneously smooth and jagged texture, and its colours appearing both washed and rich.[8] Prussian occultist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa describe the orb he encountered in the Prussian woods during the beginning of the 16th century as an "[...] impossibility, an artificial paradox captured within stone".[9] The physical material the orbs are made out of appear to be some form of crystal.[10][11]
The known orbs range in size from small enough to be comfortably held with one hand, to large enough to fill both hands while cupped. While still in its place in a Mithraeum, an orb may give off a brilliant blue light and emit a high-pitched ringing noise. These effects seemingly die down after the artefact is removed from the temple.[9][12][1]
Origin
- Main article: Star-shaped soap stone
Properties
Portals
The main usage of the orbs is as an instrument of instantaneous long-distance travel. Proper usage of an orb may, with the proper equipment, allow the user to travel across great distances and even between worlds, similar to a Traveller's amulet.[13] However, an orb doesn't rely on the opening up of pre-existing rifts to allow for interdimensional travel, but instead allows travel to occur freely to any previously specified location by the opening up of a so-called "gate" or "portal", which essentially functions like a rift, as long as another gate is created at the position the wielder wishes to travel to.[2]
Travelling using portals instead of rifts appears significantly more stable, as it does not seem to cause the flow of time to become as distorted around the junctions between worlds, circumventing the main drawbacks of travel using rifts: the risk that, while appearing instant to the traveller, exiting out of the rift may have unwittingly caused significant periods of time to have occurred in the outside world, or have caused significant aging to the body of the user.[14]
Opening up a portal does, however, require extensive setup beforehand in order to attune the orb to its associated star, unless this star already happens to be aligned properly for travel to be possible.[15] The orb also requires a space where a portal can form after activation, and the machinery needs to be fuelled by sufficient amounts of vitae.[16]
Shattering and mending
The Shadow
- Main article: The Shadow
The Orbs are mysteriously safeguarded by an ethereal warden, known as the Orb's "Shadow".[17] When the Orbs are removed from their proper receptacles, their powers misused, or are otherwise mishandled by an inexperienced wielder, this guardian follows in the wake of the one who moved or abused them.[17] While slow, the Shadow is indomitable and rifts a path of destruction through anything and anyone who comes in contact with the mishandled Orb, and especially the one who mishandled it.[17]
The alchemists of the otherworld's Empire had discovered some way to handle the Orbs and unlock their power without invoking the retribution of the Shadow.[2] The only other known individuals who have managed such tasks, besides long-dead Mithraiaic priests of antiquity, were the occultist Johann Weyer,[13] his mentor Agrippa,[9] Alexander of Brennenburg,[18] and later Oswald Mandus.[19]
Weyer in particular managed to somehow become adept at collecting the Orbs without invoking, or at least without being pursued by, the Shadow.[13] However, in the Remember short story, "With the Blessing of a King," an incident with the Shadow goes awry when two soldiers, not trained in handling the Orbs, accompany Weyer into the Orb chamber under a church in Calais. Weyer escapes the Shadow, keeping the Orb, but having shut the heavy stone slab to the Orb chamber, the Shadow does not seem to pursue him, nor does it harm Sokal in the immediate aftermath. This suggests that Weyer did something to permanently stay the Shadow, in spite of whatever the soldiers did in the chamber to awaken it.
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.[9][20]
Effects on psyche
History
Creation and purpose
It is not known how the orbs were created or by whom, or for what purpose, but they are known to exist both on Earth and in the Other World. Their earliest recorded usage on Earth was by the
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.[1] After Daniel touched the orb, it shattered, the pieces somewhat inert but disturbing him by their continual physical morphing.[21]
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.[22][3][17] 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.[3] A disturbing sound, which Daniel characterizes as "defying description" and a "voice from the void," recur within the dreams.[3] After one "exhausting" nightmare, Daniel awoke and reassembled the shattered Orb perfectly, after trying and failing to do so for roughly 10 days.[22] [8] 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.[22]
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 the Orb or infection actually created this separate personality in Mandus, or simply fomented his individuation and separation from Mandus's whole self, is unclear.
Tasi Trianon
When Tasi Trianon touched the Orb, nothing happened.
History
Classical era
14th and 15th century European mysticism
19th century archaeology excursions
20th century crash of the Cassandra
Other World
Known orbs
Through notes picked up in-game, it is suspected that there may be at least nine Orbs left in the world. According to Agrippa, Johann Weyer gathered a whole collection of Orbs.
The 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.
Agrippa's orb
- Agrippa's Orb (later recovered by Alexander and rebuilt by Daniel). Agrippa discovered his first Orb in a mithraic temple in the Prussian woods near Altstadt. Agrippa wanted the Orb's power and was chased by its Guardian as soon as he left the hidden tomb. The Shadow carried him miles away across the Alps to a grassy field outside Genoa, as it managed to reclaim the Orb. Alexander later recovered the Orb first found by Agrippa, and depended on it for his research to return "home." Fearful he'd run out of human prisoners, he proceeded with the Final Ritual without proper foresight. He accidentally cracked the Orb and it fell into six parts. Alexander tried everything but was unable to mend it. Later Daniel was able to recover each shard and rebuild it to penetrate the barrier around the Inner Sanctum. Though it worked, the Orb evaporated in the process.
Daniel's orb (the Libra Orb)
- Daniel's Orb (taken by Alexander). Daniel's Orb was retrieved by the young man from the Tomb of Tin Hinan during his expedition with Herbert to Algeria. While searching through the great tomb, Daniel gets trapped as his men drop a large stone slab he had just crawled under. After being trapped for a while, he spots the Orb in the distance and decides to investigate it. When Daniel first touched it he was spirited away into alien memories of spiralling towers, endless deserts, and impossible geometry. However the young man was "uninitiated" in the mystic arts, and so touching his Orb caused it to shatter. After having been trapped for an hour, he is rescued - having been kept from asphyxiation from the power of the Orb. After this, Daniel went back to London to study the Orb piece, however, he is from this point on haunted by terrible nightmares. Trying to find out information about the Orb pieces from a geologist, Sir William Smith, and a Professor Taylor at the nearby university yield nothing, and he soon visits a physician, Doctor Tate, about his nightmares, to no avail. One night, he is awakened by a nightmare, suddenly equipped with the knowledge on how to reassemble the Orb. After this, he realises that something is after him after he finds out that everyone he has seen in the past couple of days has been gruesomely murdered. He sought the aid of Alexander of Brennenburg, who used Daniel and his Orb to build a Traveler's Locket in the guise of helping Daniel with "banishing The Shadow". In the end, when Daniel realises he has been deceived, he drinks an Amnesia Drink to forget all of the horrible stuff he has been through and makes his way into the Inner Sanctum to stop the ritual and kill Alexander. If Daniel disrupts the ritual and kills Alexander, the guardian will consider the debt repaid and cease hunting Daniel. It is unknown if this means that the Orb was returned to the Tomb of Tin Hinan, or if it was destroyed during the ritual.
Herbert's orb
- Herbert's Orb (reclaimed by the Shadow). Herbert apparently discovered a second Orb in the tomb of Tin Hinan. He was immediately hunted down by the supernatural Guardian, presumably because he wanted to misuse its powers, not unlike Alexander. It chased him through the Algerian desert, consuming him and his men because, unlike Agrippa, he refused to give the Orb back.
Weyer's orb
- Johann Weyer's collection of Orbs. A student of Agrippa, Weyer was somehow able to harness the power of many Orbs with no ill effect. He was able to make them yield its power to him without incurring the Shadow's wrath, eventually being able to live for hundreds of years and communicate across dimensions. How he did this is a mystery.
Mandus' orb
- Mandus' Orb (fused into The Machine's core). Mandus recovered an Orb from a ruined Aztec temple in Mexico. The Orb revealed unto him all the horrors of the coming century. He went insane and murdered his own children rather than to have them endure living through such dark times. Mourning, he took the two Orb shards back to England to use them to power the Machine and remake the world. He is not haunted by the Shadow, since this Orb fused with his own soul,[speculation] causing the Engineer to become both a separate entity and yet entwined with him.
Tasi's orb
- Tasi's Orb. She found it in The Alchemist's Chambers, in The Other World. She used it to teleport a machinery to open a door where there is a dimensional fracture.[phrasing] After did it Tasi took the Orb with her; for this she caused the Shadow's wrath and started to hunt her. After that she used the Orb in The Portal Chamber, into The Tomb of Tin Hinan, in order to return in the Algerian Desert. After passed the portal the Shadow reclaimed the Orb, like did with Herbert's Orb as well.[phrasing][speculation]
Trivia
- uh oh
- stinky
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 TDD – Daniel's diary: "17 May 1839"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Rebirth – Tablet: "Gate Instructions"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 TDD – Daniel's Diary: "14 July 1839"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 TDD – Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa: Dialogue on the orbs
- ↑ TDD – Daniel's Diary: "17 July 1839"
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Rebirth – Cylinder: The Flesh
- ↑ Rebirth – Cylinder: Accession
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 TDD – Daniel's Diary: "25 June 1839"
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 TDD – Note: "Letter Regarding the Discovery of an Orb"
- ↑ Rebirth – Cylinder: The Coronation
- ↑ Rebirth – Note to Abdullah
- ↑ Remember – "With the Blessing of a King"
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 TDD – Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa: Dialogue on Johann Weyer
- ↑ Rebirth – Explorer's note
- ↑ Rebirth – Explorer's note
- ↑ Rebirth — Leyden Jar Note
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 TDD – Daniel's Diary: "4 August 1839"
- ↑ TDD – Note: "The Shattered Orb"
- ↑ AMFP – Oswald Mandus (Dialogue): " Cradling a stone egg in my jacket, I kissed my children farewell and I crawled my way home."
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedThe Orbs Agrippa Dialogue 2b - ↑ TDD – Daniel's diary: "22 June 1839"
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 TDD – Daniel's Diary: "4 July 1893"
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