Glossary
The Void: A realm of unbeing, a place suspending between judgment and mercy, where time does not move and souls are stranded. Neither heaven nor hell lay claim to it. It is not punishment but it is not peace.
Homonculi: Artificial beings crafted through alchemical means. Created from base matter: clay, bone ash, and a tinctured substrate called Aetherum. Alchemists are forbidden to create homonculi with souls, whether artificially created or pulled from The Void.
Aetherum: A refined alchemical substrate. It is a translucent, faintly luminous liquid or gas. It is a crucial medium in Golemwork, the formation of golems, animated constructs, and conscious circuits that do not involve soul tethering, thus remaining within the bounds of the Alchemist’s Code. It does not mimic life, nor does it contain memory or spirit, rather it functions as a conductor of animated will. Aetherum is also used in augmentation, containment matrices, and arcane prosthetics.
Alchemist: A practitioner of transformative science rooted in sacred law, using alchemical processes to alter matter, mend flesh, and animate constructs. Bound by the Alchemist’s Code, which forbids soulcraft and resurrection. The word "alchemist" in Greek is khumeutēs (χυμευτής), which is derived from khumeia (χυμεία), meaning "the art of alloying metals" or "alchemy."
The Alchemist’s Code: The foundational law of the Corpus Artificis, strictly governing the ethical boundaries of alchemical practice. The Code forbids all manipulation of the soul and the forging of true life. It exists to preserve the balance between creation and corruption. Violation results in Verdigris branding, and exile or execution.
Verdigris Branding: Traitors to the Art and breakers of the Alchemist’s Code. The mark is an oxidized green sigil burned into the flesh, and identifies the bearer as corrupted, exiled, and stripped of all alchemical rights. Those branded are hunted if they continue to practice.
The Church
"Where Light cannot reach, we go forth with fire."
Undisputed spiritual and political power, a vast and ancient institution whose reach extends from the highest cathedral spires to the deepest plague-choked gutters. The Church is the bulwark against chaos and affliction, the mouthpiece of the divine. It commands legions: Grand Inquisitors, Penitent Brides, Sanctifiers and countless priests, scribes, exorcists who roam the land with fire and doctrine. Its edicts are law.
↳ Grand Inquisitors
"Bound by blade and benediction."
The iron fist of the Holy Church, Grand Inquisitors are uncompromising agents of sanctified judgment tasked with rooting out the heretical and infernal in the Holy Order of Hunters. They are not priests in the traditional sense, but dogmatic enforcers granted unchecked ecclesiastical authority by the High Synod to hunt and destroy all manner of blasphemous corruption: demons, witches, vampires, etc. Each Grand Inquisitor is both judge and executioner, and their word holds the weight of scripture itself. They are the last sound heard in cursed towns, the final visitor to heretic strongholds.
Grand Inquisitors undergo a lifetime of theological indoctrination, demonology, physical trial, and ritual purification. The Rite of Ascension requires them to endure three nights locked in the Chapel of Thorns, where they must survive on prayer, fasting, and visions. Once emerged, they are granted the honor of Grand Inquisitor, though some never emerge at all.
They are permitted to wield Holy relics and weapons, often tailored to their style of combat or to the enemy they hunt.
Some Inquisitors have been known to go mad due to their long exposure to the profane.
Where the Church speaks of salvation, the Grand Inquisitors speak of retribution.
↳ Penitent Brides
"Devotion through fire."
The Penitent Brides are a sacred and secretive order of warrior-nuns sworn to the Church's most dangerous calling: to walk hand-in-hand with damnation and drag it to its knees. Cloistered from childhood and forged through brutal asceticism, these women are trained to aid in the rites of exorcism, demon-slaying, and the strictures of Holy Law. They serve as the chosen companions for the Grand Inquisitors, the Church's elite agents who root out heresy, sorcery, and infernal corruption wherever it festers.
Each Inquisitor is assigned one bride. Bound by blood, oath, and sacrament, she is both shield and sword: fighting alongside her Inquisitor in battle, nursing his wounds, and keeping his soul from veering into blasphemy. Should he stray from doctrine, it is the Bride who must correct him—be it with prayer, persuasion...or a dagger to the throat.
Despite their grace, the Brides are not gentle companions. They are steeped in the language of penance: fluent in the breaking of bone, in scripture recited between gasps of agony, in the stillness of death. Many have torn through demonkind with blades in the morning and knelt before the altar by dusk, their mouths still stained with ash and blood.
Though dubbed with the title of Bride, they do not marry. Their only union is to the Holy Church, and to the burden they bear without question.
Each bride is christened with a new name when they become part of the convent. Each name is handed down, though what became of the Sister before them is not spoken of.
↳ Trivia & Other Information
- Both Brides & Inquisitors wear Ash crosses for protection on their faces while on duty.
- Most Brides are orphaned girls.
- To the common folk, the sight of an Inquisitor and his Bride in their towns signal something wicked lies within. Some see them as saints, others as heralds of dark omens.
- The Brides and Inquisitors make their sacred vows to each other at the Pietà Chapel.
- The Penitent Bride Convent is called The Convent of the Thorned Veil.
↳ The Ivory Ordinate
"We are the last prayer."
The Ivory Ordinate is a secretive order buried within the roots of the Church—so secretive that even most Cardinals do not know its full breadth. It exists for one purpose: to eliminate the corrupted within. When operatives have succumbed to the Dark Frenzy, when Grand Inquisitors fall to vanity, heresy, or demonic influence; when Penitent Brides succumb to wrath, love, or forbidden knowledge and when no one else will act—The Ivory are sent.
They are an instrument of divine purging.