SAINTS GUIDE / HELP / LORE / SAINTS In play: help saints. Also founders, the nine, marrow, prophet, patron saint, vael, ferro, lyra, cinder, vesper, severin, wren, cassius. IN THIS TOPIC 9 Marrow Vael Ferro Lyra Cinder Vesper Severin Wren CassiusThe nine Saints: the Founders of Deshret, what each stands for, and how people wear them.
Nine great figures from the founding days of Deshret make up the Saints venerated by Sepulchre. It is common to take one of the Nine as a personal patron. That is a social signal: the Saint you keep shows what you value, or what you want others to think you value. People show it by wearing a Saint's colour, bearing their symbol, or carrying their seal.
Type help saints/<name> to read one, for example help saints/marrow.
Marrow
The head of the Founders, who led the people and the other eight into what became Deshret. In the city's first year, 1 AC, he died; the accounts differ on how. On the third day he rose again in a new body, whole and himself. That is the founding miracle of the city and the birth of Sepulchre: proof that a soul guided properly can cross death intact. Marrow came back whole because he was holy and ordained. The rest of us are not, and so splintering is imperfect.
Themes: death, faith, and the soul. Colour: bone-white. Symbol: an iron lantern shaped like a ribcage, with a bone-white flame inside. Seal: Heaven, officially. Many also link him with Water, though that is not canon and borders on heresy.
Vael
When Deshret began there was no Mythos, and no machines, which Marrow had forbidden. Vael kept people alive with her hands and a few crude tools, and taught others to do the same. She set bones and cut away rotting flesh. She died in the wasting plague of 9 AC, handing out the few cures there were and keeping none for herself. Her picture hangs in every Mythos clinic.
Themes: healing and mercy. Colour: red. Symbol: an open red hand. Seal: Lake.
Ferro
The first smith and the first engineer of Deshret. He reinforced the walls against radiation and raised much of the early city with his own hands. In 4 AC a radiation breach opened on a building crew. Without a second's thought he sealed the gap with his own body to shield a young apprentice. He held on for days with terrible burns, and died soon after despite every effort to save him.
Themes: protection and sacrifice. Colour: embers. Symbol: a plain iron anvil with crossed hammers. Seal: Earth.
Lyra
The glue that held the city together after everything burned. She sang and told stories of hope and was the beating heart of the survivors. Some call her a liar, but most agree that a lie is worth it if it gives hope. Around 35 to 40 AC, it is said, she stepped into the Matrix and never came back out.
Themes: beauty, grace, and hope. Colour: gold. Symbol: a lyre. Seal: Wind.
Cinder
A tragic hero, and little is known about who Cinder really was. The canon says they carried what the Prophet forbade: forbidden work and technology, taken up to save the city. Nobody knows when they died, but the canon is clear on how: because of that forbidden work. Sepulchre holds Cinder up as proof that sometimes the few must hold the fire for the many, and this is the intellectual backbone of its doctrine. Technology damns, but sometimes survival needs the very thing that is damned.
Themes: prudence, foresight, and shrewdness. Colour: deep blue. Symbol: hands cupped around a flame. Seal: Fire.
Vesper
In the early days, Vesper braved the surface to bring down what the city needed. Even now the city cannot make everything it needs; in the Founding years, survival without scavenging outside was nearly impossible. She came back changed each time, in body and mind, and over the years, it is said, the bright and joyful woman she had been became a hollow shell. Then one day she did not come back at all. Her shrine stands at the surface gate. Outriders and freelance scavengers leave the first find of every run there for luck and protection when they return.
Themes: freedom, adventure, and curiosity. Colour: violet. Symbol: a star over a horizon. Seal: Thunder.
Severin
The patron of the city guard and the Inquisitors. He is said to have been Marrow's right hand, his lieutenant and enforcer, purging heresy and corruption in the early years. The canon says he wept only once in his duty: when he had to condemn his own wife and children for heresy. Never again after that.
Themes: law, judgement, and wrath. Colour: black. Symbol: the scales of justice. Seal: none.
Wren
The only Founder who gave up her place among them, and the longest-lived, dying around 92 AC. As the guilds rose and the city grew, she chose to stay behind in what became the slums, among the guildless, the refugees, the undocumented, and the forgotten. The matron of the slums has a cult of her own, with makeshift shrines all over Suburba, and people pray to her for everything from food to good luck.
Themes: charity, service, and offering. Colour: green. Symbol: a wren in a crown-shaped nest. Seal: Mountain.
Cassius
The first to doubt the Prophet. He betrayed Marrow and fell from grace, then repented and was redeemed in Marrow's forgiving embrace. The Church honours him as the Saint of second chances and forgiveness, proof that even the worst can be redeemed if they choose to right their path. The canon says nothing about how, when, or why the betrayal happened.
Themes: redemption, forgiveness, and sometimes rebellion. Colour: grey. Symbol: a single wing. Seal: none.
Read next: help seals, help religion, and help guilds.
NEARBY [P] RELIGION [N] SEALS LORE 36 Abkal Cabiri Coterie Deshret Districts Diving Glossary Great Houses Guilds House Amari House Drepane House Kadesh House Morcant House Qamarat House Rook House Valcora House Varga House Vesalius Kolkhos Languages Law Life In Deshret Materials Mythos Ophirian League Outriders Pegasus Religion Saints Seals Sepulchre Splicers Symphony Technology The Hum Vulcani
On the Agora: https://agora.underspire.net/t/saints/32