Left to right: Cal, Adrienne, Yves

The (human) king has put out a call to find the relics of the Four -- the Antlers of the King of Earth, the Circlet of the Queen of Stars, the Chains of Mother Death, and the Pendant of Father Life. Archaeologists, trackers, and people desperate for the rewards are swarming for the chance to help find them, but Adrienne figures that it's better to find them herself first, because no one should have the type of power that the king wants. She enlists the help of her friend Cal, who has always been into history, and their friend Yves, who goes along because this illegal operation has less red tape than the official one, and when will he ever get this chance again?

But the relics pull towards one another, and once you have one, the allure of the power that the others hold just gets stronger and stronger, and with each relic they find, Adrienne, Cal, and Yves inch ever closer to falling victim to it.

ADRIENNE

Adrienne is easily the most devout of the three. Her patron is Father Life, whose pendant she always wears a replica of (or is it a replica??). She is talkative and charming and positively full of secrets -- Cal is probably her closest friend in Eurulis, but even they don't know much about her true feelings. She grew up in the city of Ciex and if it weren't for the thrill of adventure -- of this adventure in particular -- she would be happy never leaving. That all being said, she is very impatient.

CAL

Cal is a student of archaeology at the unviersity in Ciex and is feeling a bit lost. They would rather keep learning forever and never have to pick a thesis topic and graduate, avoiding real responsibilities for as long as they can. When Adrienne suggests searching for the relics, all fears of graduation and the fog of the future jump out of Cal's head because no one in the history or future of the world will have a cooler thesis topic than this. They're more interested in the adventure and exploration is more interesting than the academic merit of the trip, but it works out the same. And perhaps the magic powers of th erelics are fascinating as well...

Cal's patron god is the King of Earth, though they aren't as pious as Adrienne and really only pray to him on his feast day or when something has gone wrong -- they probably pray to the Mother the most, for luck on exams.

YVES

Yves is Cal's friend from school, a fellow history student also studying folklore. He joins the quest out of a genuine scholarly interest, rather than Cal's guise of scholarly interst -- he is much more academically minded than them, finishing his second degree as they waffle and drag out their first. He doesn't really have the mindset for adventure -- he can be quite anxious at times, and prefers to record action rather than fight through it -- but Cal begged him to join and it is true that this could be the research trip of the century, so he agreed. Yves's parents are from Lerava (the story is set in Eurulis) -- lore dump will be further down this page -- so he doesn't believe in the Four, but it is undeniable that the relics have a fascinating power -- he becomes even more intrigued by them when he discovers that one of the True Relics is held at the cathedral in Lerini -- Lerava's capital city -- where he has never been. Despite his fascination with the relics, Yves firmly believes that they shouldn't really exist, or at least should not be held by one person, and holds this belief throughout the entire story.

As Yves follows Leravan astrology rather than the religion or the Four, he does not have a patron god, though if he did, he would pick Mother Death for her duality of intelligence/ignorance. This system of astrology assigns a star and its traits to every day of the year -- they are rather like tiny gods, but ones that just slightly influence behavior on their day rather than controlling the world. Yves was born under Nies, the star of curiousity and the Sun's little sister. This blessing has helped him significantly in his academic career, keeping him open to new experiences when his anxiety tells him to turn back, and making sure that the desire to learn often wins out in its fight with his fear of change.

Let me break the fourth wall here for just a second and say it is completely ambigiuous in this story whether the Four truly exist or not: the relics have got their power from somewhere, but there's no hard proof that it truly was the gods. This is because I think it is really boring from a worldbuilding perspective to have gods that are unambiguously real in your fantasy story in a way that means everyone believes in the same gods -- it takes away the inherent mystery in religion and the dynamics between characters are much less interesting. THAT BEING SAID THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS. If you can do something interesting with your unambiguously real gods -- such as they are real, but whether they are actually gods or not is up in question (Deeplight my beloved) then I think the dynamics can be just as interesting -- it's just about the fact that if your fantasy story spans multiple countries that represent a whole world and everyone across the story believes in the same gods it is BORING!!!

OK RANT ASIDE.

EURULISH CREATION MYTH

When the first stars began to twinkle in the sky, the Queen was among them. She frolicked between them for a time, basked in the light that shone upon her dark skin and the twinkling reflections in her hair. But the paradise of stars could only last so long, and she began to grow bored. Between her hands she formed a cloud of dust, tiny specks that had been floating in space with her, and created ground for herself to stand on, mountains to recline against, rushing oceans and rivers to dip her toes in.

One of the mountains began to shake, and when its top blew off into the sky, spewing fire and rocks with it and causing the Queen to take shelter, the King of Earth stepped out of the crater with a grin and took her hand. It was at this moment that she realized she'd been lonely for as long as she'd been alive.

The two gods spent their time as gods do, carving canyons with the tips of their fingers, shaping mountains on a whim. From red sandy mesas to blue rocky coasts, the world came into its shape beneath their hands, molding itself with each silly thought they traded back and forth. They could have gone on like that forever and ever, until the King had the idea to create something that could change on its own, and drew a little green plant up from the ground. Its leaves unfurled to reveal Father Life, a large bearded man with a loud voice and a billion brilliant ideas of how to next furnish this world the King and Queen were creating -- and a second later, as the plant withered to nothing, his near-silent counterpart, Mother Death, appeared to collect its soul. While the other three discussed plans of beauty and wonder, she lingered at the side, reminding them that no beauty lasts forever, that all things must come to an end.

THE QUEEN OF STARS

The Queen is the oldest of the four gods. She has domain over the stars and the skies, as well as the dualities of light/darkness, distance/closeness, and beauty/ugliness. Her main relic is the Circlet, and her other three relics are the Chalice (associated with light/darkness), the Bracelets (associated with distance/closeness), and the Gown (associated with beauty/ugliness).

THE KING OF EARTH

The King is the second-oldest god, with domain over all non-living things in the world: stones and seas, rocks and rain, so on and so forth. His main relic is his Antlers, and his other relics and dualities are the Staff (strength/weakness), the Rings (stillness/motion), and the Crown (wilderness/industry) (not to be confused with the Crown made from his Antlers and the Queen's circlet).

FATHER LIFE

The Father is the second-youngest god, with domain over all living things. His main relic is the Pendant, which Adrienne and many of his other followers wear replicas of around their necks. The Claws of his pet bird are assocated with the duality of sickness and health, his vest with tangibility and imagination, and a Pouch of seeds with diaster and prosperity.

MOTHER DEATH

Despite her name heralding the end of all things, the Mother is the youngest of the four gods, controlling the domain of What Comes After. Her main relic is the Chains she wore around her neck and wrists, and her others are the Shroud, associated with intelligence and ignorance; the Beads, associated with luck and chance; and the Mask, associated with community and solitude.

I'm just going to put a little information here about the countries I've mentioned earlier in this page, but if you're interested in what I've written, you'll want to check out this google doc where the rest of my worldbuilding info lives!!

This story is set in Eurulis, which is on the eastern continent . Both Eurulis and Luiene (and to a degree, Brouve) (the three countries on this continent) follow the religion of the Four: the Queen of Stars, the King of Earth, Father Life, and Mother Death. Many cities take on one of the Four as a patron god, and the patron of Ciex, the capital of Eurulis and where the story begins, is the Father. He is also Adrienne’s patron, for the same reason. Cal follows the King, as he was who their small hometown was dedicated to. Many relics of the Four can be found across the world, though primarily on the Eastern Continent. Each city believes their relics to be the True ones, even if two different cities both claim to have the same relic. The True relics are said to give their bearers sway over the domains or dualities of their associated gods. Eurulis is more heavily religious than Luiene, and also known for its art and architecture.

Eurulis could be considered A Country Stuck In the Past: it is more obsessed with its history than any country has a right to be. There are benefits to this, of course. Historic cathedrals and homes are kept up like nothing in the world is more important, and classical texts and artworks are revered. But this has left Eurulis stagnant -- scared of any sort of so-called progress that will drag it away from its golden age. The Eurulish are afraid to hear that every golden age must come to an end, and theirs ended centuries ago.

Additionally, Luiene is known for its alchemists, who are some of the best in the world. The only ones better are Leravan refugees, who learned chemistry in their universities but were enthralled by the magical sway of alchemy, and sent on the run due to Lerava's strict rules about magic. The School of Alchemy in Luiene City is world-class, and the elements mined from the mountains along its western border (the mountains that are rumored to be alive) are some of the purest in the world, ripe to be shaped by an alchemist's steady hand.

Yves's family is from Lerava, across the Stoke Ocean on the western continent. Lerava, as well as neighboring Rhaph, follow a complex system of astrology associating each day with at least one star and its associated blessings, curses, and meanings. For example, the day that Yves was born on saw him blessed by Nies, the star of curiousity and the Sun's youngest sister. Cities are blessed by these stars as well: the Leravan capital of Lerini is dedicated to Zin, the Sun, and Rhaph's capital of Pratin is blessed by Welan, the brightest star in the West. Despite this abundance of low-level gods, Lerava does not like magic whatsoever: they are a nation of academics, not centuries-old witches.

Lerava is A Country Resentful of Its Past. They wouldn't tell you if you held a knife at their neck and a match at their feet, but Lerava didn't always hate magic. It's a shameful truth, the sort that shouldn't be brought up at dinner, the sort that gets just a paragraph in history textbooks -- so no one thinks it is being ignored -- but no more, lest anyone think it is being revered.

The worst part is that there wasn't any sort of big catastrophe that can justify the Leravan hatred of magic to a young child who doesn't yet know that magic is just wholly and simply wrong. There were little things, of course -- things like magical stoves burning out of control, like alchemical poisons being slipped into rival politicians' wines, but nothing like the damage magic causes in Zerin. Though just look at them, of course we can’t have magic when magic does that.

The important bit, the bit that modern Leravans hate to discover, is that magic wasn't just useful. It was revered, it was integral to everything that Lerava was in those days. Leravan alchemists were the best in the world, and new magical properties were discovered yearly. It was a golden age, up until the day magic was declared unholy. So perhaps the Leravan golden age never happened. Perhaps a new one is yet to come, one that won't rely on magic for a fool's prosperity when we could gain it with our own hands and sweat.