**** Mordred-The Aeon of Fate Always Sucks, Discuss

[ArcaneArts]

I wrote this up as a response in Mummy and then decided Mummy didn't want to have to deal with Mordred's shit, so here we are. This is not sober.
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Heh ArcaneArts why did you call Mordred the second biggest douche in the cosmology?

His Pledge seems Bullshit, with you Achieving your goal, only to have it become pointless, but he only does it with there consent,

Unrelated to the answer of this, alcoholism is the great equalizer in that in that it makes you realize assholes are of all kinds are just kind of assholes and are thus parallel to each other.

So, Mordred and the world at large, as it is still notionally personally related to Mummy because I have fucking rules.

First, let's be honest about my personal ranking of any canonical individual who bears continuity of personage in the Chronicles, which is that it is highly fluid-I am, myself, a person who is very fluid in their presentation and assumption about themselves and their values. I have set values and such, but if you confront me on those points, you're going to find individuation of aspects based on what I find important in the moment, and that while continuity exists between moment to moment, that continuity deals with entities within boxes more often than as individuals than not. A lot of the creatures in any model I describe are often the fault of a myriad of other factors as much as they are their own fault.

Second must be acknowledged is that I like the simplification of memes in the thrust of joy that is simply living life.

So, Mordred, and every fucking thing else.

The cosmology of Chronicles is, unsurprisingly, highly fucked-every "high answer" to why things are the way the way they are tends to be reflective of the worst aspects of humanity and the whims of reality just simply going forward, and going lower and more granular just reveals the horror and dread of the individual. There's no proper sense of mercy going forward in either direction-mercy being defined as the power reserved for the powerful to alleviate the suffering of the powerless, and the directions as either society as a whole working to facilitate as many members of it's population of possible towards generally banal happiness, or individually towards aspirational heights for individuals failing because the systems in place do not allow for individuation in meaningful and contributing senses of the idea- the community does not contribute to the individual, or the individual does not meaningfully contribute to the community.

At the center of this are a number of exploitative systems that are integral but irrefutable to society as we understand it now. The Exarchs, the Judges, the Strangers, the God-Machine, so on and so forth-we are caught in a compromise with such entities as metaphorical engines where in, more so than simply transforming the common effort of the every human into sustenance for it's own gluttony, active efforts to contribute against the engines of current reality ends up feeding the machine because any and every thing can be bent right around in it's larger impact to a marketable and easily consumptive form of itself.

At the core of this notion is Mordred.

Mordred, as the Fallen World's God of Fate (which is not the same being the Sovereign over the Wyrd or Mummy's Idea of Fate or any other things, for clarity's sake), embodies the worst fundamental concept that fuels exploitative systems in the various systems at work in Chronicles world, being the negative aspect of the more things change, the more they stay the same, which I must at this point note does have a positive aspect, but it's not my interest at the moment.

I mean, even more fundamentally, Mordred's entire conceit is nothing fucking lasts. Nothing, absolutely nothing has lasting tenure. Mordred as the Aeon of Fate posits that very simply nothing lasts, that utopias and dystopias alike both fail and fade away by the simple nature of transience, and as an absolute within the Fallen space, that continues onward.

There are a lot of words that can be wasted about this factoid alone, but I have Mummy 2nd to read, so I need to condense, and so I hope as an initial salvo on the subject, I hope simply acknowledging how a God of Everything Inevitably Fails is a fucking Fuck-All God in concept is fucking terrible before dealing with the worst aspect about any Aeon of Fate, being-

-being that any Aeon of Fate is not constrained to their own purview.

Mordred is kind of the worst incarnation of a long lineage of fucking assholes, his incarnation before being the triplicate-goddess-form-of-fate as exmpleified by the Norns, the Fates, the aspects of the Morrigan, etc. going back to SutekSet, for the simple fact that the Aeon of Fate has never been constrained by their throne-and, in fact, has been quite active in acting upon the world and otherwise contributing to the simple fact that abso-fucking-lutely nothing remains so pure as to not collapse. Where pretty much every other Aeon needs to deal with it's active agents in their seat of power, The Aeon of Fate can pretty literally just meet people where ever it finds convenient to incarnate and contribute to collapse. And since Mordred is Fate-As-A-Singular-Entity-And-A-Particular-One-At-That, Mordred has an above-average ability for entities of his kind to show up, offer a boon, and have that turn out to be a fucking curse as all your benefits unravel into banes that dissolve anything good.

But to make matters worse, the Aeon of Fate is also basically Hope Itself, and through that reveals why Hope Kinda Sucks, because where Mordred acts, Things Get Better...For A While Before Collapsing, because Hope is only concerned with things changing (devoid of context) rather than the value of anything that is valued in the Hoping because just about anything can be Hoped For-American Fascists have hope too, as a point of comparison. Mordred is the inevitability of change incarnate-and-active, but with his assholish nature, nothing positive can be derived from the idea, because everything fails, nothing has permanence, and all ambition and hope from humanity is naught because the end of the road is fatalism. Mordred embodies why the Desire for Change against the Desire for Things To Be Right is a thing, and why Hope often needs Hopelessness to get people to fixate on What's Right against What Can Change, because a lot can change without ever ending up being Right.

Mordred loves the collapse, possibly more so than any other incarnation of the Aeon of Fate, and enjoys setting up bright possibilities of futures only to crash them down on themselves because of the depth of differentiation from intention to reality, that gap between the Ideal aspired to against the Real attained. Mordred is malevolent in his nihilistic nature, and sadistic in absurdist presentation, and active amongst the community of universal forces that take a passive seat. Mordred is a shit because he makes things worse and no one can fault him because that's just how things are, and he is 1/10th of how things are, from at a minimal Supernal Perspective.

Changeling Perspective is up in the air, and Beast has a question mark up where Mordred exists for them.

BUt, if we're honest, Mordred is the second largest asshole in the Chronicles cosmology because Dave once (or twice or a lot) joked about how Mordred is always an asshole and I loved those comments and conflated that into how, while other entities are Big Fucking Assholes who contribute to everything being bad, Mordred is right behind making everything worse because Of Course the Aeon of Fate Fucking Sucks.

There are a lot of first place winners for Worst People Possible in the Chronicles world, but it's Memetic Truth Now that whoever plays first, Mordred is the second worst, because Mordred Fucking Sucks.

Look man, I'm as much a memelord as I am an analyst. This shit happens.

ANYWAYS, Please further discusss why Mordred is an asshole, and why the Aeon of Fate is predisposed to be a shitbag in general, and of course explore how I am wrong.

[Guest]

What?

I didn’t get like 90% of that, but they’ll probably have more details on Mordred when Dark Eras 2 comes out. My personal theory is that he became an Aeon after him and Arthur killed each other at Camlann.

[Leliel]

What?

I didn’t get like 90% of that, but they’ll probably have more details on Mordred when Dark Eras 2 comes out. My personal theory is that he became an Aeon after him and Arthur killed each other at Camlann.

Most likely. He qualified for the job more (his predecessor was Set).

Ironically, a lot of data we have on Mordred comes from Changeling; it's possible for the Lost to encounter an avatar of his when Dreamwalking. Unlike the other two gods (the Pale Brother, a manifestation of the Grim Reaper who is honestly kind of a nice chap, and the Rogue Sister, who was probably an Abyssal or Lower Depths entity at one point but isn't now and is far more fair a bargainer), the only thing he ever offers is the Vow of All-Consuming Fire, a type of Oath that fates you to achieve all your dreams...and then have them collapse around your ears. The writeup makes it clear he does this as a supernatural extension of what he normally does, which is stuff like "convince artists it's a good idea to take crack for inspiration", and implies he's interested in changelings because they're like him - which is why he's scared of the idea they might succeed without his help, as that would be a disproof against his very existence.

The part about him being like Tzeentch is new, though.

[Guest]

Leliel fascinating! That makes sense. Thanks.

[Konradleijon]

What?

I didn’t get like 90% of that, but they’ll probably have more details on Mordred when Dark Eras 2 comes out. My personal theory is that he became an Aeon after him and Arthur killed each other at Camlann.

Dark eras two isn’t out? Mordred is Tzeentch, and The most Dickish of the Aeons, including Dahank?

[Guest]

Not yet. Dark Eras Companion.

[Guest]

Dark Eras Companion is out. Dark Eras 2 isn’t out yet.

[KaiserAfini]

So Mordred is hope in the Pandora's Box type of view, in that it makes punishment last longer ? Yet the tragedy of it all is that he is a reflection of the machinery that reinforces destructive entropy, when he doesn't need to be.

Does that sum it up ?

[ArcaneArts]

What?

I didn’t get like 90% of that, but they’ll probably have more details on Mordred when Dark Eras 2 comes out. My personal theory is that he became an Aeon after him and Arthur killed each other at Camlann.

Impersonal text(as it was) is that Mordred supplanted a Triple Goddess of Fate when Merlin Ascended and Camelot fell. Merlin in general changed a lot about things associated with the path called Acanthus when he Ascended, adding a lot of iconography as power to the path, but Mordred is a consequence of that.

So Mordred is hope in the Pandora's Box type of view, in that it makes punishment last longer ? Yet the tragedy of it all is that he is a reflection of the machinery that reinforces destructive entropy, when he doesn't need to be.

Does that sum it up ?

He's everything you'd expect a Fallen World God of Fate would be, correct.

[Guest]

ArcaneArts so Merlin’s Ascension allowed Mordred to become an Aeon? Awesome! I didn’t know that. Thanks.

[Konradleijon]

Impersonal text(as it was) is that Mordred supplanted a Triple Goddess of Fate when Merlin Ascended and Camelot fell. Merlin in general changed a lot about things associated with the path called Acanthus when he Ascended, adding a lot of iconography as power to the path, but Mordred is a consequence of that.


He's everything you'd expect a Fallen World God of Fate would be, correct.

Is that actually cannon? Not what some Witch Theorized?

[ArcaneArts]

ArcaneArts so Merlin’s Ascension allowed Mordred to become an Aeon? Awesome! I didn’t know that. Thanks.

More accurately, Merlin's Ascension changed the symbol that is the Fallen World God of Fate into the icon of Mordred. Mordred the person probably just died and then stopped existing when Aponia hit.

Barring Ascension into Aeon-hood, it's worth noting that the Aeons aren't actually persons in the way we usually think of them, but more like cosplays for the Arcana (as incarnated in the Fallen). Mordred of Fate isn't actually Mordred, child of Arthur Pendragon, so much as the only clothing Fate has right now will make it look like Mordred.

This isn't to say that Mordred's particular nature and issues don't carry over into the Aeon's actions and behaviors, but again, cosplay.

Is that actually cannon? Not what some Witch Theorized?

Yep. Canon as fuck.

[Dave Brookshaw]

One N in Canon. And yes, it is.

Medraut the Ruinous Prince, Aeon of Fate, is not the same physical being as anyone who may or may not have lived in what scraps of Arthurian history the Arcadian Exarchs left standing - if Dark Eras 2 has someone named Mordred in it, that's who they are.

Medraut is an Astral god. He's the idea of Fate, Destiny, and good intentions turned bad. Myrddin's Ascension stamped on the Arcanum so hard the Aeon changed from the Moirae to Medraut.

Is he the literal person who lived in Mage-Camelot before it was retconned? Maaaaaaaybe. It doesn't particularly matter.

But yes, Myrddin's archfuckery has been a running thread for the 12 years of Awakening as a gameline, first mentioned in the 1e corebook last mentioned in Signs of Sorcery. Myrddin Emrys was a Welsh (from the Druidic traditions of North Wales) Silver Ladder Acanthus who became an archmaster of Fate and deliberately smashed the Utopia he created to Ascend. He left an Ananke called Nimue who's still programmed to destroy Camelot, the Aeon we're talking about, and a Snowdonian landscape riddled with portals and thin spots to his old Chantry.

[Dave Brookshaw]

And it's always Myrddin and Medraut in the books, not Merlin and Mordred as usually said in fan discussion. Because - again - Welsh.

[ArcaneArts]

And it's always Myrddin and Medraut in the books, not Merlin and Mordred as usually said in fan discussion. Because - again - Welsh.

>_< Gah, the worst part is I knew that.