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Oracles are legendary mages who ascended at the same time as the Exarchs (those who stormed the Supernal Realms). They are thought to be the origin of the Watchtowers and to assist in keeping the pathways to the Supernatural open, preventing the Exarchs from keeping heaven for themselves.

The Exarchs have commanded their Seers to conquer and control the Watchtowers since the first Exarch cultist developed a Prelacy, without any appreciable success[1]. Doctrinaire Silver Ladder mages (and believers in other Orders) describe the Watchtowers as the creation of Oracles: Ascended mages from the Time Before who chased the Exarchs into the Supernal and built the Watchtowers to guide those who came after out of the Fallen World.

If the Oracles still exist, however, they are silent, and no summoned Supernal entity or archmaster has acknowledged their presence in the Supernal Realm. Their existence is a hypothesis based on a noted absence in the Orders’ understanding of the universe. According to archaeomancers, mages did not Awaken to Watchtowers in the Time Before, so something changed during the Fall. Only Supernal beings equal or greater to the Exarchs’ power could build the Watchtowers, and the Diamond are not so pessimistic about human nature to assume that every mage who Ascended in the Fall joined the enemy. The Oracles, then, are the missing “good Exarchs,” the wise Kings of Atlantis who made it possible for humans to Awaken even through their counterparts’ Lie.

The Silver Ladder names the five Oracles with symbolic titles, developing elaborate allegorical tales about them as teaching tools for new théarchs. Other Diamond mages don’t usually buy into the myth to that extent and state more clearly to their apprentices that the Oracles are a theory. The other Orders reject the myth; the Free Council see the Watchtowers as symbols of human inspiration, no creator necessary other than Fallen civilization, and the Seers assume that the Watchtowers are simply the Exarch’s own creation or pre-existing Supernal Realms brought forth in the Fall as counterweights to the Abyss.

The Ladder’s names for the Oracles are:

  • The Youthful King of Thorns (Acanthus)
  • The King of the Burning Voice (Mastigos)
  • The Sorrowful King in Gray (Moros)
  • The Star-Cloaked King of Thunder (Obrimos)
  • The Throneless King of the Heart (Thyrsus)

Oracle of the Golden Key[]

The Thrice-Great Legacy was founded by a meeting between the philosopher Hipparchos and the Oracle Aion. Hipparchos was an astronomer of Greece from 190 to 120 BC, learned in Egyptian and Babylonian astrology. He Awakened when he realized there must be a force beyond the material realm that he could observe. Convinced that the key to reaching the Supernal realms resided in the heavens themselves, Hipparchos went deep into Shadow to meet the spirits of the planets themselves, and when he reached the furthest stars in Shadow he cried out, demanding to face the One Beyond. Aion answered, and taught him the magic of the planetary bodies.

References[]

  • MTAw: Legacies the Ancient , p. 111-112
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