## Statistics Galactic Age: ~2,200,000 Subjective Age: ~100,000 Homeworld: [[Magh Breagh|Magh Breagh (lost)]] Home Sector: [[The Sectors#Sundered Harmony (6)|Sundered Harmony]] Affinity Groups - [[Past Projects/The Plague Lords/Affinity Groups/Spiritualists]] - Plumb Great Depths for Greater Power - To reveal is to holy - What's the Point? - To tell the truth as best you can - [[Past Projects/The Plague Lords/Affinity Groups/Agents]] - Conspiracies & secrets You are a famed historian, known across the Sector as a fervent believer in the truth and a passionate enemy of conspiracy in any form. Fundamentally, you believe that the galaxy is a better place when everyone is on a level information playing field. So many of the galaxy's killers brag about winning fair fights, but how could the concept of fairness mean anything between two societies separated by a dozen or more technological ages? If one of the fighters is immortal, it doesn't really matter that they didn't use a gun. You've spent millions of galactic years, and more than a hundred thousand subjective years, dragging every sordid little truth out to stand naked in the light. You want to ensure no one ever suffers the fate of your homeworld. Once, you were one of the people of [[Magh Breagh]], a minor agricultural planet on the distant end of nowhere. It wasn't an especially wealthy or powerful world, but it was home to a tradition of scientific and cultural genius. For millennia, one of the several [[Sages]] who called Breagh home worked in secret on a new and fantastical technology. Capturing the eddies of forces as large as the universe, they were on the verge of bringing a new wonder to the galaxy. The nature of that wonder was beyond your young comprehension, and is widely regarded as one of the great mysteries of the [[Celestial Empire]]. Whatever it was, it was special enough, remarkable enough, to attract the attention of the [[Leviathan's Corpse]]. A powerful and insidious Leviathan Priest by the name of Tabula came to Breagh and laid waste to it. Over the span of a local year, every community larger than a family unit collapsed, famines and plagues became the norm, and every Sage who didn't flee was killed. Your family was one of the few lucky enough to evacuate, but a malfunctioning oxygen unit left only you alive (though comatose) at journey's end. When you woke, it was to news that the Leviathan had eaten your homeworld. Ever since, you've been obsessed with rooting out Leviathan Cults. You don't know why Tabula had to prepare your world for the monster's arrival, but you know it's a thread to follow. While many of your investigations turn up other conspiracies; traitors, heretics, and the like. You bring those to light as part of your work, and take some pride in doing so, but your real passions lay always with the great beast. You've come to the [[Plague Council]] because gatherings like this draw cultists and conspirators like a black hole draws matter -inexorably, and to destructive result. You intend to find out who's here, why, and if any of them are in service to that first and chiefest of calamities. If you turn up some interesting stories along the way, well, you can always publish another few books. ## Goals 1. Uncover the motives of as many people as possible, and spread them far and wide, regardless of association or affiliation. 2. Learn details about the private lives of the great powers and preserve that information for posterity. Great powers: [[High Seat Oro]] [[High Seat Ormais]] [[Governor Biru]] [[Holy Reflection]] [[Hivemother]] 3. Find a new Holding to call home. ## Character Notes - Sibilia is fairly old, but is much less touched by ennui than some of their fellow multi-decamillennials. This comes largely from their natural curiosity. The Historian loves uncovering secrets, understanding motives, and fitting those facts into a larger framework. Even while the galaxy goes through upheaval after upheaval, catastrophe after catastrophe, Sibilia's love of figuring people out on an individual level keeps them from being weighed down by the ages. Will this passion for the truth continue to preserve the Historian's liveliness, or lead to a fatal case of curiosity? - Spying, effective spying, is done by making friends and listening to their problems. A real professional doesn't bother with all that sneaking around and lying nonsense, that's how you get yourself caught and waterboarded. No, real spies look like, well, like you. As a reputed historian known for capturing and telling wild, incredible stories, you've found you're able to access many places denied to the general public. This event is a perfect example. Normally, a simple Historian could never hope to gain entry without a powerful Governor's support. Thanks to your many, many friends, you knew about it nearly two decades in advance, and had credentials a few short years later. A High Seat is pretty good, but given the many powerful figures present, will Sibilia be able to add a crown jewel to their collection of associates? - You haven't seen your Governor, or your homeworld, in millions of galactic years, not since they were eaten by the [[Leviathan's Corpse]]. That event has shaped your life and turned you into the person you are today, the galaxy's most determined discoverer of secrets. You've tried to find a new place to put down roots more than once, but your knack for ferreting out illicit activity has led to challenges. Put simply, few Governors are completely clean, and they *do not* like having the details made public. Will you find a place to settle down, or will your love of the truth outweigh your want of a home? ## Connections 1. [[High Seat Ormais]] 1. "Some people write history. Some people lead galaxy-spanning war fleets on eternal missions of conquest. Each to their own, I suppose." 2. You should find Ormais tedious, exhausting, even, but you don't. Maybe it's their genuine philosophy, their belief that pure, violent chaos is fundamentally more moral than unequal hierarchy. Certainly, that's a convenient perspective for one of the galaxy's most accomplished butchers, but it does also bear a curious seed. Why would a High Seat care about an unequal hierarchy at all? High Seats are hardly subject to the whims of the public. It's extremely rare for one to suggest that their position is anything less than right and natural. Maybe that's why you like Ormais. Maybe it's the fact that, unlike most chest-thumping nightmares, Ormais really is as deadly as they imagine themself to be. You've watched them settle card disputes with orbital bombardments and not even consider it a breach of friendship. Whatever the case, you've bumped in to Ormais often enough in the last fifty thousand years (what you call your "recent epoch") to call them friend. How did such a friendship spring up between a High Seat and an ancient Historian? 2. [[Patron Duobi]] 1. "Ah Duobi, how rare to find a genuine visionary in this wild galaxy." 2. You've known Duobi most of their life, nearly a million galactic years now. Since your first meeting, Duobi's eyes have been full of the horizon. You've always liked that about them. Not long after you first ran into the Patron, Duobi led a now-famous expedition to the extreme edge of the [[The Sectors#Senescence (11)|Senescence]], searching for the lost temple of the legendary [[Nameless Sage]]. Though the search failed, their exploits during its span made them a legend in their own right. You met up with them for a debrief on their findings, and shared some of your own insights. A few drinks and many hours later, you'd made a friend for life. Ever since, the two of you have met up whenever Duobi returned from one of their grand adventures. You tell them about the conspiracies you've unmade, they tell you about the wonders and horrors they've seen, and you both have a whale of a time. This time, you're meeting up at an especially exciting moment in galactic history. You know that this council will be rife with conspiracies, and you doubt that even your old friend will be immune. Will your closeness survive your scrutiny? 3. [[Knight Leander]] 1. "Can someone please get this poor child a nap? Is there some kind of interstellar heroes' advocacy guild we could call?". 2. You're getting seriously worried about Knight Leander. Ever since first meeting them fifty thousand galactic years back, you've watched as Leander got less and less happy, trading joy in for a dismal, morose sort of brooding. You don't think it's the violence. The only thing Leander still seems to find worthy of discussion is violence. No, you think it's an over-attachment to time. Unlike yourself, Leander hasn't spent their life at near-light-speed, dropping out to attend an event or pursue a goal. For you, the fifty thousand galactic years have passed by as a few centuries. Leander, on the other hand, has experienced every second like some kind of common groundling. You're sure that what your old friend needs is to do a bit of skipping forward, watching technological and social cycles bounce around. That will give them the perspective they need to kick all this brooding. Will you be able to talk Leander around, or will the wilting of their personality prove insurmountable? 4. [[Nuncio Polybdia]] 1. "Honestly, Polybdia reminds me of me. A younger, slightly less spectacular version, but me nonetheless." 2. Polybdia is a delightful figure. They have a phenomenal knack for ferreting out scandals and interesting tidbits, and an equally phenomenal love of *spreading* those tidbits. You've known many spies and information brokers over the eons, and they've largely been disappointing, grasping types. Polybdia, on the other hand, seems to genuinely love keeping information in flow, and to go out of their way to connect you with the things worth knowing. For a hundred thousand years or so, you've taken them under your wing from time to time, telling them stories of forgotten ages -nearly always with some hidden lesson or moral. They don't seem to realize that you're telling the stories for a reason, and indeed seem to think of it as swapping gossip, but that's fine. Often, the best lessons are the ones we learn over and over again. Now though, you and Polybdia will be covering the same information, speaking to the same people, and you may even find yourselves at odds. Will you maintain your relationship with the young eavesdropper, or will they one day be yet another enemy remembered only by you? ## Mechanics **Asset:** [[Mythmaking]] As an Historian, you are an expert on not only the facts of history (who, what, when, etc.) but also on the contexts of history. You know how to relate what's happening now to things which happened years, centuries, even millennia ago, how to weave the timelines of past and present together into a single coherent narrative. Whenever you tell a story about history (whether canon or novel), everyone in your audience gains one advantage in their next [[Combat|Combat]], [[Negotiation]], or [[Endeavor]]. **Lien:** [[Sank a Thousand Ships]] You simply cannot stop yourself from sharing news. You go out of your way to discover information and as soon as you have something interesting, you can't help but spread it far and wide. Any time you know a secret and you're speaking with someone who doesn't know that secret, you feel compelled to share. You can resist, but not for long. After roughly five minutes of talking with the same person or group, you feel the desire either share the most exciting secret you have, get a secret from someone else (you're allowed to be subtle), or abruptly end the conversation.