𝑵𝑶𝑫𝑼𝑺 𝑻𝑶𝑳𝑳𝑬𝑵𝑺 — ( lore )

[VALEN T.]

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  nodus tollens

  the realization that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you anymore: that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don't understand, that don't even seem to belong in the same genre
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  01
  athanatoi

  the athanatoi, or children of gods as they're known as in the mortal realm when in reality, they were born out of flesh and blood like any other
  
  it was the hellenic oracle at dodona who first received the golden news, the priestesses awestruck by the frequency the leaves in their sacred groves vibrated with, and the howling of the winds as they whispered past. the heavy bells were tolled across all colonies as the sacred announcement was disseminated with joyous acclamations of "the gods have spoken! our gods have spoken!" the priestesses of dodona were made to travel far and wide to collect the children whose names the trees had clattered and whose lineaments the dust had swirled
  
  they were destined to be warriors, those tender children between the ages of three and eight; born as the cause of war when the persians' attempts at invading and conquering mainland greece were relentless. The gods at olympus saw the destruction and bloodshed from their sheltered heavens but were too involved in conflict of their own to intervene
  
  when artemis swore on the cypress tree their mother conceived them against and earnestly claimed she heard apollo, her twin brother, mutter cryptic prophecies of their mortal believers going to war against each other in the near future... the gods knew this could go on no longer
  
  thus, the athanatoi—a hoard of children of transient worshipers made timeless messengers of gods—were chosen as a means to maintain unity amongst the people, also becoming the only tangible link between the tartarus, gaea, elysium, and mount olympus. they were swiped of their parents and homes, and made eternal wanderers constantly shifting between the major city states, reared in palaces and religious sanctuaries as royalty right beside the archons and kings
  
  They received exclusive education and private lessons from philosophers such as pythagoras whom they traveled to egypt and persia with to assist in his studies. the polis of athens was mostly responsible for providing intellectual education while the priming of their military and physical dominance fell upon the hands of sparta where the heroes were thrust into the intense program every citizen was made to endure⁠—agoge⁠—and continued their training alongside the lochoi and heavy infantry
  
  they were even gifted horses for personal use, and therefore a distinguished sub-unit of the hippeus, who accompanied the monarchy and eminent personalities of the court during their lengthy travels
  
  eventually, the athanatoi became teachers, physicians, and military instructors of their own, teaching the youth of their nation
  
  they were gifted their powers after their mentors deemed them ready, the day becoming known as "kairos" among the populace. originally, they had complete monopoly to explore the the extents of their newfound powers. they maintained an enviable amount of control over their abilities throughout most of their life but by the beginning of the common era, the first signs of their atrophy and decay had started contaminating them
  
  
  
  

  02
  yvonne

  the eldest of the athanatoi, known to have subsisted centuries before the others were even brought into existence from the first puffs of God. not much is known of her origin, and she herself was very tight-lipped about the story but there are rumours of her being a scion of prometheus, anointed by hestia to protect the fire her supposed father stole from the gods as a gift for humanity. there are also legends that she came from no brood, and instead was the result of one of worst volcanic eruptions to crater the earth: the minoan eruption at the island of thera / santorini
  
  she seldom spoke of her past, insisting that she was chosen by the gods just as the rest
  
  she was an enthusiastic, colourful raconteur who would often spin comical stories on her fingertips and share them over campfires or in the great baths; mount olympus and its inhabitants were often the focal point of her fables. she gleaned her skill in conjuring fictitious anecdotes—she revealed to the rest of the group one time—from her late and only lover: the great lyric poet, sappho. yvonne was the muse for many of her works, and also the reason she leapt off the Leucadian cliff, yvonne having survived because of hestia's blessings (curse, at the time, as her lover left merely a scarlet stain upon the surface of their earth)
  
  she swore off love a centenary before the athanatoi were officially coined, and would reply with rhetorics of "are you not mine?" when her partners would ask why she remained without a soul partner despite having a slew of suitors and admirers from all over the greek colonies
  
  yvonne was loved and cherished by the people around her, and stood being the personification of her endower, hestia, in most angles: gentle and mind, forgiving and content
  
  she taught her fellow athanatoi and helped acquaint them with their powers when they had been newly gifted, but never trained alongside them, and upon first glance, one would not deduce her to have full mastery of her element, fire, rabid and ravaging but it is speculated—by those few who still remain knowing her name—that the destruction evident near the end of the bronze age, all across the peninsula, were her doing, but no one in current times has witnessed the extent of her powers ergo, no one could attest to these eccentric claims
  
  
  
  

  03
  immortality

  unlike in demigods (like helena, heracles, etc) and in the other divine gods and goddesses who can persist for evermore due to the presence of ichor in their vessels, the athanatoi were only gifted a limited amount the day their names were first pronounced in dodona: they aged slower than their peers, and stopped entirely on kairos, from where onward their logos continued to mature but they were imprisoned in a body that would never weather or seize up due to dotage
  
  unfortunately, this gift did not come with impromptu healing
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  04
  healing

  due to their mortal roots and an immortal gift, the athanatoi are somewhat of a dilemma: they bleed scarlet if pierced by a blade, and they're able to feel every bit of excruciating pain during and after the process, yet... the stitches of their soul never come loose. they could sunder their own head and bleed out every ounce of liquid in their body, their heart may suffer severe convulsions and dance on the brink of stopping its rhythmic drumming, the cells that build them may mutate and turn against them, but no matter what... they. cannot. die
  
  they will not die because they're affiliated with the gods, but their wounds and injuries and ailments will not heal on their own either, for they may be known to have blood running as gold but at the end of the day, their constitutions differ not slightly from the next helot. they cannot acquire replenishment from ambrosia or nectar as the gods of olympus did, since they do not possess the stomach to sustain its components
  
  healing—that was the gift the athanatoi received from hermes and hebe: a concoction of feathers plucked from the wings and venom drained from the snake coiling around the caduceus, mixed in two sips worth of water running in the fountain of youth. it was a viscous liquid known as teleac that settled as solid crystals but could be poured like fresh honey; its colour varied depending on the viewer, and for humans, its consumption meant slow, torturous death; too much could kill an athanati too, and that's where aphrodite's and Hephaestus gift came in: gold, silver, platinum metals holed out from under the mountain of Olympus, and bent into necklaces by the Agiad craftsmen—gold for women, silver for men, platinum for anyone falling outside the gender binary
  
  The necklace had a minute opening at the bottom that allowed less than half a drop of the Teleac to flow out before sealing shut once more. strangely enough, that small of an amount was sufficient to heal wounds and cure ailments of all kinds, severed limbs can regrow and death—as it's known in humans, anything modern medicine cannot resolve—can be overcome by a less than a droplet of this elixir
  
  The only thing it doesn't seem to have any affect on, for reasons unknown, is the atrophy and its symptoms
  
  Furthermore, the Teleac has been limited since before the common era, from after the gods seized all communications with the Athanatoi. the dose remaining in their amulet now is what they've been trying to salvage for centuries
  
  
  
  

  05
  encinth

  It was meant to be a gift from Thanatos: a small, nightshade-purple pellet called Encinth, said to induce willful sleep, a condition not unlike death except only temporary. Zeus didn't allow the capsules to reach the Athanatoi, afraid they would take unfair advantage of it to evade their duties in the mortal realm, and had Hades guard it in the underworld, somewhere the Athanatoi would never be able to reach, somewhere lower than the Tartarus, where the fires of hell originated from
  
  For aeons, the Athanatoi were oblivious to the existence of such a substance, and then they were approached by one of Hades' daughters, Makaria, with only one midnight-shimmering stone in hand. "I wish i could have gotten more but I don't want suspicions directed at anyone." She'd explained the concept of Encinth to the group, breaking the caplet into grains-worth of pieces to distribute between them: it was to put their souls to rest once—for how long, she had no answers, for she wasn't the one who'd formulated it—and protect their carcasses from external elements. They would not enter the underworld or Olympus while in this state of blissful half-death but their souls would wander the countless paths connecting the universes together, stuck in a mist that'd only clear when they woke up again
  
  Upon further interrogation of why she'd decided to do this now, the goddess panicked and scuttled, leaving behind smokes of one phrase: "We haven't much time left, brave warriors." Maybe it was luck, or maybe she had known more than she'd let on, because only a sprinkling of years later, without any prior warning, their gods abandoned them entirely
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  01
  society

  the greeks' homophobic, transphobic, and paedophilic tendencies (that you can read a summary about here) will reflect in this roleplay however they are heavily frowned upon by the deities; most greek gods and goddesses are appalled by the nature and mindsets man has developed
  
  the greeks' proto-racist ideologies (that you can read a summary about here) will also translate into this roleplay; races and ethnicities of all kinds could be classified as what we now call "hellenic" if they spoke greek and lived in the greek colonies. skin colour or lineaments solely would not have contributed to a person's treatment by others
  
  in this roleplay, agdistis would not have been terrorised by dionysus, and instead, have been accepted by the other deities irregardless of their identity. in fact, one of the aims of the athanatoi was to remove these negative concepts (including incest, sexism / misogyny, and non-consent of any kind—which were prevalent among the godly inhabitants of mount olympus—along with racism and slavery) in society
  
  the greek social structure / hierarchy can be read about here
  
  no matter what they did, the athanatoi were seen as untainted and holy, and the priests and governments would seldom advise or scold them against any of their doings due to fear of their gods' wrath befalling them and their villages. dismissive mentalities regarding gender, sexuality, and xenoi still prevailed when applied to the athanatoi but were considerably more lax due to this very fear
  
  sparta was an oligarchy where two kings (from the tribes of agiad and eurypontid) would rule over the city-state, there were also councils and assemblies under them; athens was a democracy where the citizens could be elected into the assembly and then as magistrates who had more hands-on responsibilities (commanding the military, organising feasts, and overseeing religious rites). smaller states would either have a noble aristocracy ruling over them, or comply with the constitution of larger polis' that a group of assemblymen would oversee
  
  
  
  
  

  02
  magic

  the only known magicians of the time were the athanatoi—keepers of secrets, masters of arts, symbols of wisdom—and they were approached by the greek citizens in time of need for spells, curses, charms, potions, poisons, talismans, etc
  
  the athanatoi had the jobs divided between them: the children of aphrodite would be called upon for love potions to attract the men and women they admired from afar, of akhlys for drugs and poison during hunting and wars, hermes / poseidon for protection during travels to would ward off malevolent beings
  
  none of the spells were particularly harmful (unless they were lethal poisons) and even the finest of crafted curses would not last very long—a week at most, a month if your heart was clean—eventually wearing off into mere flakes of their original ingredients
  
  necromancy were dark arts forbidden for the athanatoi. they had the means of travelling to and fro the elysium and tartarus—long and tiring journeys—if the spirits or their living brethren had unfinished business. the athanatoi acted as messengers / links between the three worlds; mortals could not accompany them on these travels
  
  everyday (wo)men were not able create enchantments, and neither were the athanatoi unless they were specifically implored with the explicit request of them
  
  the oracles were the only normal (wo)men who still had a direct connection with the gods associated with their temples, but ever since the athanatoi officially shouldered their responsibilities, the oracles received revelations less often, muttering prophecies only when contacted by travelers or people who sought the word of gods
  
  If you wish to read more about magic in ancient Greece, you can do so here
  
  
  
  

  03
  agiads

  the agiads were one of the two royal lines serving as the kings of sparta all the way from the 10th century bce up till the start of the 2nd century BCE when they were deposed and exiled from the state. the last of them, agesipolis, was said to have been murdered by pirates during his travels to rome with his companions, except this is where history took the wrong turn in Daedalus' labyrinth, deliberately leaving the agiads to be hunted by the minotaur haunting it: agesipolis was, in fact, taken on board by the pirates after they were informed of the child's lineage, deeming him useful
  
  and from then, even if their bloodline was tainted, it persisted through the ages, their descendants eventually infiltrating the persian empire in asia minor where they accepted islam, and procreated
  
  yasmeen rizvi, the founder and director of museion university, is from their lineage as well. her affinity and loyalty to the athanatoi stems from her ancestors' who would have laid their lives on a sword for them but never had to because it was the athanatoi who spent years protecting the kings and queens and their offspring, and (due to the decree of their gods) even fought alongside the spartans during the Peloponnesian wars
  
  the agiads were descendants of heracles and thus, their physical and mental prowess was far beyond that of their peers—perhaps even greater than the athanatoi's—however, whatever ichor that once painted their vessels, has long since tapered, and in modern times, they stand indistinguishable from any other human inhabiting the era
  
  the agiads are still, in modern time, as loyal to the athanatoi as they ever were. some of their descendants have dedicated their families' work as agents in national database organisations of major countries to compute and meticulously stitch the details of every "life" each athanatoi's spends so that suspicion isn't drawn to how they have their joints permanently wedged into history
  
  
  
  

  04
  religion

  religion exists merely because the masses want something to believe in: the hellenic people, the romans, the egyptians, the norsemen—they all had their elaborate mythos that existed because they said so, and they preserved them via their epic poetry and dramatic plays. therefore, as the number of believers dwindled, so did their deities' divine presence in the heavens of the seventh sky, leaving behind only traces of their existence in cult statues and temple ruins (and in our case, the decay of the athanatoi)
  
  the greek gods were not omniscient, and had once made a habit of descending unto gaea in their mortal form to personally check in with their humble servants, but that proved to be extremely time-consuming and diverted the attention they should be pouring on the heavenly matters concerning them on the mytikas peak, ergo, the creation of the athanatoi was brought into motion
  
  
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  races

  during the ancient times when the gods would roam amongst mere mortals, the mythical creatures—the majestic dragons, the fiery phoenix, the coiling drakons—would have their own allotted land (the highlands, the fields, the bogs) between the humans' as well. when were they confined to the elements of olympus? no one remembers, for it was even before the selection of the athanatoi
  
  some of these legendary beasts escaped around the time the athanatoi's atrophy began and their connection with their gods along with the passages to olympus were sealed off forever. they lived in hiding—the sirens, the vampires, the thoons—observing from afar how their brave warriors' bodies slowly succumbed to the darkness that oozed from the essence of their beings, afraid they may suffer the same curses from the hands of the romans and the persians and the eGyptians if they ever revealed themselves
  
  so in order to survive, they learned to live in society, with the humans as friends and mates, procreating till the purity of their heredity too, diminished through the generations, and finding a pure-blood became a fabled feat only quoted in books and movies. there are communities of daemons and cyclopes and dryad children who'll be mistaken for humans because that's what their appearance has dwindled down to, but waning flames of their powers and nature still remains
  
  you can find a full list of creatures, animals, and humanoid beings from greek mythology here
  
  
  
  

  02
  museion

  founded in the early late 1900s by a muslim businesswoman, yasmeen rizvi, museion university doesn't stand to be the oldest educational institute on the historically lush grounds of washington state but it has established itself, over the years, none less competent than the universities built centuries prior
  
  it's a privately-run organisation in collaboration with the state government, and has expanded thousands of squares acres that house multiple campuses spanning different educational stages—all the way from kindergarten to university—and the postgraduate department is currently under construction. there's on-campus housing available for all students, and specific discounts are offered to encourage them to stay there instead of off-campus
  
  scholarships are offered on merit and scoring on the entry test; museion isn't as exclusive as stanford, or harvard, or princeton, but it has a prestigious reputation for producing future philanthropic magnates with excellent leadership skills: perenna kei, for example, is a chinese businesswomen who earned her bachelor's degree at museion and went on to be titled the youngest billionaire at age twenty-four, donating millions to charity and school foundations in china and beijing
  
  unbeknownst to the all of the normal population attending museion, there's a certain group of individuals who're promised full tuition scholarships before they've even step foot on campus: the mythical races—the gegenees, the shades, the hydras. the agiads may have accepted islam under persian rule but they wouldn't forget about their roots in a world where they could exploit them instead
  
  museion holds an exclusive dormitory ward for the anomalies in society where they're free to roam and be themselves without fear of being exposed to the rest of the world. they have extra classes after lights-out to teach them how to tap into, and subsequently, hone their powers
  
  a modern-day sanctuary is museion's whispered repute among these misfits. and that's what yasmeen's perspective of it is as well when she extended personal invites to the athanatoi, purposely excluding multiple details of why she decided to do so in the first place
  
  
  
  

  03
  teleac

  currently, there's close to no medical research done on the functioning of the teleac but it's most likely a cell or hormone that aids and greatly enhances the body's already-existing immune system, encouraging rapid healing and rathe cell division which causes limb regrowth
  
  scientists have, however, found samples of blood in the regions of eastern and south-eastern europe that don't coagulate. its components stand adjacent to discoveries made in modern science so far but the scientists have not given up hope, and are determined to extract whatever the smaller-than-microscopic molecule is that gives this particular sample of blood such extravagant characteristics
  
  
  
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  hopefully, that wasn't too much information to take in all at once; @kashbambi and i tried being as thorough as we could to leave minimal room for ambiguity and confusion
  
  if you're still unsure about anything or have any further queries, go ahead and join the discord server (linked in the "links" tab) and we will get back to you with your questions as soon as possible ♡
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code by valen t.

Spoiler: uncoded

• welcome
• established
• ancient
• modern
• extra
• links

• nodus tollens
  The realization that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you anymore: that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don't understand, that don't even seem to belong in the same genre
• 01
  athanatoi
  The Athanatoi, or children of gods as they're known as in the mortal realm when in reality, they were born out of flesh and blood like any other
  
  It was the Hellenic Oracle at Dodona who first received the golden news, the priestesses awestruck by the frequency the leaves in their sacred groves vibrated with, and the howling of the winds as they whispered past. The heavy bells were tolled across all colonies as the sacred announcement was disseminated with joyous acclamations of "The gods have spoken! Our gods have spoken!" The priestesses of Dodona were made to travel far and wide to collect the children whose names the trees had clattered and whose lineaments the dust had swirled
  
  They were destined to be warriors, those tender children between the ages of three and eight; born as the cause of war when the Persians' attempts at invading and conquering mainland Greece were relentless. The gods at Olympus saw the destruction and bloodshed from their sheltered heavens but were too involved in conflict of their own to intervene
  
  When Artemis swore on the Cypress Tree their mother conceived them against and earnestly claimed she heard Apollo, her twin brother, mutter cryptic prophecies of their mortal believers going to war against each other in the near future... the gods knew this could go on no longer
  
  Thus, the Athanatoi—a hoard of children of transient worshipers made timeless messengers of gods—were chosen as a means to maintain unity amongst the people, also becoming the only tangible link between the Tartarus, Gaea, Elysium, and Mount Olympus. They were swiped of their parents and homes, and made eternal wanderers constantly shifting between the major city states, reared in palaces and religious sanctuaries as royalty right beside the archons and kings
  
  They received exclusive education and private lessons from philosophers such as Pythagoras whom they traveled to Egypt and Persia with to assist in his studies. The Polis of Athens was mostly responsible for providing intellectual education while the priming of their military and physical dominance fell upon the hands of Sparta where the heroes were thrust into the intense program every citizen was made to endure⁠—Agoge⁠—and continued their training alongside the lochoi and heavy infantry
  
  They were even gifted horses for personal use, and therefore a distinguished sub-unit of the Hippeus, who accompanied the monarchy and eminent personalities of the court during their lengthy travels
  
  Eventually, the Athanatoi became teachers, physicians, and military instructors of their own, teaching the youth of their nation
  
  They were gifted their powers after their mentors deemed them ready, the day becoming known as "Kairos" among the populace. Originally, they had complete monopoly to explore the the extents of their newfound powers. They maintained an enviable amount of control over their abilities throughout most of their life but by the beginning of the common era, the first signs of their atrophy and decay had started contaminating them
  
  
  
  
  
  02
  yvonne
  The eldest of the Athanatoi, known to have subsisted centuries before the others were even brought into existence from the first puffs of god. Not much is known of her origin, and she herself was very tight-lipped about the story but there are rumours of her being a scion of Prometheus, anointed by Hestia to protect the fire her supposed father stole from the gods as a gift for humanity. There are also legends that she came from no brood, and instead was the result of one of worst volcanic eruptions to crater the earth: the Minoan eruption at the island of Thera / Santorini
  
  She seldom spoke of her past, insisting that she was chosen by the gods just as the rest
  
  She was an enthusiastic, colourful raconteur who would often spin comical stories on her fingertips and share them over campfires or in the great baths; Mount Olympus and its inhabitants were often the focal point of her fables. She gleaned her skill in conjuring fictitious anecdotes—she revealed to the rest of the group one time—from her late and only lover: the great lyric poet, Sappho. Yvonne was the muse for many of her works, and also the reason she leapt off the Leucadian cliff, Yvonne having survived because of Hestia's blessings (curse, at the time, as her lover left merely a scarlet stain upon the surface of their earth)
  
  She swore off love a centenary before the Athanatoi were officially coined, and would reply with rhetorics of "Are you not mine?" when her partners would ask why she remained without a soul partner despite having a slew of suitors and admirers from all over the Greek colonies
  
  Yvonne was loved and cherished by the people around her, and stood being the personification of her endower, Hestia, in most angles: gentle and mind, forgiving and content
  
  She taught her fellow Athanatoi and helped acquaint them with their powers when they had been newly gifted, but never trained alongside them, and upon first glance, one would not deduce her to have full mastery of her element, fire, rabid and ravaging but it is speculated—by those few who still remain knowing her name—that the destruction evident near the end of the Bronze Age, all across the peninsula, were her doing, but no one in current times has witnessed the extent of her powers ergo, no one could attest to these eccentric claims
  
  
  
  
  
  03
  immortality
  Unlike in demigods (like Helena, Heracles, etc) and in the other divine gods and goddesses who can persist for evermore due to the presence of Ichor in their vessels, the Athanatoi were only gifted a limited amount the day their names were first pronounced in Dodona: they aged slower than their peers, and stopped entirely on Kairos, from where onward their logos continued to mature but they were imprisoned in a body that would never weather or seize up due to dotage
  
  Unfortunately, this gift did not come with impromptu healing
  
  
  
  
  
  04
  healing
  Due to their mortal roots and an immortal gift, the Athanatoi are somewhat of a dilemma: they bleed scarlet if pierced by a blade, and they're able to feel every bit of excruciating pain during and after the process, yet... the stitches of their soul never come loose. They could sunder their own head and bleed out every ounce of liquid in their body, their heart may suffer severe convulsions and dance on the brink of stopping its rhythmic drumming, the cells that build them may mutate and turn against them, but no matter what... they. Cannot. Die
  
  They will not die because they're affiliated with the gods, but their wounds and injuries and ailments will not heal on their own either, for they may be known to have blood running as gold but at the end of the day, their constitutions differ not slightly from the next helot. They cannot acquire replenishment from Ambrosia or Nectar as the gods of Olympus did, since they do not possess the stomach to sustain its components
  
  Healing—that was the gift the Athanatoi received from Hermes and Hebe: a concoction of feathers plucked from the wings and venom drained from the snake coiling around the Caduceus, mixed in two sips worth of water running in the Fountain of Youth. It was a viscous liquid known as Teleac that settled as solid crystals but could be poured like fresh honey; its colour varied depending on the viewer, and for humans, its consumption meant slow, torturous death; too much could kill an Athanati too, and that's where Aphrodite's and Hephaestus gift came in: gold, silver, platinum metals holed out from under the Mountain of Olympus, and bent into necklaces by the Agiad craftsmen—gold for women, silver for men, platinum for anyone falling outside the gender binary
  
  The necklace had a minute opening at the bottom that allowed less than half a drop of the Teleac to flow out before sealing shut once more. Strangely enough, that small of an amount was sufficient to heal wounds and cure ailments of all kinds, severed limbs can regrow and death—as it's known in humans, anything modern medicine cannot resolve—can be overcome by a less than a droplet of this elixir
  
  The only thing it doesn't seem to have any affect on, for reasons unknown, is the atrophy and its symptoms
  
  Furthermore, the Teleac has been limited since before the common era, from after the gods seized all communications with the Athanatoi. The dose remaining in their amulet now is what they've been trying to salvage for centuries
  
  
  
  
  
  05
  encinth
  It was meant to be a gift from Thanatos: a small, nightshade-purple pellet called Encinth, said to induce willful sleep, a condition not unlike death except only temporary. Zeus didn't allow the capsules to reach the Athanatoi, afraid they would take unfair advantage of it to evade their duties in the mortal realm, and had Hades guard it in the Underworld, somewhere the Athanatoi would never be able to reach, somewhere lower than the Tartarus, where the fires of hell originated from
  
  For aeons, the Athanatoi were oblivious to the existence of such a substance, and then they were approached by one of Hades' daughters, Makaria, with only one midnight-shimmering stone in hand. "I wish I could have gotten more but I don't want suspicions directed at anyone." She'd explained the concept of Encinth to the group, breaking the caplet into grains-worth of pieces to distribute between them: it was to put their souls to rest once—for how long, she had no answers, for she wasn't the one who'd formulated it—and protect their carcasses from external elements. They would not enter the Underworld or Olympus while in this state of blissful half-death but their souls would wander the countless paths connecting the universes together, stuck in a mist that'd only clear when they woke up again
  
  Upon further interrogation of why she'd decided to do this now, the goddess panicked and scuttled, leaving behind smokes of one phrase: "We haven't much time left, brave warriors." Maybe it was luck, or maybe she had known more than she'd let on, because only a sprinkling of years later, without any prior warning, their gods abandoned them entirely
• 01
  society
  The Greeks' homophobic, transphobic, and paedophilic tendencies (that you can read a summary about here) will reflect in this roleplay however they are heavily frowned upon by the deities; most Greek gods and goddesses are appalled by the nature and mindsets man has developed
  
  The Geeks' proto-racist ideologies (that you can read a summary about here) will also translate into this roleplay; races and ethnicities of all kinds could be classified as what we now call "Hellenic" if they spoke Greek and lived in the Greek colonies. Skin colour or lineaments solely would not have contributed to a person's treatment by others
  
  In this roleplay, Agdistis would not have been terrorised by Dionysus, and instead, have been accepted by the other deities irregardless of their identity. In fact, one of the aims of the Athanatoi was to remove these negative concepts (including incest, sexism / misogyny, and non-consent of any kind—which were prevalent among the godly inhabitants of mount Olympus—along with racism and slavery) in society
  
  The Greek social structure / hierarchy can be read about here
  
  No matter what they did, the Athanatoi were seen as untainted and holy, and the priests and governments would seldom advise or scold them against any of their doings due to fear of their gods' wrath befalling them and their villages. dismissive mentalities regarding gender, sexuality, and xenoi still prevailed when applied to the Athanatoi but were considerably more lax due to this very fear
  
  Sparta was an oligarchy where two kings (from the tribes of agiad and eurypontid) would rule over the city-state, there were also councils and assemblies under them; Athens was a democracy where the citizens could be elected into the assembly, and then as magistrates who had more hands-on responsibilities (commanding the military, organising feasts, and overseeing religious rites). Smaller states would either have a noble aristocracy ruling over them, or comply with the constitution of larger polis' that a group of assemblymen would oversee
  
  
  
  
  
  02
  magic
  The only known magicians of the time were the Athanatoi—keepers of secrets, masters of arts, symbols of wisdom—and they were approached by the Greek citizens in time of need for spells, curses, charms, potions, poisons, talismans, etc
  
  The Athanatoi had the jobs divided between them: the children of Aphrodite would be called upon for love potions to attract the men and women they admired from afar, of Akhlys for drugs and poison during hunting and wars, Hermes / Poseidon for protection during travels to would ward off malevolent beings
  
  None of the spells were particularly harmful (unless they were lethal poisons) and even the finest of crafted curses would not last very long—a week at most, a month if your heart was clean—eventually wearing off into mere flakes of their original ingredients
  
  Necromancy were dark arts forbidden for the Athanatoi. they had the means of travelling to and fro the Elysium and Tartarus—long and tiring journeys—if the spirits or their living brethren had unfinished business. The Ahanatoi acted as messengers / links between the three worlds; mortals could not accompany them on these travels
  
  Everyday (wo)men were not able create enchantments, and neither were the Athanatoi unless they were specifically implored with the explicit request of them
  
  The oracles were the only normal (wo)men who still had a direct connection with the gods associated with their temples, but ever since the Athanatoi officially shouldered their responsibilities, the oracles received revelations less often, muttering prophecies only when contacted by travelers or people who sought the word of gods
  
  If you wish to read more about magic in ancient Greece, you can do so here
  
  
  
  
  
  03
  agiads
  The Agiads were one of the two royal lines serving as the kings of Sparta all the way from the 10th Century BCE up till the start of the 2nd Century BCE when they were deposed and exiled from the state. The last of them, Agesipolis, was said to have been murdered by pirates during his travels to Rome with his companions, except this is where history took the wrong turn in Daedalus' labyrinth, deliberately leaving the Agiads to be hunted by the Minotaur haunting it: Agesipolis was, in fact, taken on board by the pirates after they were informed of the child's lineage, deeming him useful
  
  And from then, even if their bloodline was tainted, it persisted through the ages, their descendants eventually infiltrating the Persian empire in Asia Minor where they accepted Islam, and procreated
  
  Yasmeen Rizvi, the founder and director of Museion University, is from their lineage as well. her affinity and loyalty to the Athanatoi stems from her ancestors' who would have laid their lives on a sword for them but never had to because it was the Athanatoi who spent years protecting the kings and queens and their offspring, and (due to the decree of their gods) even fought alongside the Spartans during the Peloponnesian wars
  
  The Agiads were descendants of Heracles and thus, their physical and mental prowess was far beyond that of their peers—perhaps even greater than the Athanatoi's—however, whatever Ichor that once painted their vessels, has long since tapered, and in modern times, they stand indistinguishable from any other human inhabiting the era
  
  The Agiads are still, in modern time, as loyal to the Athanatoi as they ever were. Some of their descendants have dedicated their families' work as agents in national database organisations of major countries to compute and meticulously stitch the details of every "life" each Athanatoi's spends so that suspicion isn't drawn to how they have their joints permanently wedged into history
  
  
  
  
  
  04
  religion
  Religion exists merely because the masses want something to believe in: the Hellenic people, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Norsemen—they all had their elaborate mythos that existed because they said so, and they preserved them via their epic poetry and dramatic plays. Therefore, as the number of believers dwindled, so did their deities' divine presence in the heavens of the seventh sky, leaving behind only traces of their existence in cult statues and temple ruins (and in our case, the decay of the Athanatoi)
  
  The Greek gods were not omniscient, and had once made a habit of descending unto Gaea in their mortal form to personally check in with their humble servants, but that proved to be extremely time-consuming and diverted the attention they should be pouring on the heavenly matters concerning them on the Mytikas Peak, ergo, the creation of the Ahanatoi was brought into motion
• 01
  races
  During the ancient times when the gods would roam amongst mere mortals, the mythical creatures—the majestic dragons, the fiery phoenix, the coiling drakons—would have their own allotted land (the highlands, the fields, the bogs) between the humans' as well. When were they confined to the elements of Olympus? No one remembers, for it was even before the selection of the Athanatoi
  
  Some of these legendary beasts escaped around the time the Athanatoi's atrophy began and their connection with their gods along with the passages to Olympus were sealed off forever. they lived in hiding—the sirens, the vampires, the thoons—observing from afar how their brave warriors' bodies slowly succumbed to the darkness that oozed from the essence of their beings, afraid they may suffer the same curses from the hands of the Romans and the Persians and the Egyptians if they ever revealed themselves
  
  So in order to survive, they learned to live in society, with the humans as friends and mates, procreating till the purity of their heredity too, diminished through the generations, and finding a pure-blood became a fabled feat only quoted in books and movies. There are communities of daemons and cyclopes and dryad children who'll be mistaken for humans because that's what their appearance has dwindled down to, but waning flames of their powers and nature still remains
  
  You can find a full list of creatures, animals, and humanoid beings from Greek mythology here
  
  
  
  
  
  02
  museion
  Founded in the early late 1900s by a Muslim businesswoman, Yasmeen Rizvi, Museion University doesn't stand to be the oldest educational institute on the historically lush grounds of Washington state but it has established itself, over the years, none less competent than the universities built centuries prior
  
  It's a privately-run organisation in collaboration with the state government, and has expanded thousands of squares acres that house multiple campuses spanning different educational stages—all the way from kindergarten to university—and the postgraduate department is currently under construction. There's on-campus housing available for all students, and specific discounts are offered to encourage them to stay there instead of off-campus
  
  Scholarships are offered on merit and scoring on the entry test; Museion isn't as exclusive as Stanford, or Harvard, or Princeton, but it has a prestigious reputation for producing future philanthropic magnates with excellent leadership skills: Perenna Kei, for example, is a Chinese businesswomen who earned her bachelor's degree at Museion and went on to be titled the youngest billionaire at age twenty-four, donating millions to charity and school foundations in China and Beijing
  
  Unbeknownst to the all of the normal population attending Museion, there's a certain group of individuals who're promised full tuition scholarships before they've even step foot on campus: the mythical races—the gegenees, the shades, the hydras. The Agiads may have accepted Islam under Persian rule but they wouldn't forget about their roots in a world where they could exploit them instead
  
  Museion holds an exclusive dormitory ward for the anomalies in society where they're free to roam and be themselves without fear of being exposed to the rest of the world. They have extra classes after lights-out to teach them how to tap into, and subsequently, hone their powers
  
  A modern-day sanctuary is Museion's whispered repute among these misfits. and that's what Yasmeen's perspective of it is as well when she extended personal invites to the Athanatoi, purposely excluding multiple details of why she decided to do so in the first place
  
  
  
  
  
  03
  teleac
  Currently, there's close to no medical research done on the functioning of the Teleac but it's most likely a cell or hormone that aids and greatly enhances the body's already-existing immune system, encouraging rapid healing and rathe cell division which causes limb regrowth
  
  Scientists have, however, found samples of blood in the regions of eastern and south-eastern Europe that don't coagulate. Its components stand adjacent to discoveries made in modern science so far but the scientists have not given up hope, and are determined to extract whatever the smaller-than-microscopic molecule is that gives this particular sample of blood such extravagant characteristics
• praxis
  Hopefully, that wasn't too much information to take in all at once; @kashbambi and I tried being as thorough as we could to leave minimal room for ambiguity and confusion
  
  If you're still unsure about anything or have any further queries, go ahead and join the Discord server (linked in the "links" tab) and we will get back to you with your questions as soon as possible ♡
• interest check
  
  
  ooc
  
  
  ic
  
  
  cs app.