Brontes' Anvil

Posted here instead of on the fan community because it's mostly notes/train of thought instead of a coherent concept. A lot of this is based on what I imagine to be deprecated canon or canon that hasn't been settled yet.

There was a brief discussion elsewhere on fanon Incarnae and someone posted their ideas for Ouranos/Uranus specifically and I had a few ideas of my own combined with some of my own fixations. I've put the ideas I want to explore in bullet points.

The Black Sheep Member: A lot of real-world pantheons have a member that doesn't completely gel with the whole but share a broad politics: Ares, Set (anti-Horus, pro-Ra), pre-Ragnarok Loki. I figure Ouranos as someone who was pro-Rebellion but otherwise doesn't gel with the Incarna as a whole.

Ouranos as an older order: In Greek myth, Ouranos was the first ruling sky god until Cronus until Zeus. In the Exalted context, I see him as a precursor to the Incarnae from Zen Mu: A courtier of Mardukth and a Vast Sky to echo his glories. He grew disillusioned with Mardukth when he was deposed and the Ancients as a whole when they left Zen Mu. His incompatibility with the other Incarna is a combination of resentment toward his perceived successors, a disdain for the Creation Ruling Mandate, and preference for an older form of administration than the Celestial Bureaucracy.

God as Cryptid: The other reason to make him from Zen Mu. I have a mild fascination for the idea of something that's true but incongruent with reality or how we perceive it and the feeling that comes from it. Like encountering something operating on a different, slightly incompatible form of physics. I figure one of Ouranos is both a source of and explorer of that concept: a god of an older, stranger order that tends toward the abstruse, who once held a fascination for the miracles and mysteries of the Ancients and even now likes to keep tabs on interesting strangeness to contemplate.

Concerns: For various reasons I feel like he's failed to be somewhat distinct from the others, who cover overlapping if not similar concepts. I fear my ideas for his Exalted are basically "Attribute Solars but with a bit of Getimian and Air Caste flavor."

Other Thoughts: I feel like there should be a bit of Set to him. A tendency, tempered by a desire not to blow up Creation, to undermine the Incarna or the Celestial Bureaucracy, tempered by his own preferences that Creation not self-destruct.

Exalted Ideas

Diminishment: I figure making Exalted has caused him to lose coherency. People and gods normally experience him as a series of celestial images and meteorological phenomena. He mostly communicates either in terse, blunt sentences or abstruse symbolism. It requires concentration to be experienced any other way. This mostly suits him fine.

Formation: His Exaltations were created to fulfill a wish or desire, and it sought people who could fulfill it. Even now, after several wishes are completed, it will seek out those who could have fulfilled them. Ouranos tends to favor those who feel adrift or whose view of the world has been overturned, struggling with the loss of the order of things.

Visitation: Ouranos visits his Chosen, though as a series of phenomena and symbolism. His Chosen interpret his actions as a mission, command, or a new order in their lives. How they react to it and let it shape them determines their Aspect.

So I have a pretty broad definition of technology. Colloquial usage is is typically like tools and machines and shit, but I like to include what I tend to call cultural technologies: laws, gift-giving, social norms, animal husbandry (borderline case, I suppose), accounting, etc. They're all things people have made to solve problems.

As such, Steel is one of the Sources that characters can wield in my Void Knight setting. It's generally the Source used by cyborgs, robots, and people who delve in technology, but it also includes understanding and maneuvering in social conventions and structures, albeit not with the kind of intimacy that Star might.

Wizards are the foremost wielders of Steel, typically robots or cyborgs that hold up in or turn themselves into vast towers and satellites who spend their time fiddling with novel technologies or unraveling the mysteries of Steel. I want to explore a few things with them. I tend to encounter what I call the 'meme' wizard: a sort of hermit that barely respects their peers much less non-wizards or society in general, causes problems on purpose, ultimate power, etc.

And like there are like wild hermit wizards or wizards who spend half their time being hermits, but looking up and asking around about pre-modern wizards, there's a number of people who are involved in temporal affairs and politics. Merlin's a bit half-and-half, advising Arthur when he's not disappeared from the plot. Several kings, Solomon in particular but also Odin and Math fab Mathonwy if you include gods, dabble in magic. Medea gets married to several princes and kings. A few are minor lords or landholders.

Plus Steel is about social and cultural stuff as much as machines and such, so I figure you're just as likely to see Wizards who are all about society or their various obligations as hermits who dabble in and spam ultimate power.

So I'm trying to look up wizards, magicians, and wizard-adjacent characters in like mythology and folklore and there are a few that, rather than being like wild men and tower hermits, do serve in some political capacity.

Granted a number of these wizards are also kings (Solomon, Math fab Mathonwy and Gwydion, Odin if you count gods). Merlin tends to split the difference, being a royal advisor who faffs off most of the time. Medea gets married to several different princes and kings.