Cup   -   Edwin Aafjes,

Dutch, b. 1951-

Aries: Warriors of a traitor clan. Hidden laboratories filled with kodoku jars. Throwing knives and daggers coated in unholy toxins. Peasants turned assassins by the arrogance of self proclaimed god-kings.

Taurus: The knights of a forgotten order. Overgrown armor that shows few signs of decay despite centuries of wear. Sentinels to a forgotten holy site. Violets blooming from the spaces in the maille. The heads of lances twinkling in the sunlight beneath a century of overgrowth, still sharp.

Gemini: Guards shepherding foreign merchants across the dune seas. Faces obscured by cloth veils, a bundle of throwing spears slung across their backs. Stoic and seldom spoken, few have heard their voices. Curiously all female. 

Cancer: Holy knights. Armor and arms created in the image of artifacts found in the deepest levels of the ancestral necropolis. Bronze sickle-swords emblazoned with the symbols of new gods, but their shape alone channels an ancient blessing fit for rending the unquiet dead.

Leo: The followers of a legendary champion. Lightly armored, and what armor they wear is largely ceremonial. Decorative manacles dangle from their wrists, impaled on their spiked pauldron is the effigy of an inhuman eye. Reminders as to the cost of freedom.

Virgo: The warrior elite of an empire now lost and fractured. Helmets in the shape of a snarling lion. Rumors of a secret, esoteric order. Clandestine rituals in the halls of the former capital. Ruminations on the origins of humanity. The true meaning of beasthood.

Libra: The last solider of an old atrocity. Dark memories. Prison camps. A chance at life. Dark red half-cloaks denoting a slave. Sealed into mouthless suits of armor and bound with padlocks. A necklace of keys and the fingers they were pried from. 

Scorpio: Tales of cats eyes glinting in the dark. Circles of mushrooms in the woods. Living veridium armor, shape-shifting along with their wearers. Deals made, debts collected. The watchdogs of the Summer Queen. 

Ophiuchus: Stewards to the dead. Bodies preserved in ritual armor. Forms bent double, walking on all fours. Sacred candles cover their backs like the spines of a porcupine. Blessed silver estocs glinting in the candlelight, free of blood and rust despite centuries of wear.

Sagittarius: Tundra knights. Thick layered pelts act as protection from weaponry and the bitter arctic winds. Wolf-skull pauldrons engraved with protective charms denoting rank. One hand carries a curved greatsword carved from a single colossal tusk. 

Capricorn: A lost warrior from an isolated and inhospitable land. The only known user of a weapon unique to her people. A long, razor sharp angled blade that bears no hilt, brandished with graceful wheeling motions. Strangely, the weapon is meant to be thrown. Stranger still, on a miss, the weapon comes back.

Aquarius: The captain of the guard and first of the dragonfly snipers. Personal bodyguard to the empress, watching visitors from the rafters of the throne room. Tales of a contest with the gods. A crossbow made from a falling star, shot right out of the sky.