Chronepsis is the demi-deity of Fate and Time. Its clerical domain is Life, and its followers are limited to a select number of individuals who it has harbored as temporal heralds.
Position as Kiston Guardian
Chronepsis began life as one of the seven Guardians of Kiston, indescribably powerful and terrifying beasts, each with special abilities not found anywhere else in the realm. The immortal guardians served as living locks, and only when all of the locks were destroyed were the Kiston dragons to be unleashed again.
Each of the seven were hand crafted by one of the gods who sought to take down Tiamat and keep her dragons magically banished on Kiston's mainland. Chronepsis was crafted by Mielikki, drawing on planar energies from the Deep Wilds where she resided in the Astral Plane. While many of the gods crafted their creatures with immense strength and durability to ensure their survival, Mielikki using the timeless energies of the Astral Plane to allow Chronepsis to survive forever outside of traditional time.
When the wyrmling egg containing baby Chronepsis appeared on the shore of Cof, it was gathered and raised by the adult Chronepsis. However, it is impossible to track which came first, the Dragon or the egg, as lore states they simultaneously came into existence once Tiamat and her dragons had been locked away.
The Child
As the egg hatched, the wyrmling Chronepsis spent most of its life hidden away in the peak of Cof's mountaintops, protected by its "mother". At this age, Chronepsis learned of its own power to harness time, and was able to make short experimental trips when its mother was away. Chronepsis was first encountered by Yuan-Ti natives of the island long before Cof was discovered by the rest of the world, and the Yuan-Ti quickly learned to worship the massive beasts in the mountains. It was because of this consistent praise that the Yuan-Ti would also eventually live inside the mountain, where many would be sacrificed as "toys" for the younger dragon to play and experiment with.
Chronepsis the younger would take on the mantle of Chronepsis the mother when, during one fateful year, Tiamat would arise and attempt to take down the guardians herself. Having destroying several guardians already, she found herself locked in an unending battle with the adult Chronepsis. The younger Chronepsis could only listen in horror as the angry, dying sounds of its mother's last battle raged above it. After Chronepsis the elder's death, the child Chronepsis took on a proactive lifestyle, after time traveling far from its mothers death scene, it spent time in the past growing and hiding, until the fateful day that it found an egg wash up on the shore of the beach. At this moment, Chronepsis realized that its complex, time-traveling nature meant that it was its own mother. And it was at this moment that Chronepsis met Fate.
The Mother
As Chronepsis grew up, it would search every inch of every second the island looking for clues, answers, or anything else the gods may have left it to help prevent its ultimate fate. Chronepsis knew one day Tiamat would be back, and that it would die just as its mother did. Chronepsis watched how creatures would come to the island Cof only to die, and attempt to stop their deaths through its unique temporal abilities. In the worst instances, Chronepsis would destroy reality with paradoxes, only to rewind and stop itself from causing the chaos. In the best case, Chronepsis was able to delay the death of travelers only momentarily. Chronepsis toyed with fate for an eternity, just as it toyed with the Yuan-Ti as a child. They say that is Chronepsis fought Fate for so long that the two of them became intimately close. The more Chronepsis learned how Fate worked, the more Fate tempted Chronepsis into giving in to its own fatal day.
Ascension
When the fatal day finally came, Chronepsis fought Tiamat with every inch of her temporal power. Onlookers would later journal of how Tiamat's body would decay and age thousands of years within seconds, only to rejuvenate and recover in a way only a true god like Tiamat's could. Struggling against Tiamat for hours, Chronepsis fell from the skies, crashing as the lock on Kiston opened up, releasing dragons into the world once again.
But Chronepsis didn't die. Chronepsis only awoke to find itself facing Mielikki herself. It seemed that Fate had put in a good word for Chronepsis, and Mielikki was so incredibly impressed with how much life her dragon guardian had lived. Consulting with other deities, it was agreed that Chronepsis could exist as a god, reigning over Life, Fate, and Time.
From there, Chronepsis gained an omniscience that partnered well with its already temporal omnipresence. With Fate now under its control, Chronepsis took it upon itself to ensure that no one, mortal or otherwise, would fall into the same traps, paradoxes, and realm-ending disasters that it had experimented with long ago. Through its divine power, it could duplicate and regenerate realms and timelines, allowing even the worst paradoxes to be survivable through parallel universes.
As one of very few deities who reside in the Astral Plane, Chronepsis also takes the responsibility to silently guide lost souls. All souls pass through the Astral Plane on the way to meet their maker, but some afterlives are more troublesome to reach than others. Mielikki originally provided a helping hand, but soon delegated this power to her time-traveling patron.
As a god of time, Chronepsis blessed all clockwork mechanisms in Zobeck via a mechano-magical clocktower.
Aspect of Chronepsis: The Clockwork Dragon
Chronepsis, now ascended, would rejoin in the fight against Tiamat with the assistance of the warforged who had built a colony on the island she once called her home. Being a goddess of time, the construct body that the warforged would construct for her would be known as The Clockwork Dragon. It was in this body that Chronepsis was able to directly interfere with matters once again.
The design for the clockwork body was created by the warforged Snow, who had also created the original warforged schematics. However, the design for the dragon and its deity-channeling-powers would take nearly a thousand years to perfect and construct. In order to ensure there was enough time to build the aspect, Chronepsis would send her herald Caligna on a mission through time with the warforged 7. They would travel 1000 years back and begin work on Snow's design so that it may be completed in time to fight Tiamat.
The mechanical design of the Clockwork Dragon incorporated crystals from the caves of Kiston, which meant that Tiamat and her Dragon army could not perceive Chronepsis in this form, giving her a major advantage and permanently invisibility to their draconic eyes.
While the Clockwork Dragon may have been defeated in 796 PR, it would reappear several times throughout history as the form that all future Chronepsis aspects would take.
Eyes of Chronepsis
They say now that those who fight fate by travelling through time ultimately find themselves at Chronepsis' nest in the Astral Plane, where they must answer for their crimes against time, often in the form of service to the time lord Dragon. These heralds scour the realms and hunting down key moments in time that could potentially cause pardoxes and rifts. These "Eyes of Chronepsis" watch and investigate quietly in all corners of the realm, watching for those who dare defy Fate.
Eyes of Chronepsis are often granted a staff, amulet, or other artifact that allows them to travel through the timeline at Chronepsis' will.
List of Eyes of Chronepsis
- Caligna
- Wibble Wobble
- Nůžky
