The Host is a consecrated Catholic Eucharist, at once blessed and cursed, around which a whole saga turns; it gives its name to that saga and to the labyrinth where it is fought over.
| Type | Artifact (sacrament) |
| Sought by | Arkane Society and other factions |
| Houses of the Cycle | ☯ House of the Twin Cosmos |
| Spanish entry | La Hostia (artefacto) |
Properties
Its dual nature embodies the paradox of the Pharmakon, remedy and poison. The spell “the Call of Guilt” marks it, making it traceable at a distance: whoever carries it is marked for the powers hunting it. Its consecration is so deep that no common exorcism can unbind it from its bearer.
The twenty-four Hosts
There are twenty-four Hosts in play, two per sign of the zodiac. They work as candles of invocation: burning one opens an invocation of the highest order, a Gate. They are white or black; “they used to be gray”, opposites created together from an original gray one. The primordial Host bleeds (“God’s blood solidified”), and eating it is a consubstantiation.
In the Host Poker, a key episode in Paris, the Hosts are wagered as cosmic stakes in a card ritual.
The last Host
In the closing phase, Gideon decided not to use the last Host in Virgo to summon the Virgin Queen, as he had promised. He used it instead in the assault on New York, on the Aries platform, to seal the cage imprisoning the Black Butterfly.