The Houses of the Cycle (the Wheel of the 13 Tropes) are the thirteen tropes by which the cycle of the shared cosmos is read. The Archive recognizes them because two blind readings agreed on them. They are the aspects through which the totality (ATEM, read as Atum) differentiates itself; every entry lists, at its foot, the Houses that inhabit it.
Each House has a glyph. It is not a zodiacal sign but the sigil of the trope.
| Type | Concept |
| Houses | 12 of the world, plus the thirteenth |
| Spanish entry | Las Casas del Ciclo |
The twelve Houses of the world
- ☯ House of the Twin Cosmos — the world is a pair of twin hemispheres that cannot exist without each other.
- ☷ House of the Descent — descent through numbered layers; space is stacked time, and the dungeon stratifies eras.
- ⏳ House of Carnal Time — time is travelled, lent and spent as matter, and can be killed.
- △ House of the Crossing Object — a composite object, often in three pieces, crosses chronicles; its assembly decides the cosmos.
- ◑ House of the One Kept in Store — the antagonist, and the hero as its mirror, is not defeated but kept in a chrysalis, waiting for the cycle.
- ⛧ House of the Pact — the precept against pacts is always broken, to save a master or for love, and it condemns.
- ※ House of the Name — shared names reveal a prior cosmic identity; the anagram is continuity of soul.
- ⛓ House of the Band — the heroes act as a band under a collective name that ends up a subject of the cosmos.
- ⟳ House of the Rotating Office — “whoever kills the guardian becomes the guardian”: the office is independent of its holder.
- ✦ House of the Apotheosis — the heroes of one chronicle are the gods of the next; gods can be trapped and can die.
- ⌖ House of History — real history and real figures are inscribed verbatim; the real fact attests that the cosmos is not invented.
- ✒ House of the Chronicler — the voice that glosses the world is a character in it, who dies, transmigrates and passes on the office.
The axis and the thirteenth
- ⚭ The axis · the seam · the deposit — the ending is not the wedding: the world is sewn up and deposited for the next cycle.
- ⛎ The Throne That Is Not Named — the house of the unattached; it is filled only by co-option.