The Arian Line is the cosmological operation of the extended cosmos by which a single soul, that of Arian, manifests in parallel geographies while keeping its inner consistency. It is not serial reincarnation but simultaneous or near-simultaneous distribution across different folds of the cosmos. Five avatars are identified with certainty, and a sixth is anticipated.
| Type | Concept (cosmological lineage) |
| Other names | Avatars of Arian (theosophist hermeneuts); the Arian Chain (Decadian provincial archives); the Reunited of Arian (internal doctrine) |
| Avatars | Arian, Auro, Adam Arlequín, Caladan, Lucky; a sixth anticipated |
| Spanish entry | La Línea Arian — avatares y Reunidos |
Doctrine
Arian operates above, in his own geography (Antiterra and the Pantheon), while operating below in others (the Pit, Valakhan, Caldero) at the same cosmological time. According to book IV of the Decadian, Arian’s is a major soul, a rare condition. Only a few souls operate this way: Patience-Peysen (Ante-Inferno), Maristo and Maristo the Condemned, and, with a parallel but not identical doctrine, the Vala lineage of the Blue House of Vala. The Arian Line is the best documented of them.
The avatars
| Avatar | Geography | Doctrinal mode | Fold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arian | Central cosmos — Antiterra / Pantheon / Sacred Order of Tanastias | Deified primordial elf, the 25th sun, luminous figure among the original apprentices of the Sacred Order, member of the 4 A’s | Light layer, doctrinal column |
| Auro | Invisible Cities | Hero of the intermediate cycle; an undeified paladin bearing heroic virtue | Intermediate layer, heroic column |
| Adam Arlequín | The Pit of the Descent / Ante-Inferno | Paladin-harlequin of the third breath; one of the condemned of the Pit, working as a transfer agent | Negative layer, theatrical column |
| Caladan | Valakhan of the Mist / Ardis Vala | Novirian wonderwalker woken from a sarcophagus, vampirized by Master Malakita, involuntary dark lord of the Mist domain | Darkened intermediate layer, grieving column |
| Lucky | Caldero / La Jabalina (“the Javelin”) | Knight of the Sacred Order with celestial smites; real name withheld; rumored to come from “an ancient lineage of knights related to Arian, though few dare let it be told further” | Secondary light layer, recovered column |
A sixth avatar is anticipated: when the extended cosmos opens its next major fold, Arian is expected to manifest there with a function of its own.
The fourfold scheme
The avatars are distributed according to the fourfold structure of the extended cosmos: four layers crossed by four columns. Each avatar crosses one layer with one column.
Four vertical layers
- Positive layer — upper light plane, solidified golden light. The Pantheon’s heavens, the ruby throne of the Palace of the Prism (held by the positive Borg pole), angelic regions.
- Intermediate layer — the mundane plane. Surface Antiterra, Caldero and Star City, Mediterraneum, Northern Crown, Uchronic Paris.
- Negative layer — the lower dark plane. Inferno, Ante-Inferno, the full Pit, the Shadowfell.
- Temporal layer — a transverse plane crossing the other three. The routes of Pablo the Chronomancer, the River Ucronos and its raft, the rivers of time.
Some avatars cross layers; none operates in all four at once. If one did, the extended cosmos would have to close the line, a major event anticipated but not consummated.
Four columns
The columns are constant abstract axes that the Eisagogika of Pablo states from the primordial, the conceptual infrastructure of the Game of Shadows:
- Doctrinal — cosmological order, sacred hierarchy, church authority.
- Heroic — active virtue, the paladin’s office, crusade for a cause.
- Theatrical — transfer, the harlequin’s office, the gift that is shared out.
- Grieving — the weight carried unchosen; the grieving vampire, the involuntary dark lord.
Other columns exist (violence/Aries, love/Taurus, and so on, in a zodiacal cycle of twelve), but these four organize the Arian Line.
The Reunited
The line operates under the doctrine of the Reunited, a secondary use of the term, distinct from its primary sense in the gray cosmogony (the Gathered). It holds that every complete character is the union of the person and their shadow: there is no “Arian alone”, but Arian and Arian’s shadow as a reunited unit. The shadow is not a psychological projection but a complementary cosmological entity working in a parallel fold, in the same geography or another. The doctrine was stated as “the Reunited as unions of characters with their shadows”.
| Avatar | Shadow | Union |
|---|---|---|
| Arian | The Pantheon’s anti-character, adversary of the 25th sun; not fully fixed; some archives suggest the Unnameable | Held by the Pantheon as a living doctrinal tension |
| Auro | Shadow of the Renaissance hero, adversary of the intermediate cycle | Worked as active crusade |
| Adam Arlequín | Shadow of the harlequin, who watches the transfer without transferring | Stage partners of the Pit (relationship with Sven) |
| Caladan | Master Malakita, the rudishva-vampire who vampirized him | The dark lord works with the shadow of his vampirizer |
| Lucky | Adversary of the active Borg pole in Caldero (potentially reactivatable) | Works the shadow of the papal negative pole as continued crusade |
Awareness of the link
Awareness varies:
- Arian knows he is Arian but not necessarily that he is also Adam Arlequín in the Pit or Lucky in Caldero.
- Auro has limited awareness of the extended cosmos and probably does not recognize the chain.
- Adam Arlequín works by reflex of his office. Two readings survive (full or partial knowledge); in the documented descent he did not call himself Arian.
- Caladan is fully aware of his condition, uncertainly of the chain; “Caladan = Arian continued” is the archive’s doctrine, not necessarily his own awareness.
- Lucky has partial, discreet awareness of his lineage.
Doctrine reserves full knowledge of the chain to the major cosmological chronicler: if each avatar knew it fully, its specific operation would lose autonomy and the cosmos would destabilize.
Parallel lines
- Pablo Line — nine variants consolidated in Paulus of Alexandria (Paulus Alexandrinus, Master Alterer, Pablo the Scribe, Primordial Time Traveler, Pablo the Chronomancer, Lord of History, Paul Claudel, etc.), with a temporal emphasis.
- Taylor-Talia Line (Blue House of Vala) — Lotario-Oratiol-Taylor and Thalia Cristalia; Vitalis as son; the Sorcerer of the Blackwater River as a late branch. Crystalline doctrine.
- Patience-Peysen Line — Patience of the Pit and Peysen of the Unnameable’s circle; a double fold between the Pit and Antiterra; an operation of anamnesis.
- Maristo Line — Maristo, aide of the One God above, and Maristo the Condemned, a Lost One of the Ante-Inferno below.
The lines are doctrinally independent but cross in practice: Arian and Pablo know each other (a documented friendship between Maristo, of the 4 A’s, and Arian, partly extending to Pablo); the Blue House of Vala keeps the crystal the Arian Line may eventually need; the Reunited of each line can meet in shared folds.
Function
According to the Decadian archive, the line sustains doctrinal constancy across the folds: where a new fold opens, an avatar of Arian manifests to keep the luminous-doctrinal-heroic voice alive there. Without it, each fold would have to generate that voice from scratch. The line is described as the active operative memory of the extended cosmos, working through the avatars rather than in them.
Death of an avatar
- A parallel case: Ärsvan was obliterated beneath Notre-Dame and moved to the Ante-Inferno as a Lost One. Doctrine holds that avatars of major lines do not die absolutely; they migrate.
- If the principal Arian died, which Decadian doctrine deems unviable under normal conditions, the other avatars would probably survive; the chain would weaken but not close.
- If all avatars died at once, conceivable only as a major cosmological apocalypse, the line would close and the cosmos would lose this memory. The archive records this only as an extreme possibility.
The sixth avatar
Its hypothetical geography is a fold not yet fully opened: possibly the Platforms of Vala-Ely in their stalled phase, possibly the cosmos of Kryle in its Convergences, possibly uncatalogued geographies. It would complete or expand the fourfold scheme in a direction not yet fixed.
Tony Malatesta, from the Caldero compilation, is a tentative candidate: “the mage of strange ideas” who “negotiates with vampires”, whose spells include divinations and control, and who “mixes with the saga of Talia Cristalia”. The archive does not settle whether he is an avatar or only an adjacent operator.
Open questions
- The identity of Arian’s shadow is not fully fixed.
- Whether Adam Arlequín knows fully or partly that he is Arian.
- Where and when the sixth avatar will appear, and whether Tony Malatesta is one.