Oratiol is a red-haired cleric of Antiterra and the inventor of poker, the only being known to have sold his soul to devils and recovered it. His name is an anagram that recomposes in each configuration (Lotario, Latiol, Rodejart, Horatio), always spelling love, cleric, revolution and freedom.
| Type | Character (cleric) |
| Origin | Gotland |
| Weapons | Axe of the King; chain; helmet of Asmodeus |
| Spanish entry | Oratiol |
History
From the island of Gotland, he appeared floating in the Baltic Sea with no memory and stayed so for months. He returned to land in the age of the European revolutions; in 1891 he reached “part of that event horizon”. At the divine level, his amnesia is a necessity.
Description
“A super-red man”: about 1.80 m, lean, with long crimson hair, “animal yellow” cat’s eyes and a deep voice. His breathing sounds “like the wind over the waves of the sea”. His cells hold more atoms, making him “hard to pierce”. He looks thirty-three. He wears black leather, a white shirt and a green cape, and bears the mark Coyote y Guajira.
Attributes
- The mantle of faith: his divine tunic, the same green cloth he spreads for poker. In his deck, his absence made the King of Hearts Krisina’s.
- The “center” of King Henry IV of France, by which kings turn into many weapons.
- Cleric: relics, marriage rites, negative energy, time travel on seas “where time becomes space”.
- Warrior: he gathers weapons on the road, wields the Axe of the King, chose to wear the helmet of Asmodeus, and swings a ball-chain that rings when he goes berserk.
- Musician: a “profane lute” puts him in trance; he plays guitar. From the same chain comes a guitar or a coffin.
When someone grabs his hands, he says ¡Taca mano!
The contract
He sold his soul for consecrated hosts, stealing the devils’ own. Monseñor Goull is consignee. The contract grants him the host, youth and “the shift of the thousand years of existence” for ninety-nine modified innocent souls within a year (some say one hundred); if he defaults, his soul passes to the consignee at his death. Queen Eva de Huizinga offered to try to reverse it if given a copy. His soul was kept in “a gem, a black stick” with Krisina’s; both were returned for a book at the event of the chains.
He had relations with Queen Margot, and possibly with the Marquis.
Doubles and exile
Two versions exist: “the somber, nightmarish one”, trapped in the dream, and the one traveling with the company. A simulacrum made in case he died was given to Krisina.
The Lady of Pain expelled him from Sigil («Vos no estás más», “You are no more”). He is confined to his own demiplane, which has a door to the plane of dreams. He shares exile with Yoxotl, both excluded from the game of platforms, but can reconfigure himself. The Regulators regulated the platforms and activated the gem in his favor; he sought Kutú to complete that system.
He leads in the church of love of New York. “If one day he is turned, like Darth Vader, he is really very dangerous for the cosmos.”
Conflicting accounts
- Baltic Sea, or a river in Eastern Europe; Gotland, or “the north, of the fields”.
- Height 1.80 m, or just over 1.70 m.
- “No longer in Antiterra” against “he is now”.
Open questions
- Whether Garantiol, Notario and Reijard are forms of the anagram; whether Monseñor Goull is a separate entity.
- How the somber version differs from the simulacrum; where the demiplane lies.
- What the “K of Épica” or “of Tremont” cards that replaced his King of Hearts are.
- His ties to La Plume (a friend) and Casemiro, the water elemental.