Pope Borg of Caldero was the pontiff of the theocracy of Star City who tried to become a lich and was crushed by the Ancient Giantess in the Great Obsidian Plaza around 1812 AE. He is a failed manifestation of the negative pole of the dark papal dynasty of the Borg Popes.
| Type | Character |
| Office | Pontiff of Star City |
| Death | c. 1812 AE |
| Spanish entry | Papa Borg de Caldero |
Names
Commonly “the Pope Borg”; “the high priest” in old ecclesiastical broadsheets; “Papa Don’t Lich” in the popular chant after his fall. His civil name is not preserved; he may have borne the title Magnanim Pius Pontifex Maximus, like Pope Alejandro Sixto in Ardis Vala, but this is unconfirmed.
Office and ambition
His theocracy ruled the morals and laws of Star City and, by extension, of its sister city Caldero. Behind the appearance of a pious shepherd he sought to become an all-powerful undead, a lich, to extend his rule beyond mortal limits.
History
The ritual. Surrounded by his corrupt cardinals, he gathered the blood and lives of innocents to complete his lichdom in the Great Obsidian Plaza, a star-shaped stone plain and focus of celestial energy. He believed active cosmological containment was absent; he was wrong.
The pilgrims. Pilgrims bearing the relics of the people’s last prophet, a martyr killed by the Pope’s agents, pushed through the guard under cover of the crowd. Tradition held that kissing the center of the star opened the way to a deeper plane. When they did, blue-green light burst out and the ground gave way. Below, it is said, they found an ancient sanctuary and a seal holding the Giantess, a colossal entity born of ancient volcanic deities protective of the natural order. They broke the seal and freed her.
The fall. As the Pope raised his staff for the final conversion, the Giantess emerged, shaking the city’s rings. She drew his mystical energy to herself and his spell went out. With her stone fist she toppled the obsidian pedestal; the shockwave scattered his followers and destroyed the sacrilegious instruments. The people sang “Papa Don’t Lich”. In the words of Mascor Blancarba in the Caldero Gazette, “clinging to his portable throne, [he] could not complete his transformation and was crushed by the implacable force of the giantess, imploding and leaving a brief crater.”
Aftermath.
- The theocracy ended. The plaza was kept with its cracks, and the small crater remains as a visible scar.
- The pilgrims founded a cult of justice and truth around their martyr’s relics.
- The Giantess vanished into volcanic vapors, leaving a trail of golden ash.
- His fall accelerated the Magical Industrial Revolution.
- In the present cycle (1824 AE) he lives on in popular memory, and a new Pope Borg is anticipated.
Cosmological status
He failed because active containment (the Giantess, the Sword of Judgment and the prophesied pilgrims) operated fully. The positive pole, in Pope Alejandro Sixto in Ardis Vala, was consummated because containment in Valakhan of the Mist was weak, Caladan being a passive dark lord. Under the doctrine of the dual pole, one pole is always consummated and the other contained: in 1812 AE the negative pole was contained in Caldero, while during the Hiatus of Ardis Vala (c. 1810–1825 AE) the positive pole was consummated.
Conflicting accounts
- The positive pole is called both “simultaneous” with his and consummated twelve years later.