The Platform of Aries is the first house of the zodiac in the Game of Shadows, opening the cycle. Its essential column, unchanged whoever its guardian is, is violence and wrath.
| Type | Place (zodiacal platform) |
| Activation | 21 March |
| Guardian | Gabriel |
| Houses of the Cycle | ⟳ Rotating Office · ☯ Twin Cosmos · ⛓ Band |
| Spanish entry | Plataforma de Aries |
Description
Its current guardian is Gabriel, a violent priest and rival worshiper of the Snow Queen. Others came before him, and whoever defeats him will inherit the post: under the Dual Corruption, whoever kills a zodiacal Guardian becomes one or is destroyed. “The platform is the guardian’s prison”: Gabriel could not leave Aries if he wished.
The territory is called Aria (or Arias). Two opposed ram-headed figures stand on it: Arian, guardian of the ordered, good face, and Marian, guardian of the chaotic, bad face. Between them runs the Band of the Dissolution, the line dividing the two half-planes of the dual universe. Whoever crosses it vanishes to an unknown place; whoever goes around it passes from one guardian to the other unchanged.
It neighbors the Platform of Pisces, which closes the cycle, and precedes the Platform of Taurus. The book Eisagogika states it astrologically.
Doctrine
Platforms are “concretions of energy based on an abstract concept”, divided according to the cosmic-numeric base (BCN) of their universe; the zodiac is “a dual universe of BCN=12”. Columns are abstract axes crossing all dimensions, each the essence of a concept, constant in concept but not in style: violence may be subtle in the dream world and deadly in a medieval fantasy universe. Aries is the first column, and its concept is violence.
History
Les Libertateurs faced it between 1717 and 1784 A.D.A., closing their passage with American independence. The Regulators faced it in 1888 A.D.A. with Gabriel’s guidance. It is the first documented platform of the Game’s modern cycle.
The chronicle of the Deep Ones records the 1888 passage:
- Warning. The Cakravartin, on his pile platform at sea, warned that the mirror temple was a platform guarded by Gabriel: “whoever kills the guardian — or fails the test — becomes a guardian himself”. One fails by always answering with violence.
- The emissary. A neutral being on a donkey offered entry to the game, the long road toward one’s own shadow, where almost all are devoured “by the eagle or by the serpent”. The group was still standing on the platform: beating the guardian is not mastering the wrath. There are always two guardians per platform.
- Failure. Erzebeth shot an unarmed priest pleading for peace, the Piedras Negras border ended in a massacre, the bridge was blown, and the Atlantean chest sank in the Río Bravo: having failed to master aggression, they lost the chest.
- The wheel. Gabriel died in the dunes. The charmed dragon Oximec, a former slave who became priest-guardian by killing his predecessor, said: “La sangre con sangre se paga” (“Blood is paid with blood”) — they would “butt like rams, never finding the door”. Gorgona, who dealt Gabriel the final blow, next appeared as the new guardian of Aries, able to help only with information.
- Crossing. The way out was carrying a bull across the river. Among twelve zodiacal bulls charging the Atlantean ship, the Aries bull was Gorgona; on the far bank he was freed and thanked them: “one of you will free me by giving me death someday”. So the Deep Ones transcended the first platform.
Conflicting accounts
- Gabriel is named current guardian in the present cycle, yet the 1888 passage records his death and Gorgona’s succession.