The Scintillating Flame – Qashmallim [Promethean: The Created]

News, Promethean: The Created

They have been with us since the beginning, adjusting and guiding Humanity’s destiny. Often quiet and subtle, sometimes terrifying and awe-inspiring, the strangers promote change; distillation and entropy. They have been frequently mistaken for angels, and religious alchemists named them qashmallim, the Dominions. Of all the World of Darkness’ inhabitants, Prometheans know them best, as qashmallim apply guidance and punishment to guide them along the Pilgrimage to humanity. Rather than servants of a Christian god, however, the qashmallim are formed from a substance close to Prometheans’ hearts; Pyros.

Pyros permeates the entire physical world in small quantities, wherever humans (and other beings) plan, act on impulse, build, tear down, create, and destroy. Demiurges steal the Divine Fire to create Prometheans. Alchemists bottle it in their experiments. Pandorans feast upon it. The Created burn it into Azoth like messy reactors. Far from simple magical fuel, though, Pyros reacts. It forms its own agenda — its own Principle — and coalesces into its own agents and advocates.

The qashmallim are the agents of Pyros in the World of Darkness, formed from the Divine Fire itself in response to unique needs. Every qashmal is “born” from the Fire with a singular purpose — a Mission that it must carry out to the best of its ability within a strict time limit. Succeed or fail, when the Mission is over the qashmal is reabsorbed by the Divine Fire, and its Mission is never repeated. Prometheans sometimes describe qashmallim as sleeping dormant in the Fire until needed, but whether this is true or if they’re wholly created for their Missions is a matter for debate, as even the extremely rare cases of what seems to be the same qashmal appearing more than once could simply be coincidence in form. Equally mysterious are the reasons Missions are “selected,” or if they’re even deliberately chosen at all. Qashmallim have no memory of existence before the start of their current Mission, and if asked who or what sent them can only say “The Principle.”

Some Prometheans believe the Principle is God, or a manifestation of destiny. Others think it doesn’t really exist as a separate entity, that qashmallim are natural byproducts of Pyros and experience, in their own strange way, their Missions as immutable orders woven into their being. One sect of alchemists describes qashmallim as being to Firestorms as a chain reaction is to nuclear decay; any sentience they seem to exhibit is entirely in the eye of the beholder. The qashmallim don’t seem to care what anyone thinks about their origin — it is the Principle, and needs no further explanation.

OK, so, to “break character” for a minute, here, one of the big questions that folks want to ask about the qashmallim is how they fit in to the larger World of Darkness – specifically, what relationship, if any, they have to the God-Machine. I’ll give you two answers, here: The official answer, and the answer in my personal “headcanon” when I run World of Darkness games.

The Official Answer (Which is Less Exciting Than You Might Think): The World of Darkness contains at least two kinds of entity called “angels.” The first are living symbols of power and truth summoned into the world by human mages. The second are the biomechanical, ephemeral servants of the God-Machine. Qashmallim are not Supernal Entities (they’re born of this world’s Pyros, not the Supernal Realms of platonic forms) and they aren’t the servant-slaves of the God-Machine. Some demons, “Unchained” former angels, theorize that the God-Machine’s servants were created from qashmallim their master somehow captured, but the God-Machine’s commands are not the Principle, and its angels burn Essence, not Pyros. As such, if there is a relationship between the God-Machine and the Principle, it’s not one that the characters in the World of Darkness (who are, for all their power, limited in scope) able to understand. Put another way, you’re free to decide that relationship.

In The World of Darkness According to Matt: The Principle was first. The Principle is many things – the spark of humanity, the desire for human connection, the lightning that created life from the primordial soup. Throughout the first few billion years of Earth, it was evolving along with all of life, looking for…something. It was undergoing its own Pilgrimage.

Once humanity arose, it found its purpose. It was able to shape servants – the qashmallim – from its endless reserve of Divine Fire, and send them into the world. Unfortunately, its own commitment to self-determination meant that it can’t really control qashmallim; they always have a bit of autonomy (which is why they fail sometimes).

Somewhere along the way, someone created the first Promethean. Might have been Hank, actually, or it might have been some collection of rocks arranged into a human form that some caveman, lonely after the destruction of his tribe, created. Who knows. But at that point, the Principle’s real purpose was cemented – guide the Pilgrimage of the Created. That is its chosen expression of its purpose.

And then there’s the God-Machine. The God-Machine is from the future, but the thing about time travel is that it’s irrelevant when it happens, as long as it does. The God-Machine has its own agenda, but its agenda is a lot more complicated than the Principle’s. In order to interact with the world, though, the God-Machine copied a lot of the Principle’s “software.” That’s why its angels always have enough free will to Fall.

And now, here’s a qashmal for ya:

The Red Waters (Greater Lilithim)

She was a Savant, but now she’s not sure what Refinement she’s on, if any. She’s been living alone in the forest for months, nearly a year now, moving around to keep the wastes at bay. Every few weeks she follows the river down into the logging town, to acquire supplies and practice dealing with people. She’s accepted the idea that she’ll never be human, but by her effort no one suffers Disquiet at her presence, and she isn’t hurting anyone. She could stay like this forever, never moving on, never stepping back.

She feels it arrive — the sick twist of Flux all around her, threatening a Firestorm. Thinking it’s a Pandoran, she hunts through the forest, and finds it standing in the shallows of the river. It’s covered head-to-toe in what looks like red robes, but when she gets closer she realizes it’s skin, turned inside-out. When she approaches, wary, it tells her that her exile is at an end. She must leave the forest, and return to her Pilgrimage. She refuses, and it melts, dissolving into the water.

That night, she feels a Wasteland forming, far too soon after moving camp. Refusing to give in, she moves around more. After two weeks, she sees the figure in the water again.

Leave, it says. No, she replies.

The next time she’s in town, the people shy away from her, afraid. Fear turns to aggression, and she realizes that Disquiet is too strong, too fast. She flees, back to her forest.

The Lilithim sent to force her to step backward from the dead-end she’s in has given her two warnings now, but the time for it to complete its Mission is running out. The next time it merges with the river’s water, it will spread disease to everything the course touches — the town, the forest along its banks, the creatures within it. If she will not give up the half life she’s made, the qashmal will tear it down around her.