Light of the Sun [Dark Eras 2]

Chronicles of Darkness

Dark Eras 2 is an upcoming supplement that’s compatible with the Chronicles of Darkness second edition game lines. Each chapter is a look at a different era in history through the eyes of two or three game lines. Light of the Sun is a chapter that takes place in the 17th century, in the time of Galileo Galilei. It features Mage: The Awakening, Demon: The Descent, and the upcoming Deviant: The Renegades.



This fictional letter opens the Light of the Sun chapter and offers a taste of what’s in store. The book is over three hundred thousand words and is now being edited. If you’re excited to play the Chronicles of Darkness throughout history, check out the BackerKit for Dark Eras 2.

Accorso,



If you will not heed my warnings to turn from your studies on grounds of our friendship and trust, let me tell you fully of the Soncino matter, in hope this might penetrate your prideful stubbornness and return you to humility.



Filippo Mantovani died before my companions and I arrived at his crumbling villa at the edge of Soncino. He was struck down by a wasting disease. Some farmers had already taken the shriveled corpse on a crude bier to a hilltop near the town, its crown bare but for the jagged shape of an old monolith. We resolved to challenge this superstitious nonsense after questioning Rigarda, Filippo’s wife.



Amid the meager furnishings and empty shadows of her home, Rigarda told us her husband had spent his riches on telescopes and prohibited texts. She showed us copies of De revolutionibus, Siderius Nuncius, and others besides, and admitted that she too had read and studied these books.



Further, she said that she and her husband had witnessed strange lights in the night sky, that there were pearls of silver that did not match the charts of any philosopher or mathematician and certainly not holy scripture. They had spent months tracing the arc of these lights, and learned a certain flashing rhythm from them which they believed to be a language of the firmament.



Filippo had fallen in with certain men from the local farms, men who Rigarda was fearful of, and regardless of their difference in status the merchant had employed these peasants because of their belief that the monolith on the hill had been built by the ancients, and that witches used it as a beacon to speak with spirits of the sky.



As she explained this story to us, and we questioned her closely as to how they had acquired these books prohibited by the Sacred Congregation of the Index, evening fell. Rigarda offered us hospitality but, as we sat to eat, a terrible sound of buzzing and clicking came from that distant hilltop and shook our bones to intensely that it brought us to senselessness.



When we came to, Rigarda was gone along with the books. The distant hilltop was limned with white light, and the monolith burned there like an ivory brand. We could see the shapes of figures dancing around it. A light answered in the night sky above, and fell down on a trail of fire to consume that hilltop in a thunderous conflagration.



In that fire, Accorso, I saw wings unfolding.



You know I am not superstitious, Accorso, but I have no explanation in scripture or reason for what I witnessed. I urge you to set aside your fanciful obsession with the philosophy and mathematics of the heavens. The mysteries of the firmament should not be explored.



Some truths come at a price too high for simple mortals such as we. Leave these secrets to God, my friend. Please.



— Guglelini, in service to the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition

