The Sorrower's Dominion

This document, written by the sometimes-scholar Tierus Morvaenus, details the limits of Mularosian power--that is, if they exist at all.

There is some concern amongst the scholars of the East as to the realms where Mularos holds dominion. These are not the domains of the world, for all of them by right belong to him and his high brethren. Rather, they are those intangible territories of the mind and the spirit. Mularos is the Lord of Pain, and makes no distinction between the agony of the body or torture of the mind and spirit. It is because of this that difficulty arises in finding clear delineations between his spheres of influence and those of other great beings. Among these Arkati and Greater Spirits are such beings as Amasalen, V’Tull, Eorgina, and Laethe.

Amasalen, the Lord of Blood, bears in the grimoires of his worship many rituals that are easily confused with those of Mularos. The communion spells of both involve the shedding of blood, frequently through use of jagged daggers intended to wake a maximum of bodily fluid from wounds. Frequently, this blood is offered to the god as a symbol of his power over willing followers.

One major difference between the Rites of the Blood God and the Rites of Bleeding Sorrow is that the former are considered more sacred if they end in the deaths of several participants. Mularos does not much value death. Some of his followers consider the ending of life to be a display of low skill and immaturity in the torturer’s art. In fact, there is a saying among Mularosians: “There is no pain in death.”

The prime distinction between the rites of Mularos and those of Amasalen is the purpose behind their actions. In those of Amasalen, the blood is given for the sake that it is life in fluid form. In Mularosian services, the importance is in the pain. The agony is offered to Mularos, and the blood is purely a symbolic offering.

At least one follower of V’Tull has seen closeness enough between the Sword of Shadow’s religion and that of the Shattered Prince. Some of the Paradis of Icemule saw them as one and the same. During the reconstruction of their town Temple in 5102, an artist rendered Mularos as an armored being, dark of countenance and eye, bathed in the gore of battle. It was only at the insistence of a wealthy Mularosian sponsor that this likeness was removed.

The powers of V’Tull and Mularos are based, superficially, in violence and the causing of agony. This is where any real similarity ends. In V’Tull’s sphere is the violence itself, and all of the other points of warmaking. Mularos revels in the brutality, but only for its consequences. While V’Tull might relish the agony of battle, he draws no strength from it, and therefore makes no distinction between the dead or the wounded. To Mularos, the latter are as a cup from which to drink.

If any Arkati other than the Sorrower can be named the patron of the wounded heart, it is Laethe. He is the patron of lost loves. For this reason, many call to him in their pain as they might to the Pain Lord.

Truly, the dissimilarity between Laethe and Mularos lies not in their spheres of influence but in the size of those spheres. Laethe’s powers do overlap with the Paingiver’s in this case, as both draw from the pain of a lost love. They take the power of it in the same way. The sources from which the Sorrower draws his strength are as a spectrum to the hue that is Laethe’s foundation.

The personalities of both Arkati create another division. Laethe and Mularos are of different minds about the reception of this pain. While Laethe might offer quiet succor despite his own endless and boundless sorrow, his darker counterpart would cultivate the source of agony. Laethe’s kindness is self-defeating, Mularos’s shrewdness prudent.

Final and arguably greatest of the Arkati whose powers border on those of the Scarred One is the Black Queen, Eorgina. She claims dominance as one of her facets of power. In this case, Mularos must cede superiority in the realm to the Mistress of Lornon.

The Sorrower is so frequently associated with domination that the archaic and rarely-worshipped Queen of Shadow is often forgotten as its patron. Mularos and those creatures that bear his spirit are most frequently concerned with domination of an intensely personal sort. Even when applied in mass, Mularosian command is exercised in a manner unique to each being it constrains. Eorginite dominion is infinitely colder, and nearly always entwined with the pursuit of more power.

The scholarly will always try to quantify the powers of the Arkati, as they have quantified the powers of the lesser magics and many of the skills of the body. It is to those who are not scholars, who see that the Arkati cannot be described through the imperfect words of mortal make, that this conclusion is written. Others may be content with the simple and accurate descriptions scribed above.

Like all Arkati, Mularos seems to be a creature defined by the expectations of those who worship him. Though fundamentally similar to the creature he was in the eldest of writings, there can be no doubt that Mularos has changed from the god he once was. It may be that Arkati are every bit as malleable as their mortal servants, save that they live on a scale our minds cannot encompass. It is even possible that, given time and circumstance, he may someday cede portions of his essence to others, or take on new attributes lost to his compatriots. Although it is possible that the effort expended in the creation of this document may clarify some things, it should not be considered a definite or permanent solution to the problem it addresses. Hopefully, it shall suffice for now.