#like how they put hornsent prisoners into the jars for being wicked presumably hoping they’d be reborn as ‘saints’

[blasphemousclaw]

Thoughts on the Curseblades?

the Curseblades are interesting because they’re related to a concept that seems very unique to hornsent culture… tutelary deities:

“Curseblades appear to dance when they spin their shimmering circular blades. These ascetics, who failed to become tutelary deities, were a scourge for those who attempted to invade the hornsent homeland.” (Curseblade Meera)

“Attire of the tower's ascetics, embodying their commitment to an austere existence of strict self-control. In order to ascend from their mortal flesh into tutelary deities of the land, they heighten their spirituality through severe ascetic training.” (Ascetic’s Loincloth)

“Weapon of the masked Curseblades. Circular backhand blade with wave-like cutting edges, sharpened into points that incite blood loss. Long ago, this was employed by the ascetics who strove to become tutelary deities as a ritualistic object in their self-flagellating dances.” (Curseblade’s Cirque)

The Curseblades are essentially a religious sect who live as ascetics in order to ascend as tutelary deities, which are in fact the hornsent corpses holding the Revered Spirit Ash that you find all across the lands of the tower:

“Spirit ash of those who came before, infused with potent spirituality. Acquired from the corpses of hornsent and other objects that ritually decorate townships and villages across the realm of shadow. Consume these at sites of grace to bolster your Revered Spirit Ash Blessing. The Revered Spirit Ash Blessing bolsters both summoned spirits' and spectral steed's abilities to deal and negate damage but has no influence outside the realm of shadow. The withered corpses were called tutelary deities, and Revered Spirit Ash was said to quietly accumulate in the palms of their hands.” (Revered Spirit Ash)

The word “tutelary” means “serving as a protector, guardian, or patron,” so the purpose of these tutelary deities were probably something like spiritual guardians or guides for the townships and villages they’re placed in… we use the Revered Spirit Ash to improve our spirit summons and spirit steed, implying that collecting the ash makes us more hashtag blessed, so I think it’s a fair assumption that the purpose of tutelary deities was to guard and guide others spiritually, help deepen spiritual connection, etc.

The most interesting thing about tutelary deities though is that they were mortal beings who ascended their mortal flesh to become “deities!” The Curseblades were people with incredible abilities due to their severe ascetic training, but presumably started out as regular hornsent, and yet it seems like a sort of godhood was within their reach! A similar sort of thing is described with Divine Bird Warrior Ornis:

“Ashen remains in which spirits yet dwell. Use to summon the spirit of Ornis the divine bird warrior. Spirit of the divine bird warrior from whom the horned warriors claim descent. Clad in golden armor, and granted wings and feathers by divine invocation. Ornis succeeded in taming the divine bird and made its wings his own as he soared through the sky. When he finally fell to earth, he lived on as the guardian deity of the temple quarter.”

Ornis, a mortal warrior, “tamed the divine bird” and lived on as a “guardian deity.” This is pretty unprecedented from what we’re familiar with in the base game: in the current order of the Lands Between, only ONE person — who must be an empyrean chosen by the Two Fingers — is able to ascend to godhood. Divinity is not something just any mortal can ascend to, even with all the spiritual training in the world! It doesn’t seem like the hornsent even had an equivalent to Marika, a “one true god.” To the hornsent, the Divine seems like it was something less centralized, with mortals regularly communing with and invoking divinity, and ascending as minor deities. This kind of makes sense with the concept of the Crucible as a “current” of spiraling energy, a primordial force from which life originated, something all-encompassing rather than centralized. This video by Zullie the Witch even implies that ALL hornsent were once called “empyreans,” and are referred to as such in the game files! I wonder if Enir Ilim’s Divine Gate is what allows the hornsent as a whole to access this divine power and invoke divinity, and no one person was supposed to seize that power for themselves?

This isn’t to say that the hornsent elite didn’t try to control who gets to access divinity, though… it seems like the spiritual elite strictly controlled what kinds of spirituality were “allowed.” Of course, in hornsent society, only those with horns are the ones considered touched by the divine to begin with. But even amongst those with horns, the Curseblades themselves were shunned and imprisoned:

“These ascetics, who failed to become tutelary deities, were a scourge for those who attempted to invade the hornsent homeland. Long ago, before the land was overshadowed by invasion, this scourge was shunned, and the curseblades were imprisoned.” (Curseblade Meera)

I’m not sure if they were imprisoned specifically because they as a group failed to become tutelary deities, or if the Curseblade cult as a whole was seen as a dangerous or distasteful way of ascending to tutelary deities. We do know of another cult that the elite imprisoned out of fear, though:

“A stone mask twisted into an expression of rapturous grief. Use while disrobed to transform into a lamenter. The change cannot be undone except by death. Using this mask while already transformed causes the head to swell in size. This transformation tallies with the state of a denizen of paradise, but the people of the tower denied and hid it from the world. In their foolishness, they viewed true bliss with deep fear.” (Lamenter’s Mask)

The Lamenter’s path to enlightenment being achieved through grief is kind of similar to the Curseblades’ ritualistic “self-flagellating dances,” pain being a way of accessing spirituality. There’s definitely a pattern of the hornsent elite suppressing forms of spirituality that don’t fit the status quo, so I think this might be a reason for the Curseblades’ imprisonment rather than them just being imprisoned for being cringe and failing to become deities