Destruction
It took centuries to build. One night is enough.
Destruction is the Horizon of what undoes: war, fire, the flood, the chaos before the world and the end that awaits it. Death takes the living; Destruction undoes what they have made — and sometimes the world that carried them.
Every age has seen it differently: a flood sent by the gods, Ragnarök where the world burns, Shiva dancing the end of a cycle, the bomb, collapse. Apocalypse means "unveiling": the end has always also been what reveals.
And every age has invented figures to stand at the edge: beast-warriors, sowers of discord, riders of the end, monsters risen from the waters.
Why Agents
The difference of scale. At its own scale, Destruction is total: the chaos before the world, the flood, the end of time. But no one ever meets destruction in general: one meets a city in ruins, a war, a burned house. Someone is needed for the end to arrive somewhere — or not to arrive there.
What each side experiences. Through Agents, humans experience the end of what seemed bound to last: fear, grief for things, but also what a clean slate sets free. Through them, the Powers of Destruction encounter what they do not contain: rebuilding, ruins kept as memory, survivors, what one chooses to spare.
What is transformed. A berserker who has seen too many cities burn learns what gets rebuilt. A Power that welcomes what they bring back changes what destroying means.
This is where the cost of the Bond is most visible. What succeeds through the Bond is the Power succeeding: an Agent of Destruction who protects someone through the Bond protects them by destroying something. What they have acquired in contact with the world is the only way they can act without breaking.
Powers
War
The violence that sets peoples against each other: Ares, Mars, the Morrígan circling as a crow over battlefields.
- Demands two sides
- Feeds on itself
- Makes heroes and ruins
- Does not tell the innocent apart
Discord
What breaks bonds: Eris and her golden apple, Loki who brings the gods down.
- Divides
- One word is enough
- Never takes sides
- Undoes what seemed solid
The End
What awaits the world: the flood, Ragnarök, the Apocalypse, the end of an age.
- Everything will end
- Foretold since always
- Comes only once
- Leaves nothing behind
Chaos
What was there before order and returns as soon as it weakens: Tiamat, Typhon, Leviathan, the formless void.
- Undoes every form
- Was there before order
- Wants nothing
- Returns as soon as order weakens
Families of Agents
The suggested traits are Bond traits: each comes from the relationship itself or from the Attribute shown. The Agent's Anchors belong to them and remain to be written.
Berserkers — War
Berserkers, beast-warriors, Cú Chulainn twisted by battle frenzy. The Bond is a fury.
- Feels neither fear nor pain, from the fury itself;
- Battle finds them, from Feeds on itself;
- In the fury, recognizes no one, from Does not tell the innocent apart.
What the figure lets us think: the violence that possesses us; what one becomes after war; the soldier's return.
Troublemakers — Discord
Tricksters, schemers, those who throw the apple into the middle of the feast. The Bond is laughter.
- Finds the flaw in every alliance, from Undoes what seemed solid;
- One word is enough to divide, from One word is enough;
- No one suspects them, from Never takes sides.
What the figure lets us think: what holds bonds together, and how fragile it is; the laughter that undoes orders too sure of themselves.
Riders — the End
Horsemen of the Apocalypse, heralds of Ragnarök, prophets of the flood. The Bond is an announcement.
- Sees what is about to fall, from Everything will end;
- Their coming precedes the catastrophe, from Foretold since always;
- Spared by what they announce, from the announcement itself.
What the figure lets us think: living in the knowledge that everything ends; what one saves when one cannot save everything.
Spawn — Chaos
Children of Typhon, offspring of Leviathan, monsters sleeping in human form. The Bond is a bloodline.
- Carries a colossal beast within, from the bloodline itself;
- The ground shakes when it wakes, from Undoes every form;
- Animals flee them, from Was there before order.
What the figure lets us think: being a catastrophe for others; a force without intention, and what one can choose to do with it.
What appears
- the rampart, Greek fire, gunpowder, the bomb;
- the laws of war, the Red Cross, the conventions that say what must not be destroyed;
- ruins left as they are, to remember, as at Oradour-sur-Glane;
- demolition, recycling, rebuilding stone by stone;
- insurance, which puts a price on catastrophe;
- parliament, where people quarrel without killing each other;
- deterrence: a weapon made never to be used.
An Agent
- Bond: a fury. Traits: Feels neither fear nor pain, Battle finds them.
- Anchor Bomb disposal expert: Undoes what war left behind, Keeps calm over a mine.
- Anchor Father of a six-year-old girl: no trait written yet.
War feeds on itself: it leaves in the fields enough to kill long after peace. Karim spends his days undoing what it left behind. If he gets mine clearance recognized as belonging to War, Undoes what war left behind can pass into the Bond. War will know how to undo what it laid down — and other berserkers will learn to come home.
Situations
Bringing a novelty. A troublemaker discovers parliament, where discord becomes an institution; a rider of the End discovers those who are waiting for it, supplies and shelters ready.
Contending for a novelty. The atomic bomb appears. The End sees in it what can finally end the world. War claims it, then discovers a weapon that prevents it. Chaos recognizes matter coming undone. Their Agents contend over what deterrence will become.
Transforming one's own Power. A rider loved the world whose end they announced. They want the End to stop leaving nothing behind: every end should leave a seed, a survivor, a revelation.
Other situations:
- one of the Spawn wakes in the middle of a city, and someone must put it back to sleep;
- a troublemaker must undo an alliance they wove themselves;
- after the war, a berserker no longer knows where battle will find them.
Tones and time
Destruction lends itself to epic, war stories, post-apocalypse, monster films, tragedy.
It joins Death, which gathers what it leaves; Time, since for the Cycle every end is a beginning; the Collective, since the Nation demands the dead; Authority, since War continues politics.
Campaigns across the ages take on a particular meaning here: the same Agent can watch Troy fall, then Rome, then a city of today, and discover that we no longer destroy in quite the same way.