Aeon

Aeons are an inscrutable family of monitors who serve to preserve balance throughout the Galaxy, either by reinforcing order or by promoting chaos. They constantly tinker with the fabric of the planes in an effort to maintain a balance beyond the knowledge of mortals.

Aeons travel to the Material Plane to correct imbalances as directed by the Monad. It is difficult to determine which half of the duality is currently being enforced by an aeon, and an aeon's presence can be anything from rapturous to apocalyptic depending on how much its goals align with those of nearby mortals. In the latter case, aeons often become perceived as monsters by local cultures, even if their atrocities might end up being beneficial on a more-than-mortal timescale.

The earliest Aventi venerated aeons as architects who created the Material Plane from primordial chaos. They honored them by building the House of Aeons, and sculpting or carving tiny effigies of themselves to serve as offerings. At least one magic-warped, unthinkably powerful aeon still dwells in the tunnels beneath the House of Aeons.

Table of Contents

Types


Half Aeon


Called a Statera, (pl staterae)

Urobians are planar scions descended from the pairing of a monitor and a mortal.


Appearance

Aeons care nothing about their outward shapes, often taking the forms of abstract swirls of quintessence dense enough to interact with others. Their bodies are almost uniform in density and composition, and rarely harmful to the touch. Some aeons adopt vaguely humanoid forms, but only vaguely, and all aeons are faceless.[4]
Ecology

Aeons are created on the Astral Plane. When two opposite thoughts broadcast from other planes coalesce on the Astral Plane and collide, they form aeonic nebulae, which flash with momentary bursts of emotional auras and crackle in metaphysical debates. As a nebula grows into a critical mass, a new aeon is created, embodying the dichotomy of the nebula where it was born. From there, most aeons disperse to wherever they are needed in the multiverse and use the Astral Plane primarily for transport; only bythos continue to reside in the Astral Plane after their creation.[5]

All aeons are bound in a state called Monad, an omnipresent philosophy[2] or demigod that has existed since the multiverse's beginning and represents the supreme oneness between all aeons and the multiverse itself. Aeons exist as an extension of the multiverse in the same way that organs form a normal creature, and understand themselves as parts of the Monad's whole instead of viewing it as a divine patron. When destroyed or upon accomplishing specific goals, they fade back to the planar fabric and their energies are recycled by the Monad.[4]

Aeons are created with all knowledge deemed necessary to fulfill their task, and are constantly tapped into the Monad to receive instructions. However, the connection between the Monad and individual aeons is imperfect, giving them some personal agency in completing their tasks.[4] Aeons are not actively malicious but care nothing for individual beings or their struggles and emotions, and have no sense of self-preservation. Creating or destroying life, and triggering a calamity or preventing it mean equally little in their manipulation of symmetry; only the final tally matters. All life is life and all death is death, to be protected or eradicated regardless of shape.[4]

Aeons have no culture, society, personality, or memory beyond the present. Aeons embodying greater multiversal principles are usually considered greater, and their works proceed without hesitation when their goals jeopardise or threaten lesser aeons. Aeons only cooperate in matters of great existential concern when directed by the Monad, and only temporarily. They see every task as independent from others, and might fully support an individual whom they have clashed violently against in the past. The very act of forming organisations is alien to them, as is the notion that non-aeons can be allies or enemies. To them, only two states of association exist: those that are part of the Monad, and those that are not.[4]

Aeons are willing to talk as long as doing so does not impede their work, but communication with them often results in frustration and misunderstanding. Pointing an aeon to another target, asking for its help, or dissuading it from doing its task is an almost impossible goal.[4]

Outsiders often have difficulty understanding aeons' duality, even more so than mortals do. Shulsagas view them as messengers, are adept at interpreting their communications, and almost always follow their instructions. Psychopomps respect aeons' work as custodians but also mysteriously view them as rivals.[4]
Habitat

While aeons form in the Astral Plane,[5] they will then immediately manifest where the Monad needs them to fulfill their task, using the Astral Plane as a mere means of transport. When doing so, they appear as if tearing themselves spontaneously from the very fabric of the destination plane itself. Aeons can only manifest in some particular areas, allowing their foes to prepare for their arrival. So, aeons have no home plane like other outsiders: theirs is the entire multiverse.[4] Aeons recently returned to prominence in Axis and revealed that axiomites are also aeons, and by extension that aeons are also masters of axiomites' inevitable creations and consider them to be aeons as well. These revelations came as part of the cyclical Convergence in Axis by a council of pleroma aeons. Most, but not all, axiomites and inevitables have joined forces with aeons as a result; those who have resisted have been met with mixed fates of destruction or bargaining.[2]

Aeons often use the Boneyard as a staging point to the planes, and in many cases are authorised by Pharasma or psychopomps to use portals in the Boneyard to facilitate such travels.[6]

In the Maelstrom, legions of aeons guard the Antipode from regular assaults by proteans and prevent the cycle of souls from disruption, holding back the Maelstrom from consuming the entire multiverse.[7]

Aeons travel to the Material Plane to correct imbalances as directed by the Monad. It is difficult to determine which half of the duality is currently being enforced by an aeon, and an aeon's presence can be anything from rapturous to apocalyptic depending on how much its goals align with those of nearby mortals. In the latter case, aeons often become perceived as monsters by local cultures, even if their atrocities might end up being beneficial on a more-than-mortal timescale.[4]

The Monad's followers often summon aeons to provide guidance and approval, as the Monad itself is an extremely distant patron. They are particularly adept at asking aeons questions and interpreting their vague answers.[8]
On Golarion

The earliest Azlanti venerated aeons as architects who created the Material Plane from primordial chaos. They honoured them by building the House of Aeons, and sculpting or carving tiny effigies of themselves to serve as offerings. At least one magic-warped, unthinkably powerful aeon still dwells in the tunnels beneath the House of Aeons.[9]

The Riftwardens, who focus on repairing rifts between planes, often cooperate with aeons that are attracted to these same rifts for the same goal. The Dikheiric Order, a Nethysian order who seek a perfect balance between creation and destruction via magic, view aeons as extensions of Nethys's will, and often serve an aeon's agenda or summon them to serve as mentors.[4]

Aeons are a race of neutral outsiders who roam the planes maintaining the balance of reality.

Aeons possess the following traits.

Immunity to cold, poison, and critical hits.
Resistance to electricity 10 and fire 10.
Envisaging (Su) Aeons communicate wordlessly, almost incomprehensibly. Caring little for the wants and desires of other creatures, they have no need to engage in exchanges of dialogue. Instead, aeons mentally scan beings for their thoughts and intentions, and then retaliate with flashes of psychic projections that emit a single concept in response to whatever the other being was thinking. The flash is usually a combination of a visual and aural stimulation, which displays how the aeon perceives future events might work out. For instance, an aeon seeking to raze a city communicates this concept to non-aeons by sending them a vivid image of the city crumbling to ash. An aeon’s envisaging functions as a non-verbal form of telepathy. Aeons cannot read the thoughts of any creature immune to mind-affecting effects.
Extension of All (Ex) Through an aeon’s connection to the multiverse, it gains access to strange and abstruse knowledge that filters through all existence. Much of the knowledge is timeless, comprised of events long past, present, and potentially even those yet to come. Aeons gain a racial bonus equal to half their racial Hit Dice on all Knowledge skill checks. This same connection also binds them to other aeons. As a result, they can communicate with each other freely, over great distances as if using telepathy. This ability also works across planes, albeit less effectively, allowing the communication of vague impressions or feelings, not specific details or sights. Due to the vast scope of the aeon race’s multiplanar concerns, though, even the most dire reports of a single aeon rarely inspire dramatic or immediate action.
Void Form (Su) Though aeons aren’t incorporeal, their forms are only a semi-tangible manifestation of something greater. An aeon’s void form grants it a deflection bonus equal to 1/4 its Hit Dice (rounded down).

Beyond passion, beyond mercy, beyond reason, the faceless caretakers of reality toil without end, silently struggling to preserve the tenuous balance upon which all existence depends. These voiceless forces are the aeons, inscrutable shapers and eliminators of the multiverse. They exist beyond the understanding of most mortals, endlessly striving toward goals unfathomable even to many of the planes' eldest inhabitants. Aeons build order from the chaos of the Maelstrom, seed new life upon barren worlds, and halt the rampages of forces grown overbold. They rend nations to vapor, dismantle planets into cosmic dust, and pave the way for calamities. Their ways are at one moment beneficent and in the next utterly devastating, but always without ardor, compassion, or malice. Every aeon dispassionately but determinedly strives toward the same objective—an ever changing, amending, and readjusting pursuit of multiplanar equilibrium. United in this eternal and perhaps impossible pursuit, aeons embody the planes-spanning hand of a metaphorical omnipotent clockmaker, endlessly tuning and adjusting the myriad gears of reality in pursuit of ultimate perfection.

The balance aeons seek in all things begins with themselves. Most aeons embody a powerful dichotomy sustained in equilibrium. From the potency of birth and death meeting in akhanas to the philosophies of fate and freedom embodied by theletos, the workings of existence take on form and will within their living manifestations. Even the lesser paracletus unite diverse elements of creation in their intricate orbits. Such stability reaches beyond the shapes of aeons to inspire and direct their minds, imbuing each with a singular purpose and area of control. Thus, each embodies the realm of reality it would seek to balance, attempting to enforce a harmony as perfect as that of its physical form upon all things. The forms of various types directly suggest their abilities and objectives, with pleroma aeons, for example, exhibiting the power to create or annihilate, and using such influence to alter that which has grown either too abundant or sterile.

While aeons are not malicious creatures, they care nothing for individual beings or the struggles and emotions central to most life. The ruin of an entire city or burning of a vast forest means equally little in their manipulation of symmetry. By the same right, creating new life or constructing defenses against impending calamities are equally characteristic acts. For aeons, only the final tally matters, and a land overpopulated by humanoids is just as much in need of culling as a land overrun by ravenous fungi. Just as a body's natural defenses have neither mercy nor malice for invading parasites, aeons don't muddy their objectives with emotion. Such impartiality extends to the interactions between aeons as well. Without culture, society, or even memory beyond the immediate needs of the multiverse, they build no relationships and, in general, have no personalities beyond an automaton-like directness. A vague caste system exists, with aeons that hold influence over greater multiversal principles acknowledged as superior by their lesser brethren. This caste system rarely translates to actual direction and obedience, though. Should the acts of a greater aeon jeopardize the works or even lives of a multitude of lesser aeons, the efforts of the more potent aeon proceed without hesitation. Only in matters of great existential concern do multiple aeons cooperate, directed into doing so by the united consciousness of their race and the multiverse itself, and even then rarely for long.

Many mistake aeons for friends or allies of nature and its creatures. While this might be true at times—and is definitely true if reality as a whole is considered a vast, united organism—aeons care no more for the trees of the forest than for the towers of civilization. For them, all life is life and all death is death, to be preserved or scoured regardless of its arbitrary shape.

In rare cases, aeons have been known to deviate from the whims of the multiverse. Such rogue aeons typically arise from interacting with other races excessively, living beyond their intended times, being exposed to unusual ideas, or being forced to perform acts they otherwise wouldn't contemplate. These aeons typically take on extreme personalities, coming to favor one aspect of their being over the other—an akhana is just as likely to become an artist of life as a mass murderer. Normal aeons perceive their rogue brethren as high-priority disturbances in the balance of the multiverse and seek the destruction of such rarities with all haste.
Monad, the Condition of All

All aeons are bound in a state they know as "the condition of all" or "monad," a supreme oneness with all members of their race and the multiverse itself. Therefore, aeons exist as an extension of the multiverse; in a fashion similar to the way bones, muscle, and the various humors create a mortal, they exist as part of a greater being. When destroyed or upon accomplishing specific goals, their energies simply dissipate and become reabsorbed into the monad. They do not die, but are instead recycled. They have no discernible memories and seem to exist only in the present, arriving to repair balance. Relationships with non-aeons are generally nonexistent, and they feel no sense of affection, remorse, vengeance, or similar emotions. Aeons deal with each task as its own action, independent from all other tasks. Thus, an individual once at violent odds with an aeon may, upon their next encounter, have the aeon's full and undaunted support.

Aeon, Agnoia
Aeon, Akhana
Aeon, Bythos
Aeon, Lipika
Aeon, Othaos
Aeon, Paracletus
Aeon, Pleroma
Aeon, Synesis
Aeon, Theletos

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