48 Houses of Fate
The six Gods of Irony comprising the House of the Unexpected in the Unexpector faith are said to preside over the Manifold Sky from their stations in the Celestial Realms. In Unexpector mysticism, the Celestial Realms are, in turn, arranged like a wheel. In this cosmogony, the central palace (the titular 'House') where the gods hold court is surrounded by forty-eight smaller domains known as the Houses of Fate - also known as the Houses of Virtue, the Celestial Domains, or the Celestial Hours, with each deity claiming one as their seat of personal power and seven more as celestial fiefdoms.
Summary
Each of the 48 Houses of Fate is said to embody a particular virtue important to the associated deity and, upon death, the souls of the faithful will be called to the House that best represents their ideals in life. The Houses are also said to be inhabited with various classes of angels, daemons, and other spirits as appropriate, creating a mythological ecosystem. Mystics seek to contact, bind, or entreat these lesser spirits, whereas the orthodox clergy seeks to directly entreat the gods and only pays heed to this menagerie of spirits insofar as they are involved in the ultimate disposition of the soul. The progression of day and night proceeds around the outer perimeter of the Celestial realms. High noon falls into the domains Selevati, Goddess of Dramatic Irony and midnight falls into the domains of Cosmeon, Goddess of Cosmic Irony, relating to the associations of these goddesses with sunlight and moonlight respectively.
Variations & Mutation
Unexpector canon, specifically the Incunabula of the House of the Unexpected and the writings of Sokalyx the Learned, focus more on the Houses of Fate as metaphorical and spiritual constructs rather than physical spaces, but mystics have long sought to see or transport themselves to the Houses through ceremonial practices. The syncretic nature of the early Unexpector faith makes the true nature of the Houses less clear, as their mythology is an amalgamation of cosmogonies drawn from numerous tribal groups which didn't always cleanly mesh with one another; where the influence of Sokalyx as an author ends and that of the theologians from which he was drawing begins remains the subject of much scholarly debate.
Cultural Reception
The half-hour apportioned to each House holds some religious significance, informing the daily clerical activities of specialist Servants and the scheduling of temple gatherings and holidays more broadly. In a post-Voiranoi world, where the commissures and inflection layers of the Manifold are no longer as serious a barrier and the locality of day and night cycles is now known, Servants far from the Church's home in Voxelia apply local time for the purpose of House-related observances.
In Art
The Seal of the Senarchy, often used as both a symbol of the Church and the occult mystical practices it considers heretical, makes reference to the 48 houses in its ornate form as the bands of alternating black and red segments that constitute its outer boundary. The Lesser, Intermediate, and Greater Domain cards in a standard Vyozha deck, aside from being adorned with the Seal, also allude to the 48 houses by way of reference to some of the titular Virtues each House is meant to represent. Old and New Voxelian traditional arts depict the Houses as physical, terrestrial spaces, but, due to the relative dearth of descriptions as such in the existing literature, often take liberties inspired by the associated beings and virtues associated with a given House.
Seal of the Unexpected by BCGR_Wurth
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