The Spider

As the Trueborn Goddess of Time and Cosmic Possibility, the Spider oversees the tapestry of fate. Time marches ever onward at the pace of her relentless weaving. She is the goddess of change, evolution, and free will, but she is also the architect of inescapable, inevitable destiny. Although perhaps paradoxical from the limited view of a mortal, this simply means that the thread of any single life can be placed and woven into the tapestry of fate in an infinity of ways, but that the infinite beginnings and endings of that single thread have already been expressed an infinite number of times across the infinite breadth of time's web. That is to say: a mortal may freely choose from any of the limitless paths that lay before them, but destiny is that they will choose one of those paths.

Few religious groups worship the Spider, and even fewer do so knowingly. Only two relics imbued with her power are presently known to exist, and both are in possession of Tullion Roth, one of the founding members of the Wardens of the Wayward.  

Mantle of Providence

Main Article: Mantle of Providence   Little is publicly known about the Mantle of Providence, and the Dominion classifies the details of the artifact's capabilities as a matter of national import. It is a semi-sentient cloak imbued with the Spider's power, as well as the will of Wyrdwakers past. It is made of gold and silver threads woven together using the lost techniques used for creating goldweave, which Tullion Roth personally reclaimed from the Dwarvenholds under the now-destroyed city of IldKassar. It grants its bearer the ability to see the threads of time's web, move through them, and manipulate them to some extent, allowing the bearer to dodge deadly attacks or to ascertain the outcome of a choice before making it, all in service to ensuring that the tapestry of fate remains intact.  

Dagger of the Wyrdwaker

Main Article: Dagger of the Wyrdwaker   The Dagger of the Wyrdwaker was a weapon granted to Tullion Roth upon agreeing to become the Spider's champion in the current era. Like the Mantle of Providence, information about the Dagger of the Wyrdwaker is scarce and tightly controlled. The dagger is a weapon that seems almost ethereal, composed of silver and gold strands of energy woven together. While it does not grant the wielder the ability to see through time's web, the dagger itself can be propelled back and forth along the flow of time, giving it the ability to return to its wielder's hand as if it had never left after being loosed upon an enemy. But perhaps its most distinctive—and most frightening—ability is its capacity to unravel a being's existence, cutting them out of fate's tapestry altogether, absorbing the unwound fibers of the being's thread to empower its wielder.

The Spider is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. No corner of the cosmos is beyond her reach, not even the deepest depths of the Shardscape, where time is a tangled, infinitely complex knot. Her power is such that with a single thought, she can revert the cosmos to its infancy, or send it hurtling toward its end in the blink of an eye. If she so desired, time itself would cease its flow, and reality would be caught in eternal stagnation.   Fortunately, the Spider is bound by Cosmic Law as all other beings are, and like her kin, the laws that underpin reality itself prevent her direct interference with the cosmos.  

Principle of Exclusion

The Spider is a singular being. This means that Cosmic Law will not abide any duplicates, lesser copies, fragments, or variants. Her existence simply cannot be partitioned or multiplied. Reality itself will ensure that there shall only ever be one Spider—and only ever the original.   While a Begotten God might split into separate aspects when two or more groups of devotees begin to follow divergent doctrines, no such thing can happen with respect to the Spider, but this goes even further. Where begotten gods can spring into existence spontaneously as new religions form, any faiths which give worship—whether primarily or otherwise—to a spider-like entity that weaves the fabric of fate and determines the flow of time, can give birth to no such begotten gods, as the Principle of Exclusion esnures that one cannot be born.  

True Immortality

As a Trueborn God, the Spider has no interest in nor any need for the worship of mortals. Unlike begotten gods, who are born from the sincere and collective beliefs of mortals, the trueborn are eternal beings who arose at the beginning of time. The Spider requires no worship to sustain her as she is an integral, fundamental part of reality itself. Her existence is inevitable and inviolable. She is without beginning, and cannot die or be ended, except at the appointed hour, at the close of eternity, when all time's threads converge and then terminate.

The Spider is an amoral and apathetic being. Time and destiny care not for justice or injustice, for good or evil. She does not care about what is moral or immoral. In the course of her duties, emotion plays no role. She weaves the tapestry of fate with no thought for the atrocities that transpire in her design, nor even the faintest twinge of compassion for those grand acts of humanity and selfless love that occur just as often. For so long as mortals follow the course of their lives, twisting and shifting the threads in time's web, she dutifully continues her task. Only when forces who threaten to usurp the flow of time, or to burn swathes of the tapestry is she moved.   Like the other trueborn, the Spider eschews mortal interaction. Cosmic Law prohibits her direct intervention to begin with, so why bother with mortals who would ascribe emotions and motives to her where none exist? Only when forces arise who threaten the tapestry of fate does she turn her gaze toward mortals. From among them, she selects a champion that will serve her in the current era and protect the integrity of time's web. This champion becomes known as the Wyrdwaker.

The Spider abhors only one thing: those who seek to step outside the bounds of the infinite possibilities that are laid before them and in so doing, attempt to damage the fabric of fate's tapestry. Threads can loop back on themselves, twist, turn, and shift. The patterns can change and warp according to the whims of mortals. Peasants can become kings and emperors can die penniless, but when one tries to break the pattern, to accomplish the truly impossible by turning outward and transgressing on time and possibility altogether, this is considered unforgivable.