Highfather
When the Eternal City conquered Dis, they forced the archdevil Dispater to become bound to whom they chose as the vessel of the contract as familiar.
This humiliation had a purpose. The vessel's death would slay Dispater's avatar on Terra Antiqua, driving him to reform in the Iron Tower where the patricians would keep him penned up until a new vessel would be chosen, and Dispater would be bound to that.
The Highfathers are generally the strongest magicians among the Convocation, or at least the strongest willed. The patricians are pragmatic enough that neither race nor even family are much taken in consideration. The clause requiring unanimous consent has seen to that.
Qualifications
The Highfather is elected by the Convocation. They consider a candidate's ability to control Dispater without being corrupted by the archrival.
Requirements
The Convocation vote must be unanimous. Even one dissention disqualifies a candidate.
Appointment
A ceremony binds Dispater to the candidate for life.
Duties
To command Dispater and serve as a bridge between Dis and the Eternal City.
Responsibilities
To provide Dis with manpower adequate to meet the Eternal City's desires and keep Dis subordinate to the Eternal City.
Benefits
Dispater as familiar.
Accoutrements & Equipment
Each Highfather has the seal of Dispater set in his ring. These rings are broken with his death and interred with his remains.
Grounds for Removal/Dismissal
Death alone, and Dispater is free but trapped in the Iron Tower upon the Highfather's death. The patricians swiftly mobilize to keep Dispater there until a new Highfather is elevated.
History
When Ivlivs founded the Weald, merchants of the patrician houses found Dispater among the goblins of Alba. Cults that sacrificed sentients were banned in the Eternal City, but then the Punic Wars began, and the patricians began to conjure up greater fiends, eventually summoning and binding those greatest of fiends, the powerful unique fiends who command true armies, the archdevils and the nobles.
The Eternal City built an urban hell about Dispater's Iron Tower, and portioned out misery and despair as bait for their prey. The nobles were drawn in and bound by this house or that, and they began shuffling patrician souls to middle management. The nobles were sought out and bound to powerful patrician houses to the family paterfamilias, the arcane structure of obligation and duty that defined the Eternal City.
The patrician houses expanded into Dis, overrunning the city systems with their dead using a noble fiend's power and influence. The patrician houses began to cremate their dead with dark rites to preserve them as specters in the streets of Dis, infiltrating the urban hell completely as they overtook it.
A coalition of patricians united and sealed Dispater in the Iron Tower, forcing the Pact Infernal, which gave the patrician houses control of Dis and bound Dispater to an agent selected by them as familiar.
Cultural Significance
The Highfather heads the Universal Church, an ancestor worshipping death cult that dominates the West. An offshoot of the Imperial Temple, it's main difference is the assertion of the primacy of the Eternal City. This is largely believed in the West, where the Universal Temple performs coronation.
Type
Religious, Special
Status
The Highfather is supreme to the Temple of the Eternal City and it's subordinate factions throughout the Known World, the Universal Faith.
Creation
When the patricians overran Dis, they carefully worded a contract, the Pact Infernal, which binds Dispater to the office of Highfather for the archdevil to leave the Iron Tower. The Pact binds all access to Terra Antiqua from the Hells to Dis.
Equates to
Ultimate Religious Authority to the Temples of the Eternal Church
Source of Authority
The Pact Infernal, a contract forced on Dispater by those patrician houses as toppled his regime.
Length of Term
Life.
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments