All Decans

		Agchoniôn
	The decan of noise, music, and hearing, Agchoniôn naturally overlaps somewhat with its neighbor, airy Isrö. Agchoniôn doesn’t convey meaning, however; languages fall under Naôth.
	Aethyr: Hahahaal, Lord of Unstable Effort, most often takes the form of a large yellow swan or of a crowd of people talking in chorus.
	Places: Sonar stations, opera and concert houses, wind tunnels, narrow canyons, echo chambers.
	Materials: Bats’ ears, dolphin blood, recording tape, seashells, theremin music, parrot feathers, glass shattered by sound, bright yellow-green.

		Akhouiy
	Akhouiy energizes (if that’s the term) indolence, drift, ease, and luck — especially “dumb luck” or “fools’ luck”. Not stagnant like Alath, Akhouiy simply “goes with the flow”.
	Aethyr: Vevaliah, Lady of Abandoned Success, appears as an attractive red-headed woman with her hair tied up in a black velvet band, or as a collie, a raven, or a large orange carp.
	Places: Casinos, resort hotels, some taverns, much of Faërie, fountains (with coins), wishing wells.
	Materials: Four-leaf clovers, rabbits’ feet, upright horseshoes, beer, dice, stones with water-eroded holes through them, the small bone of a sheep’s head, honey, deep orange.

		Akton
	Where Kurtaêl’s decay is most often the result of natural processes, Akton empowers decadence of the spirit or the self-created mutilation of soul, culture, or body. It instills corruption, debauchery, and the cruel and queasy joys of sin.
	Aethyr: Naber, Lord of Illusionary Success, appears in many guises: a blonde woman in red, a kneeling man in a fur robe, a carrion crow or a black crane, and a red-eyed gryphon.
	Places: Alcoholic wards, whorehouses, crack dens, certain temples in desert lands, slave markets, the edge of the Abyss.
	Materials: Vomit, maggots, vitriol, cocaine, wormwood, venereal pus, pale yellow.

		Alath
	Alath creates satiety, comfort, rest, the steady state, boredom, stagnation, and stasis, and may be crucial in the “damping out” of destructive energies where less-compatible decans intersect.
	Aethyr: Kaliel, the Lord of Rest from Strife, often appears as a fat man riding on a donkey and drinking wine. Other times, he manifests as an enormous, slumbering bull with the head of a man or a leopard.
	Places: Old-age homes, cold deserts, still tarns, ghost towns, select gentlemen’s clubs.
	Materials: Tortoiseshell, square and cubic shapes, arsenic, ether, morphine or heroin, deep wine-purple.

		Alleborith
	Some see Alleborith as the essential medium of magical transmission; others, as the particulate energies of magic; and still others, as an abstraction for the portion of Barsafael and Anostêr that mages have mapped. It’s the decan of pure magic, the “active” reflection of “passive” Kumeatêl.
	Aethyr: Mendial, Lord of Power, most often appears as either an azure dolphin or a blue merman with a trident. His eyes are
always golden yellow.
	Places: Magical laboratories, pentacles, places of power, ley intersections, arcane realms.
	Materials: Mandrake root, orichalcum, pyramid shapes, black cat whiskers, water from Atlantis, green moonstones, pineal glands, bright azure.

		Anatreth
	While Iudal is transition, the act of crossing depends upon Anatreth, the decan of movement, evolution, progress, and speed(fast or slow). It primarily empowers physical movement, but astral or spiritual movement also carries much of Anatreth’s impulse.
	Aethyr: Nithaya, Lady of Swiftness, most often manifests as a blurry image of wings, but sometimes coalesces into a winged dog, or a human figure with future and past images “ghosted” onto it.
	Places: Tornadoes, airports, speedways or freeways, lightning strikes, bullet trains and their tracks.
	Materials: Arrows, bullets, fulgurites, cobra venom, hawk or osprey feathers, methamphetamine, henbane, violet.

		Anostêr
	Some mages theorize that Anostêr, by definition, cannot exist. It comprises that which cannot be done or known — the impossible, the unnamable, the reverse face of knowledge and skill, the void preceding creation.
	Aethyr: Yeichavah, Lord of Effort, traditionally appears as a gray, blind ape, or as an enigmatic figure garbed in prismatic robes, its face hidden by a peacock fan. He takes other forms at whim; many mages remain uncertain whether they have conversed with(or even summoned) him.
	Places: Peculiar stone circles in impossible places, a mirage city in the desert, a hot spring beneath arctic ice.
	Materials: The noise of a cat’s passage, books never written, blood from a stone, imperceptible colors.

		Arôtosael
	Arôtosael drives all cyclic processes of creation and destruction, from assembling knowledge to destroying a city in an atomic blast. It irrupts most strongly during intermediate stages, when enough has appeared to make the result apparent, or a structure will fall with one good shove.
	Aethyr: Nithael, the Lord of Perfected Work, often appears as a pale, redheaded man in a reddish-purple gown carrying a wooden staff, or as a winged man with a mirrored sword and helmet. He usually wears a golden bracelet.
	Places: Decisive battlefields, particle accelerators, alchemical or chemical laboratories, blacksmith shops, beehives, new forests, seas of seaweed.
	Materials: Ram’s horn (and anything else in a Fibonacci spiral), flint, clay, radioactives, E above high C, hammers, sage, murex dye or anything else reddish-purple.

		Atrax
	Atrax nourishes — it’s the day-to-day inner strength of things renewed by sunlight(for plants), food(for animals), or worship(for deities). Atrax shades into health and healing, more as a steady state than as a process, and into decay(food for bacteria and worms).
	Aethyr: Akiah, Lady of Prudence, usually appears as a woman bearing an armload of fruit, grain, or bread.
	Places: Supermarkets, bazaars, farmland, compost heaps, restaurants, gas stations, granaries, some fields with secret historical significance.
	Materials: Bread, salt, woman’s hair, storax, saliva, fertilizer, peridots, light yellowish-tan.

		Axiôphêth
	Axiôphêth may serve as another “anchor” for reality, empowering gravity, weight and mass, and forces holding things in place, often including oppression for its own sake.
	Aethyr: Amael, Lady of Oppression, appears as a woman in an indigo robe seated on rocks. Occasionally she weeps; just as often, she has her foot on a man’s throat and her hand wrapped in his hair.
	Places: Underneath tons of rock, sun-baked desert flats, labor camps, prisons, sweatshops, particularly oppressive cubicle farms, slave galleys, certain mountains in the Pamirs.
	Materials: Lead chains, iron weights, ballast from a ship that has traveled around the world, depleted uranium, indigo.

		Barsafael
	Barsafael is hidden truth, the subconscious, unconfessed primal emotions, and unknown strengths. Some wizards theorize that Barsafael underlies all the other decans; others believe that as wizards, philosophers, and scientists explore more of existence, Barsafael’s essence shrinks (or continues to create more unknowns).
	Aethyr: Hechashiah, Lady of Ancient Strength, appears as a woman in crimson and white robes with one leg uncovered, or as a crimson and white sea serpent.
	Places: Deep beneath the ocean or in hidden caves, cities unknown to mankind, dinosaur burial grounds, fragmentary worlds long forgotten, very old mountaintops, limestone sinkholes.
	Materials: Ambergris, petroleum, white noise, artesian water, taproots of plants, “U” shapes, crimson.

		Belbel
	The decan of pain and torment, sharpness and shadow, shock and loss… few mages explore Belbel, but many ghostly undead draw on it.
	Aethyr: Aaneval, Lord of Despair and Cruelty, occasionally appears as a man with the head of a raptor bird; other times, as a black dog; still others, as a man covered in fish or snake scales.
	Places: Torture chambers, death camps, deep in the rainforest where sunlight never falls, widows’ walks, shadow-burns left by nuclear blasts, the edges of the Abyss.
	Materials: Funeral crepe, surgical steel, rust, ammonia, neurotoxins, dried blood, nettles, purple so dark that it appears black.

		Bianakith
	If man is the measure of all things, then Bianakith is the template to which that measure is drawn. Humanity(at least potentially) encompasses all the decans, but must operate within the medium of meat, bone, desire, and thought established by Bianakith.
	Aethyr: Mihal, Lord of Perfected Success, appears only in human form — sometimes, in fact, in two human forms(man and maiden), other times as a crowned king of perfect form.
	Places: Crowded cities, human-scale statuary, portrait galleries, gymnasia.
	Materials: Lungwort, liverwort, elm, river clay, human blood or skin, starfish, GI Joe or Barbie doll(or any other idealized poppet), ivory.

		Buldumêch
	Buldumêch energizes wealth and treasure, giving gold its glitter and building stock-market castles in the air. Within its penumbra lie concepts as arcane as currency arbitrage and as basic as greed.
	Aethyr: Murmux, Lord of Wealth, traditionally manifests as an old man leaning on a staff and wrapped in a woolen mantle.
	Places: Banks, trading floors, gold mines, customs houses, moneychangers, jewelers, treasure troves.
	Materials: Money, anything expensive and hoarded, jackdaw or magpie feathers, cowry shells, sapphires, toad venom, gold.

		Charchnoumis
	Charchnoumis imbues all animal life, bestial thoughts, predation, and pack behavior. It is thus a very powerful component of human beings, and empowers the majority of lycanthropes and other animalistic shapeshifters.
	Aethyr: Rohael, Lord of Abundance, appears most often as a great bear, but sometimes as a composite beast such as a chimera or gryphon. When he appears as a human(a camel-driver or a beautiful woman in green), he usually has a blue head.
	Places: Zoos, slaughterhouses, nature preserves, forests, fresh animal tracks or kills, watering holes, Mount Ararat.
	Materials: Fresh animals’ blood or skin, bloodstones, fresh game spoor, hunters’ weapons, civet musk, hunting-horn music, anything dark blood-red.

		Eneuth
	Fire, the untamed element; man’s first mystery. As its elemental decan, Eneuth sparks not just the fires of stars and gas grills, but the lively fires of inspiration, lust, war, and demagoguery.
	Aethyr: Yirthiel, Lord of Great Strength, most often appears as a golden man or as a three-headed dragon. He occasionally leads yellow-orange or red cattle.
	Places: Bonfires, firestorms, tropical or subtropical deserts at midday, war-torn lands to the south, lava flows, magmatic caverns, the Plane of Fire.
	Materials: Obsidian, asbestos, sulfur, fire opals, sodium, magnesium, rocket fuel, ash-wood wands, cones, olibanum, garlic, mustard, cayenne pepper, orange-yellow.

		Harpax
	Harpax sends sap through mighty cedars and spangles ponds with algae. All things green and growing, both harmful and healing, have their taproots somewhere in Harpax.
	Aethyr: Vishiriyah, Lady of Harmonious Change, primarily speaks out of wooden musical instruments. When she manifests, it’s usually as a white dryad clad entirely in blue, red, and yellow flowers.
	Places: Sacred groves, rainforests, algal pools, weed-ridden croplands, hedge mazes.
	Materials: Green jade, holly, cedar, woodwind music, amanita mushrooms, ivy, coral, forest green.

		Hephesimereth
	Hephesimereth is literally nothing. It imbues creation with defeat, emptiness, and loss. Pessimistic mages believe that eventually, every decan will fall into the sack of Aniel.
	Aethyr: Aniel, Lord of Defeat, walks with head down, wearing a dark red, shapeless, hooded robe. Only his hands emerge, holding an empty sack.
	Places: Open abandoned pits, former cemeteries with the bodies disinterred, frozen Antarctic desert, the intergalactic vacuum, places where the ground has been sown with salt.
	Materials: Dead batteries, dust from an abandoned house, ashes, mistletoe, lack of all color.

		Ieropaêl
	Second of the elemental decans, Ieropaêl helps solidly anchor reality as the fundamental principle of earth, soil, and rock, of the very concept of physicality.
	Aethyr: Hazael, Lord of Material Gain, traditionally appears as a large man holding a jar of oil. Other common guises include a black centaur and a skin-clad tribesman.
	Places: Mountain caves, volcanoes, up-thrust crags, gravel beds and quarries, city parks, fertile land in the north, the Plane of Earth.
	Materials: Quartz, talc, slate, oak, lichen, worms, narcissus, orbs, dark brown.

		Isrö
	Air, at peace and in storms, coheres from the energies of Isrö. Not only zephyrs and hurricanes, but also the lightning strike of genius, the airy chatter of gossips, and the windy oratory of politicians derive from it.
	Aethyr: Rehael, Lord of Science, traditionally appears as a milkwhite, winged horse or as a proud king with a long white beard wearing a white robe. Rarely, he has manifested as a proud man in a white lab coat, holding a lightning bolt.
	Places: Windstorms, steppes, inside or atop clouds, on balloons or airships, cities atop plateaus in the east, the Plane Of Air.
	Materials: Eagle feathers, chalcedony, galbanum, white orchids, helium, bird-bone knives, aspen, pink-white.

		Iudal
	Boundaries, roads, portals, rivers, bridges, and other liminal and transitional thoughts and things form from Iudal. Iudal also emerges in concepts of time, distance, and measurement, and powers bridge-trolls.
	Aethyr: Ieilael, Lord of Eventuality, holds a key in every form, while habitually shifting between them. Three common ones are that of a long-haired man with ox’s hooves, a winged man, and a gryphon.
	Places: Bridges, crossroads, doorways(especially post-and-lintel ones), boundary markers, rivers, interdimensional gates, outdoors during an eclipse, grandfather clocks.
	Materials: Keys, two-headed coins, juniper, alexandrites, tobacco, hollow bones, chalk, mirrors, rose-madder, cesium, cornmeal, amber.

		Kumeatêl
	Kumeatêl empowers hidden contention and unknown victory, the ace up a sleeve or the corps held in reserve, as well as secrets(especially decisive ones), murmurs, and even some aspects of codes, glyphs, and runes. Where Barsafael is the Unknown, Kumeatêl is the Hidden, and thus may partially embody magic itself.
	Aethyr: Elemiah, Lord of Victory, appears in a (literally) legendary number of forms, most characteristically as a stranger in a blue cloak and slouch hat or as a bearded knight of cruel countenance in unreadable heraldry. In neither version are his eyes clearly visible.
	Places: Secret laboratories or military bases, hidden rooms or passages, labyrinths, lost cities, conspiratorial fastnesses, pocket dimensions, certain university libraries.
	Materials: Artifacts with secrets, the number 13, walnuts, handcuffs, Christmas wrapping ribbon, silk cord, knots with hidden ends, rose(both the flower and the color).

		Kurtaêl
	Death, fear, decay, and disease fluoresce with the black energies of Kurtaêl. Vampires, mummies, liches, and many other undead draw upon its power while in the material world, even if they must admix its energies with blood or magic.
	Aethyr: Menqal, Lord of Ruin, appears as a corpse in chainmail, a black horse, or a harlequin figure without arms, among his many forms, but seldom as a skeletal figure in a black cowl and cloak.
	Places: Graveyards, terminal wards of hospitals, ruined buildings where people have died, plague pits, tombs, marshes, necromantic altars in Haiti, Transylvania, and elsewhere.
	Materials: Rowan, cypress, myrrh, contaminated syringes, rats, yew, hellebore, onyx, ebony, jet, pitch, anything black.

		Marderô
	Marderô energizes rebellion against comfort and anger at injustice, as well as violent reaction born from fear of chaos. It also drives mutations, changes born of crisis, and the concept of the opportune disaster.
	Aethyr: Hokmiah, Lord of Sorrow, appears as a man with a lion’s face, occasionally enthroned but more often pacing angrily with a whip.
	Places: Revolutionary battlefields or massacres, police stations, some government buildings, meteor craters, disaster sites.
	Materials: Hammers, sickles, human blood, pepper, tear gas, axes, five-pointed stars(but not pentagrams), gunpowder, rhino hide, white-flecked azure.

		Methiax
	Where Arôtosael assembles and disassembles, Methiax creates — indeed, creates creation. The form of all matter is inherent within its smallest fragments, so Methiax also governs form. Methiax shapes realities and dreams equally, and empowers some shapeshifters and phantasms.
	Aethyr: Chabuiyah, Lady of Love, rules Methiax most often as a white centaur garlanded with leaves, although occasionally she appears as a crowned, maidenly Muse.
	Places: Artists’ studios, movie theaters and sets, counterfeiters’ dens, certain very old vineyards in Greece and Turkey, hallucinations and hallucinogenic spaces, induced dream states, Faërie, copy centers and scriptoria.
	Materials: Pyrites, zircons, flashbulbs, eggs, pomegranate seeds, fractals, holograms, hallucinogens, fog, anything gray.

		Naôth
	What Iudal is to the material experience, Naôth is to the conceptual one — the creator and sustainer of communication, language, imagery, symbolism, and teaching. Not only the media but the urge to communicate arises from Naôth, which connects everything on many levels.
	Aethyr: Mebahel, Lady of Peace Restored, appears as a woman reading a book, occasionally bearing a bloody spear.
	Places: Radio stations, printers, shared telepathic experiences, shared or archetypal dream states, universities, a few select bars, certain bookshops in London and Paris.
	Materials: Vervain, bay leaves, “V” shapes, stringed instruments or their strings, blue-gray.

		Nefthada
	Nefthada impels pleasure and delight — thrills physical and mental. It’s often only perceptible at single, almost painfully perfect moments: the meadow under a rainbow, the first bite of steak, the second swallow of cognac. But its influence is in all those things forever.
	Aethyr: Nelokiel, Lord of Pleasure, traditionally takes on the guise of a well-formed man on a richly caparisoned camel or in a luxurious tent.
	Places: Almost nowhere — except for perfect moments in time or space. Some truly wonderful gardens achieve correspondence with Nefthada on a continuing basis, as do a very few building interiors.
	Materials: Champagne, star sapphires, silk or satin fabrics, morning dew, pure oxygen, bright green.

		Ouare
	Ouare governs constructs, machines, alloys, and vehicles. Some golems, magical cyborgs, and revenants draw on Ouare.
	Aethyr: Heroch, Lord of Success Unfulfilled, usually manifests as a bronze clockwork lion, a mermaid(most often a warship’s figurehead), a swarthy man with metal-and-ivory teeth, or a chariot-driver with serpents for legs.
	Places: Garages, metallurgical laboratories, inside moving vehicles, virtual-reality matrices, the Autobahn.
	Materials: Gears and clockwork, plastic, microchips, brass, aluminuim, olive-green, any artificial dye such as aniline.

		Phoubêl
	Phoubêl would seem to embody the Manichaean contradiction: light cannot exist without darkness to define it. It deals equally with both, and thus also with vision, blindness, and irreconcilable conflict.
	Aethyr: Yelayel, Lord of Strife, appears alternately clad in noble splendor on the back of a lion or caparisoned in rags riding a gray horse.
	Places: Tropical beaches, outdoors at sunrise or sunset, tanning salons, cathedrals, stone circles, fireworks shows.
	Materials: Heliotropes and other tropical flowers, flashlights, cinnamon, “X” or cross shapes, laurel and hazel wood, black-and-white(or black-and-red) checkerboard patterns.

		Phthenoth
	Impelling cleansing, restoration, and healing — both physical and metaphorical — Phthenoth brings about the renaissance of body and spirit. Repair of machines is the province of Ouare, although areas of overlap may exist for golems and homunculi.
	Aethyr: Shaliah, Lady of Material Happiness, appears in many guises, but is almost always seen as a young, noble woman regardless of garb or impedimenta(which very occasionally include the caduceus).
	Places: Hospitals, health resorts, spring meadows after a rain, arches, fabled places of rest or healing.
	Materials: Balm, pure water, apples, watered wine, chicken soup, potash, Greek(“+”) crosses, lavender.

		Roêlêd
	Roêlêd imbues walls with strength, thorns with sharpness, shields with glancing curves, antibiotics with efficacy. Along with defense and guardianship, Roêlêd drives alertness, preparation, wisdom of experience, and the “sixth sense” that tells you you’re being watched. Many wraiths, and some trolls, draw on it.
	Aethyr: Mahashiah, Lord of Valor, appears as a muscular, dark-feathered warrior holding a shield(often with a rattlesnake on it) and stabbing spear, or occasionally as a knight in armor or a watchman with a whip.
	Places: Anywhere under surveillance or with an electric-eye grid, castles and fortresses, missile silos and radar stations, firebreaks, guardhouses.
	Materials: Owl or raven feathers, ox-hide, “M” shapes, dragonsblood, unicorn horn, sirens and alarms, dog barks, tiger lilies, Kevlar, chain links, bronze(both the metal and the color).

		Ruax
	Ruax creates strength of will, connects perceptions to the mind, and governs sanity, drunkenness, the hotter emotions, sleep, and the material phenomena of dreams(although their content may fall within another decan).
	Aethyr: Deneyal, Lady of Dominion, usually appears as either a dark, physically imposing giantess or a queen clad in a white robe. Either form possesses fiery red eyes. Deneyal also occasionally appears as a songbird or a cat.
	Places: Television studios or showrooms, hypnosis clinics or performances, drug parlors and opium dens, asylums, personal dreamscapes, memory palaces, certain lamaseries in Central Asia.
	Materials: Cathode-ray tubes, spirals, poppies, downward-pointing arrows, cerulean blue.

		Sahu
	The decan of the giants, Sahu impregnates activities such as archery, hunting, and herding as well as their physical associations such as mountains, forests, grasslands, and other wild spaces. It also manifests in high stone walls — possibly as an analogy to mountains.
	Aethyr: Orvandal, Lord of Material Trouble, appears as a giant, naked save for a belt and a bow. His color ranges from blood red to forest green to basaltic black.
	Places: Mountainsides, the walls of famous fortress-cities, the high veldt, imposing statues or stone structures such as Mount Rushmore or the Sphinx and Pyramids.
	Materials: Basalt, sequoia wood, subsonics, arrowheads, sinew, fresh animal blood, opals, anything red-and-black.

		Saphathoraél
	Saphathoraél covers not only physical water(and liquids generally), but also conceptual water: that which “flows easily” or “is hard to pin down”. Like the other elemental decans, it plays a key role, both underpinning physical reality and blending conceptual reality so that humans can perceive it without massive dissonance.
	Aethyr: Muumiah, Lord of Blended Pleasure, appears most often not as some great marine creature but as a sailor with two dogs(one green and one blue). Occasionally, he holds a serpent or a stream of water in one hand.
	Places: Oceans, lakes, ships, reservoirs, wells and oases, ice rinks, sewers, islands to the west, the Plane of Water.
	Materials: Fish, the blood of drowned men, aquamarines and beryls, pearls, teardrop shapes, chalices, lotuses, ferns, kelp, Irish whiskey, the color blue.

		Sphandôr
	Manifesting both as the sensorium and the intellect, the passive counterpart to Ruax’s mental processes, Sphandôr permits intuition and divination as well as things sensed and thought(including arts and humanities).
	Aethyr: Umibael, the Lady of Shortened Force, appears as a snake, a wolf with a snake’s tail, a woman leading a roan mare and stallion, or a man with a surveyor’s rod.
	Places: Computer rooms, hexagonal spaces, paintings or images of eyes, theatrical stages (especially the Globe), libraries (especially Alexandria).
	Materials: Agates and cat’s eyes, musk, hexagons, fennel, ringing bells, russet-red.

		Tepsisem
	Much as Phoubêl makes real both light and darkness, Tepsisem gives rise to beauty and its loss, and thus to transience and impermanence; steady diminution rather than the catastrophes of Marderô.
	Aethyr: Livoyah, Lady of Loss, appears as a middle-aged woman in red, a scarlet fire-sprite, or a swift horsewoman on a red horse.
	Places: Museums, art auction houses, badly-maintained(but once attractive) buildings, eroding statues.
	Materials: Works of art, rouge, acid rain, faded photographs, broken mirrors, velvet, sandalwood, cut hibiscus or lilies, scarlet.