noxabellus'

Anamnesis:

The Eidolon Tapestries

The Gods' Unloving Gaze

This document is a psychogeographic survey and Level-5 Hazard Assessment of the monumental land art installation designated “The Gods’ Unloving Gaze.” This analysis examines the object’s physical properties, its profound and dangerous influence on the local metaphysical climate, and the two diametrically opposed cultures it has spawned: the pilgrims who seek its truth and the predators drawn to its terrible light.

DOCUMENT ID: CGS-99X-VRD

CLASSIFICATION: Level 5 Metaphysical Hazard (Narrative Corrosive, Attractor)

ANALYSIS BY: Imperial Cartography Guild, Office of Eidic Cartography

SUBJECT: The Geoglyph of Veridian Prime’s Salt Flats

1. Geographic & Geological Data (Facts)

Located in the center of the Great Salt Flat of Veridian Prime, “The Gods’ Unloving Gaze” is the largest known stationary art installation in the sector.

  • Physical Form: The Gaze is a geoglyph of breathtaking scale, visible from orbit. It consists of seven perfectly concentric rings, the outermost being 50 kilometers in diameter. The “lines” of the geoglyph are not drawn, but constructed from a seamless, matte-black, obsidian-like material that absorbs over 99.98% of all incident light. At the center is a single, perfectly circular “pupil,” a pit that descends to an unknown depth.
  • Physical Properties: The site is characterized by an unnatural absence. The air within the rings is consistently 5-10 degrees cooler than the surrounding flats. There is no wind. No sound, not even the crunch of salt underfoot, seems to travel far. All energy readings within the Gaze show a slow, constant drain towards the central pupil. It is a place that consumes energy, light, and sound.
  • Age and Origin: Unknown. The material is of no known manufacture and shows no signs of erosion despite an estimated age of at least fifty millennia. No records of its construction exist. It is a geological and historical impossibility.

Factual Conclusion: The Gaze is not a passive sculpture. It is an active, functioning machine of immense scale and unknown purpose. It is a permanent, localized drain on the physical and energetic reality of its environment. This is the central, observable Fact of the installation.

2. Memetic & Eidic Resonance Analysis (Fictions & Faiths)

The Gaze’s most powerful effect is not physical, but metaphysical. It projects a constant, overwhelming psychic field, an aura of pure, clinical, and total indifference. To stand within its rings is to feel the unnerving sensation of being observed by something that does not care if you live or die. This has given rise to two powerful, opposing narratives.

  • The Dominant Faith: The Cult of the Unblinking Eye (The Pilgrims).

    • This ascetic cult sees the Gaze as the ultimate divine instrument. They believe that emotion, hope, fear, and love are the “Fictions of the flesh,” chaotic data that corrupts the purity of the soul. The Gaze, in its perfect indifference, is a tool for purification.
    • Their primary Ritual is the “Vigil of Unbecoming.” They make a pilgrimage to the Gaze and sit in meditation within its rings for days or weeks, allowing its aura to “burn away” their subjective selves. They seek to be scoured of all Eidos except the single, perfect Fact of their own existence. To them, this is enlightenment.

  • The Counter-Fiction: The Whisper of the Void (The Locals).

    • The scattered scavenger communities that live on the fringes of the salt flats have a different story. They call the Gaze “The Hole in the World.” They believe it is a wound in the Tapestry, a place where the universe went cold and died.
    • Their stories warn that those who go into the Gaze do not come back whole. They return “hollowed out,” their memories faded, their passions extinguished, their Threads thinned to a brittle whisper. They are the living ghosts of the salt flats.

  • Subversive Resonance: The Analyst’s Hypothesis.

    • Our deep-Eidic scans suggest a third possibility, one that aligns with the forbidden lore of the MEMETIC-COGNITO-HAZARD. The Gaze is not a temple. It is an observatory. The patterns of its energy drain are consistent with a massive, passive sensor array, built to watch for something on a cosmic scale. The “unloving gaze” is not that of a god, but of a forgotten scientist, a cosmic watchman staring into the dark. The terrifying question is not who built it, but what they were so afraid of that they felt the need to build it.

3. Hazard & Opportunity Assessment

The Gaze is a Symbolic Locus of immense power, a permanent fixture in the metaphysical climate of Veridian Prime. It is both a unique resource and a terrible danger.

  • Hazard: Narrative Erosion. Any Incarnation entering the Gaze is subject to a constant, stacking debuff: [Narrative Erosion]. This effect is rendered in the Subjective Interface as a slow desaturation of color, a muting of the soundscape, and the gradual fading of the emotional tags on Memory entries. Prolonged exposure can temporarily lock access to high-valence Psychic Components and weaken the strength of core Faiths. It is a place that literally drains the meaning from a person.

  • Hazard: The Hungry Ghosts (The Predators). The Gaze’s primary function: the scouring of Eidos; has an unforeseen and horrifying side effect. It is a lure. The pilgrims who come to be “purified” are willingly stripping themselves of their narrative armor, making their souls vulnerable and bright. This concentration of exposed, defenseless meaning has attracted the ultimate predators: Harvester-class entities. These beings, drawn from the void by the scent of a ready meal, now haunt the outer rings of the Gaze. They do not care for the pilgrims’ Faith; they only care for the feast.

  • Opportunity: The Eidic Forge. The Gaze’s purifying field can be used as a high-risk, high-reward crafting tool. An Incarnation can bring a corrupted or haunted Artifact, like the Kintsugi Katana after being wielded by a tormented soul; and place it within the inner rings. The Gaze will strip the object of its chaotic, negative Eidos. This is a dangerous gamble:

    • Success: The artifact is cleansed of its curse, its negative debuffs removed.
    • Failure (Over-exposure): The Gaze does its job too well. It strips away all the Eidos, both negative and positive, leaving behind a perfectly functional but utterly mundane masterwork item, its legendary history erased. The story is gone, and with it, the magic.

Recommendation: The Gods’ Unloving Gaze is not a temple; it is a baited trap of cosmic proportions, set by builders unknown for reasons we can only guess. The pilgrims who worship it are the bait. The Harvesters who circle it are the jaws. Any operative must approach this location with extreme caution, understanding that the greatest threat is not the Gaze itself, but the terrible truth it represents and the far more terrible things it has drawn from the dark.