Pythia

Infobox

Campaign: Under the Bus
Folder: Characters
Status: Established
Era: Ancient — several centuries before Under the Bus
Home: Aegea

Overview

Pythia, later known as Pythia the Mad Prophet, was a woman who lived in Aegea several hundred years before the events of Under the Bus. She possessed a genuine form of Foresight, although the nature or source of this ability is unknown.

Pythia's prophetic ability appears to have severely damaged her mind. It is generally accepted that she was genuinely mad, rather than merely being considered mad because others misunderstood her. Despite her condition, she retained enough self-awareness to understand that the things she foresaw could have enormous consequences for the world. She therefore recorded her predictions in writing.

During her lifetime, however, Pythia's writings were generally regarded as gibberish or the ravings of a crackpot. She wrote in an ancient form of Common that was already archaic during her own lifetime, and she apparently did not understand that other people could not perceive the meaning of her writings as clearly as she did.

Centuries later, repeated events that appeared to fulfill her predictions caused scholars to reconsider her work. By the time of Under the Bus, Pythia was widely regarded as a genuine prophet, and her collected prophecies had become an important historical and prophetic text.

Life in Aegea

Pythia lived in Aegea during the ancient period surrounding the Great War and the conflicts involving the Korvaks. She lived several hundred years before the events of Under the Bus.

Little is currently known about her personal life beyond her connection to Aegea and her prophetic writings. Her age, occupation, relationships, circumstances of death, and other details of her life are unknown.

Her later epithet, the Mad Prophet, was not her original name. She was known simply as Pythia; "Mad Prophet" was a later designation reflecting the reputation she acquired because of her behavior and writings.

Foresight and Madness

Pythia possessed some form of genuine prophetic ability. The exact nature of this ability is deliberately unknown. It is not established whether her visions came from a deity, an innate supernatural ability, some other source, or something else entirely.

What is generally accepted is that experiencing her Foresight broke her mind.

Pythia was genuinely mad. Her apparent inability to communicate her visions in terms that others could understand was not simply a matter of deliberately speaking in riddles or attempting to deceive her audience. She apparently perceived connections and meanings in her visions that were obvious to her but incomprehensible to others.

Despite her madness, Pythia retained enough self-awareness to recognize that what she was seeing could change the world. She therefore made a deliberate effort to record her predictions, even though she apparently did not understand why others would find the resulting writings confusing.

This created the central paradox of Pythia's legacy: the person who understood the prophecies best was also the person least capable of explaining them to anyone else.

The Prophecies

Pythia produced a very large body of prophetic writings. Her prophecies were not limited to a single historical event or short period of time. They ultimately proved relevant to events occurring across many thousands of years.

By the time of Under the Bus, enough of Pythia's predictions had apparently corresponded to historical events that scholars had begun identifying patterns within her writings. Among the events associated with her prophecies were the Fall of the Age of Wonders and the rise of the six new gods.

Her prophecies later proved significant to events far beyond the Age of Wonders, including the rise of Thorn Runehammer and Orin-Kel. The full significance of her prophetic writings extends across multiple campaigns and cannot be adequately covered by this character entry.

For the complete prophetic material, see Collected Translations of Pythia the Mad Prophet.

Language and Translations

Pythia wrote in an ancient form of Common that was already archaic when she was alive. Her original writings were therefore difficult for later scholars to interpret even before accounting for the unusual nature of her prophetic visions.

The surviving collection of translations was produced by later scholars. Among those associated with the translation work were Fulbright, Lucian, Maimon, Schuyler, Stegner, Strahan, and Virgil.

The translators recognized that some words and passages could support multiple possible translations. Alternative interpretations were preserved rather than treating every translation as certain.

This became particularly important to The Chosen, who studied Pythia's writings in connection with several later events. Stegner and Samos were regarded as experts on Pythia's language and worked on translating the Chosen's copy of her writings.

The ambiguity of some passages is therefore partly a consequence of translation and linguistic change, but it should not be confused with deliberate obscurity on Pythia's part. She was not intentionally writing riddles for future generations. She apparently believed that she was recording what she understood clearly.

Surviving Copies

By the end of Under the Bus, only two known copies of the translated collection survived.

One copy was held by The Chosen, while another existed in the library at Toreon. The Chosen initially believed that their copy was the only surviving copy until the existence of the Toreon copy became known.

After the events of Under the Bus, the Chosen made additional copies of the collection, particularly after the fulfillment of Pythia's prophecy concerning Thorn Runehammer and Orin-Kel demonstrated the continuing importance of her writings.

The later history of Pythia's writings, including additional information established during Savorise Part 1 and Savorise Part 2, is documented separately.

Historical Legacy

Pythia's reputation changed dramatically after her death.

During her lifetime, she was dismissed as a madwoman whose writings appeared to be meaningless. Over subsequent centuries, however, enough of her predictions corresponded to actual events that scholars could no longer easily dismiss them as random ravings.

By the time of Under the Bus, Pythia was recognized as a genuine prophet, although the meaning of individual passages remained subject to considerable uncertainty.

Her importance therefore extends far beyond the events she specifically predicted. Her writings became a framework through which later generations attempted to understand events that had already occurred—and, in some cases, events that had yet to occur.

Known Information

Pythia lived in Aegea.
She lived several hundred years before Under the Bus, during the ancient period associated with the Great War and the Korvaks.
Pythia was her actual name.
The Mad Prophet was a later epithet.
She possessed a genuine form of Foresight.
The nature and source of her Foresight are unknown.
Her Foresight is generally believed to have broken her mind.
She was genuinely mad.
She nevertheless retained enough self-awareness to understand that her predictions could have world-changing consequences.
She deliberately recorded her predictions in writing.
She wrote in an ancient form of Common that was already archaic during her lifetime.
She apparently did not realize that other people could not perceive the meaning of her writings as clearly as she did.
Her writings were initially dismissed as gibberish or the ravings of a crackpot.
Later generations recognized that many of her predictions corresponded to actual historical events.
By Under the Bus, scholars recognized patterns among her fulfilled prophecies.
Her prophecies included predictions associated with the Fall of the Age of Wonders and the rise of the six new gods.
Her prophetic writings ultimately span thousands of years of future history.
Her translated writings were preserved in a collected volume.
Fulbright, Lucian, Maimon, Schuyler, Stegner, Strahan, and Virgil were among the scholars involved in translating the collection.
By the end of Under the Bus, two known copies of the translated collection survived.
The Chosen later made additional copies after major prophecies were fulfilled.
Her eventual fate and circumstances of death are unknown.