Fate

Screenshot of the Matron of Ravens among the threads of fate, by Titmouse from "Thordak (LoVM)" (LVM3x09).

Fate, also called destiny, is a cosmic concept and belief by which certain events are predetermined to happen, either inescapably or as one of infinite possibilities. In and outside of Exandria, fate affects every living creature, from the humblest of mortals to the greatest of gods.

Physical manifestation

Fan art of fate connecting Laudna and Imogen, by cvleart.

Fate takes the form of long glowing threads that cross, entangle, and touch each other. Most of them are golden, but when they belong to a creature whose destiny is separated from the Material Plane and its people their thread can appear silver; those threads that belong to special entities (such as demigods) shine a little brighter than normal. The possibilities of different fates based on different decisions are represented by "shadow-threads" that emerge from specific points of a main gold thread.

The threads of fate, as a general rule, are usually invisible and intangible to living creatures. However, in the space between life and death, and in the realm of the Matron of Ravens, they are shown in all their splendor, forming extremely complex patterns like a great tapestry (sometimes referred to as "the Skein of Fate" or "the Skein of Destiny") that the mortal mind struggles to understand. In the presence of Predathos, the threads of fate became visible, with those of Ruidusborn turning red and connecting them to each other and to the God Eater.

If a mere mortal physically touched a thread of fate that isn't their own, they would feel a sense of shock, and would be overwhelmed by a wave of memories associated with the creature connected to the thread.

Entities associated with fate

The Raven Queen, Matron of Death

The neutral goddess of death, fate, and winter, she holds destiny as part of her portfolio. She is in charge of fate in its natural state, considered the weaver of the threads, being able to touch them, move them, cut them, and connect them as she sees fit from her divine realm. The threads even react to her mood, getting tense when she does.

Evontra'vir, the Great Tree of Atrophy

Fan art of Evontra'vir, by Niko Vanhala.

A sentient tree that was once a Gau Drashari and now grows between realms. Its roots are able to reach the skein of destiny, watching closely and learning information they can share with those brave enough to seek it. The tree, however, tends to focus on the paths to death and specific key aspects of one's fate.

Morrigan, the Fatestitcher

A powerful hag who is able to observe the threads of fate and the way they move and entangle, and sometimes likes to touch, manipulate, and even add small details to the skein, to see what happens.

The Luxon, the First Radiance

The mysterious deity worshiped in the Kryn Dynasty is "fragmented" in multiple relics known as Luxon beacons. When concentrating on one of these beacons, a creature can see alternate versions of themself following different paths and different destinies, and gains the ability to briefly influence their own fate; they can also see the threads of fate, although not the entities influencing them.

Blessings, curses, and beliefs about fate

Fan art of Vax'ildan, a fate-touched, by BlackSalander.

• Fate-touched: Special people able to influence the weave of destiny to a degree, with their very threads of fate touching and changing the direction of others as they move through life. Some fate-touched are so only during significant moments of history, while others retain that unique trait for as long as they live; in both cases, even if they never learn about what they are (possible only through magic or divine revelation) the fate-touched are always relevant. They are followed by magnificent or catastrophic events, becoming legends that go down in history, or falling into disgrace and oblivion. Once per day, a fate-touched can use an ability called "Fortune's Grace", shifting events in their favor by increasing their chances of success at a task or reducing those of their enemies (mechanically, the feature works as a single Luck Point, allowing rerolls of attacks, ability checks, or saving throws).
  • Glint: A phenomenon by which a person is marked by destiny (whether that can be considered a blessing or a curse) in a way that attracts the attention of the goddess of fate like a raven is drawn to shiny things. People with the glint might be similar (if not the same) to fate-touched, and there's only one known catfolk lineage able to sense them without using powerful magic.
• Oracles: Individuals who, by accessing divine magic, are able to deliver prophecies and predictions about the future, revealing an aspect of fate that might become real in the future.
  • The Squint: Name given to a lesser oracular ability that reveals to the user aspects of their own destiny, showing possibilities of future and dangers yet to come. The Squint is inherited, and can be enhanced.
• Ruidusborn: Those born while the Moon of Ill Omen is flaring in the sky have an innate connection with it, which can manifest itself in the form of psychic powers. In Exandria, however, the bad reputation of the red moon gives significance to the birth of such children; although some scholars believe those Ruidusborn might be fated to be important, most people regard them with concern or even fear, and many families hide their ominous condition due to the potential stigma.

Although fate itself is not considered something inherently religious, in Exandria there are figures who reject the divine but see fate as something real and worth pursuing, which gives them purpose and justifies the events in their lives.

History

The oldest known historical records connected with fate speak of the era of the Founding, when one of the Protean Gods, Vordo, became the deity of fate and order, having "Fateshaper" as their main epithet. Before the Schism, Vordo was devoured by Predathos, and fate was claimed by the god of death as part of his own portfolio.

There are records about fate-touched mortals dating back to the Age of Arcanum; some of those surviving chronicles explain that certain mages saw these individuals as having special potential, going so far as to subject them to terrible experiments to snatch away the essence of fate they carried. It was also during this period that a mortal woman (allegedly a Ruidusborn) sought the god of death to learn from him the secrets of divinity, eventually developing rites that allowed her to ascend to godhood, destroying her divine partner and taking his place in the pantheon as the goddess of death, fate, and winter. She would later describe her ascension explaining that she had done as fate itself willed.

When the Calamity ended and the drow of Xhorhas founded the Kryn Dynasty, embracing the Luxon and rejecting their former ties to the Spider Queen, their used the Luxon beacons and dunamis to develop the esoteric form of magic known as dunamancy. One of its specialties, chronurgy, focuses on the manipulation of possibility and potential, allowing to influence fate in small ways. During and after the War of Ash and Light in 836 PD the Dwendalian Empire gained access to similar abilities thanks to the creation of the Potion of Possibility. Several of such potions would later be used by the Ruby Vanguard, a group working for Martinet Ludinus Da'leth.

Screenshot of Vax and the Raven Queen, the current goddess of fate, by Titmouse from "Belly of the Beast" (LVM2x11).

At the beginning of the 9th century after the Divergence a fate-touched half-elf, Vax'ildan, became an adventurer as part of Vox Machina. He attracted the attention of the Matron of Ravens when he pleaded to save the life of Vex'ahlia, his twin sister, and the goddess of death allowed it, bringing the half-elven ranger back and claiming Vax as one of her followers. Through his adventures he acted as her paladin and champion, and during their quest to defeat Vecna he was killed, and made a new deal that surprised even the Raven Queen herself: Vax'ildan would be brought back as an unkillable revenant, and once the Whispered One was defeated, he would leave the world of the living to serve as the eternal champion of the goddess. Despite the pain he caused his loved ones and himself, the fate-touched kept his word, and after completing his mission he crossed into the realm of his goddess voluntarily, becoming celestial, the Champion of Ravens.

During the crisis after the apogee solstice of 843 PD, while the rest of the main pantheon were finding ways to stop the Ruby Vanguard and/or defeat Predathos, the Matron of Ravens was determined to maintain the free will of mortals, and to follow the designs of destiny, whatever they were for her and the other deities. During the fight against the Red End, Imogen Temult became its reluctant vessel, and while inside of it she discovered that Vordo the Golden Weaver, the first god of fate, was still there as a ghost of their former self, being drained as Predathos used their divine power to manifest fate-related abilities in combat. Imogen tried to make the forgotten deity react and even offered to become their follower; however, after realizing Vordo was practically dead, with their domain being now held by the Raven Queen, Imogen decided to end their suffering and after locating their thread of fate, she cast Shocking Grasp through it, freeing the remaining essence of the Fateshaper and absorbing some of their energy. When that happened, Predathos lost the ability to attack using that god's power.

When the Matron of Ravens, following Bells Hells' plan, completed the creation of the Rites of Catatheosis, she used them to turn herself and the rest of the members of the main pantheon into mortals in order to avoid the God Eater's hunger. She sent visions to say goodbye to many of her followers, but also summoned the Champion of Ravens and Morrighan Ferus to her realm, giving the former some of his life back and turning the latter into a full champion; she tasked both of them with the duty of protecting her domain until she remembered her identity in her next life, and declaring that despite all the changes, the skein of fate would endure. One of her clerics, Lieve'tel Toluse, channeled some of the power of that domain by herself a few days later, when she used a Divine Intervention to entwine even more the destinies of Laudna and Imogen, so that the Hollow One, despite her necromantic nature, would be able to grow old and die with her beloved. During the period in which the Raven Queen was still absent, Morrigan the Fatestitcher became even more active in her role, since no god could stop her, and even taught her granddaughter Fearne how to watch the lives of mortals through the skein; however, she also warned her about how delicate it was, telling her to be very careful, and to only manipulate the threads directly when the moment was right. Eventually she would end up influencing the threads of her own friends ever so slightly.

Trivia

Fan art of the Champion of Ravens, by Kaitlyn L-NerdyNostalgia.

• The idea of the threads of fate is inspired by different cultural elements from our world: the Greek Moirai (or Fates), the three sisters that worked with the threads that represented the lives of mortals; or the red thread of fate that connects people through love in Chinese mythology.
• There are only two known circumstances in which the Raven Queen is unable to see a thread of fate: the first is when a person becomes her celestial champion, as Vax'ildan did; the second one if when someone manages to actively hide their thread from the goddess, as Ludinus Da'leth did. When that happens, the goddess can't see the destiny of that specific individual.
• In The Legend of Vox Machina the thread of fate that connected Vax'ildan and Vex'ahlia allowed each of them to know when the other was in danger, something that stopped working when the Matron of Death cut that connection.
• There is a drug called "skein" (a reference to the threads of fate) that allegedly grants the ability to see into the weave of time (it actually grants the ability to see into the Ethereal Plane).

Fan art of Morrigan the Fatestitcher, by Robert Kemp.

• The threads that Morrigan the Fatestitcher adds to the skein of the Raven Queen are likely those of the fey she sends to the Material Plane (such as Morrighan Ferus and Fearne Calloway), and it has been implied that the destinies of creatures from different planes don't connect directly in normal circumstances. This is further supported by the fact that Laudna's thread of fate, of a different color than the rest, lay "between realms" until the Matron connected it to her friends, after which it turned gold like the rest. It might also be signified by the fact that Lucien Tavelle lost his fateful glint after he became the Nonagon and began searching for a way to reach Cognouza, in the Astral Plane.
• The inherent connection of the Ruidusborn with a significant destiny is likely through Predathos, since it devoured the essence of the first god of fate. The Red End is able to reveal the threads of fate of mortals and is directly connected to those of Ruidusborn. Travis Willingham himself theorized that it was an ability inherited from Vordo the Fateshaper, which was confirmed in "Predathos Awakened" (3x119).
• It is likely that Vordo received their other epithet, "the Golden Weaver", because of their connection to the skein of fate and its golden threads.

Official art of Avandra and FCG, by Megzilla87.

• Although she isn't directly associated to fate, Avandra the Changebringer uses a similar representation of her portfolio, with the roads and paths connected to her symbolizing decisions and directions mortals take in life, similar to the threads of fate. She is also the goddess of luck, which is very often associated with destiny.

References

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