Jnpw
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(Judeo-Christian) Adversary, Accuser, Deceiver, Azrael
I'll drag you way back down, to my corpse-filled underground!
The psychopomp jackal deity, consumed by the purest Malice. The character of Anubis once was where Jnpw is, tipping his scales and choking down the Nile. He's since changed faces many times with the fall of Ancient Egypt and the rise of Ancient Rome, and finds himself a Judeo-Christian demon at current.
- Originally four wings (left to right: Pathos, Ethos, Kairos, Logos). Has since lost Kairos.
- Wings turn black/white based on validity/goodness of: motivation, intent, timing, and reasoning.
- Size and number voluntary, but typically kept small and must be multiples of three.
- Optional third eye on forehead. Forces others shut.
As close to unremarkable as he can manage. Wear typically hovers around semiformal but doesn't relax further much, especially as there's usually no need. Colors, fabrics and cuts are all kept utterly mundane, and he tries not to overdo it with the extra pieces...
Silver or gold is a near-constant, particularly as wristlets or anklets, faux piercings, and chains (especially as tail decoration). Gemstones are rare and often minor, but lapis lazuli and onyx are favorites among them.
This is toned down in human form; usually left at a ring or two and a collar pin.
Humanity, in its ceaseless self-centrism, has been fixated on personifications since its genesis. Nearly all mythos, for instance, have contained some embodiment of love, or the Sun: sets like Eros, Freyja, and Oshun; or Helios, Olwen, and Ra. The members of these sets hail from a common source: they are repeated reincarnations of an array of quintessences. Also known as ideals, these are ultimate encapsulations of all of humankind's favorite symbols. Quintessents are god-stuff: the elements which such figures embody.
Mythic figures often encapsulate more than the span of any particular quintessent. Relatedly, figures with the same quintessent(s) at their cores, for instance the Biblical Serpent (note: also Satan, despite its authors' intent: a myth's perception changes its facts, as they exist on perception—the distinct name is more to distinguish between stories than figures) and Norse Loki, are distinguished despite their shared core of deceit, for instance in their presented morality. This is owed to the fact that ideals tend not to travel alone, especially with time, as mythic figures accrue characters, symbols, and traits, and grow to represent several adjacent concepts.
Despite their presentation as mere elements, quintessences approach the agency of gods and mortals: divine conflicts both mythical and modern are mere proxy wars for reincarnated ideals locked in battle. They are also in the habit, typically led by mortal culture and interpretation, of migrating, spreading or splitting from one deus to the next. This is the driving force behind the evolution of deities' depictions: their very essence changing as different ideals constrict or relax their grip on them.
Owing to their sheer ubiquity, quintessents have no particular names beyond the common words for their manifestations in whichever language is being spoken.
Anubis as used here solidified in the Ancient Egyptian Middle Kingdom, and, although labelled by later Greeks as a psychopomp, he served closer to a divine judge. In the ceremonial Weighing of the Hearts which he led, the dead's hearts would be weighed against a Feather and, should it prove heavier, be devoured by the chimeric Ammit, whereas lighter souls would be led down the Subterranean Nile in the company of the likes of Isis in the paradise Duat.
In this depiction (which the name Anubis more often indicates) as is typical with long-standing myths, a collection of quintessents present themselves: primarily those of Death and Judgement. What is omitted from history is the eventual chokehold passed to him by the quintessent in the core of his father, Seth: Malice.
Malice, bound frequently with Disorder, Guile, or Deceit, is the quintessence at the core of the Biblical Serpent (and associated Semitic Adversaries) as well as, more relevantly, Ancient Egyptian Seth of the desert, strangers, disorder, and violence.
It attached to Anubis, paired as it so often is with Deceit. The latter proved better able to better control the jackal-god, driving him to tip his Scales whenever a victim it fancied presented itself by adding his own heart to the bowl—this degradation is more commonly what is meant by the name Inpu.
Eventually growing insated simply by letting them be devoured by Ammit, through careful adjusting of his own portrayal he grew to consume the chimera as well: historians were to call the amalgam Amminubis, but the god called itself Anpu.
Eventually usurped by deities Isis and Osiris, Ammit was reinstated at her post and he was replaced by Anput, made to surrender to the fringes of the Ancient Egyptian conscious as a lowly urban myth.
It was there he stalked for centuries on end, changing names and slowly seeping from Ancient Egypt to Greece to Rome, where his size hardly fluctuated until the reign of emperor Constantine.
Though far from the authority enjoyed by a god, it was here he could eke out the status of demon under the name Jnpw, right alongside the beginnings of the faith itself. Initially associating him with Azrael, sometimes in contrast and occasionally in fusion, the new faith morphed his jackal quickly into a wolf, more familiar to the Roman faithful, and added to his spine four wings declared to represent the rhetorical appeals.
This visual made him oft-employed by artists in symbolic communication, the foundation of his otherwise unexpected longevity. However, texts discussing him were much less frequent, and belief in him fell from fashion particularly with the solidification and acceptance of Biblical canons, which excluded the few scripts with his name.
More modern understandings slowly lowered him to Hell, where he remains today. His role and day-to-day remains as contested and uncertain as any demon, however, it is known that he's encountered a fallen angel—later named Abaddon—on whom he took pity and gave his third wing, Kairos, without which their survival had seemed quite unlikely. The two are believed to live together.
Bitterly teasing. Alongside its constant mocking invitation to let his pharaohs be judged by it, Jnpw has named him a coward for his refusal to surrender to what it considers the nature of the children of Seth. There was once a piece of Wepwawet hoping to rend him of Malice, but he's since abandoned it with the desert sands.
Playful more than anything. Jnpw nips at them often, but is always quieted by the reminder that he chose to rescue the fallen angel—and, ultimately, the two hold no animosity. They both consider each other a little pathetic.
