Family of the Shadow Spire
The Family of the Shadow Spire, sometimes referred to as simply the Family, was a loosely-affiliated group of survivors of Faction Paradox who hid out in the alter-time realm of the Shadow Spire following the destruction of the Eleven-Day Empire.
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
After the loas showed them the true extent of the Faction's failures as well as what pockets of survivors survived, Mother and Father agreed to let the Spire, originally merely the prison of the insane Godfather Auteur, become a safe haven for the survivors of the Faction's fall from grace. (PROSE: The Story So Far...)
As the Spire had corrupted the biodata of Mother and Father until they were little more than shadows spouting Faction-loyalist propaganda, Auteur, though he remained nominally a prisoner, emerged as the true leader of the faction that was thus born. Together with Mother and Father, he orchestrated the reformation of the scattered band of survivors (amounting to "a few dozen Cousins and a few older Siblings", as well as Little Sibling Kifah) into a working cabal, dubbed "the Family of the Shadow Spire".
Although Mother and Father dreamed of resuming the Faction's involvement in the War in Heaven to restore its power, and of attacking the Homeworld head-on if they could get the means to do so, the various other survivors were not as enthusiastic, many having only come to the Spire because they had nowhere else to go. Auteur, meanwhile, intended to manipulate Mother and Father for his own ends.
Mother, Father, Kifah and Gustav were thus sent on his advice to the First Auction in Heaven, to purchase the sarcophagus of Apep; Auteur intended to bond the beast's biodata to himself, thus freeing himself from the Spire and ascending to complete mastery over the Spiral Politic. In the process, however, the tensions between Kifah and Gustav and the rest of the "Family" worsened, as it became apparent that the leaders of the Family had no interest in buying another lot in the Auction — a bubble of frozen time that contained an entire battalion of trapped Faction skulltroopers, including Kifah's lover Intrepid.
Initiating the final phases of his plan, Auteur had his loas eat Mother and Father, then opened Apep's sarcophagus. The scheme immediately went awry, however, with Apep taking Auteur's shadow-skin away from him and then consuming his biodata. In the ensuing confusion, Kifah, Gustav and Intrepid were instrumental in defeating Apep, then ran away in Cortalian's timeship. (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice)
