Cernunnos
Cernunnos was one identity of the Enemy who opposed the Great Houses during the War in Heaven. He was the leader of the Original Mammoths. (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory) In the 18th century of the post-War universe, he was given as a gift from Catherine II to George III. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, Grass, COMIC: Political Animals, Bêtes Noires & Dark Horses)
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
Origins[[edit] | [edit source]]
In the time before time, Cernunnos was ruler of the Original Mammoths and "divinity of the first men of stone and flesh". After this version of reality was destroyed in the anchoring of the thread, Cernunnos ordered early humans to hunt mammoths to extinction.
Long afterwards, posthumans led by Linemica resurrected Cernunnos using delicate craftmanship and illegal time travel. He was unveiled in his new body at Terra Primagenia to an audience of dignitaries from countless civilisations. He psychically spoke to the audience, pledging to return the universe to as it was before the Great Houses imposed history onto it. Cernunnos mentally latched onto Avus, a young member of the Great Houses watching the unveiling by means of Praxis-induced vision.
Cernunnos followed Avus to an alter-time realm containing a remnant of the time before time. Avus quickly escaped Cernunnos, leaving him to begin planning for the War in Heaven. (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory)
Hints of the future[[edit] | [edit source]]
The final vision Avus saw during his encounter with Cernunnos was one of Cernunnos dishevelled and deprived of psychic powers, caged in a bestiary at the centre of a busy city and cared to by a girl named Lucita. (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory)
Due to Chris Cwej's interference in the Faction Hollywood production of Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom, filmed with a GCI processor, a scene was added to the movie depicting the child of one of the film's main characters tending to "a live oriental mammoth owned by the King of England". (PROSE: The Book of the War)
As property of George III[[edit] | [edit source]]
Cernunnos survived the War, albeit in a much weakened state. (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory) In 1774, he was the last living mammoth in Europe. Catherine II gifted him to George III, who, not understanding the beast's value, organised a hunt for the creature. (PROSE: Grass)
Some of the last surviving members of Faction Paradox came to London to win the King's favour by winning the hunt, (COMIC: Political Animals) but they were distracted when the American ambassador's gift to George III, Mayakatula, escaped into the city. While busy tracking Mayakatula, Mother Francesca and her acolyte sensed that they had lost their chance at gaining a foothold in history by killing the mammoth.
While it was alive, the mammoth was kept in the royal stables. Its handlers were unaware of what George II planned to do with the creature. (COMIC: Bêtes Noires & Dark Horses) Isobel helped care for the mammoth and feed it. Snaddon told her that it was a gesture from Catherine II that she was ready to share her secrets with George III. (COMIC: Political Animals)
According to rumours heard by Lucia Cailloux, the mammoth was killed not in a hunt, but in a fight with George III's pit-dogs. (PROSE: Grass) In 1782, Scarlette told the Eighth Doctor that she had ridden George III's mammoth. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
Due to Image Comics cancelling the Faction Paradox series, the storyline involving the hunt of the mammoth was left unfinished. The preview for Creatures of Habit, the third issue of Faction Paradox, was included at the back of FP 2 and depicted the mammoth wearing armour.
The mythological Cernunnos was a Gallo-Roman deity, generally presented as a humanoid with stag-like antlers. In May 2021, Nate Bumber, who introduced much of the mythos of the Faction Paradox Cernunnos in Cobweb and Ivory, posted a side-by-side of a painting of the mythological Cernunnos and of the mammoth as depicted in Political Animals, as a means of depicting "the nature of the Enemy", the picture seemingly chosen to emphasise the resemblance between the lower antlers and mammoth tusks. He also made a post where he noted that "there's a side to the mammoths that hasn't been seen yet" and tagged as "Cernunnos" images of iconography relating to the Green Man.
A version of Cernunnos appeared in Michael Scott's The Sorceress, the third book of his prose series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. There, he was depicted as an Archon. The series later officially crossed over with Doctor Who in The Nameless City, which treated the two series as taking place in the same universe. There, the Archons were depicted as a god-like species from ancient times from whom the Time Lords stole the first TARDIS seeds. In The Sorceress Cernunnos was presented as one of the only surviving Archons in the modern day. The next book, The Necromancer, would introduce another, Coatlicue, a snake-like progenitor of vampires, who therefore has obvious similarities to the Yssgaroth.
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