Faction Paradox mask
Members of Faction Paradox traditionally wore ceremonial masks made of bones. The Book of the War noted that even Cousins not issued with full Faction armour usually carried a mask, if only to wear it at important occasions such as meetings at the Parliament of the Eleven-Day Empire.
Nature[[edit] | [edit source]]
Faction Paradox masks were usually carved out from actual skulls; they were hollowed out but divided into sections, the front section being a detachable faceplate. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
Origins[[edit] | [edit source]]
The original Faction Paradox armour was created entirely from bones from a single source, an "abomination's graveyard" where Homeworlder-Yssgaroth hybrids existed. This source was speculated by The Book of the War to be some kind of parallel universe or alternate timeline where the Yssgaroth won the First War in Heaven against the Great Houses. It was believed to have been discovered, early on in the Faction's history, by Grandfather Paradox and his four principal lieutenants; although depictions of the foundation of House Paradox often depicted the Grandfather already wearing armour, this was likely an anachronistical fabrication. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
Notable Faction members' masks[[edit] | [edit source]]
Justine and Manjuele wore masks made from the bat-like skulls of Time Lords from a history where they lost their war against the Great Vampires. (PROSE: Alien Bodies) These masks resembled Mal'akh skulls, and such skulls were the most common type of Faction Paradox mask. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
However, many members of the Faction wore masks that differed from the mean, and appeared to be from different species than the past-Yssgaroth hybrids. For example, Christèmas' mask was made from a narwhal skull, (PROSE: Weapons Grade Snake Oil) and Cousin Belial was infamous for wearing a mask with mammoth-like features. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
Belle's mask was painted with streaks of blood. (PROSE: Panda and the Airship)
Francesca wore a mask made of synthetic bone. (COMIC: Political Animals)
The mask of one Faction member was carved from the skull of one of the Ferutu. House Military soldier Dionus found the very sight of the mask to be an offence on his senses. (AUDIO: Eternal Escape)
Godfather Auteur, who had had his skin ripped away from him and was thus a living skeleton held together by shadow, decided to forego a conventional mask, instead letting his shadow-skin peel away around his face to reveal his actual skull. (PROSE: A Bloody (And Public) Domaine)
Father and Mother, the wardens of the Shadow Spire, both wore large bird skulls; Father's was the bleached skull of an Argentavis, "pulled from the mire of extinction", while Mother's was the "weather-beaten" skull of a Haast's eagle. Brother Kifah, meanwhile, wore a jaguar's skull for his mask, and Brother Gustav, a Martian, wore a helmet with a red visor that did not appear to be skull-like at all. (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice)
Avenir told Cococyte that the Faction wore "the skulls of the creatures that never have been", and temporarily adopted a simple human skull as a mask to demonstrate to Cococyte "how serious things [had] become" when Cococyte's abuse of the Observer Effect temporarily threatened to erase the whole existence of humanity. (PROSE: Marticide)
In the hands of others[[edit] | [edit source]]
In the late 18th century, one mask fell into the hands of the Service, who kept it in their private collection. The Royal Society frequently requested they be allowed to scientifically examine the mask, but they never got a chance to do before it was lost at the turn of the 19th century. (COMIC: Political Animals)
By the earliest 21st century, a goth clothing shop called Fashion Paradox existed on New Oxford Street in London on the site where the real Faction Paradox's Gregorian Compact was signed in the 18th century. Seemingly by coincidence, they had a tradition of adorning their shop window mannequins with skull masks every Halloween. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
Representatives of Anonymous wore Faction Paradox skull masks (PROSE: Cobweb and Ivory) as tribute to the hero of Jim Sheldrake's comic The Secret. (PROSE: The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy)
Two masks attached to the identities of by Sibling Same and Sibling Different fell out of a never-was timeline and into the Post-Time War universe. Anke Von Grisel put them on display in her Verbier Museum of the Impossible, labelled as having belonged to a "long-forgotten cult"; this allowed Same and Different to claw their way back into reality, although initially as mere immaterial beings. (PROSE: Canaries)
