Aberrations result from a tangle or knot in the Pattern of the Age. They should not exist, and are mistakes the Pattern continually tries to right. As a result the weave goes so fast the threads tangle on themselves, and must be addressed in order for the Pattern to resume its weaving. The effects ripple out erratically over the Ages.
Owing to his impossible origins, the soul of Loki represents the original tangle in the Pattern. All aberrations descend or relate to his birth.
Loki; the Original
In the 1st Age, Jaxen Marveet makes a deal with the Finn in exchange for his firstborn son. The child, mothered by Zephyr Lelantos, is part of a prophesied line destined to end the gods. At birth the baby is taken from his mother, and delivered into the hands of Odin in the 6th Age.
This means that Loki is the reincarnated soul of himself as Jaxen as well as his own biological son.
Loki’s machinations and the children he sires in this Age lead to Ragnarök and the end of the gods.
Aberrations
Souls directly created by Loki’s existence in the 6th Age. They ripple out their own effects on the Pattern, detailed below:
Jörmungandr; the Evil One
This soul is born into every Age, and is always a force of exceptional evil, generating myths and legends that often liken him to a literal monster. In the 6th Age alone he spawned the genesis for multiple fearsome gods and monsters. His soul is so dangerous and destructive, the Pattern is forced to spin out a hero to counter him. Usually, he perishes at their hand, but not without great cost.
Fenrir; the Father of Monsters
If Jorm is the figurative, then Fenrir is the literal. His soul is wolfkin, and thus only born in Ages the ability surfaces, but always into a body mixed with monstrous troll-blood — the mortal enemy of wolves. In the 6th Age, Fenrir was so feared by the Norse gods that they chained him, and it was his breaking loose that marked the third and definitive sign of Ragnarök. Why he was feared over and above his siblings is something that appears to have died with the gods.
In the 1st Age Tristan is also born with troll ancestry. The spill of his blood in Nyx’s vacuole laboratory, a place on the edges of the Pattern, leads to its preservation and use in the 2nd Age. Delivered by Asristin into the hands of the Forsaken Amogorath, it was used to create Trollocs.
It is said that whilst trapped in the bore, Amogorath was hounded by Fenrir’s soul in retribution, when he broke free of wherever souls awaiting rebirth reside.
Hel; the Changeling
She is the quintessential changeling child; a Finn soul in the vessel of a human body. With her Finn connection and Jötunn blood, Hel is born with unusual gifts previously unknown to her Age. She feeds on emotions, can drain those upon which she feeds, and can push and control emotion in others.
In a drastic course correction, her birth has three major consequences.
First: the Sentient ability is spun into the Pattern, for a Sentient is the only human vessel in which a Finn soul could be contained, and must now be accounted for as a possibility. Hel is the first of her kind, and the most intensely gifted across all the Ages, owing to her mixed and monstrous blood and the circumstances of her father’s birth. Later Sentients retain a link to the Finn, but always have human souls. The only exception is when Hel’s own soul is cast back into the Pattern in the 1st Age.
Second: the thread of Samyaza in the previous Age is warped, thus allowing for the creation of Samhain, Harvester of Souls.
Third: between the Ages her soul requires sustenance from others, corrupting the later lives of those upon which she feeds. Notable examples include Baldr and Melpomene.
Angrboða; Thrice Burned, Thrice Died, Thrice Alive
Though not a knot or tangle, this is a soul that pulls the knots and tangles around her tighter. Due to the nature of the knots, the effects can and often do transcend the Age in which they originate. She was the mother of Loki’s monstrous children, the three harbingers of Ragnarök. Notably none of the offspring either parent conceived with other partners were born to be aberrations.
In the 5th Age her union with and manipulation of Samyaza resulted in the Fall of the Watchers, and later a bloody civil war. The knot was pulled so tight Samyaza’s thread was ripped up and corrupted, resulting in the creation of Samhain in the following Age.
In the 6th Age, her children by Loki were intrinsic to the end of the gods. She also founded the heroic Völsung line, which continued into the 7th Age as caretakers of the mythical godkiller blade.
Unintended Consequences
Samhain, the Harvester
In the 5th Age Samyaza was born with a natural ability to see the shape of a soul, a rare gift that made him a paragon of his Age. It was for this talent the Pattern sought his soul in reaction to Hel’s birth, creating the feared Harvester. His corrupted thread is the unintended consequence of the deal between Jaxen Marveet and the Finns.
1st Age Sámiel retains a bastardisation of this gift, able to see knots and tangles in the Pattern — and in the 1st Age there are plenty to be seen. In this life his soul is destined to reap the Harvest for the sentients, ushering in the Feast of the Finn.
Having served this purpose, in the 2nd Age he is born a husk; a nihilist ever searching for answers and meaning that ultimately lead him to the Dark One.
Baldr; the Hero That Never Was
A heroic soul of the light, destined for greatness, but subsumed in the tangle of Loki to never fulfil that purpose. In the 6th Age he is a figure beloved by all, but killed by Loki and banished to Hel. His loss is the catalyst for Ragnarök, the ultimate destruction of the gods.
Baldr’s long entrapment with the first Sentient, Hel, results in his soul draining almost dry. Locked away from the world, she feeds on him for the entire 7th Age, only releasing him when her own rebirth forces her soul into the 1st Age. In subsequent lives he is a soul bereft of joy, forever seeking that which he has lost — the destiny denied him.
His thread is woven into the 2nd Age in error, and as a result resentment leads him to the Shadow. In the 3rd, he seeks to become the hero he believes he should be, and dies in the attempt; too badly corrupted by tangles made in the previous Age. It takes two entire Ages of rest for the Pattern to smooth out the knot of his thread, and he is born the golden son once more.
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