Di Inferi

All that is acquired will be lost

What rises will fall

Where there is meeting there will be separation

What is born will surely die.

-The Udānavarga (Ancient Sanskrit)

The phrase, “memento mori” first appeared during the Ascendancy’s war games with other channelers. A man was found in the presence of a rakshasha, a wretched, violent creature that, surprisingly, the man had tamed.  Before his death, he uttered the phrase “memento mori” to the Ascendancy.  Afterward, a necklace was found on his body.  A necklace that the Ascendancy recognized: an hourglass set in an oval charm.

Seeking confirmation of the memory, the Ascendancy returned to Siberia to exhume the body of one of the Atharim that attacked at the Datsan all those long years before he became President of Russia.  The charm was the same, but the phrase “memento mori” remained elusive.

Since then, other members of the Di Inferi or their symbol have appeared at seemingly random places. One followed Soren and Declan in India.  Another appeared at the Vaia Plus fundraiser.  The United States’ Speaker of the House is one.

Finally, Aria showed the Regus of the Atharim the hourglass charm she claimed to have found, but in actuality, was gifted by the Ascendancy as bait.  Pondering the charm, the group “di inferi” rose in his mind.

“He reached past the package and took the pendant, felt the etching with his fingertips. He felt dirty and wanted to throw it away from him. He seethed. Di Inferi. So they still existed. He had suspected. It had been the only way to explain certain…things. Perhaps even the reports about the tunnels. He could almost feel them moving in the shadows. He kept his lip from curling. It was said that Pope Gregory XV and the broom of his Omnipotentis Dei swept them all into the fire. Apparently, he failed.”

-Regus, Unfolding Information

History

The Di Inferi are a splintered faction of the Atharim and use similar clandestine techniques to obscure their existence and maintain secrecy. The split occurred in the 1600’s during the Age of Enlightenment. The expansion of scientific reason and experimentation emboldened the untraditional Atharim Scholars of the time to seek understanding and analysis of the world around them. The philosophical concept of death became the topic of obsession, particularly as it pertained to the immortal gods of ages past.

As the years carried on, the early Di Inferi resisted the notion that death of inevitable. Rather than thoughtlessly killing the monsters and alleged users of magic, they chased legends of immortality like Fountains of Youth to the point that they were branded rebels by the Atharim. Finally, in 1620, Pope Gregory XV and the Regus of the time declared their eradication; however, it seemed they escaped the Atharim’s clutches on ships bound for the Americas, which became a fertile breeding ground for the Di Inferi, whose power and influence expanded far from the reach of Rome. It is said that Ponce de León himself was Di Inferi.

Today, Di Inferi are found in positions of power worldwide. These men and women alike are devoted to the pursuit of immortality, thus they use the phrase “Memento Mori” to remind them that all will die. They will use any means necessary to conduct their experiments and search the farthest reaches of the world to seek the immortality that was once the domain only of the gods.

Noted strongholds of the di inferi continue to exist in the Americas.

Noted members

• Roswell Jenkins
• Ephraim Haart
• Hendrik van de Berg
• The Asquith Family
• The Von Metternich Family

The members of the Di Inferi care nothing for the cause of the Atharim, only that they should hide their goals or face the same fervor of persecution with which other monsters are hunted; however, they know nothing of the current operations of the Atharim. They lack knowledge of their safehouses, factions, or finances. The Atharim, on the other hand, believe they successfully eradicated the Di Inferi 400 years ago, and today are believed by most Atharim Scholars or Priests to be a mere fairy tale. The average Atharim hunter would be unlikely to have ever heard of them, unless the family is of particularly long-lasted history or possess ties to Atharim scholarship.