Aesteoph - Archon of Smiths and Industry
The Book of Aesteoph (ęs-te'off)
Book 1
As the world cooled and Asintmah’s life energy was dispersed across the world, the twelve archons who swore fealty to Our Lord began to create their own order and standing among themselves. Once settled, and over the following eon, the archons began to coalesce into those forms that were best suited toward their natures. Of these twelve, one archon came to be known as Aesteoph, the archon of smiths and industry, whose form was of flesh, metal and stone. When our ancestors began to mostly walk on 2 legs, Aesteoph introduced unto us the element of fire, and so powerful was this tool in the hands of our ancestors that they quickly began to worship it as a god unto itself and thus swiftly brought down upon them the wrath of Our Lord for the worshiping of other gods before Him. Sol Deus then confronted Aesteoph and inflicted great punishment upon him and crippled his body as punishment for his breaking of his oath to remain a lessor being under Our Lord. When Our Lord’s justifiable wrath was satisfied, Aesteoph begged forgiveness and explained that the knowledge he had gifted mankind with was meant to be a tool for His followers, a tool that could be used to better understand His Wisdom and to help us show our love for Our Lord with worship befitting His Omnipotence.
Thus did Sol Deus relent on the use of fire by mankind. Aesteoph, though crippled as he was, next taught mankind how to both create and extinguish fire, proving to us that fire was not a god, because we could render some control over it. The lessons of fire also included humility and self-control, for should fire escape our hands, the havoc it would wreck upon His world could destroy all we hold dear.
After another age had passed, Aesteoph again took it upon himself to inject knowledge into our lives, by showing us the basics of metallurgy. Showing us how we could use fire to smelt simple metals that we could find in native forms upon the lands. Thus did mankind begin to learn the making of simple objects, and with more instructions from Aesteoph, into proper symbols of worship of Sol Deus. Our Radiant Lord was much pleased with this, and healed Aesteoph such that he was able to walk normally again, though with a slight limp as a reminder of the mistakes in his past. It was also a lesson as to the other Archons to remember their place in the cosmos under Him.
With the knowledge of smelting at hand, Aesteoph than guided us as we next learned to make basic tools that were than used in every part of our lives, from the crafting of more durable shelters, to tools to protect ourselves from wild beasts and the elements, and with additional guidance from the Archon of Fertility, increased harvests of food from crops and tamed beasts. It is also said that during this time the Archon of Disease and Destruction mislead mankind with stray thoughts on how to build weapons of war. For which, even to this day, we see an endless cycle between the creation of ways to both protect ourselves and to destroy our enemies.
