After discovering the City of Stars and being immolated/reborn, Rhiannon scrawls the following within the Tome of Cosmic Wisdom, as well as her own flesh! (Bitchin' glowing tattoos ahoy hoy!) Top-heavy, preachy, blah blah blah. But hey, every new theology needs a creed, right? Absorb and contemplate, curious reader...

Know this creed and be forever blessed by the light of Nova, my brothers and sisters.

I speak the fundamental truth of our order: The stars are everything. From their deaths comes all things material, and their lives all things immaculate and living. The stones and soil beneath our paws once knew the heart of a great star, one whose time has long past. So too our flesh, blood, and bones all carry the celestial pedigree, as does all other material things. When the star that hangs above us ends his life, we shall be consumed by a unifying conflagration, thereby reentering the celestial dance of the heavens as one being once more. It is both our history and fate which unites us all.

I speak of the first great enemy of our order: distance. As time marches ever on, the forces of the universe seek to divide us into smaller and smaller halves of the whole. With each generation of stars, they drift further and further apart, leaving naught but the blackness of space in between. As the stars drift, so to goes the living. In this mortal life, many fancy themselves a person apart, a race apart, a culture apart from another. Those with the greatest army, the grandest cities, the greatest wonders and marvels all champion their own identity and place themselves above others. Of this sin, my former brethren the Sergals garner the greatest offense. What then of our clans when the sun rises and sets a thousand times? What of our legacies and power? We are naught but insignificant specs of carbon, and in the blink of a celestial eye, these short and terrible lives have begun and ended. A great man has no more bearing than a flea upon his backside in the eyes of heaven.

I speak of the first great virtue of our order: unity. The great conqueror of distance, the last hope of a drifting universe, and a reminder that all notions of separation are an illusion. Our sun holds the earth in an embrace of wrinkled space and time, sharing light and heat without thought of recompense. She herself deigns us worthy of this great gift, yet we are naught but infinitesimal grains of sand. And not just the sun, but the world as well, my children. Think on this: as a stone falls to embrace the earth, so too does the earth rise to meet it. So too should we embrace our brothers and sisters of all chosen creeds. Species and gender are naught but lies of the flesh and small minds. All forms of love and acceptance are sacred in the eyes of our beloved Nova, and so long as hearts are pure and eyes are unclouded, no act or action is profane. When distance threatens to tear us apart, remember the pebble and the earth, and you will understand that size and power matters not in the transaction of acceptance and love.

I speak of the second great enemy of our order: darkness. In combination with distance, it is the void, a vast empty space, profane and false in its pursuit of stillness and an end to all existence. That which dreams of the end of ends is the enemy of any who live within the time of times. Blessed are we that there is no point in our lives when we are not embraced by the light of the stars. Be not fooled by the absence of light that our eyes can see. Light is all around us, ever burning, ever shining. We are forever touched by the light of distant stars as well, faint shadows, a ghost of a touch, a reminder that even now in the infinite distance that lays between us, the stars know who we are. They feel and see us as much as we see them. But darkness exists where we reject light within ourselves: every unworthy thought and action casts a shadow upon the light of others and ourselves. Perpetuators of the illusion of separation and superiority seek to cast their own light within their own shadows, lulling those enveloped within their darkness to their own will. The despot, the tyrant, the lost prophet and heretic of unworthy darkness. As long as they live the lies of life they profess, they may turn a hundred thousand souls away from the light of truth to kindle their own weak flame of imagined glory. Their dull eyes see not but twinkling lights in a dark night sky, should they ever look up at all.

I speak of the second great virtue of our order: truth. We are those who hold within our hearts the fundamental knowledge of the universe and our place in it. Unbound by mortal law, we are free to dance and live and love in the light of the stars. The blazing embers of truth burn away all impure thoughts and desires, leaving not but enlightened beings whose every deed is that worthy of the cosmic lineage. We harm not other children of the stars, nor do we entertain thoughts of clandestine authority. We accept authority only as a manifestation of order in our mortal lives, and recognize that no single life or existence outweighs another. So strongly the truth burns within us that the creed alone is enough to call our lost brothers and sisters home. We spare the sword in favor of the tome to those blinded by darkness of their own manifestation. To those who insist on trapping others within their lies and injustice, we shall rend with prejudice and righteous fury, in the name of truth and freedom. But be wary when treading the paths of war, my children. It is better to leave the shadows cast be than to cast shadows of our own.

I speak of the third and last great enemy of our order: time. The grains tumbling in the glass, the turning of the dial, the relentless march ever onward. If distance is the cause and darkness the means, time is the mechanism of the stars ultimate ruin. Yet it is unavoidable as we live trapped within its ebb and flow. We can do naught to stop the world from turning, from space expanding, from the forces of nature to age us and define us as mortal beings. And there is naught we can do to keep empires from rising and falling, from the tides of war coming in and flowing out. Our great works will crumble, our bones will turn to dust, and time may bring us the day when the city dies once again. Men’s minds will wander from wisdom and will succumb to petty urges of the flesh and temptation of darkness over and over and over still. No being has ever conquered time and none shall, for it is perhaps the most pervasive force that has ever existed, and time works toward one end: chaos and disarray.

I speak of the third and last great virtue of our order: perseverance. For preserve is to live, and to live is to have purpose. The stars share our fate of ruin, yet they blaze ever onward, and perhaps even brighter with the knowledge that even their eons of life are limited by time unyielding. We recognize the machinations of time when our brothers and sisters stray from light into shadow, for lack of will or perhaps will of fate. Matters not, matters never, my loves, for while the mind of mortals are eroded by time, the great works of truth and light pounded into dust, truth and purity of spirit remains. For every age that comes and goes, there will be the creed, the virtues, the universal light, wearing one guise or another, but surely it will still be there. And as the nature of light is to persevere, so shall we. We will make time work for us, to rebuild our glorious city, to grow wiser and purer as the world turns. They will sing of us, either in glorious praise or curses tainted with jealousy and lack of wisdom, but surely they will sing. In embracing truth, we become truth, transcending the mortal coil, and we shall live on forever as the nature of light itself.

Know the fundamental truth: we are all children of the stars. Know thine enemy: Distance, Darkness, Time. Fight them, drive them, banish them as you would any enemy. Embrace the virtues of our order: Unity, integrity, perseverance. They are your sword, your shield, your beacon, your path.

Behold the creed. So it is written, so it is read, so it is known. Praise Nova! Praise the light!