Litany of Winter

HG-01: ELDRITCH CLASSIFICATION THE HOLLOW GOSPEL CODEX

The Blinded Crown classifies unnatural threats by what they are and by the manner in which they manifest within the human world. Classification allows reports from different operations to be compared and gives field personnel a common vocabulary when the origin of a phenomenon remains uncertain.

These categories do not represent a simple scale of strength. The circumstances of an incident, the resources available to the threat, and the degree of supernatural involvement must be considered separately.

CULTISTS

Classification: Human

Cultists are humans who knowingly cooperate with eldritch entities or supernatural phenomena.

Their involvement varies considerably. Some worship an entity or participate in rites intended to draw its attention. Others pursue supernatural knowledge, construct vessels, collect dangerous artifacts, conduct experiments, or assist a manifestation for personal, political, religious, or material reasons.

The classification says nothing about combat ability. One Cultist may possess no supernatural capability beyond knowledge of a ritual. Another may be an experienced occultist whose body or mind has already been altered by prolonged exposure.

Cult activity must be established through evidence of deliberate cooperation with the unnatural. Unfamiliar beliefs, burial customs, local superstitions, unusual religious practices, or communities living near unexplained phenomena are not sufficient grounds for classification.

Many communities develop traditions around dangers they do not understand. Those traditions may be mistaken, practical, religious, or some combination of all three without constituting service to an eldritch power.

FIELD GUIDANCE

Determine what the suspected Cultist knows, what they are attempting to accomplish, and whether another entity or phenomenon benefits from their actions.

A frightened witness and a willing servant require very different responses.

HORRORS

Classification: Eldritch Entity

Horrors are eldritch beings capable of establishing a substantially physical existence within the human world.

Their appearance varies widely. Some cross in a form close to their natural state, while others arrive only partially and develop a usable body after manifestation. Flesh, bone, vegetation, animals, soil, refuse, or other available matter may become part of that process.

Physical size is not the defining factor. The term refers primarily to the entity’s metaphysical scale and its ability to exist here without the more elaborate incarnation mechanisms associated with greater beings.

Once a typical Horror has established enough of itself within the human world, destroying its manifested body will usually destroy the entity itself. Exceptions remain possible, particularly where incomplete crossings or unusual reproductive structures are involved.

The designation should never be read as a guarantee that an operation will be manageable. Horrors have killed experienced marked personnel and may produce severe local catastrophes before an Order response is established.

FIELD GUIDANCE

Identify the extent of the manifestation before assuming the visible body is the complete threat.

Where possible, determine whether the entity crossed intact or constructed its present form after arrival. That distinction may affect both containment and destruction.

DEEP-TOUCHED

Classification: Eldritch Biological or Ecological Phenomenon

Deep-Touched is the Order’s principal classification for supernatural biological systems strongly associated with water and water dependent environments.

Known cases vary enormously in form. The category can include individual organisms, colonies, or living systems distributed through a larger environment. A Deep-Touched presence may be mobile, rooted in one location, or spread through connected structures that appear separate until examined more closely.

Common environments include seas and coastlines, submerged caverns, rivers, canals, flooded ruins, reefs, lakes, and wetlands. Association with water alone is not enough for classification, but repeated biological abnormalities linked to such environments warrant investigation.

Deep-Touched phenomena are not simply Horrors that happen to live in water. The terms describe different kinds of supernatural existence, although the practical danger of individual cases may overlap.

Humans exposed to Deep-Touched material may suffer infection, physical alteration, incorporation, or other forms of biological entanglement. Such victims are not automatically classified as Deep-Touched themselves.

A single visible organism may also represent only part of a much larger living system. Investigators should therefore examine the surrounding environment before drawing conclusions about the size or boundaries of the threat.

FIELD GUIDANCE

Map biological connections before attempting large scale destruction.

Unexplained tissue, growths, secretions, changes in decomposition, or coordinated reactions across separate locations may indicate that apparently independent phenomena share one organism.

HERALDS

Classification: Greater Eldritch Entity

Heralds cannot naturally enter the human world in their complete form.

Manifestation therefore requires an incarnation mechanism. Recorded possibilities include possession, prepared hosts, constructed bodies, artificial vessels, sustained ritual support, or another maintained passage capable of carrying a portion of the entity into this world.

No single incarnation method applies to every Herald.

A manifested body should not be assumed to represent the full entity. In many cases, the incarnation functions as an interface between the Herald and the human world, limiting how much of its true existence can be expressed here at once.

Destroying that incarnation can terminate the immediate manifestation and may collapse the system supporting it. Current Order doctrine does not treat this as proof that the true Herald has been destroyed.

Reports must distinguish between the destruction of an incarnation and confirmed destruction of the underlying entity. The latter requires evidence far beyond the loss of a physical vessel.

Herald incidents demand rapid escalation because the supporting structure may extend beyond the body itself. Hosts, rituals, cult networks, artifacts, prepared locations, or other mechanisms can remain operational even after the visible incarnation has been damaged.

FIELD GUIDANCE

Identify what permits the Herald to remain present.

Destroying the body while leaving the incarnation mechanism intact may solve only the most visible part of the problem.

ARCHONS

Classification: Highest Known Eldritch Category

Archon is the highest category currently recognized by the Blinded Crown.

Under every confirmed case available to Order doctrine, an Archon is too vast to enter the human world bodily. Its presence is therefore expressed indirectly through other mechanisms.

Those mechanisms may include dreams or visions, supernatural marks, artifacts, servants, cult activity, Heralds, bargains, breaches, and related phenomena. The specific pattern differs by entity, and knowledge gained from one Archon should not automatically be applied to another.

Vhazroth, the source associated with the Blinded Crown’s standard pact, is the confirmed Archon most familiar to Order personnel. Familiarity with the name does not imply a complete understanding of the entity.

The Order has not established how many Archons exist. Surviving records are incomplete, terminology changes between periods and cultures, and separate names may not always indicate separate beings.

No reliable catalogue of their purposes or limitations exists. The Blinded Crown also possesses no verified method for confronting an Archon bodily, since no confirmed Archon has been observed entering the human world in that manner.

The word Archon is itself a human classification. It groups entities according to observed scale and modes of influence, but the Order cannot prove that everything placed within the category shares the same origin or fundamental nature.

An Archon’s name should never be mistaken for understanding.

FIELD GUIDANCE

Any credible indication of direct Archon influence must be reported through senior Order channels.

Unauthorized attempts at communication or ritual contact are prohibited. Apparent hostility should not be assumed safer than attracting sustained interest.

HOW THE CLASSIFICATIONS RELATE

A common training error is to arrange the primary classifications as a single ladder:

Cultist → Horror → Deep-Touched → Herald → Archon

This model is inaccurate.

Cultist describes human behavior and allegiance. Deep-Touched refers to a supernatural biological or ecological class, while Horror, Herald, and Archon distinguish eldritch entities partly through the way they can exist within or influence the human world.

Immediate danger therefore does not rise neatly with cosmological scale.

A Cultist may poison a settlement or complete a ritual before the Order identifies them. A Horror may overwhelm an isolated patrol. Deep-Touched organisms can spread through inhabited environments without presenting an obvious central body.

Heralds introduce a different problem because their physical presence depends upon incarnation. Archons may never appear physically at all, yet their influence can persist through servants, institutions, artifacts, or other intermediaries.

Field assessment must therefore consider the actual incident rather than relying on category alone.

THE DEEP

Order records frequently use the term the Deep in connection with supernatural phenomena associated with water.

Its exact meaning remains unresolved.

Some historical accounts describe the Deep as though it were a place beyond the human world. Other records use the term for a source of influence, a condition affecting certain organisms, or a broad collection of water associated phenomena.

None of these interpretations has been proven sufficiently to replace the others.

The term appears in cases involving coastlines, rivers, submerged structures, lakes, reefs, canals, and other environments where supernatural activity has developed around water. Similar terminology across separate incidents does not establish that those incidents share a single origin.

For operational purposes, the Deep is not treated as a mapped location. Personnel should record observed phenomena rather than forcing uncertain evidence into a single cosmological theory.

Future evidence may refine the term.

Until then, it remains useful precisely because it does not claim more certainty than the Order possesses.

DOCTRINAL NOTE

Classification provides a working language for phenomena that often resist ordinary explanation. It allows observations to accumulate across generations and gives field personnel a practical starting point when confronting something unfamiliar.

It is still a model built from incomplete evidence.

The purpose of the Codex is to make uncertainty manageable, not to disguise it as knowledge.