She’s an Alchemist: a scientist of change who sees atoms hum, ready to transform at her urging. She can command the slain to rise again by harnessing a body’s remaining mystic potential. She can even adjust the motion of a soul, luring it away from the cycle of life and death. People believe the dead must cross into some great below or heaven above when their bodies fall, the puppet’s strings cut; but Moros reach across the gulf and speak to the dead, or correct a malfunctioning demise where part of the soul stays behind. Moros who concentrate on misplaced souls, ghosts, and corpses are better known as Necromancers.

They can make you rich but never happy. They can bring him back, but he’ll never return to who he was.

Ruling Arcana

Death and Matter. They’re the slow, quiet Arcana of endings and foundations. Move a mountain and the earth shudders. Errant souls can spin the world out of balance.

Death is the Arcanum of destructive change: the power to speed, slow, or shift the details of inevitable doom. Bodies shift from Life to Matter. Light scatters to the corners of the cosmos, allowing darkness to flourish. Although a soul’s components include every subtle Arcanum, Death is the loose thread that, once pulled, removes it from its living home or unravels it into its parts. Mages know that ghosts aren’t souls, but Necromancers point out that doesn’t mean they aren’t people.

Matter is the world’s skeleton. Forces shape it and Life puts flesh on its bones. It releases energy and accepts corpses into its embrace. The world constantly performs the Great Work Alchemists pursue, perfecting itself and, at the peak, falling apart to be rebuilt. Contemporary Moros also think of Matter in mechanical metaphors. Every speck of dust is part of a cosmic machine whose parts adapt to the tasks given it.

Inferior Arcanum

Spirit. Moros know that despite outward appearances, inert things dance with activity. Alchemists know that spirits exist, and that the world has a living Shadow, but feel little need for them. Death provides its own invisible kingdoms, and Matter moves even in the absence of will.

Symbols and Myths

Death and the World. The gods of death, prosperity, and craft. The signs and symbols of alchemy and descendants, such as chemistry and engineering.

Moros embrace the Death significator because they understand that the skeletal rider doesn’t just cut down its enemies, but guides them through radical change. Death takes the Leaden Coin as payment, and points the unburdened soul to new existence. Alchemists relinquish their fear of loss and embrace their imperfections — their personal, rotting nigredo — as the morass from which creative power emerges. The Path’s Mystery card of the World embraces all things, assigning the elements their functions. It represents the Alchemist’s Great Work. Even the Lie contains the secrets of self-perfection, written in substances and souls as they organize themselves into novel, powerful forms that culminate in the rubedo: the crown, the rose, the philosopher’s stone.