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Spoiler warning! This entire article contains major spoilers for PALISADE's "An Impossible Ideal" arc. Tread carefully! |
The Chimeric Cadent is an ancient being who lives in Chimera's Lantern, overseeing and protecting the corpses of numerous Divines.
Appearance
The Chimeric Cadent is an apparently biological entity, roughly humanoid in form, closely resembling a desiccated corpse. Austin calls it grotesque, with splotched skin; long, stringy, faded hair; dirty, clawlike fingernails; and proportions that are too long and too angular. It has batlike wings large enough to wrap around its body.
Their face is "tortured" and "shifting between faces", sometimes seeming "insectoid more than human".[1] Their eyes are like jewels. Parts of their wings occasionally change into translucent insect wing material. Their skin is at least partially made of chitin, some of which has fallen off in chunks. (Some of this chitin was used to create the mosaics within Chimera's Lantern.)
The Chimeric Cadent is very large, big enough to hold a full-sized Altar in their hands "like a doll",[1] and even the gigantic throne in their cave is about three times too small for them.
History and Involvement
At some point shortly after the end of Twilight Mirage, ⸢Signet⸣, the Waking Cadent, and a (currently unknown) Divine left the Mirage and were "stitched together" into the Chimeric Cadent.[1]
The Chimeric Cadent was the force that drove the burgeoning Divine Principality from Palisade on Embarkation Day. They maintain Chimera's Lantern as a sanctuary for Divines: a place where Divines can come to die and rest without being forced back into service to the Principality. Divines warded by the Chimeric Cadent include Souciance, Sagacity, Dissent, Felicity, Barricade, Bounty, and Loyalty.
More than five thousand years after taking up its post in the Palisade system, the Chimeric Cadent is met by the Figure, Thisbe, and Coriolis Sunset during their search for a new source of magic to replace Perennial's in keeping the Figure alive. It is suspicious of the Figure's motives and of the mark of the Usher of Truth left on him, but is convinced to provide the Figure with a way to free himself from the Witch in Glass.[2]