| Denotation | Seth del Eden’d (Hebrew: anointed; all Goliath emanations have the surname del Eden’d, Skarsian: of Eden.) |
| Numeration | 34th emanation of Ashtara; 9th branch of Goliath; 76 in the correspondence chart. |
| Age | 37 |
| Hotness | 8/10 |
| Vital Statistics | 1.811 meters tall, cock size 16.75 cm when erect. |
| Description | Imposing build, wears black silks and velvets with a black velvet greatcoat. Squared, intense face, a snub nose. Occasionally known to wear purple contact lenses. Bobbed auburn hair, tipped with purple. |
| Skills | Archbishop of the Archonist Church, official heretic, demonologist. Researcher specializing in ethics and arcanum. Absolutely terrible at actual alchemical transformations, but studies ancient philosophical alchemy. |
| Sexual Prowess and Kinks | There’s something sexy about sin. |
| Average Duration of Play | 12 minutes, 22 seconds. |
| Totem Tree | Ceiba pentandra, the ceiba or kapok (the Mesoamerican world tree). |
| Fixed Star | Suhail al Muhlif (γ Vel), the glorious star of the oath, also called Tiān shè yī, first star of the celestial altar. |
| Color |  |
| Esoteric Symbol | The Minchiate trump La Casa del Diavolo, the Devil’s House (often featured in Skarsian decks as the Church). |
| Function | Exegetic gravity. |
| Official Title | His Most Reverend Excellency Archbishop Seth del Eden’d. Founder of the Church of the Blueblack Ambit of Light (CBAL). |
| His Prophecy | Throwing pebbles into a well. |
| Dessert | Skarsian archbishop slices with javajuice crème and mooniberri-nau’gsh puree. |
Biography:
Seth emanated in 3610 as an undercover agent to infiltrate the vampire cult Root of all Evil in The Poison Garden. A Goliath emanation whose branch was constructed from elements of his half-brothers Blackjack and Suibhne, Seth initially wore violet contact lenses matching his violet-tipped hair to disguise his Cu’enashti origins.
Seth attends a Root of All Evil meeting held in the Burrows, a disreputable section of Dalgherdia, and passes their test by eating walnuts – something no traditional Cu’endhari would do. Lilith proves to the assembly that she is a vampire by slashing her hand and healing it – but Seth notices that she is wearing brown contact lenses – she is also a Cu’enashti. Seth discovers that the cult’s attack on drug-dealers is meant to interfere with the trade in Gyre. The cult’s leader, Lilith, is attempting to turn human against Cu’endhari.
When Tommy’s friend and SSOps employee Eloise is kidnapped during the bombing of the Tom O’Bedlam’s re-opening, Seth goes back to the Burrows. He is approached by Lilith’s chief minion, who invites him into the inner mysteries. They take him to Eloise. Seth realizes that he’s being baited, but he is nonetheless fooled, not by Lilith, but by Esau St. John’s – the minion’s – telepathic abilities, and by the fact that he has a weapon which is actually of use against Cu’enashti, a gun loaded with nullets – nul-matter bullets. Esau shoots him, to Lilith’s dismay – she protests that she doesn’t want to kill him and the cage isn’t ready. The presence of nul-matter within Seth’s body disrupts the energy of the emanation, causing extreme distress to Ashtara. The nullet disrupts Seth’s ability to regenerate – it will cause his eventual death, but worse, it is capable of destroying the coherence of Ash’s energy – a final death.
Tara materializes suddenly with three Floatfish – she has recruited their teleportation technology to save Ash. They manage to get control of the gun with the nullets, but Lilith and Esau escape – and the Floatfish refuse to give chase, saying it is not their affair.
Seth manages to explain the situation to Tara – he is dying, and she must remove the nullet. The only tool she can find is a corkscrew, which Eloise, a bartender, always carries. Tara removes the nullet before the medics arrive to take Seth to the hospital.
Inside of the pleroma, Seth contemplates his secondary mission – understanding the nature of evil. Initially, it was intended to better understand the vampire cult, but now he sees that they need to understand the moral implications of killing Lilith. He is in a unique position to understand this because both Suibhne and Blackjack committed evil acts without being evil, and because he has faced his own mortality. Because Seth is interested in matters of philosophy and ethics, as well as esoterica, Ailann appoints him Archbishop of the Archonist Church.
Seth tries to understand the nature of evil through soliciting the opinions of other emanations: Lorcan, Callum, Cillian, Jamey, Chase and Ailann. In the end, he takes Ailann’s advice to abandon understanding evil and to embark of an understanding of love instead.
To conduct this investigation, Seth emanates. He and Tara end up having a conversation first with Ray and then Bradley, two members of the sentient particle species the Twist, about the nature of Twist life and their decay problem.
After experiencing love in its physical manifestation with Tara, Seth interviews Owen about the necessity for self-love. Owen confesses that he feels that he is not good enough for Lugh and needs to redesign himself. Seth then attempts to interview Tarlach, but Tarlach turns the table, performing an analysis where he concludes that Seth is emotionally detached and brooding. He advises Seth to do something romantic.
Seth attempts to give Tara flowers, but after hours or trying, the best he can do is synthesize plastic from towels. Organics seem to be beyond him, but with Jamey’s help he finally succeeds in making an orchid out of water. (Much later, Beat will observe that Seth is designed for moral reasoning, not manipulation of matter.) Tara and Seth discuss the nature of love; he discovers to his consternation that he is jealous. He then attempts to interview Whirljack about love lyrics, but instead, Whirljack gives him a lecture on the difference between pop culture and high art.
Seth laments that it is harder to understand love than evil. Dermot counters that the nature of love is ineffable, which is why religions tend to evolve from being concerned with evil to being concerned with love. In his official role as Archbishop, Seth declares Archonism “the religion of love,” and institutes the Valentine’s Festival as a major holiday.
After the crisis with Lilith is resolved, Seth helps Tara to edit a volume of her prophecies, providing a commentary on most of them. One of the prophecies is a vision which turns out to concern Valentine’s Festival. Seth wants to reform it since the traditional practices seem commercial and devoid of meaning. After researching a way to make it more significant to the Cu’enashti, he decides to consult Tara, who proposes a secret tradition concerning hand-pollination.
In The Perpetual Rose, Seth is one of the emanations who tries to comfort Lorcan in his distress. After being isolated for so long, Lorcan is appreciative and loyal to those who first support him. He and Seth become fast friends.