Eye of God

The Eye of God, also called the Eye of Nagakabouros, is a sacred golden idol carried by Illaoi, the Truth Bearer of the Buhru people of the Serpent Isles. It is an enormous relic, larger than a wine barrel and many times heavier, and it stays cool and damp to the touch even beside a roaring fire. The idol is entrusted only to the Truth Bearer, the chosen vessel of the kraken god, and Illaoi has not stood more than two strides from it in over a decade. Nagakabouros is the Serpent Isles' deity of life, ocean, and motion, worshipped by the Buhru as the Great Kraken and feared in Bilgewater as the Bearded Lady. Its faith teaches that every spirit was born to serve the universe and that the world advances only when living creatures chase their desires. The Eye of God is where the god reaches into the physical world, and only the Truth Bearer may wield it. Illaoi's central duty is to administer the Test of Nagakabouros. Gripping the idol's handle, she calls forth the energy of the Mother Serpent and swings the great icon forward, and a glowing mist pours from its mouth and gathers into ghostly, gold-touched tentacles that slam down from above. Through the idol she strips a subject's spirit from their body and forces them to stand against her and prove their worth. Those who fail are annihilated, but destruction is never the goal, and survivors are forever changed, often finding the will to pursue their true destiny. The Truth Bearer's other charge is the war against undeath. Because the undead have fallen outside the natural flow of the universe, the Buhru regard them as an abomination against Nagakabouros, and when the Harrowing comes and the Black Mist rises, Illaoi confronts its spirits directly and drives the darkness back. Illaoi is the most powerful and respected Truth Bearer in a hundred generations, defined by where she broke with tradition, leaving the golden temples of Buhru for the squalor of Bilgewater to test and protect its foreign residents. When her former lover Gangplank came to her broken after Miss Fortune destroyed his ship and seized his power, she judged him stagnant and subjected him to the Test. His soul was torn from his body, and though the ordeal nearly destroyed him, he emerged with his purpose restored. The idol remains active in her hands, both weapon and instrument of judgment.