The Obo-Igi are often seen as quiet by the other Courts. But that is only so they can listen all the better.
Also known as the Shevanos, the Igigi, Those Who See and Remember, and the Storytellers, the Obo-Igi’s role is to remember. They work to prevent songs and stories from becoming Forgotten, and to recover lost legends. This makes them the primary experts in countering the Forgotten, not just by discovering lost legends and bringing them back from oblivion, but also by advocating for Myths to remember good practice and to take the threat of the Forgotten seriously.
Symbols: Roots, circles, calendars, ouroboros, skulls, the moon, rosemary.
Aspects: Death, remembrance, memory, feasts, prophecy.
Duty: To counter the Forgotten by remembering all Myths, to uncover forgotten stories and bring the Forgotten back to the light of re-emergence, and to tell the stories of others.
Factions: Valkyries, Shinigami.
Luminaries: Charon.
Role in Myth Society
The Obo-Igi are great creatives, with a strong tradition of oral history, written scripts, paintings, sculpture, and more recently audio, video, and photography. To them, celebrating the legends of others is a duty as much as a pleasure. Obo-Igi keep a library of Myths in their local community, a record of the Narratives they have participated in, and a celebration of their achievements. Each Myth community should have at least one Obo-Igi to witness Narratives and keep the records up to date.
They also have the privilege of giving titles to others, memorialising a Myth’s story with new monikers.
The Obo-Igi never record events as bland and static. Instead they craft a story in their chosen medium, full of creativity and flair. They also purposefully leave in vagueness, open-ended conclusions, and even inconsistencies. This is so that legends can take on a life of their own, being reinterpreted and growing into new fantastic forms. The Obo-Igi will be sure to relay these stories to human communities, not as factual events but as tales. For generations this was through oral traditions, but in recent centuries books and pamphlets, and now digital media, have made storytelling to the masses all the easier. Many Obo-Igi still hold to the old ways though, and sometimes blend new media with ancient techniques.
There is a morbidity to the Obo-Igi, and their duties in funeral rites, ancestor reverence, and focus on the past can appear off-putting to many. They are quick to remind younger Myths that one day their mortal form will retire their legend, when they are too old to continue its journey, and that they should do what they can with the time they have. For many Myths, looking past the most recent Narrative is simply too much, and constant reminders of old age and death are a bit much to bear.
Some other Courts accuse the Obo-Igi of passivity, or of being backwards-looking. The Obo-Igi would argue that to grow into the future we have to remember the past.
Approach to Narratives
The Obo-Igi are rare to interact with Narratives directly, preferring to craft their own stories rather than be subject to another’s, no matter how great it may be. But if an Obo-Igi is swept into a Narrative they are by no means passive bystanders, even if they may seem so at first.
Due to their extensive knowledge of other stories, Myths, and the Forgotten, an Obo-Igi will often spend the first while of their involvement in a Narrative fulfilling their role while in quiet contemplation, only to make a large sweeping change to the story at the most narratively opportune moment. One that preferably connects the current story to a plethora of others they have catalogued. This way they not only inject their own creative spirit into the Narrative, but also have a tendency to create Opuses, entering subsequent Narratives and amending them to fit more cohesively together.
There is no intention to break Narratives with these changes. The Obo-Igi believe that all stories have value, only that the best stories are built on the foundations of others. To this end they try to keep their edits as infrequent as possible, and will only make a change when it would provide a meaningful and important shift to the story, believing smaller edits a waste of time and energy.
When someone breaks a Narrative with intent, an Obo-Igi who witnesses this is unlikely to act immediately. Instead they will record the action and confer with their own records and others in the Court to see if this has happened before. Where there is a pattern of breaking Narratives, the Court will inform one of the upper Courts and let them be responsible for judging the offending Myth.
Relationship with the Aramaru
Together with the Aramaru, the Obo-Igi form the middle duet of the Courts, symbolic of life and death. Both Courts encourage a thoughtful approach to existence, but come at it from different directions. The Aramaru look forward, tending to the living. The Obo-Igi look back, tending to the remembered. They often have a good relationship, each Court understanding the necessity of the other’s work.
