Loom of Fate (Celestial Department)

For the vast fate-weaving mechanism, see Loom of Fate.

The Loom of Fate is a strange and complex mechanism, key to maintaining the very nature of Creation, attended by the Five Maidens and a Bureau entire of the Celestial Bureaucracy, along with a whole class of artifact-spirits, the Pattern Spiders, who move along its threads.

The pattern spiders are not mere automatons but god-machines, at once system of maintenance and spirits with posts in the Celestial Bureaucracy. The spiders occupy positions within the Bureau of Destiny, but not within any Division, instead forming a separate (and, by Heavenly standards, strangely smooth-functioning) department, referred to simply by the name of the Loom itself. As none of the spirits in the Loom-of-Fate-as-Department seek advancement to higher posts outside their office, and the attendance of Spiders at the fetes and salons of Yu Shan is rare indeed, some gods have mused that treating the Spiders as functionaries rather than mechanisms is an error in need of correction... but the salary and budget due the Spiders is collected and must see use somewhere, and those who question too loudly often find the Bureau of Destiny can be quite protective of its weavers’ privileges.

The Mother of Spiders is Asna Firstborn, god of Fate Weavers and the first Pattern Spider forged by Autochthon. Beneath her work the August Weavers, large and potent senior Spiders who oversee and tend to the most difficult tasks, and below them in turn are the multitude of Pattern Spiders themselves.