Office on Rot and Deterioration
The Office on Rot and Deterioration is the department of the Celestial Bureaucracy (under aegis of the Bureau of Heaven’s Department of Abstract Matters) responsible for overseeing entropy in Creation, the decay of energy towards neutrality, of complex towards simple, the living towards death and the decomposition of the dead back to the earth. To administer these processes, the Office on Rot coordinates with a number of different departments across the Celestial Bureaucracy, and while it is located within the Bureau of Heaven much of its work is done in coordination with other Bureaus (the process of mortal ageing, for example, requires constant liaising with the Division of Serenity and the Board of Ill-Health).
Many, both mortals in Creation and gods in Heaven, fear Deterioration: their power, their world, ought grow and be made greater, not lessen and fade away. This has meant many senior gods suspect the Office of seeking to destroy Creation and its inhabitants, requiring close supervision to keep its destructive lusts in check, and has long seen the Office tarred and feathered in similar manner to the Division of Endings now as the Deathlords emerge to prominence.
Deterioration is not, however, destruction, and the Executive Director of the Office Hran-Tzu understands well his responsibilities: existence is a cycle, a circle of growth, decay, and rebirth, whose maintenance is vital to the stability of Creation. The infinite possibilities of the Wyld crashing constantly against the shores of reality feed energy into the Engine of Creation, which left unchecked might destroy it: to counter this, Creation must also undergo decay to release this excess.
To oversee this process, the Office is organized into Circles, responsible of overseeing the deterioration of both a general type and a Direction. Each of these Circles is headed by a sub-minister from the Office, but most of its manpower is drawn from other Bureaus. In principle these gods are seconded to the Office because their purviews must contend intimately with decay, but in practice many of their number are agents of other departments sent to watch over the Office and its undertakings… as of yet, the suspicious ministers assigning them have not noticed how adept Hran-Tzu has been at exploiting this pool of bureaucratic labour to ensure the Office of Rot’s paperwork is always properly completed.
Hran-Tzu’s predecessor as Executive Director, Han-Tha the Eater of the Dead, was removed in the wake of the Primordial War, as part of reforms to the office which also saw the gods of specific diseases and ailments transferred to the Bureau of Humanity to form the Board of Ill-Health.
