Immortals associated with the Bead of Oblivion
by Patrick SullivanIt seems like the Bead of Oblivion was a direct-enough intervention that it should only have been undertaken with a full Council of Hierarchs. That doesn't necessarily mean that that the Bead was actually created by those hierarchs, but nailing down who might have been in the council might help narrow the possibilities.
Looking back at that quote that starts the discussion, "The device was created at great expense of power...." Maybe enough power to drop its creators down a few immortal levels? That could explain why Protius and Asterius are both mere Eternals, despite the long time they've been immortal. Pflarr is a tougher fit for a Council... he would have had to rise to Hierarch in a single millennium, and then in the more recent 1500 years have only regained enough power to be a level 25 Eternal.
So, a look at potential Council members...
Thought
Odin (Codex Immortalis has him involved in Nithia)
Asterius (who sacrificed a big chunk of power)
Time
Protius (who sacrificed a big chunk of power)
Fugit (Codex Immortalis says he participated in the creation of the "Drop of Forgetfulness" to erase Nithia... seems likely this is another translation of the "Bead of Oblivion." If so, is he one of the three mentioned in GAZ2? Regardless, he's only an Empyreal, so very unlikely he was a hierarch 1500 years ago).
Energy
Ixion (part of the HW Nithian pantheon)
Rathanos (Eternal now, so would have had to sacrifice a lot of power)
Pflarr (low-level Eternal now, so would have had to sacrifice a lot of power AND level up a lot slower post-Bead than pre-Bead)
Matter
Terra (presumed patron of Maat)
Kagyar (who sacrificed a big chunk of power and is now an Eternal... but seems an unlikely candidate to be "The Gnoll" or "Zephyr")
Valerias (part of the HW Nithian pantheon)
Entropy
Hel (anything that hurts Thanatos must be good... and the Nithians were impinging upon her followers in the north, perhaps? Codex Immortalis says she sponsored Masauwu, whose antics "contributed to Nithia's downfall")
Nyx (mummy magic survived in Thothia even after the downfall of the rest of Nithia)
So, after all that, I think Pflarr remains our best candidate for "The Gnoll" and Odin or Asterius must be "Zephyr." So that effort didn't pan out to anything new, but I'm posting this anyway in case the thought process is helpful.