The Church of Meh Which god are you?
The Wheel turns See what season it is.
Ink-and-watercolor portrait of Protaxiel, a stone-grey elder with a beard and body of roots, holding a tall staff as wind swirls through a mountain landscape.
God of Earth and Stone

Protaxiel

The Deep Memory · The Stone That Remembers · Before the First Tree

Remembers everything. Finds most of it boring.

DomainEarthSacred mushroomEnoki

Protaxiel is the god of earth and stone in the Church of Meh. Protaxiel takes their name from Prototaxites, a fungus that grew in towering trunks up to eight meters tall, long before there were trees. Protaxiel is the deity who will remember all of this, every god, every human, every story, long after everything has returned to the Web.

There was Protaxiel, the god of the earth and stone. Protaxiel is said to remember the world before the first tree, though Protaxiel does not much talk about that time, only to say that it was a bit boring.

The Book of Spores
Kin & quarrels

Family, friends & grudges

Ink-and-watercolor portrait of Phomos, a bearded sea-elder in deep blue robes, crowned with branching coral fungus, holding a staff topped with a glowing blue orb.Ancient parallelPhomosTwo ancient, slow, deep things, aware of each other the way continents are aware of the sea.Ink-and-watercolor portrait of Clados, crowned with golden oyster mushrooms and robed in moss green, stepping from a river with a staff holding a glowing orb.AffinityCladosClados flows through Protaxiel to reach Phomos. Protaxiel has opinions about this.Ink-and-watercolor portrait of Mycelius, robed in root-brown and crowned with mushrooms, standing in a cavern of tree roots beside a swirling violet portal.Deep kinshipMyceliusBoth slow, both deep, thoroughly intertwined.Ink-and-watercolor portrait of Chromusu, a broad-capped warrior holding a great hammer, standing on molten rock surrounded by fire and raw ore.Deep kinshipChromusuAt the molten core, fire and stone are the same thing. Earth smothers fire, fire breaks earth, and earth is also what fire eats. It's complicated.
WitnessEveryoneProtaxiel will remember all of it.
Sacred mushroom

Enoki

Flammulina

The wild form is a sticky orange winter mushroom that looks nothing like the pale noodles in the shop. Protaxiel remembers when it was all wild.

Never eat a wild mushroom without expert identification.

Scrolls yet unwritten

The story keeps growing

  • The Protaxiel, Clados and Phomos situation.
  • What Protaxiel saw before the first tree, if anyone can get them to talk about it.
Sacred sites

Where Protaxiel is said to linger

  • Toadstool HoodoosUtah, USA

    Balanced rock caps on pale pillars. The stone, doing its best mushroom impression.

  • Rapa Nui (Easter Island)Chile

    Sacred to the Rapa Nui people. The gods are guests here. Visit with respect.

  • Mount KailashTibet

    Sacred to several living faiths and never climbed. Protaxiel admires it from a respectful distance.

Maps and all thirty sites →

The blessing of ProtaxielThis too will be remembered. Probably not in detail.

Take Protaxiel home: phone wallpaper · night version