The Wheel

The Wheel was one of the gods-from-stone who were slain in the Lithomachy. It is described visually like some sort of single-celled organism, covered in cilia and shifting from translucent to crimson in color as it turns and pulses endlessly. It seems to have filled a similar role to the Thunderskin, acting as some sort of protector of the world. While the Wheel is supposedly dead in Nowhere, there are hints that it may not be as dead as the other gods-from-stone...[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Its aspects are unknown. Believed to have some sort of unified proto-Heart/Moth aspect, based on connections to current Hours.[7]

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Events

The Lithomachy: The Wheel was slain by the Moth, who stole its skin and “usurped the Wheel from within”.[8]

The House of the Moon: Despite its death in the Lithomachy, the Wheel still turns in the House of the Moon, a reflection of the Mansus. It is even said that someday, the Wheel will return.[9][10]

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Servants

• Antaios: The Son of Earth, Antaios the Opponent was a hero-king and a great enemy of the Lionsmith, acknowledged and respected even today by the initiates of the Antaeum. Antaios’s line is said to be the “Blood of the Earth”, and the line of the Wheel and the Flint. Both the player and the Foe in Exile are Antaean, descendants of Antaios.[10][11][12][13]
• The Carapace Cross: The Carapace Cross are the predecessors to humanity, who worshiped the gods-from-stone such as the Wheel. They are believed to be extinct, though in truth, “the Carapace-cross did not perish but passed within”.[14][15]

Relationships

• The Flint: The Antaeans are said to be of the line of both the Wheel and the Flint, which suggests a connection between the two dead Hours, or at least between their descendants.[10]
• The Moth: The Hour which hunted and killed the Wheel, who is also the “Vine-crown moth-king hatched in the thigh of the thunder-king who’s dead.”[8][16]
• The Velvet: The Moth’s usurpation of the Wheel appears to be incomplete, and the Velvet is hinted to have a connection with the Wheel as well.[7]
• The Thunderskin: There are many similarities between the Wheel and the Thunderskin, who seems to have inherited its role as a protector of the world, as well as being associated with thunder, eternity, motion, and skins. The True Blood of St Januarius, a Heart ingredient tied to the Thunderskin, also contains the memory of the Wheel.[17][6]
• The Meniscate: The Hour which presides over the House of the Moon, where the Wheel still turns.[9][10]
• The Horned Axe: The last surviving god-from-stone, who eventually made a treaty with the newer Hours that involved the Thunderskin’s sacrifice as restitution for the deaths for her siblings.

Other Notes

• The Temple of the Wheel can be visited in the Wood, one of the only monuments seen in Cultist Simulator that remain from the time of the gods-from-stone, before the Lithomachy.[20]
• The Wheel is alluded to in multiple tools and ingredients, such as the Kingskin Bodhran, the Alakapurine Shears, and the Holiest Hemolymph.[3][4][21]
• The Wheel is mentioned in two of the memories recalled as part of the Palest Painting in the Ghoul legacy. One memory is about the Wheel itself, the Colours That Turn, while another, the Colours That Are Not Black, is about the Wood before its darkening, and mentions “the Hunt at which the Wheel was first brought to the earth”.[1][22]

Real World References

• The Wheel’s title as a “thunder-king” is an allusion to Zeus, the Greek god of the sky and ruler of heaven, with the Moth as the “vine-crowned moth-king” born in his thigh referencing the story of the birth of Dionysus. Alternatively, the position as the progenitor of the Antaean bloodline parallels it with Poseidon (with the Flint being Gaia-Earth), continuing the Heart theme of seas and storms.
• The Wheel may also draw some inspiration from the Fisher King, another legendary figure with a wounded thigh. It should be noted that “thigh” injuries were often euphemisms for genital injuries or impotence, and the Fisher King’s life is often tied with the strength and fertility of the kingdom. This would also connect the Wheel to the legends of the Thunderskin’s origins as the Pine-Knight and the quest for the Cinnabar Cup, which reflect the quest for the Holy Grail to heal the Fisher King pursued by figures such as Percival.[18]
• The Alakapurine Shears' description - most likely being an account of their clash with the Moth - associates the Wheel with Kubera, god-regent of the North and one of the protectors of the world in Hinduism.[3][19]
• One interpretation of the death of the gods-from-stone connects them to the rise of human civilization and a transition to a “higher” state of being. In the Wheel’s case, this may have involved a change in our perception of time, (In the Exile legacy, “Time Passes” is replaced with “the Wheel Turns”), perhaps a shift from tracking time based on the seasons to the cycles of the Sun and the Hours of the day. It also could be tied to the transition from the Carapace Cross to Humanity, as it was supplanted by the Moth.

Theories and Questions

• A common theory is that the Velvet was born from the death of the Wheel, as the event during which “the Wood-roots tasted blood.”[7][23][7]
• Two elements may have contributed to the Wheel being “less” dead than the other gods-from-stone. First, part of its nature seems to be that it was “endless”, and so to be dead conflicts with its very being. Second, the usurpation of the Wheel by the Moth is often considered less complete than that of the other gods-from-stone, particularly since other Hours (the Velvet and Thunderskin) now seem to fill some elements of its place in the Mansus. After all, it is always possible to be deader.[7]
• What being of the line of Antaios and the Blood of the Earth means exactly is unclear. It suggests that the Wheel and the Flint had mortal descendants somehow, but how that affects Antaeans exactly is never explained beyond a mention that their births are difficult for normal humans, as well as a claim in the Kinship ending that the player will become a Name of the Wheel when it returns.[10]
• Some postulate that before the Sun-in-Splendour began their reign over the Mansus, the Wheel may have ruled as king. Similar to the Sun, the Wheel seems involved in the birth of multiple Hours, and is expected to return someday.

In-Game Sources

1. The Colours that Turn 2. Read 'The World Does Not Weep' 3. Alakapurine Shears 4. Kingskin Bodhrán 5. Endless Memory 6. Feast upon a Remnant (#ingredientheartf and #memory_endless) 7. On the matter of the Origins of the Black-Flax 8. Read 'In Memory of Gods' 9. IN THE HOUSE OF THE MOON 10. Kinship 11. Antaeum 12. In the Antaeum 13. Arrange an Initial Meeting, (#contact.retainer) 14. Read 'The Songs of the Carapace Cross' 15. On the Smoky Satisfaction..., Enigma compilation 16. Thigh-born Thorax-Sweet 17. True Blood of St Januarius 18. Read this volume of the Orchid Transfigurations 19. Kubera, Alaka 20. The Temple of the Wheel 21. Holiest Hemolymph 22. Feast upon a Remnant (#memory.wildering) 23. Unceasing Mysteries

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