Tancred's Star

First Appearance and Context

Tancred's Star is introduced when an avout demonstrates a photomnemonic tablet in a small chapel on the rooftop Starhenge of the Concent of Saunt Edhar. Sliding the tablet’s time layer to its earliest record reveals the star on the night it exploded, transitioning from the later image of Saunt Tancred's Nebula back to the single point of extraordinary brilliance.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

• Pedagogical and observational use: The long, layered record of the explosion is used for instruction and study within the starhenge. The same record was copied and distributed to the Millenarians.
• Eponymous connection: The star is the progenitor of Saunt Tancred's Nebula and is closely associated with Saunt Tancred, whose name the object bears.

Relationships

• Namesake and remnant: Directly related to Saunt Tancred (namesake) and to Saunt Tancred's Nebula (the observed remnant captured in later layers of the tablet).
• Scholarly context: The image sequence has been used in work set under the orbit of Fraa Orolo, within the broader cosmographical practice at the concent.

Descriptions/Characteristics

• Nature: A supernova—the “single star” layer of the photomnemonic tablet shows the moment of the explosion as a star of exceptional brightness, while fixed background stars remain in place.
• Recording medium: The event is preserved in a photomnemonic tablet whose layered playback allows viewers to move between the star’s peak and the expanding nebular phases.

Current Status/Location

• The star itself is seen only via the tablet’s earliest layer; the later state is the nebular remnant known as Saunt Tancred's Nebula. A tablet carrying this record is kept and consulted at the starhenge of the Concent of Saunt Edhar; additional copies have been circulated to the Millenarians.