Kuryalka the False Principle¶
Domains: Death, Trickery
Kuryalka the False Principle, Soulstealer, Audacity, Saint of Ambition is credited with inventing the trading scheme known as the Kuryalka Ploy. Daughter and eldest child of Orliath IX—Marquis of Naraka, the City of Blood—tradition held Kuryalka would ascend to the house throne upon her mother's death and rule, but from childhood Kuryalka was obsessed with what was informally known as "the Trade"—the buying and selling of mortal souls from Orden and elsewhere in the timescape.
It occurred to Kuryalka that as long as people saw their soul-power increasing on paper they wouldn't inquire too closely about her stewardship of their investment. They signed their accumulated souls over to young Kuryalka, who promised them great returns. It seemed too good to be true! But she published a report every quarter showing marvelous gains, and while no one could understand her math or references to "integrals," they were well pleased with their growing wealth. Whenever someone complained about the lack of disbursements, Kuryalka would quickly pay them out of her growing hoard of souls.
Of course, there was no investment taking place. She simply kept the souls and grew in power, using new investors' souls to pay out old investors. She was not the first to use this technique, but she became the most famous and successful—and the scheme was named after her—because of one innovation. Kuryalka had developed an equation that showed exactly when the ploy would collapse.
Days before that moment, supreme in the fullness of her soulpower, Kuryalka did not withdraw her souls and escape into the timescape with her near-infinite wealth. She went to the Archdevil Sutekh, Lord of Naraka, and offered him her vast soul wealth in exchange for immortality and a place in the Court of the Seven Cities.
Sutekh's terrifying hollow laughter could be heard throughout Hell. No mortal, he said, had ever embodied such naked ambition. He accepted her offer, making her the first Saint of Hell. Sutekh took Kuryalka's souls and founded the Exchange, making the trade in souls an official government department in Hell, and building an entire bureaucracy around it.
Kuryalka teaches the virtue of ambition—that if you are willing to risk everything, you can gain everything. "The world is yours, if only you tell a lie big enough." That the greatest ambitions are those that are so audacious, no one else has even imagined them yet. In this manner does one avoid competition.
Kuryalka features in many folktales in Hell, including "Of the Childe Whomst Kepte the Sheeps," in which she appears to a young shepherd boy warning him against getting caught telling his first lies. Kuryalka instructs him in the proper use of manipulation: "Never tell the same lie twice!"