#my brain is goo and i forget things easily if i don't write them down even my own oc lore

[first-blight]

I...I really want to elaborate why I chose the celestial bodies I did for the obscure associations, so I'm doing exactly that. Long post below.

Two of the 3 are some sort of aftermath of a supernova, and the other is going to result in a supernova, which wasn't planned but makes sense for each individually.

I'm sure I'll get some of the physics behind these astronomical bodies wrong but. Let me live.

Rhidian's association is a neutron star

Just to recap what Wikipedia tells us, a neutron star is "the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star" and "Except for black holes, neutron stars are the smallest and densest known class of stellar objects." [x]

The aftermath of a supernova makes sense insofar that Durge in general is someone who's living in the wake of a big cataclysmic event (being sent to amnesia land by Orin). And for Rhidian, things like Alfira's death and their own death and revival count towards that, too. All of these culminate in Rhidian being someone who lives in the aftermath of something profound and irreversible having happened.

And, for me, the density of the neutron star is symbolic for what Rhidian becomes. A celestial body of higher density would be a black hole, swallowing everything around it, even light. A neutron star can collapse into a black hole [sentence right before this linked one]. So the path Rhidian takes could either lead them to be a force that's swallowing everything around it (—someone who continues to worship Bhaal, perhaps, or someone who sinks deep into self-loathing about their past, unable to move on, etc.—) or they could be compressed into something else. And since Rhidian is 'good durge' and also since they do, at some point in their journey, take levels of paladin (oath of the ancients — an oath all about being a (symbolic) light, kindling and protecting the light), they instead are compressed into a force that, well, shines light. And their stubbornness about it all, about being who they are now, being who they want to be, wanting to do and be good, is reflected in the strong density of the neutron star. In a way, they're using all they've got to pull themselves together.

And, of course, it's an incredible balance act between not collapsing into a black hole and not unravelling. (That last one isn't how physics works but.... symbolically. You get it.) Just the right amount of density to not collapse into a black hole (to not fall into despair, back into old habits, into self-loathing and pity about their past deeds and relationships) and just the right amount of density to be a star instead of a nebula for example, to be pulled in by gravitational force instead of scattering.

Iska's association is a red hypergiant

So, first off, the initial idea was a regular red supergiant, but when I read that "the term red hypergiant is sometimes used for the most extended and unstable red supergiants" [x], I thought, "yeah, okay, that fits." Iska is unstable, lol. And also big.

She's in the middle of an identity crisis—betrayed by her god, grappling with the fact that they might've been used for most of their devotion. 60 (ish) years of what? Being his Chosen, enacting "justice" in his name. 60 years of isolation in the name of devotion.

Supergiants are defined not by their luminosity but by their evolution: "those massive stars which start core helium fusion without developing a degenerate helium core and without undergoing a helium flash. They will universally go on to burn heavier elements and undergo core-collapse resulting in a supernova." [x]

Both in Iska and in red supergiants (by extention, hypergiants), a breakdown (a collapse) is imminent. (Idk if I understand this correctly, but maybe the hypergiants being more unstable supergiants also adds to the impending core-collapse?) And it's only a matter of time, an inevitability, for both Iska and the supergiants; there's no getting around it.

Silver's association is a nebula, more specifically a supernova remnant (special type of diffuse nebula) [x]

As the name says, it's a supernova remnant. [x] Once again, we're dealing with the aftermath of a supernova. Only, this time, there was no gravitational pull great enough to form a new star. This time, the remnants are scattered, diffused.

Silver is also living in the wake of a cataclysmic event. One that affected him personally, but did not happen to him personally—more on the lore in a separate lore post (maybe, if I ever make one)—but summed up, his child (in their 20s, not a literal. child child) died. And Silver did not take that well. Still doesn't. He's running away from it, in fact. Which brings us to the next point.

Just as the nebula is diffused and scattered in the wake of that supernova, so is Silver. Metaphorically and literally, in a sense. He's running away from his past, running away from one fateful string of events that happened and is unable to be undone. Running away both physically, in that he's become a traveling mercenary and doesn't visit his home, and mentally by just never dealing with what's behind him. Never letting go, never processing.