Traveler/OpposingFactions
Ananke
If the Stream- time- is considered as a body with Aion as its blood, a Traveler could be called a sort of virulent disease, infecting and feeding off the flow of events. They squabble with the order of things, fight among each other and cause paradoxes.
To counteract this Anankes exist. Nobody quite knows where they come from or how they are made; they are the antibodies of the Time Stream. Creatures of order and linearity, they are blessed with an instinctive ability to sense snags in the timeline and an absolute willingness to do anything it takes to resolve them, which usually doesn't end well for anybody involved: the Stream is their only preoccupation and so any possible obstacle is to be dealt with swiftly. They oppose Travelers everywhere, everywhen, unless a bigger threat is present. But what could be worse than beings who- accidentally or not- strain the Stream with their very existence?
The shape of an Ananke varies wildly based on individuals; some are whirling snakes, others are rotary saws of tooth and hair, and still others are toothed-gear aberrations swinging pendulums and gears. A few, but for the blue circles in their serpentine eyes and the shimmer of their skin, could very well be human. Some theorize that humanoid Anankes are the result of mortals being lost in the Stream- humans condemned to the abyss of Time acclimate to the place and become its servants, become changed by its brass and ice.
Anankes come in five different types: Mechanisms (living clock-people which act completely automatically), Chronophages (creatures that consume Aion like food), Stutters (balls of memory doomed to repeat the same stretch of time for all existence), Paradoxical (beings spawned from paradoxes that cause contradictions wherever they go) and Clock-eaters (humans infused by the Stream to become its psychotic, time-obsessed servants). Each has some way of manipulating Aion- Mechanisms measure out time and use Aion to control machines, Maws eat living flesh to absorb its Aion and substitute Aion for food to send it back into the Stream, Stutters force time to enter self-regressive loops, Paradoxicals can survive the side effects of paradoxes and are capable of causing them more efficiently, and Clock-eaters... well, they look and can act mostly human, and that might be the worst threat of all.
Kharybdis
"...All of our history...Our art and science...All to meet the needs of that...beast..." - Chrono Trigger
Imagine a hunger. Imagine something that wants to eat and eat and grow fat in the eating, and eat more than can ever be. Imagine a mouth a million light-years long, a mouth that can - with time and effort - encompass all of existence. This is the force which Travelers have named Kharybdis.
Kharybdis is more properly classified as a chronophage - a creature entirely subsisting on Aion. Other than this, its nature is almost totally unknown. Some people say it's some sort of Traveler, ancient and hungry for Aion. Others say that Kharybdis is simply a natural phenomenon, an intended counterpart to the Stream. But it manifests itself in a few obvious ways - firstly, the Mouths that it opens in the Stream, which consume excess timelines and purge them of Aion, creating Divergences. Only very few timelines are strong enough to exist after their Aion is consumed, and even after that, they only appear as vestiges and scraps, waiting for Aion to revive them and make them true places again. The people tossed into the Mouth become the servants of Kharybdis - its arms and eyes in the physical world, snapping up every remaining fragment of loose Aion that it can find. Its power is not unlimited, however - the mass quantities it consumes from alternate timelines presumably go to feeding it. And a good stock of its consumed Aion must be purged to allow any significant capacity of real-world operation. But, to find a particularly powerful Traveler or to get its hands on an Ovum, it will gladly do so.
And what is the goal of Kharybdis? Simple: to gather as much stray Aion as it can. To feed off the scraps that Travelers break from the normal flux of the timeline, and to slowly gather strength. And, presumably, one day it will finally eat all that is. After all, Travelers crack the timeline, constantly feed Aion to the Stream or to their own devices. And when that Aion is lost or broken, Kharybdis eats it.
And, presumably, one day, Kharybdis will have its fill.
