[Spoilers] Why Zenos is the most important character moving forward

[Gaethan_Tessula]

If your antagonist realized its plans and recovered its powers, then he would be able to destroy the protagonists and continue on with its story. Is that correct?

Yes, though at that point it would prefer to have them serve it, and could potentially even outright ignore them if it wanted to (mechanically, while even weak Mages can do some very impressive things and anything with a stat block can be hypothetically defeated, this entity at full power has little to fear from the cabal). At any rate, the game is likely over at that juncture even if the story could hypothetically continue.

I don't have the full story but it does seem the antagonist is lacking a compelling reason to cause ruin. If the antagonist wins, the story might be less interesting if all it amounts to is a montage of meaningless destruction.

I suppose I can elaborate a little more on why it does what it does.

1. It wants to go home. In this system's setting, there are two worlds: one of pure platonic symbols (the Supernal) and a "phenomenal" world created by the confluence of Supernal symbols. Magic is worked by aligning the Phenomenal and the Supernal.

In any case, after a time some Mages found a way to get to the Supernal bodily and proposed to control the Supernal (and thus the Phenomenal) directly, purportedly for the good of mankind. Others disagreed that any one group of people should have that sort of power, and a war was fought that reached into the Supernal itself. The climax of this battle rent reality asunder, estranging the Supernal and the Phenomenal, resulting in the latter being filled with untrue Lies (ie. "magic doesn't exist"), and most importantly to my story threw many Supernal symbols into the Fallen Phenomenal as incarnate entities.

Existing in the Fallen is painful physically, mentally, and spiritually, doubly so for those fallen symbols who originated from the Supernal. The only way to escape the Fallen, either for mortal mages or the displaced "earthbound" symbols, is to ascend to the Supernal, a process that involves aligning oneself into a symbol for some aspect of the world itself (put more plainly, if you mold the world into a state that reflects who you are and what you think reality should be, you ascend to the Supernal and become a Truth of the universe). Our displaced symbol of fairness here thus set out to make deals and bring the world into alignment with itself, allowing it to return home. However...

2. Being exposed to the Lies of the Fallen world twisted the symbolism at the heart of this entity. Whereas before it was similar to a Nu Mou on a godlike scale when manifested outside the Supernal, requiring deals of precise mutual compensation, now it could also grant one-sided wishes for mortals so long as it also inflicted them with a proportionate curse to go with their requested boon. Though aware of this corruption, the entity found that men in their diminished state after the fall could offer it little in return for its services. With such small acts of mutual aid, the earthbound despaired of ever seeing the Supernal again. However, while men's means were limited, their desires were infinite, and taking advantage of the Lie that infected it allowed the earthbound to have a much bigger impact upon the world much more easily. Especially if it could get people to try and fix the consequences of their deals with still more deals.

3. The more the entity utilizes the Lie festering within, the more that Lie becomes the whole of its being. This is one of the reasons why it never thought to return to its original, benevolent methods after being tricked into losing much of its power. The other being that, between small virtues and petty evils, people tend towards the latter in this setting. Doling out small cursed wishes was thus still the easier and faster route to attaining its goals, or so it believes.

If it got its power back and bent or destroyed the cabal, it'd set out to bend the world towards resembling itself again. Unfortunately for it, down its current path getting to the Supernal is impossible. The Lie will eventually consume it completely, and it will become one more foundation of Untruth keeping people asleep and trapped in the Fallen.