Saturday, August 08, 2009

Chains

08/08/2009

The following was my entry for the Dark Elf cultural horror story competition for the Convocation of Coraesine Field event.

----------------------

I am often asked, by those unfamiliar with this story, whether it is true. The answer is yes, it is true, as all such tales are, whether or not the events in them ever happened.

This is a tale from Before. Before Sharath, before the Conflagration that bore Sharath, and before the Fall that bore the Conflagration. In this time, the Unbound were still our allies, and the Keening Spire had not yet begun to weep. The First Born dwelled within the City, and within the City dwelled Varen.

Varen was young, as his people reckon age, merely a few years removed from the completion of his Trials, and now apprenticed as a carnifex, one who renders the dead into their useful components, and discards only the inutile portions as carrion.

This was a valued profession, as resources in the far south are few, and there is too much of worth even in the deceased to allow it to rot in the soil or in the stomach of scavengers. More than merely necessary, though, it was a sought-after apprenticeship, as who can gain Ascension when one is bound to one’s fleeting mortality? The carnifex, more so than even a veteran of the warrior societies, was inured to the flesh, to sentimentality, for they had no choice but to become so.

It was a role perfectly suited to Varen. Nothing valuable escaped his keen eye, and no waste was countenanced by his keen hands and the consummate skill with which he wielded the blades, saws, and mills of his profession. The Masters of his art looked upon his work with quiet approval, and merely a year into his apprenticeship, he was granted the right to work without the supervision of the the Elders.

One morning, he pulled back the canvas covering the body before him, and for the first time in the commission of his duties, Varen paused.

Before him lay Anilasa, who had been born nearly to the moment he had, a rare occurrence amongst the people, whose children are few and far between. They had entered the Trials simultaneously, passed them effortlessly, and she had possessed skill in her arts to equal his, excepting that hers lay in the wielding of blades against the living rather than the dead.

They had admired each other greatly - too much, perhaps, but such pride was common in the young, and often faded on its own as wisdom grew. It was assumed by those who observed such things that they would one day petition for and be granted procreative rights, as the union of such blood could only strengthen the First Born.

Her patrol had carried her into the city at daybreak, and had delivered her immediately to the carnifex, for she had been slain by one of the Nameless Children, from whose mortal wounds no liturgy of resurrection could offer solace.

Varen attempted to steel himself and begin the rites of incision, to no avail. He forced himself through all the disciplinary mantras, yet will and focus fled from him like smoke.

In the end, he put the corpse aside, and called upon his Master. He requested leave, in order to meditate more fully upon his duty, and it was granted. Such a thing was not uncommon when a carnifex first worked upon one he was familiar with. As was usual in these cases, Anilasa’s flesh would be preserved until Varen’s return, so that he could prove his discipline when next he wielded his blades.

Returning home, Varen contemplated his next course of action. In his labors, he had wrested many secrets from the dead. He had learned of an anchorite who had once touched the power of Fash’lo’nae, and, resonating with terrible understanding, had left the city for a life of isolation in order to keep his brethren safe. Torn halfway between mortality and Ascendancy, he had become a conduit of dangerous and forbidden knowledge.

Before the horizon had lit, Varen had begun his journey.

The anchorite had foretold his arrival, and what it would mean, and attempted to ward his visitor from his home. Varen, however, knew the Words of Breaking, and was not delayed.

At first, the hermit resisted questioning, for he knew the answers, and the danger within them. Varen, however, knew the Words of Compulsion, and thus the anchorite had no choice but to speak.

He told Varen that the only recourse was to forge a pact with one of the Adversaries, for they held a compact with the Children, and only they could bargain for the souls they kept from the Ebon Gate. Even then, he warned, there would be a price, for none of their race serve others without first serving themselves.

And, in this instance, he told Varen, only Oleani could assist him.

Varen recoiled at that name, but quickly recovered his composure. He demanded to know why it must be Her. Of the Adversaries, few were as dangerous, as eager to bind the First Born to their flesh, to animal instinct, never to Ascend.

The anchorite held Varen’s gaze, and explained that none would help a mortal who did not hold something of value to them, and what Varen held in him would slake none of their thirsts but Hers.

He told Varen to remember, that her power does not bind us. Her danger lies in seducing us into binding ourselves. That is why, should you succeed in making this pact, Anilasa will live once more, but you must never touch her again. Not once, no matter how lightly, no matter how briefly.

Varen accepted this, thinking it a small price to pay for her return.

The hermit gave him instructions on how to walk the secret ways that led to her realm, and Varen committed them to memory.

He convinced himself that this was needed, that to do otherwise would be robbing his people of her talents, that her children would be strong, even if they could not be his as well. Indeed, with as few children as are delivered to the First Born, could they even afford a loss such as this? If he must feign personal desire to convince Oleani to assist him, then that is what he would do.

And the easiest lies to believe are those one tells oneself.

Varen could not say how long the journey lasted nor how far he wandered, for the path he trod was as much spirit as dross. The passage of the moon and sun soon gave way to a grey empyrean, from which a vague glow emanated, though no celestial body could be seen. Finally, upon cresting the lip of a vast crater that had punctured the deep red stone of the wasteland, he saw that he had arrived.

Before him stood the enemy’s citadel, a misshapen thing, a cyclopean tumor erupting from the landscape. As he looked upon it from his vantage, he could see the outer walls flex and strain at points, as if something enormous were held within, testing the resilience of its prison.

He willed himself to move forward, with each step having to remind himself of his purpose for doing so. The closer to the citadel, the more his eyes picked up on its methodical beating, and the shrill keen it emitted, sounding like nothing less than a legion of discordant birth cries.

There was no entryway, merely a smooth outer skin. As he lifted his hand to touch it, a tear formed in the wall and folded back on itself, allowing him ingress. Stepping inside, the membrane sealed itself behind him.

The interior struck him with an oppressive humidity. No surface escaped the omnipresent moisture, and only the odd texture of the floor allowed him to walk upright. Ahead, more walls parted, beckoning him onwards.

In the shadows writhed forms not meant to be seen by the eye, and within the translucent walls themselves pulsed arcane fluids. From the unseen ceiling hung glistening amniotic sacs, ceaselessly disgorging unidentifiable creatures, which would fall to the ground and quickly scuttle out of sight.

At last, the path opened onto what could only be an audience chamber. Cavernous, it receded into blackness, with only the area immediately surrounding him illuminated by the sourceless sanguine glow. Ahead sat a dais of sorts, polished ivory, rising from the ground as if grown there. Atop it, flanking either edge, were two demons, identical in almost every aspect of appearance and demeanor, including the innumerable thorns that burst from their skin. The sole exception was their eyes. Though both wielded an intense blue gaze, the eyes of one were acutely sorrowful, from which an unending stream of tears flowed, while those of the other were manic, crazed to the limits of sanity in their apparent joy.

A voice, seductive, yet mocking, rose from all around Varen, welcoming the First Born to her sanctum.

From obscurity, a form rose from the floor between the two monstrous attendants, seeming to somehow...unfold in front of him. Her tall form dwarfed those beside her, and was both wondrous and terrible to behold. Her features were exquisite and her flawless skin was faintly luminous, exposed as it was in its entirety, but her movements seemed wrong to him, almost disjointed.

Though he had never seen her incarnate before, Varen instinctively knew that he now addressed Oleani herself.

The Adversary spoke, and though she stood before him now, the words once more reverberated from his surroundings. She demanded to know why he had approached her, as the First Born rarely parleyed with her people.

He explained in great detail why he had sought this audience. As he spoke of Anilasa, he began with his usual reserve, but as he continued, he found restraint harder and harder to achieve. Words flowed from his mouth, effusive in their praise for his dead friend, recalling details about her he had not even realized he remembered. And still he continued, until he realized that he had lost control of his own actions, the fervency of his appeal providing its own momentum. He could feel himself weakening, as the flame of his desire was stoked and fanned until it filled him to bursting, even as it was being siphoned from him.

The more he spoke, the more Oleani’s smile widened, until she was wearing a rictus that nearly split her face in two. As his energy waned, hers waxed, and her luminosity increased exponentially.

It was then, on the verge of collapse, that he could see the truth of what stood before him. Now illuminated, the twisted cords that extended from her into the darkness above were finally visible. These myriad, viscous funiculi supported her body, and twitched and spasmed for every motion she made.

This was not Oleani, but merely a marionette of sorts, an organ designed specifically to communicate with lesser beings. And it was then that he realized.

He was not standing before Oleani, but within her.

The power, the monstrosity of this Adversary struck him fully then, bringing him an understanding of her nature that decades of study had not, and indeed could not have. The shock of this revelation proved to be precisely the catalyst he needed to arrest his frenzied monologue, and he was able to finally reassert dominance over his own heart and mind.

As his breath returned, he asked what she had done to him. The voice once again resounded through the chamber, telling him that, in fact, it had done nothing at all, that it did not create desire, merely elicited what was already there.

Varen was incredulous, convinced that she had been controlling his thoughts and emotions. Her effigy, however, merely looked upon him, bemusement painted across its features.

Her voice informed him that the payment had been acceptable, that the deal would now be struck.

Her two most loyal minions, the twin demons Loss and Anathema, known in the Old Tongue as Laethe and Voaris, approached, moving in perfect synchronicity. Each gripped his forearm, then twisted to expose his wrist. In unison, they each took one talon and incised two intersecting circles into his flesh. As blood welled, they both leaned forward and pressed their lips against the mark, the skin sealing beneath the warmth of their touch. And though the laceration was gone, Varen could still feel it, as if instead of healing, the wound had merely sunk beneath his skin, like a predator, lurking.

And Oleani’s carnal puppet spoke one final time, telling him that the pact was made, and he was free to go.

As he left the citadel, he passed an area he had not seen on the way in. Through the walls, he could see a row of Her servitors, squat and bestial, toiling over countless anvils. Their hammers rose and fell rhythmically, and Varen could see that each was forging a single link in an immense iron chain. As he strode by the doorway, the thralls lifted their heads, unceasing in their labor, and followed him with their vacant eyesockets, their labored breath drawn hungrily through their leering grins.

The invisible mark beneath Varen’s wrist throbbed, and his steps, already hurried, quickened even more until he stood beneath the sun once again.

The fugue that gripped him on the journey towards the Adversary’s bastion also gripped his mind on the journey back. By the time he approached the City again, he was not entirely sure that his wanderings had not been imagined.

However, the news awaiting him upon his return belied the phantasmagoric nature of his travels, for Anilasa was alive once more.

Rarely does a body in queue for the carnifex rise of its own accord, and never had a victim of the Nameless Children done so, and thus she was studied for signs of undeath, possession, and any number of conditions that might explain her impossible vitality. Their inquiries uncovered nothing sinister, however.

On the chance that they had missed something, she was kept from her former patrols, for both her and their safety. As the one most familiar with her, Varen was instructed to stay close to her and observe, to watch for any sign that she was not who she once was. She would be assigned as his assistant until such time as she was deemed uncorrupted. If any suspected he was complicit in her new condition, lack of evidence kept them silent.

Her new proximity did not concern him overmuch. After all, he had not forgotten the anchorite’s warning, and the taboo itself was simple enough. He was pleased simply to have her near again.

That he even felt such pleasure was the first sign of his erosion.

Varen learned quickly that self-control was far easier to achieve when temptation was not at arm’s length. What was simple at first became increasingly difficult. Days turned to weeks turned to months, until every moment near her felt to him like an eon.

He recalled every word of the effusive praise for Anilasa that had poured from him in his audience with Oleani, and this alone was challenging to wrestle with, but it was as nothing next to his realization that even that mania had failed to compare to the reality of the woman herself.

When Anilasa’s subtle attentions made it clear that she likely felt towards him as he did her, every second Varen maintained his facade of detachment became an eternity of torture.

His illusion of discipline evaporated before him the more fervently he tried to cling to it.

Even sleep no longer offered respite. Everything forbidden by day raced through his dreams, and he would wake in the morning no less tormented, a dull throb in his wrist.

He understood now, only too late, that he had never truly been tested. He had always been too good, and so every task set before him had always been too easy. Despite his fearsome intelligence and immaculate skill, his will remained stunted and feeble.

And without a foundation of will, no other virtue could stand for long.

When one day she whispered her true feelings towards him, and how long she had held them, the last ragged fragments of his resolve could not make even the pretense of resistance.

As he reached to Anilasa and pulled her into his embrace, he found it a relief to finally surrender.

Moments later, one of the masters found himself walking by the cutting room. As he was passing the door he heard from behind it an ululation, soft at first, then rising in pitch, and then suddenly punctuated by the harsh sound of lashing metal. He immediately pulled the door open.

And he saw them, writhing forms sewn together by rough links of iron, as if by a giant needle threaded through their flesh, their grotesque moans an amalgam of both ecstasy and agony. He had but a moment to comprehend the perverse tableau before the chains pulled taut, and the two-now-one were dragged forever into the dark.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Slavery And Population Dynamics

02/10/2006

From a post at the Player Forums, regarding the plausibility of creating Sharath as a playable city:

“This game isn’t really set up to support a town like Sharath. Any non-collared pakra’a would be rounded up and enslaved by press gangs, Dhe’nar could kill with impunity, ect.”

It’s constant comments like this that make most Dhe’nar in GemStone a self-congratulating private roleplay society, where they love themselves, and most others groan and try to ignore them when they “roleplay” in public.

Now, ignoring the fact that the prime argument against making Sharath a playable area is that it would utterly destroy the mystique of the Holy Mountain at the heart of the Ash Jungle…

No society with a very low population that gives birth at barely replacement rate could absorb a constant influx of slaves. Period. End of argument. It cannot be done.

Very soon, there would be an order of magnitude more slaves than slave owners, and more resources would be spent supporting slaves than supporting the society ostensibly “controlling” them. The Dhe’nar would “slave-own” themselves into extinction.

Also, how does the constant harnessing of slaves help them reach their goal of obtaining the power of the Arkati? It doesn’t, even though that is ostensibly the society’s prime goal.

The Obsidian Tower version of Dhe’nar isn’t a culture - it’s a B&D power fantasy. It does not even attempt to create a remotely plausible society.

There’s a reason Dhe’nar were excluded from the game’s Dark Elf Cultural Festival.

Dhe’nar are slave owners, yes. But at least this site attempts to present that aspect of their society in a sensible fashion, and it isn’t the defining characteristic of their society. It’s something the Dhe’nar do to survive and accomplish their goals - nothing more, nothing less.
To the Dhe’nar, slavery should be a tool, not an obsessive fetish.

The Dhe’nar as presented on Dhenar.com are cold, cruel (by the standards of other cultures) and heartless, yes, but they’re simultaneously mystical, devout, and noble.

The Dhe’nar -can- be more than a group of leatherbound halfling-disturbers who speak in unpronounceable strings of apostrophes.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Morality Overview: Neither “Evil” Nor “Good”

10/09/2005

It is the nature of Dhe’nar morality that is the key factor in why other races so often paint them as “evil”. It is not because the Dhe’nar are amoral, but rather because they judge morality by a different standard. They are not evil so much as they are alien.

Other Elanthian cultures tend to view morality as a continuum, with Good on one side, and Evil on the other. The Dhe’nar make no such distinction. The Dhe’nar view all actions from a different perspective – that which is harmful, and that which is helpful. Any actions that do no harm to themselves or their society are allowed, and often encouraged, even if these actions would be considered dark, or evil, by other cultures.

The practice of slavery is a prime example, as the Dhe’nar do so because it is necessary, not because they are concerned with how “good” or “evil” the practice might be. The Dhe’nar must do it in order to survive, and therefore they do it. Period.

The commonality of other such practices amongst the Dhe’nar, such as the summoning of demons, the study of such knowledge as was contained in the Book of Tormtor, and so on, continues to contribute to the outsider’s perspective on their culture. The Dhe’nar, when confronted with this attitude, cannot understand it. To them, it seems childish. If the practice does no harm, how does the arbitrary judgement of “evil” get placed on it? And what purpose does such a label serve?

The Dhe’nar, when faced with a practice that is directly harmful to themselves, or their society, spare no effort in exterminating it. Murderers, for example, are dealt with quickly and brutally by the Dhe’nar. Any act that is harmful, with no direct corresponding benefit that outweighs the harm done, is of no use to the Dhe’nar. This calm, measured practicality can be seen as insensitive and lacking compassion – and often it is. But to the Dhe’nar, there is no other way to live.