To Nereus
-
IamLEAM1983
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3715
- Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:54 am
- Location: Quebec, Canada
To Nereus
Do Void Weavers ever get thalassophobia?
-
IamLEAM1983
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3715
- Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:54 am
- Location: Quebec, Canada
As Nereus
"Oh, we most definitely do.
We're a species with a very defined native environment: we're either from Dalarath or Respite Point, with outliers being a rare occurrence. In both cases, we're effectively born as a moon pool-dwelling species - positive pressure and a pocket of air keeping the ocean from swallowing our demesne. We're mostly adequate swimmers and the depths we chart tend to be metaphysical rather than concrete - and it makes the first actual sight of an isolated brine pool a terrifying occurrence for most of us. It's a shoreline beneath the shoreline, with water so dense with salt and minerals it separates from the rest and poisons anything foolhardy enough to come close without the aid of our gateway rituals. Follow the cavern's bend back down and snake your way to one of the myriad exits in the seabed, and you reach pure, crushing blackness. It's not Amaxi's hazy promises of undoing, it isn't Harrogath's loss of all consciousness to the vagaries of ritual gorging - it's just there, dark and cold.
It won't ask for tribute, it won't expect anything from you - all the ocean's dark knows is that unless you can feed from ejected minerals or happen to be bioluminescent, you're food that ignores its nature. All it needs is cold and narcosis and the unrelenting pressure of tons and tons of cubic meters of water to kill you. It's only once you've experienced this that you realize why the only thing close to life insurance for the Prelacy is a post with the Wayfarers' Guild. They pilot our stone corracks, they keep that blackness at bay with their own willpower - they could all drown their customers if they didn't mind killing themselves in the process. Nobody dares assassinate one of the Wayfarers, for good reason. Without them, the Loyalists' entire operation falls to pieces.
As to why they haven't claimed power for themselves; being able to oppose an entire ocean's pushing force with your own molecular command doesn't necessarily make you a fearsome wielder of the Black Speech - it just makes you out to be one of the more practical users of the idiom."
We're a species with a very defined native environment: we're either from Dalarath or Respite Point, with outliers being a rare occurrence. In both cases, we're effectively born as a moon pool-dwelling species - positive pressure and a pocket of air keeping the ocean from swallowing our demesne. We're mostly adequate swimmers and the depths we chart tend to be metaphysical rather than concrete - and it makes the first actual sight of an isolated brine pool a terrifying occurrence for most of us. It's a shoreline beneath the shoreline, with water so dense with salt and minerals it separates from the rest and poisons anything foolhardy enough to come close without the aid of our gateway rituals. Follow the cavern's bend back down and snake your way to one of the myriad exits in the seabed, and you reach pure, crushing blackness. It's not Amaxi's hazy promises of undoing, it isn't Harrogath's loss of all consciousness to the vagaries of ritual gorging - it's just there, dark and cold.
It won't ask for tribute, it won't expect anything from you - all the ocean's dark knows is that unless you can feed from ejected minerals or happen to be bioluminescent, you're food that ignores its nature. All it needs is cold and narcosis and the unrelenting pressure of tons and tons of cubic meters of water to kill you. It's only once you've experienced this that you realize why the only thing close to life insurance for the Prelacy is a post with the Wayfarers' Guild. They pilot our stone corracks, they keep that blackness at bay with their own willpower - they could all drown their customers if they didn't mind killing themselves in the process. Nobody dares assassinate one of the Wayfarers, for good reason. Without them, the Loyalists' entire operation falls to pieces.
As to why they haven't claimed power for themselves; being able to oppose an entire ocean's pushing force with your own molecular command doesn't necessarily make you a fearsome wielder of the Black Speech - it just makes you out to be one of the more practical users of the idiom."