Saturday, April 3, 2010

Writing Journal: Deities and Races, Volume IV; Malithia and the Hive

When Fyrste first created the world, Malithia was incensed. She had been entirely in agreement with Fyrste in their initial bearings on the existence of a first Creator and a definitive plan. Then, when his first act of Creation was so at odds with what she had envisioned, and knowing that he had done so without seeking consensus from the rest of Fyrste's peers, she could not fathom what to do.

While it was Koshiri who first attempted to undo the first act of Creation by Fyrste, and therefore discovered that, once something has been done, it could not therefore be undone, Malithia did not believe it until she tried it herself. Of course, the same was true of Weyveren, as well. In fact, Malithia considered that perhaps it had to be the one who had performed the Doing who could be the only one to Undo it, and tried to convince Fyrste to unmake his Creation.

When Fyrste himself stated that he could not, Malithia had to test this out for herself. She had therefore become the first of the deities who were revolted by the very act of Creation itself to take a hand in the making of it at all.

By the time she had the ability to act, Nasci and Scieppend had already taken their own hands to developing Creation. While Malithia hadn't really taken much notice to what was done, since she was so incensed and focused upon the initial act and what seemed to be so wrong with it, she simply looked to destroy it all. When she contemplated a thing to Create, she thought she would gain some satisfaction by creating something that would work towards the destruction of the previous acts of Creation themselves.

Malithia therefore created creatures in a multitude of shapes and sizes. From small to large, they trampled grasses, knocked over trees, consumed the very plant life that Scieppend had created, used claws to mar the ground and burrow holes through it, who drank of and also polluted the waters of the world. Her Creation was terrible to behold for both Fyrste and Scieppend, who were incensed by the audacity of Malithia to act in such a manner to affront what they had put so much work and effort into. Scieppend felt alienated from her own Creation, and pondered the implications of the imperfection of it. Fyrste, in the meantime, vowed to take a hand against Malithia and her Creations.

Malithia took great pleasure in this response, for she cared not for the creatures themselves, despite having delighted in their ability to have such a destructive impact upon the world around them, and to create such a sense of horror in her two fellow deity-beings, thinking that perhaps now they understood how she and the others had felt at witnessing Fyrste's first act, which had taken place without a proper set of consensus amongst the group. She then agreed to undo the Creation of the beasts, and found that Fyrste had not been lying. She could not undo that which she had done.

This was the moment of positive recognition for all of the deities that there was a limit to their own abilities, and that was the fact that whatever choices they might make, there was no way to undo them. This became something that disturbed many of the deities, though others, such as Eleuth, were delighted by the possibility inherent in such a premise.

At this point, argument raged even further amongst the deities regarding the nature of such a limitation, and whether such a fact was proof or disproof of the existence of a First Creator. Those who believed such a higher being might exist, such as Malithia herself, asserted that such a definitive rule could not exist if it were not made as a definite limitation upon their being. Others, however, were not necessarily convinced. Eleuth, particularly, waxed philosophical about it, and stated that were their acts able to be undone, so would their memories, which would mean that they would fall into infinite loops of doing and undoing the same things, since their undoing would therefore cause them to forget having done the doing in the first place.

Such talk only made the rest of the deities angry and dismissive of Eleuth. It seemed too abstract a concept, and too complex for some of them to understand entirely. While Nasci seemed to be the only one moved by the passion with which he spoke, Eleuth became a bit of a pariah amongst the rest of the deities.

Weyveren and Koshiri had taken their own hands in Creation by this point, as well, figuring that they would take their own parts in attempting to destroy that which was Created through their own interventions. Weyveren went a step farther by creating predators, diseases, and parasites, while Koshiri created creatures that took to the air and ruled over all with dominion.

Creation took hold, with Nasci taking on the adoption of life and nature, and the other gods warring with one another, taking their hands affecting bits and pieces of Creation itself. Nasci created harmony amongst the various types of life, while Koshiri cursed all life with inevitable mortality. Heah finally stepped into the process by constructing laws and rules by which all existence would interact over time, creating life cycles, and laws relating to matter and energy. Eleuth in the meantime touched all of Creation with variation and diversity, such that no two entities would ever be exactly the same.

Finally, when Apothos, who had stood apart from most of the debate and the acts of Creation, stepped forward to create Dragons, the bid for the mortal races of Creation began.

It was already stated that Fyrste was again the first to create his own mortal race in the Bergan. But Malithia was the second. She saw the untapped potential that existed within these mortal, sentient beings who could think and act for themselves, utilize tools and manufacture and construct mundane creations of their own, and knew that she could continue to serve her purpose of destroying all Creation with something of her own. And thus, Malithia crafted The Hive, otherwise known as the Heuvians.

Heuvians resemble various insectoid creatures in humanoid form. They are able to manipulate tools and bore sentience of their own. However, their sentience was not solitary like the Bergan or the dragons' were. Instead, each colony of Heuvians shares a singular shared consciousness. Each individual Heuvian lives for the sake of the rest of their colony, with the prime importance of the Queen being the most important.

The reproduction of the Heuvians requires living victims, as Malithia borrowed her brother Weyveren's concept of the parasite in contemplating the development of the Heuvian race. Thus do the Heuvians constantly seek out new victims and new conquests in order to maintain their own existences. And similarly are the Heuvians offended by the concept of individual thought and consciousness. The first blow to Malithia's pride came from the lack of unified purpose in Fyrste's initial act of Creation, and so she imparted her own bruised ego into her mortal race's consciousness.

The irony herein, is that Malithia, in developing a race bent upon the destruction of Creation, actually constructed something that she loved that exists within the realm of Creation. While it is not something that she relishes the thought of, for to realize her eventual plan, she would then have to witness the end of the race whose Creation she has come to love, she frequently does intervene in the interests of her peoples.

The magics of the Heuvians are based upon concentrated action. It usually takes several Heuvians to act in concert to enact any magic, and even then, the results are often not particularly dramatic. The basis of this magic is the identical "chattering" of several Heuvians at once. The first effect of this, is that the ritualistic chanting therefore has a mesmerizing effect upon those who hear it. The magical effects are often things that deal with the mind, and are focused upon enslaving, dominating, and subverting the thoughts of others. The power of such magics are also relative to the number of Heuvians acting in concert to perform these ritualistic chants.

The Hives of the Heuvians bore deeply into some of the largest trees, hills, and often deep into the earth. While they require water, the hives themselves are often dry. The fact that each colony of Heuvians share a hive-mind, it is nearly impossible to surprise them or catch them unawares, and they are frequently willing to sacrifice a few of their members for the larger goal before them. As such, they were created as a definite foil to the Bergan, whose military organization pales by comparison to the complete tuned-in sharing of thoughts that The Hive possess. Usually, Bergan victories over The Hive have been the results of superior numbers, or of devastating strategies by particularly gifted Bergan generals. Otherwise, the Hive are a constantly fearsome threat for the civilized peoples of the world.

It is the Changelings that often provide the greatest threats to the seditious interests of The Hive, for their individualism and disorganization provides little for the Hive to strike out at, while the power and effectiveness of even a singular Changeling can take down Heuvians in far greater numbers, a sacrifice that many Hives are unable or unwilling to make.

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