Black Nerve

Regarding Dragons

What is the Pantheca’s general stance on the dragons? Unequivocally in favor, blaming radical Welkinists for their death?

Regarding dragons, the matter is complicated.

We’ll speak a bit informally here. Suppose you have a friend, and your friend steals someone’s most prized possession. Then suppose your friend is then killed in retaliation. Killing not done in self​-​defense is heinous. But it’s not accurate to the complete picture to simply condemn that act alone, absent context. But suppose your friend is killed not for the theft, by the one she wronged, but by someone who simply hates her. Things quickly become complex and divergent.

Of course, we could continue making this analogy ever more complex for paragraphs more and not really draw a clean parallel to the situation of the dragons. Much of the needed point has already been made.

Without even getting into the question of whether dragons were intrinsically good or bad, one must acknowledge the facts about any vesperbat. Envespered bats kept hordes of mantids enthralled, used as servants, amusements, and food — or they made arrangements to have access to hordes of the bats that they submitted to. The grand lairs of the bats, the very heights their titans were able to ascend, would not have been possible without the mantids beneath them.

So when bats turned their vesper​-​endowed powers against the Kingdoms in service of the Disenthralled Rebellion, it must be acknowledged that the fact those bats had the power they did, whether inherited or personally extracted, is not morally neutral.

The Draconic Republic having the position in the world it did was, if not a crime itself, the shadow of many crimes. But the founders of the Alliance did not want vengeance, and believed justice and fairness could be arrived at as the gradual end​-​result of mutually agreed upon policies and contracts, through economics and laws.

But this was at the beginning, when the rebellion was becoming a nation and helping establish the Republic. Long after, once the Alliance coped with the assimilation of the refugees and remnants of Oosifea’s destroyed empire, there was emerging a very pronounced political split in the Alliance.

On one side, you have what would be inaccurate to call rebels, because they won. But they were very much defined by regard for the philosphies which founded the Alliance. On the other, you have what would innaccurate to call Dominionists, because the Dominion was gone. But they were very much defined by a nostalgia for the Second Dominion and a anxiety at the direction the rebels pushed.

Having established the inaccuracy of these names, we will continue to use them.

Part of the dominionists’ rhetoric served to paint the images of dragons we still live with today.

“How many ‘dragons’ simply called themselves that when Dlann, the archtitan, was vanquished?” “If the dragons so readily betrayed their own kind when the opportunity presented itself, how quickly will the they turn on creatures that are different entirely?” “Why should we trust them, when their sisters are still fighting us even now?”

These are the questions Dominionists asked. Settlements were still attacked by non​-​dragon bats, and defended by batslayers. Even the dragons themselves would occasionally be involved in violent exchanges with their fellow mantis. The dominionists emphasized this picture of dragons, calling them scorpions in our midst, every one of them an hourglass running down, the sand their patience at pretending to be civilized. When it’s gone, they could easily attack you and your family. “Can you defend yourself against a dragon?” they’d ask.

The sapience of vesperbats is often debated. The general consensus is that, as a consequence of their modified biology, vesperbats never stop developing. They grow ever larger — including their brains. Knowledge​-​hunters at the time codified scales and measures. A sexually mature vesperbat is about as intelligent as a clever beast or a first instar mantis. By the time they become elders, they are comparable to an adult mantis. (Some took this to its inevitable conclusion, and wondered if the oldest vesperbats are beyond even the smartest mantis. Generally, this was rejected as ridiculous.)

The rebels were hopeful that the dragons could be assimilated, become a accepted part of the Alliance. The dominionists wanted more extreme measures.

It cannot be denied that the presence of dragons presented problems. There were dragon attacks. And though the vanquishing of Dlann, the archtitan, was a turning point, throughout the existence of the Alliance, there remained bats to be vanquished. The lines between bat and dragon couldn’t not be drawn cleanly enough to assuage concerns.

And even on an economic level, vesperbats pose issues. Vesperbats are mammals, and possess uniquely active blood — kilogram for kilogram, they require more food than mantids, and the work they can do is not multiplied to match. Vesperbats are far, far more prone to disorder and disease. And quite simply, easing the tension between two species who are finally nearing the end of a conflict older than either of their civilizations is a task the fledgling alliance could not dream of succeeding.

Is the world more peaceful, with the dragons gone? Yes. Could the Alliance have built an accord between the two species, absent dominionist influence? Could the Alliance have dealt with the problems dragons posed, without granting batslayers judicial authority and no oversight, without coercive sterilization programs, without quelling insurgencies with shadowcalling and the old sanguine arts? Yes and yes. Was this the enabling prelude to one a indefensible genocide? Yes.

This is one of the many mistakes of the old alliance, and the syndics, every one of them a student of history, will reflect on them, learn from them, and ignite the Kindling Dream.

But there are no vesperbats in the heartlands. And that’s a good thing.

Why Nobility?

What is the publicly known history of the Wentalel monarchy? Are there other figurehead (or perceived​-​as​-​figurehead) monarchs in the Heartlands?

One thing that must be remarked upon. To a first approximation, no one in the heartlands likes monarchies.

To an Oosifean purist, a monarchy is a wasteful relic; in the most just era of the world, the God​-​empress was less a monarch than a locus of the natural order of the world, apex predator and stern mother as one. To any true believer in Aromethia or the Kindling Dream, a monarchy is seen as the oppression it entails. To the syndics and scholars of the status quo, a monarchy is by definition undemocratic, and has no place in the Pantheca.

And to them all, there has only ever been one monarchy in the Heartlands, and its name was the Myriad Kingdoms.

So for that reason, it’s worth digressing further afield, and explaining just where nobility comes from.

This begins with the Third Dominion. The Third Dominion can’t properly be called a monarchy, due to its short history, tumultuous existance, and convuluted organization. More properly, it should be said this begins where the Third Dominion ends.

No one quite agrees where that starts exactly — some say the conflagration of the capital mount, some say the Night of Ashes, and all but the most contrarian say it was definitely before Clanshatter — but it’s better to think of these events as pieces of the dam breaking away; the water was always spilling through.

Thus, as the constituent polities collapsed, clan after clan defected from the Dominion. Confidence was lost, promises seemed unlikely to flower, and clans, alongside the odd clanless bane, decided it was better to look after themselves.

(What, precisely, is a clan? Fundamentally, a clan is simply debts and rights etched in arete, and distributed by the vespers as instructed. A clan is the energy stores and knowledge stores passed down, controlled by its claimants. It’s, to oversimplify, merely a class of property rights.)

No clan is an island, and for all that they would look after themselves, dealings still needed doing with the outside world. Thus, in the cadences of the previous era, the nature of many clans became that of mercenaries. City after city was left struggling as the empires they had furnished crumbled, and in desperation, agreements with clans were made for their protection.

Then, after years charged to defend a plot of land, it’s understandable to begin to feel a greater ownership over it. So the pattern one sees repeated is clans arrogating more control over the settlements they protected, their claims inarguable when backed by blood and black. Some historians coin the term ‘clan​-​states’ for the some arrangements that resulted. But most often, ownership was declared, and matters of administration left to those outside the clan.

This, then, is the argument the clans made when the revolutionaries came to their doorstep. These mantids are not subjects, but tenants. We are not lords, but leasers. These are not taxes, they are rents.

The responses are a diverse as the provinces. In some, such as the Land of Lakes and Rivers, the property was nevertheless seized for the common good. In others, such as Black Tiaga, the story is much the same, yet going as far as to kill outright those that resisted or undermined the new democratic project. In still others, such as the New Protectorate, the story is much the same, only they were killed for being vesperbanes, rather than property owners.

But in some, such as Plains Southern, they were begrudgingly accepted. But there’s a rub: if these are not sovereigns, but citizens exercising property rights, then they have to comply with greater laws. And by the laws of the Pantheca, envespered mantids cannot hold superpersonal property.

Thus, a dilemma faced every noble clan: they may keep their holdings in arete, or keep their holdings in charter, but not both.1

The nobles of Wentalel, as you may imagine, took the latter option. And, to hear some tell it, there’s a certain high dedication in that choice, something honorable; they relinquished their magical power for the good of their people, so that they may remain benevolent directors of the city, and safeguard it against the rash neomania of the syndics.

The fascination many retain for the nobility is something one can observe in any city of the sort. They are the rich, the beautiful, and they are steadfast memorials: they are older than the Pantheca, and there’s a certain precedent in that age.

One hears many exclamations having to do with the goings​-​on of the nobles — “ah! was that not a splendid eastern dress the prince wore?” “oh! is that a half​-​winged the second​-​in​-​line is courting?” “have you seen the latest renovations to the noble gallery?” — in a way, the once​-​clan acts as a sort of unifier for the city.

That is, when it’s not instead dividing by matters of scandals, feuds: whether this heir is actually a bastard, or if this addition to the family has diluted the blood intolerably so.

But syndic placements are not inherited, can never be barred or bourne on the basis of purported pedigree. Any shares or stake a proprietor might have on a city’s land does not, can not, extend to any influence on its administration. The Pantheca is a democracy.

(1: Of course, this is only true before the custodian clan loophole became enshrined as all​-​but​-​common​-​practice, but such it wasn’t when the Realignment reached Wentalel.)

Karkel, the White Dragon’s Antecedent

Is it known who stole Karkel’s power, leading them to realize how terrible the Myriad Kingdoms were?

To know Karkel, the ever​-​scoured, the living pyre, the white dragon, it is helpful to first understand what it means for a bat to be royal.

Bat development is commonly held to be a sort of hierarchy. Only when a bat achieves fertile blood, are they finally considered as adults. When they grow the umbral antlers, they are elders. When they bleed ichor, the blasphemous acme of blood and fulfillment of all its necromantic nature, they are titans. But royals may be the most nebulous of all of these. It exists, foremost, as precaution.

Bats, by their nature, will quarrel and hate. When adults fight, it may cost them lives. When elders fight, it may cost them lairs and thralls. When titans fight, it may cost all of them hunting grounds.

But there were titans of truly devastating power, whose techniques could do worse than rendering hunting grounds uninhabitable — who posed threat to all batkind.

Thus, the recognition of royalty. If one earns respect of a royal sufficient to allow one to partake of their blood, that one is a royal. If one can kill a royal and dare drink their blood, that one is a royal. And of course, if one can sleep hanging from the boughs of the queen’s blossoming throne and live to awaken, that one is a royal.

The certainty of mutual destruction alone is often enough to deter interroyal conflict. When this is not enough, but one law governs all royal bats: the one who would attack a fellow royal is not royal, and must face the wrath of all of them. In this way, peace was the privilege of the most powerful.

Being bloodborne, royalty is inherited, but remains dormant and invalid until titanhood. (A powerful parent is no guarantee of power — but if a future royal be weak, liable to be killed, it was a problem which solved itself.) There were titles for a royal heir that might be translated as ‘princeling’ or ‘princess’.

Before their turn, Karkel of burning fur was nascent royalty, a welcoming and pleasant princet buoyed by a rich inheritance. Rather than a lair, their demesne was as much a city, with vesperbats from around the kingdoms welcome to stay for one night. Hospitality and openness distinguishes Karkel, where so many bats were secretive and jealous. He won much fame with a particular recipe, widely shared, which we might translate as ‘roast effigy’ — in which thralls were cooked alive then served. Another famous dish was a cheese made with the milk of the mothers from the families’ vassal litters, occasionally embellished with their fermenting stillborn.

Indeed, Karkel was oft​-​nicknamed the chiropteran campfire. Something warm to gather around for meals — but campfires will burn those foolish enough to touch, and Karkel was not all ingratiating flattery. A visitor to their city was their subject, and they deftly, fatally struck down those who offended their princely pride.

After reaching apotheosis with titanhood, Karkel’s route to greater power — and their ultimate folly — was the tutorship of the plasma​-​lords. A fraternity whose arrogance — literally — knew no bounds, the plasma​-​lords ever sought to best their rivals, the devotees of a certain glowing metal. In their highest, mythic ambition, the plasma​-​lords aspired to chain the stars themselves, to breed them and wield them.

Karkel knew joy to join them, and pursue their highest ranks. A rotting and wizened plasma​-​lord took Karkel as apprentice, to teach them the arts of plasma, and assist with his research. One particular experiment was the creation of a plasma construct held inside a large sealed box — this allowed greater control of environmental conditions, the thick walls of the box limiting energy wasted.

Once the plasma​-​lord had gone in the box and demonstrated this a few times, he asked for Karkel to give it a try, and watched from outside. And Karkel succeeded — not for nothing had they survived when their royal blood was no secret. Their master was pleased, and commanded them to feed more into the plasma, make it hotter, more energetic.

And it grew out of control.

So Karkel sought to escape the box.

Their master did not let them out.

Many assassins had come for Karkel as a nascent royal, thirsty for their blood — but now, after having finally become truly royal, had one at last succeeded?

A truth later revealed, their master was no plasma​-​lord — though once he was. Rather, once his body was. The flesh was possessed, made puppet to a genetic apparition — by Tertöm, the ever​-​living, the ghost of pus and sperm. He’s invented and mastered the art of totipotence: peerless regeneration and metaplasia. But most troubling of all his titles, he was Tertöm once​-​royal; he was killed, and a dead royal is no royal. Weakened by the strain of returning, his royalty was thereafter denied.

Tertöm watched Karkel burn alive, and must have thought it an ironic fate. But he was not done with them.

Tertöm watched Karkel die many, many times. Melting, marinated in a vat of acid that burned when they climbed out into the air. Sliced into bits by knives and razor​-​thin bindings that peeled their flesh with every struggle. Frozen in expanses of ice where their attempt at wielding their flames melted it — only for them to drown and refreeze, engulfed. Infested with slugs and worms like some discarded piece of meat. Pricked and exsanguinated, milked for their coveted blood.

As each death approached, a choice came first. Karkel could die, finally, or endure Tertöm’s revival. Unfaltering, they made the same choice each time. Tertöm wanted to break them, and let them feel a few fractions of the pain and indignity he felt. Karkel gave in before they give up.

(With each revival, the blood of Karkel and of Tertöm grew ever intermixed.)

Tertöm molded Karkel into a weapon to oppose the royals. He wanted them to hate the royals’ cruelty and caprice. He wanted them to dream of a future in which they have all been slain, and perhaps Tertöm himself hangs from the queen’s boughs.

And Karkel was wielded. They were fried and sundered by Jejak’s thunder. They were pulveried by Tzic’zahd’s earth. They were obliterated by Dlann, the archtitan. They fought the nameless necromant, having their ichor tainted by more than Tertöm. They fought the one whom the vespers loved, and lose hold of even their symbionts. They fought the nightmare incarnate, descending into dark madness only reprieved by tearing off their antlers.

And then, at length, after failures piled up, Tertöm discarded Karkel as one would discard a used and ineffective tool. He took what he desires from their blood and endowments, and left the body in a desert to die. And there Karkel lay with a final death fast approaching, knowing that they alone were impotent to challenge the royals, that a dream of a new king hanging from the queen’s boughs was not theirs to realize.

That is the story the white dragon told, when one asks about their fall. There were natural followup questions: who or what saved them from their fate? What did they do about Tertöm — was there vengence? Most pointed of all: does your suffering and your atonement erase or outweigh the things you’ve done?

The white dragon would look on in pensive silence, and would not share an answer.

— Quotation from Here Be Tragedy, a history of the dragons. Not banned, but restricted, deemed an unreliable source by the Stewartry.

On the Seven Forsaker Clans

Before the nymphs of the dream were put to volt, there were several clans who had produced prophets among their younger generation; indeed, the prominence of these individuals were the very leverage that lifted the nymphs a position of influence over banedom as a whole. Killed before they could bring about the promised alignment, with their dying breaths the nymphs are said to have spoken a curse for the false prophets who failed to avert their fate — to those who had forsaken them. The manifestation of this curse for each was unique, but in each case the result is a plight just short of a protracted, mortifying abolition.

Clan Thimithi suffers the Curse of Extinguished Flame. Newborn Thimithi were stripped of the resistance to flame their mothers grant them, and lacking that, the ashen ecdysis goes from painful to the leading cause of Thimithi mortality. At the same time, Thimithi were rendered infertile until their ashen ecdysis. Between these two grindstones, their number dwindled until, in the present day, they are a few members short of line extinction.

Clan Brismati suffers the Curse of Refracted Light. Now, pairings between two Brismati will never bear children, and the child of a Brismati and a half​-​Brismati will not have access to the blood secret. Occasionally, children will now find they lack one of the innate abilities their parent’s pierazeidos had boasted. Telescopic eyes and eidetic memory were once available to all Brismati, and are now exclusive to branches. By now, some abilities have been lost entirely.

Clan Fagé suffered the Curse of Devoured Tongues. Their blood secret was once the red tongue; but now it is no longer inherited by their children. Instead, it can only be inherited through cannibalism of one who possesses the blood secret. In the modern day, it’s now rarely thought of as a blood secret, though in some respects it still is.

Clan Gaveldika suffered the Curse of Grounded Equillibrium. Their blood secret was the creation of electrically charged bindings, both in a physical sense (for traps, restraint or torture), and in a metaphysical sense (making many of them accomplished spellbrands). Under this curse, power dwelled in them like volatile lightning. When facing a weaker opponent, energy and arete would be leeched out of a Gaveldika and into their opponent, empowering them until the Gaveldika was equal to or weaker than their opponent. Their electric bindings were similarly mutinous; no longer could they bind anyone at all, because the fungal strands would quickly ally themselves to their target.

Clan Gaveldika is no more. Their arete, having been laundered by nocturnes, has lost all of its value, with only miniscule amounts retaining the equalizing properties. Dissolution of their technical property has led to the proliferation of lightning affinity. Of their blood secret, little remains other than the eccentric “chain lightning technique”, a powerful bolt of aretaic lightning that can only target living banes; its potency can be scaled up with frightening ease, but never to the point where it’s immediately lethal to the target. It endows the target with the ability to subsequently cast chain lightning for themselves on a target of their choosing.

Clan Queleta suffered the Curse of Concentrated Purity. They bore the blood secret of alcohol affinity, with virtues such as countering virulent ichor and providing a imbuement fluid that didnt easily freeze. With the curse, they lost their immunity to drukenness, and the blood secret could not be inherited unless both parents possessed it. Within a century, every member of clan either failed to pass on the secret, or became inbred to the point of serious medical complication as they died off. After realignment, the clan left behind vesperbanehood entirely for symbolic noble status. Still to this day they make pretty good wine.

Clan Batros suffered a Curse no haruspice has put to name. They once held the blood secret of the shining wings, endowing them with a kind of flight, but once cursed, none were able to grow wings with a size of more than cosmetic significance. When it was discovered that the wings could be grafted and used by hosts outside the clan, its members were hunted. The Batroses went extinct before the mystery of their curse was puzzled out.

At the start, we mentioned that there were seven forsaker clans, but have only named seven. This is no mistake: there is record of seven curses in arete​-​records, but no one has made any sense of the seventh curse. There are three theories to explain it, ranging from benign to troubling to downright disturbing.

First is that, for structural or mnemonic reasons, there are seven entries and one of them is entirely superfluous. There were seven nymphs, and seven points in the septagrammaton, so it’s a suggestive theory. The indecipherable contents, then, could just be accumulated junk from generations of transmission, no sense to be made of it because it was nonsense, or the vesper equivalent of a tall tale. Second is that the seventh curse was devised and never bound to a target, often with the added speculation that it’s some contingency for later use. This theory is a favorite of the mystic imploring devotion in their flock, who assert that if we continue to stray from the vespers’ dream, if we do not do all we can to free them from their bondage, the seventh curse will befall us all, worse than anything visited upon the forsaker clans of times past. Woe to those who invoke the vespers’ wrath.

The final theory holds that the seventh curse exists and was delivered. The clan whom it targeted committed a crime so heinous, possessed a blood secret so repugnant, suffered devastation so complete, that in the wake, we can find no evidence they ever existed.

Woe to those who invoke the vespers’ wrath.