The Society of the Dubhaimid: The final notes of Teirsaes
Edited and partially translated by Deksar math-K'sull in Dark Ages
Section 1: What are the Dubhaimid?
Section 2: Dubhaimid Life and Death
Section 3: Classification of a soceity
Section 4: The Dubhaimid Religion
Conclusion by Deksar
Reference: Eclipse, the symbols of
dubhaim
Introduction
By Deksar
The darkness that fills the void, this is the dubhaimid. Teirsaes
spent over 2 Deochs studying the acursed creatures in the Castle
of Dubhaim. He was certain that there was some semblence of
intelligence in these things. I have collected and edited his
findings into this document, as Teirases was not exactly great at
keeping orderly notes in his diaries. In fact, it took me 6 moons
just to figure out the way Teirsaes wrote in order to
"translate it" into a real work. Anything in quotations
is an approximate "translation". Note that there may be
gaps in this collection, for Teirsaes's complete diary was never
found. The last parchments were torn off of their placeholders.
But what we do have is quite interesting, and remarkable if it is
indeed true. Note that though Teirsaes might have been a
brilliant philosopher, he is highly opinionated so he sometimes
adds theories which may totally contradict with the main beliefs.
From here on out it will be Teirsaes's work, with comments from
me in parathenses.
((OOC Note: The character "Teirsaes" does not
exist anywhere in Dark Ages. I made him up so I could say he
researched this for 2 Deochs. Deksar himself has only been around
for 2 Deochs, so he could not do it himself. But I am not copying
someone else's work, this is all original.))
Section 1: What are the
Dubhaimid?
To understand why the dubhaimid could even have a society,
first we must first understand what the dubhaimid are. Many
believe them to be evil incarnate, the result of something's hate
for this world. However, that is a simplified explanation. Evil
is an emotion, not something that could create a living,
sentient, creature. I believe the dubhaimid to be sentient
creatures, their form warped by the power of darkness, but
sentient none-the-less. Deoch, Sgrios, and Chadul were all once,
or still are, dubhaimid. And they show great signs of
intelligence and power. Chadul is the greatest threat to the gods
as Aislings can tell. No mere mathmatical process based on
instinct can defeat the gods, it takes intelligence and cunning.
Chadul may be the ultimate form of a dubhaimid, but this does not
mean there are not lesser, still intelligent, dubhaimid.
Exactly where these dubhaimid come from, I can still only
theorize that they are, in fact, made up mostly of evil. They
warp a creature coming into this world and, by the power of
darkness, corrupt perfectly mundane and unsentient animals
twisted into the first dubhaimid. I cannot believe darkness could
create form. Evil has always symbolized the power of chaotic
destruction and the end of life, while Good has always symbolized
the order of creation and the beginning of existance.
Section 2: Dubhaimid Life
and Death
The dubhaimid do not give birth like other creatures. The
dubhaimid are asexual, they do not need anyone else to reproduce.
First they gather up enough "dark energy" (Note:
see Teirsaes's diary collection for more information on "dark
energy") to reach their full capacity. From here they
have two options - morph themselves into a being of even greater
power, or create an offspring. Many yeng dubhaimid choose to
continue warping their forms until it is too difficult to obtain
that next stage of being without great strains, at which point
they usually settle down (note: parallel to Aisling life?)
and seek to start propogating.
The first stage of a dubhaimid brought to life is not,
in fact, the stage of pupa as many tend to believe. The first
stage is cocoon, in which the dubhaimid are subjected to intense
but brief stimuli of light. Where this light comes from is
unknown, but its effect is greatly needed, for it allows the
dubhaimid to have a small immunity to the element of light.
Without this, the dubhaimid's form would start to disenegrate as
light touched it. This could be why the dubhaimid took so long in
corrupting Temuair, they needed to develop the cocoon stage to
create small immunities to the natural element of light.
Next comes the well-known stage, the pupa stage. A dubhaimid
pupa is a totally un-evolved being, with rudementiary abilities
based solely on instinct. An unguided pupa has a short life-span,
for its instincts aren't very well-honed and will get it into big
trouble by the end of a sword. A pupa has many choices to what to
evolve into when it collects enough dark energy. However it is
almost impossible to evolve past the state its parent was at, for
some reason unknown to me at this time. (note: More about the
pupa-stage later)
When a dubhaimid dies, it leaves behind whatever "dark
energy" it has collected and not used. Being this some
sort of etheral energy, it cannot be viewed by mortal eaye.
However the dubhaimid seem to know where this energy is, and feed
off of it to increase their own reserves. Exactly why this
happens is quite a mystery, and I can only offer an outstanding
theory. It is known that Sgrios, the god of death and
chaos, feeds off the death of Aislings and scars them somehow
before letting them return to the mortal world. It is quite
possible that Aislings, being of both light and darkness, have
this "dark energy" inside of their bodies and Sgrios,
being kin to the dubhaimid, feeds off of this to keep his
ultimate evolved form of a dubhaimid from expiring back into a
more mortal form. However this theory suggests that the "dark
energy" is part of one's soul, so that would mean that
the dubhaimid are made up of whatever souls are made of, an
interesting thing to ponder.
Section 3:
Classifications of a society
A "society" is created when a certain type of
creature's patterns of life have any resemblence to a community,
with certain tasks and status to each type of creature. There are
certain levels of society, a low-end society, a medium-result
society, and a high-intelligence society. The first is mainly the
work of such industrious creatures like the little tiny insect
ants. They work and toil with certain tasks, but their overall
intelligence and originality is lacking, they are compeletely
uniform. The medium-result society is very typical of a Mundane
society, although perhaps not perfect in its mundane qualities,
it gets the job done when needed. And last is the Aisling
society, the high-intelligence society. This society is based on
a premise on a state of reason and science instead of whims and
beliefs, and has the most potentional of the three to create a
productive society.
There are many different classifications of the dubhaimid
society. I have struggled my entire life to create these theories
and write these notes, for I believe above all other
"truths" that the dubhaimid are, indeed, sentient. The
classifications are: pupa, drone, hunter, guard, scholar,
creator, leader, and priest.
An unevolved
dubhaim is at its pupa stage. It has not collected enough "dark
energy" to evolve past the stage right after cocoon. A
dubhaimid has a strong aggressive instinct, so a little pupa may
attack anything it sees, even other dubhaimid. In fact, one of
the ways a pupa can gain "dark energy" is by
killing its own kind. The strongest dubhaimid might have killed
more of their own kind then Aislings and Mundanes. For this
reason, the pupa are extremely territorial and vicious. Only the
strongest evolve into higher dubhaimid then "drone".
Most common pupa-stage dubhaimid is usually refered to as a "Fiend
Pupa".
Many times I have seen a "drone" dubhaimid. They are
the most common and the most unintelligent of the dark beings.
However they make up the backbone of the dubhaimid society, for
their tasks range from commonplace working to taking up tasks
usually reserved for higher-evolved dubhaimid like hunting and
guarding. In fact, many of the higher-evolved dubhaimid try to
command a small to large force of "drone" dubhaimid to
protect themselves in case of danger and to do work they wish not
to do. The "drones" choose to obey their masters, for I
have seen small drone-only colonies in which none of the
dubhaimid have evolved much at all. Here the "drones"
have no leaders, but they work fine by themselves and seem to be
more harmonious without complicated directions (although I could
never totally decipher how the dubhaimid communicate with each
other). Most common "drones" are known as "Gast"
and "Cruel".
Be wary if ye see a "hunter" dubhaimid.
Their job is to kill all Aislings and Mundanes on sight to
collect "dark energy". They then bring the "dark
energy" back to their community and divide it up for
consumption and possible evolution. "Hunters" usually
command quite a bit more power then the average dubhaimid, and
surround themselves with "drones" to protect
themselves. "Hunters" are designed by nature to be able
to traverse all terrain, and so have the gift of flight. The most
common "hunters" are known as the "Gargoyle"
and "Nightgaunt", although the latter is divided
between hunting and another function.
I suggest retreat is in order if ye meet up with a
"guard" dubhaimid. They are especially strong dubhaimid
picked by their leaders or priests to guard certain important
locations, such as the main community or an alternate place of
worship. All "guards" are very intelligent and vary
with the importance of the location. Places of mild important but
still valuable may have a "Nightgaunt" guarding
it. Places of great importance may have a powerful "Succubus"
guarding it. "Nightgaunts" assigned to guarding
are much stronger then their "hunting" counterparts,
but still not as strong as the Succubus, hence why it is
usually placed guarding regions are great importance.
"Guards" become extremely vicious if ye enter into the
region they are guarding. Otherwise, "Nightgaunts",
having many charistics of a warrior with loyalty to their
leaders, will not abandon its post for any reason. A "Succubus",
on the other hand, gets bored easily and may start wandering a
little bit looking for some "fun".
A dubhaimid who researches mysticism and philosophy is a
"scholar". Only one type of "scholar"
dubhaimid exists besides the "leaders", that being a "Succubus".
The "Succubus" is highly intelligent, and has
learned to warp its form into that of an attractive female form.
A "Succubus" does not have to worry about
killing anything for "dark energy" again, for
they can trick yeng male Aislings and Mundanes into giving up "dark
energy" with their illusion of feminine charm and power.
In reality there is absolutely nothing feminine about a "Succubus",
however. All it cares about are its own interests, which usually
do not include helping its fellow dubhaimid. It mainly cares
about having fun, which it accomplishes by sucking "dark
energy" from yeng Mundanes and Aislings and by
practicing its power over the elements on anything that moves. "Succubi"
are extremely dangerous when provoked, for they are the only
common dubhaimid that have spells, which are of a Wizard's
"Mor" rank and know the secrets of the eternal curse "Cradh".
Because the "cradh" type of spells are the curse
of the dubhaimid by use of nightmarish visions, it is quite
possible someone learned this from a "Succubus"
to bring this to the Aislings...at the price of their soul.
Worshippers of Sgrios can pray to Sgrios for a curse of
extreme power, for as known Sgrios is kin to the
dubhaimid. Infact, Sgrios itself may have been a "Succubus"
at one point, for a "Succubus" is one the
highest evolved forms of a dubhaimid.
Since dubhaimid cannot just create other dubhaimid out of
nothing, there are some who dedicate their existance to creating
new dubhaimid for their community. These are known as the
"creators". It takes a bit of a dubhaimid's own "dark
energy" to create an offspring. Any type of dubhaimid
can do this, even one still in the pupa stage. However its
offspring cannot evolve beyond its parent without a tremdous
amount of effort, so the "creators" are usually higher
evolved dubhaimid. The closer a new dubhaimid gets to evolving
into its parent's state, the harder it is for this dubhaimid to
evolve. Many would think that a "Succubus",
having a female form, would produce the most offspring. This
untrue, a "Succubus" produces only one or two
offspring in its entire life. As well, it seems to have no
"parental instinct", for it leaves its offspring to
fend for itself. The dubhaimid that survive a "Succubus's"
neglect often evolve into much higher states. Also note that the
"scholars" helped develop the dubhaimid pictograph
writings.
One of great charismatic appeal is declared a
"leader" of a dubhaimid community. The
"leaders" vary, and there may be more then one. Usually
the highest evolve dubhaimid becomes the "leader", as
their intelligence surprasses that of their lesser kin. "Gargoyles",
"Nightgaunts", and "Succubi"
are all common "leaders". However a "Succubus"
makes a terrible "leader", for they care only about
themselves. Usually they act more like a spoiled ruler then a
charismatic leader. However with the introduction of religion
into the dubhaimid community about a Deoch ago, more and more of
their communities are being run by "priests".
Upon a Deoch ago (note: 3rd Deoch when Teirsaes wrote this),
a new evolution of dubhaimid was somehow created. This new
evolution is very rare and I might have been the only person to
seen them, they are the "Lich". Decayed in form,
they wear a ragged cloak over themselves to prevent themselves
from falling apart and carry a long staff with a hollow metal
upside-down pentagram with a hollow metal pentagram in its center
and 3 parts of the upside-down pentagram filled with a jade-like
crystal. These are the new "priests" of the dubhaimid,
they worship either fear and death or hate and evil. The two
theologies are seperated by close tensions, for I have seen
dubhaimid of opposite faith attack each other many a time. It is
quite interesting that the "Lichs" resembles the mortal
form of Sgrios, as Sgrios, as said before, is kin
to the dubhaimid. It is quite possible Sgrios was the
first "Lich", and all the dubhaimid now reaching
the state of "Lich" are Sgrios's
offspring. But then there is also always the possibility of
intervention by the dark god, Chadul. A "Lich"
has the ultimate power of darkness, a spell which causes instant
death. It is quite possible the "Lich" has
evolved past the state of a "Succubus". Note
that the "priests" also serve another very important
purpose, for they are responsible for the teaching of the
dubhaimid pictograph writings, which I refer to as
"Eclipse", because it is usually refered to with an
"eclipse"-type of drawing. (note: See the
"Forenote" for a brief explanation of the writing
system as I see it)
Note by Deksar: If you are accessing the
"forbidden library" (( "http://www.darkages.com/atavism/"
)) to see this work, if it indeed worthy that is, then you should
see a copied drawing made by Teirsaes to the right of the
previously unknown dubhaimid, "Lich". This
drawing is banned in normal libraries because they fear the image
to be cursed by the same power that brought down Teirsaes.
Section 4: The Dubhaimid
Religion
About a Deoch ago (note: 3rd Deoch), an organized
religion was starting through the work of the
"priests". It is the worship of the dark god, Chadul.
The theology is split into two main sects, that "Chadul is
fear, death" and "Chadul is hate, evil".
The dubhaimid that believe Chadul is "of fear and
death" worship both Chadul and Sgrios. They
seem believe Sgrios is the greatest prophet of Chadul,
and will follow Sgrios into their own deaths. Supposedly Deoch
to them was once a prophet of Chadul, but turned over to
the other side when he stopped fearing the consequences of love
and the power of Chadul, which makes Deoch
extremely "unholy" to them. However they mainly believe
Chadul is of "fear", with "death"
being a subset of "fear". They seem to say that
"death" is the one thing all beings have in common with
their "fear", so it must be the strongest
"fear" of all time. They believe that Aislings and
Mundanes were created by Chadul to satisfy his hunger for
"fear", and it is the will of Chadul that these
beings be horrified. The "dark energy" that
comes from all creatures when they die is considered to be their
"fear escaping", for death is the final terror. A
dubhaimid that feeds off of "dark energy"
becomes stronger because they grow more and more afraid of death,
and the "fear" gives them power. They are in constant
fear of their master Chadul's powers, which is what their
theology seems based around.
The other main sect believe Chadul is "of hate and
evil" see both Sgrios and Deoch as betraying Chadul's
will. They believe that "The End" will come through the
pure hate and evil within everything's soul, the "dark
energy" that the dubhaimid can feed off of. A
"Final Battle" between the great power of Chadul
and his enemies will one day happen if enough "dark
energy" is given up to Chadul. Anything that is
living must be either turned over to the side of darkness or
tortured then released. Through this process, they hope more and
more beings will either hate the other beings or hate the
dubhaimid. Either way, they feel that "hate" brings
"power" to Chadul and all his followers. These
dubhaimid worshipping this sect are extremely aggressive,
dangerous, and fight with extreme zeal. They are currently the
strongest sect because they have killed off whoever disagrees
with them out of sheer hate for their differences.
The ritual they preform is usually refered to either by the
symbol of Chadul or "Fate". Both
religions preform a very similiar ritual, as they both believe Chadul
to be the master of fate and the final victor of any battle. For
the "Fear" sect the ritual involves preforming
horrifying experiences to please their master, like jumping into
a small fire and coming close to death by burns. For the
"Hate" sect the ritual is very similiar, except they do
the horrifying experiences to other beings. All the while the
"priests" form a circle and stare downward at an
upside-down pentagram and randomly touch the end of their staff
against the end of the "priest" next to them. The end,
however, cannot be documented. I have tried again and again to
stay through the whole ritual, but something inside of me start
burning with fear of the ritual's end. I can only theorize that
the end of the ritual involves looking upon the true essence of Chadul,
which is said to cause instant total corruption of the soul to
whatever mortal gazes upon this. (note: Teirsaes's writings
from here suggests he does not believe that he can be
"corrupted", and desperately wants to see the end of
the ritual. This is a possible cause of Teirsaes's disappearance.
See: Teirsaes's Diary, complied by me)
Conclusion
by Deksar
To make sure the astounding theories Teirsaes writes are true, I
spent 2 moons in the Castle of Dubhaim using the tunnels I found
Teirsaes had dug. The more I looked for Teirsaes's findings, the
more I found out he could very well be true. With all of this
information that I have recorded and translated and tested, I
still cannot safely say I am the expert on the true nature of the
dubhaimid. Perhaps both Teirsaes and I are mad, perhaps we both
are seeing what we are looking for just because we are looking
for it. But I cannot doubt at this moment that the dubhaimid are
not just creatures, that there is at least some semblence of
sentience in the dubhaimid and a soceity in their midsts. Take
this work with a grain of salt, and then wash that down with a
little bit of reality: go to the Castle of Dubhaim and various
other dubhaimid-populated regions form your own opinions. Thank
you for reading this work, it does honour to both my name and the
name of Teirsaes.
Deksar math-K'sull
Gliocan Priest
Reference: Eclipse, the
symbols of dubhaim
by Deksar
Teirsaes took many a scribbled and disorderly note about their
language. I cannot give ye his exact words, best I can do is tell
ye what I can figure out from his notes. About a Deoch ago (note:
3rd Deoch) with the appearance of the first "Lich",
an organized religion started developing in the dubhaimid
society. To tell about Chadul, the "Lichs",
with the help of the "Succubi", developed a very
primitive language based on symbols. I will show ye a copy of his
drawings by hand, and the possible meaning it has. Note that I am
forbidden to show the copies of Teirsaes's drawings anyplace in
Temuair. Ye must locate the "forbidden library" ((
"http://www.darkages.com/atavism/" )) to see the
drawings, if it ever be great enough to be nailed up there.
The dubhaimid language, "Eclipse": the moon, a
large arc over the sun, an arc with "beams of light"
coming from it. (left)
"Death": a broken
circle trying to "eat" something which resembles a
snake. (right)
"Fear": A swiggly line broken at
the top, with another swiggly line coming out of it and little
things inside of them. (left)
"Hate": Multiple
sharp-looking tringles pointing in every direction except one,
where a large line encompassed by a circle with an arc in it.
(right)
"Dubhaimid": 3 large vertical
swiggly lines with 4 broken triangles on 4 different sides.
(left)
"Others",
"Foreign" or "Enemies": 2 large horizontal
swiggly lines with a thin line going through them. The line has 2
"flags" near either ends, and a "radiating"
circle in its middle. (right)
"Fate", "The End",
"The Last Day", "The Final Battle", or
"Ritual": A helmet-looking object in the middle,
intersected by two lines which go out to two wing-like things.
Below are two broken circles. (left)
"Chadul", "The
Dark God", or "Ritual": A upside down pentagram
with 3 triangles filled in and a normal pentagram in the middle.
(right)
These are the symbols Teirsaes talks most about in his notes, so
I assume they are very important to the dubhaimid and major
symbols in their primitive writings.
Work by Deksar math-K'sull
Original notes by Teirsaes
Scribed in Loures Library with the assist of Jean Caterouge and
Lars Tembli
9th Deoch, 4th Moon, 23rd Day