History of the World: The Falatacot

Of all the Empyreans who settled on the world called Auberean, the Falatacot seem to have been the first. They settled first in Dereth, in the swamps and deserts that were lost in the Cataclysm, and when the world grew colder they migrated southward and took shelter among the Dericost. By the time of Elysa Strathelar's reign they appear all to have been either asleep, or undead, which may be the same thing.

Now their distant kinsmen, calling themselves the True Falatacot, have come to this world and set up garrisons in southern Knorr. A letter intercepted by agents of the Order, given by Nalicana to Eshivon Ugim, expresses hostility to some, perhaps all of us on this world; but their terms are difficult to untangle; it is hard to put identities to the names they name.

I am greatly indebted to the Loremaster Uzi-El, who has provided me with such Falatacot texts as have descended to us, as well as Burun texts mentioning them, and to my predecessor Loremaster Xurn, who left behind summaries of texts to which I have no access at present.

What follows is speculation, that might at any moment be disproved by further data: please insert the words "apparently" or "it looks as though" as often as you see fit.

* It was the women of the Auberean Falatacot who ruled their society and wielded the most powerful magic. The name of Ixir Zi is frequently mentioned: though she might have been a mother-Goddess, I am inclined to think that she reigned as a living Queen and Mother of her race. Males are usually described as "Consorts" and had little status, with exceptions noted below.

(Note that the True Falatacot have something more in the direction of a gender-equal society. Grand Paragon Nagual Mi'jab, his colleague the Grand Advocate, and the Blood-Father to whom he reports are male; but he mentions the Blood-Mother, the Grand Oracle, and the sister-scholars as females. Perhaps, as in some other cultures, the males specialize in deeds of arms and the females in magical rites. Or perhaps not.)

* Their fertility was low (as is frequently the case with long-lived races), and males no longer able to sire children were given the honor of being sacrificed in various rituals. These males were known as the Willing.

* They worshipped those original inhabitants of Auberean whom we call the Slithis, which in the days of Dericost were as large as mountains, but by Elysa's day had shrunk to beings living underground, perhaps no larger than a house, thrusting up tentacles and eyestalks to confront their attackers. At least one faction did not venerate the Nuanni, or Gromnatross, and called themselves "servants of none and masters of the Nuanni."

* Long ago a passage through portalspace had been opened to the planet Bur. On that planet the Falatacot had found the reptilian Fiazhat and modified them into Sclavi, molding their minds into obedience and their bodies into usefulness, to serve them. But the world was growing colder in those days, and those Fiazhat who had been serving the Falatacot on Aubrerean were growing torpid in the cold. More and more of the Falatacot were retiring to "sleep" as undead. (Uzi-El suggests that the ritus performed in Elysa's time by Nuhmudira to slay the Ancient Olthoi Queen awoke these "sleepers," since it was after that event that the undead Falatacot, their temples with their concealed portals, and the Burun began to appear on Dereth.)

When Ixir Zi and her twelve followers returned to Bur through the tunnel, they found that the Fiazhat had become degenerate from long war with the Burun and the Moar, and were no longer fit to serve. t a low point in the war, when it seemed Ixir Zi's followers were doomed to defeat, a new rite was performed. Thirteen of the Willing, specially chosen and aware of the high honor granted to them, were combined with thirteen Fiazhat: excess parts of their bodies carved away and the remains grafted together. This action created the variety of Sclavus that were seen in Elysa's day: their skin scaly, their heads hooded, but otherwise man-shaped, with two arms and two legs. (These are the ancestors both of today's Sclavi, who have reverted to their earlier form with a tail and no legs, and of the Mimbu, who have kept the two-legged shape.) These Sclavi continued to tend the old Falatacot shrines and temples until the Cataclysm, as some of their descendants do to this day, though the temples are ruined and no magic remains in their scattered stones.

* Even in those early days there was schism and war between the followers of Darkness and of the Light. The texts speak repeatedly of the War of Hate, of "sister-kin" who have become enemies and corrupted the Fiazhat and the Burun. Uzi-El tells me that the War of Hate began between the Old Ones (the Slithis) and the Nameless, the Kemeroi, for whom we have since learned a few names. "The texts mention 'Shadow' and 'Darkness' battling, making way for Light. I think this means the Nameless and Old Ones fought, and after the Nameless was imprisoned and the Old Ones hibernated, the Gromnatross came to be the dominant 'elder' species on Auberean." This war descended from those elder races to the Falatacot, from them to the races of Bur, and to the younger Empyreans.

But the texts (whose writers assumed that all their readers would know what they were talking about) fail to specify who the two warring Falatacot factions were; which were aligned with Light or Darkness; what the quarrel was that originally divided them. Again, Uzi-El says, "The Dark Sisters definitely revered the Slithis, but I'm not sure whether the Light Sisters worshipped the Gromnatross."

In any case, at this point we must note carefully that Nagual Mi'jab's "Missive from the Third Cohort" speaks of "the descendants of our hated kin," of "our long exile," "our old betrayers." Whoever the two warring companies of Falatacot were, these True Falatacot are the descendants of the enemies whom the Auberean Falatacot expelled from this planet.

Texts collected from the Burun, who first reached Auberean from Bur in the days after Gaerlan perished, show this antagonism still preserved long after the Falatacot had vanished from their world: the Burun engaged in constant struggle with the Fiazhat, who worshipped the Dark Falatacot, and the altered Moar (forerunners of the Moarsmen), who might have been released on Bur (by the Light Falatacot?) to preserve a balance of power and safeguard the ecology.

The True Falatacot, arriving on Auberean after traveling over many worlds, could not find even any remnants of their old enemies. (They might have had better luck if they had looked on Dereth or Dericost, rather than on Knorr.) Nagual Mi'jab comments instead on the relics of the Yalain, their physical beauty, their skill in magic, their magnificent architecture; but whereas "our sons and daughters all hone their Grace in glorious combat, most Yalaini were content to live as herd-beasts, leaving their wars to a chosen few." Note that every True Falatacot, male and female, is trained for combat: remember that, when you approach one.

He also speaks of a certain practice, and an unnamed individual, with such scorn and hatred that I will here quote the passage in full, for its implications are of dreadful importance to us.

"The Yalaini rejected their Destiny like starving men who will not eat, and they withered before their time. Worse, when health began to fade, the Yalaini were apt to cling to life like beasts. They feared the Reckoning that stops sight and breath, and ever they struggled to slip its bonds. One history tells of a weakling Empyrean prince who perverted the True Rites and escaped his Reckoning entirely! I hope this is nothing more than a fool's tale, for my stomach turns at such blasphemy. But our sisters fear the story may be true."

Now, of what Rites, and of what prince, does he speak? What records has he found, deep in the ruins of Knorr? Does he speak of Geraine, prince of Dericost, whom three Falatacot witches made undead, so that he endured, active and seemingly healthy, up into our own time? Or does he speak of Asheron, a member of the Yalaini royal family, whom his mother Maila and her friend Adja, granddaughter of a Falatacot sorceress, enchanted so that he not only survived Bael'Zharon's attack but lived out nearly three times the normal Yalaini lifespan?

It is important that we know the answer to this question as soon as possible. If it is Geraine whom the True Falatacot hold in such scorn, they may direct their power against the surviving Dericost undead, those in Dereth (when they find them) and those who have fled to Knorr under Rytheran and Aerfalle. But if it is Asheron, then we may look for attacks not only against our Empyrean fellow-citizens, all of them Yalaini, but also against the entire Order of Dereth, of whatever race.

For this reason I urge everyone who ventures into Knorr and encounters any of the True Falatacot to examine them with care. Note their titles, their names and whether male or female (if you can find out), how they fight and how powerful they are. In particular, if they say anything, in life or in death, carefully note it down and send it to us. Knowledge is power, and our lives and our futures depend upon what we can learn.