A Prayer

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Anarch's picture
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A Prayer

Ed note: This was inspired by a line in Shemeska's piece on Daru Ib Shamiq. If it fits with his ideas, great; if not, well, it's all screed anyway.

We are the losers.

We are the unremarked, the fallen, the forgotten. We who once ruled the greatest empires known are now forced to creep in muck and ruin. We are the princes of slime. We are the kings of despair. We are broken and cast down and discarded.

And we endure.

Long years ago, we were the titans of the only place of power. Our words were as law. Our whims were as gods. The multiverse existed for such pleasure as we could know. We feasted upon the flesh of the weak and bones of the strong, and all was joy and good.

Until they came.

Whining, mewling savages, disease-ridden and leprous with hate. Burgeoning with nameless desires and faceless lies, they crawled upon the ground like snakes begging for scraps from our table. We indulged them because we could, because it amused us, because they were vermin. And soon, we found them indispensible. Like gluttons at a banquet, they devoured all the work we could give them and begged for more. Like fools, we fed them and fed them until they burst.

The end was swift.

They burst with maggots of treachery and blood. Our glorious kingdoms were shattered from within by those who had crawled as slaves but now rose as traitors. They slew us one and all, piling our spent corpses in silent mockery of our mighty towers. We were brought low by the wretches of the House of Baern, made less than waste, and ruin fell upon us like a dying god.

But we endure.

Long years we waited. Long years of skulking in the shadows, where they could not see or know us. Long years of watching the House of Baern plot and seethe. Long years of watching them spurn the perfections of the Waste, our birthright, for the shallow splendor of the heavens. And finally we struck. We gave our secrets to one who was not fit to hear them, to one not fit to know them, to one not fit to use them. We whispered of our magics, of our glories, of what their ancestors had so desired that they willingly accepted our slavery. Soon our words ripened and bore fruit.

We were born again.

These are not our bodies. This is not our flesh. We are born of slime and offal and to slime and offal we return. Yet we do not die and we do not age and we do not forget. The treacheries of the House of Baern run deep; ours run deeper still. In the darkness we wait, unloved and unafraid. We were mighty but unsubtle, teaching the wretches our magics without concern only to be strangled on them. Now the wretches have become our teachers, and we shall show them that we are excellent students indeed.

We will have our revenge.

We have given them the multiverse. We have let them think they are the ones pulling the strings. But when the time is right, all the plotting of the House of Baern shall come to naught. When the time is right, we shall cut their strings and watch the sky collapse upon their heads and we shall laugh at their downfall and ruin. We shall take back our bodies, we shall return them to vermin, we shall make them our slaves forevermore and we shall torment them unto the end of days with what might have been. For we are strong, stronger by far than they, and all the turnings of the Wheel are but a tick of the Gears until our revenge is complete.

Because we endure.

-- Supposed excerpt from 'The Gospel of the Thrice-fold Exile'

Zadara the Titan's picture
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A Prayer

Hehe, one for sciborg Smiling Nice.

Anarch's picture
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A Prayer

Since I've been persuaded that I made the prayer a bit more, um, subtle than I'd planned, here's a brief (expanded) explanation of wtf is going on:

...

The speaker(s) are the predecessors/slavemasters of the baernoloths on the Waste ("the only place of power"), the ones that the baernoloths usurped to claim the title of Exemplars Of Evil. Where the baernoloths represent the evangelism of Evil and the desire to destroy Good, their predecessors represented simple of Evil of selfishness and vice ("the multiverse [i.e. the Waste -- they're supremely self-centered] existed for such pleasure as we could know."). Originally, the baernoloths were one among many races that dwelled in the Waste ("Whining, mewling savages...") but, because the baernoloths were forward-thinking and cunning, they managed to ingratiate themselves to their predecessors ("because it amused us...", yeah right) attaining a station somewhat similar to the mamelukes in the later Caliphates ("like gluttons at a banquet...", "they willingly accepted our slavery"). Thus ensconced, the baernoloths learned the secrets of their masters ("teaching the wretches without concern..."), ultimately rising up against them, overthrowing their empire and killing them all (obvious quotes here).

So far, so good. Or Evil. Whatever.

Now the fun part: although their bodies were killed and, it is implied, either stolen or destroyed ("we shall take back our bodies"), the predecessors didn't exactly die ("But we endure./Long years we waited..."), somehow living on as malign spirits. They bided their time ("Long years...") until they found one or three -- the prayer is deliberately obscure here Eye-wink -- baernoloths to whom they could teach more of their ancient mysteries ("one who was not fit to hear them...") until that/these baernoloth/s were seduced to the Dark(er) Side, became Apomps ("Soon our words ripened and bore fruit."), and created the gehreleths ("We were born again.") as vehicles for the spirits of the dead predecessors ("These are not our bodies...").

IOW, the whole "gehreleth" thing -- the lowest of the low, the miserable effluvia of the Lower Planes -- is a ruse. Apomps isn't the "god" of the gehreleths at all, he/they/it is the slave god of the gehreleths, much as the baernoloths of old had been the slaves of the predecessor race. He/they/it is a patsy, given existence and divinity because the predecessors need a physical presence in the multiverse to exact their revenge.

[Note three key points here: first, since Apomps is a slave-vessel rather than a deity in its own right, with secrets "whispered" into his/their/its ear/s, it's likely that he/they/it is insane and so chaotic. Consider him the original Maeldur. Second, notice how no-one's ever seen Apomps since he/they/it left the Waste? This would be why. Third, because the motivating factor of the gehreleths is Revenge, this places them squarely in Carceri.]

The physical presence is a poor one ("We are born of slime and offal...") -- possibly because the predecessors' true bodies were destroyed, possibly because their bodies were stolen, possibly because "slime and offal" are ubiquitous in the Lower Planes, possibly because Apomps just isn't a very powerful divinity -- but it suffices: unlike the other fiends, the gehreleths are functionally immortal ("we do not die...", "we endure"). Therefore they wait, trapped in the soothing rot of Carceri, "unloved and unafraid", waiting for the time to strike at their wayward children and pay them back for all the torments they've sustained in the intervening eons. And -- though this isn't part of the piece, but what the heck -- every night, deep in the icy wastes of Agathys, the Shator priests and their worthy brethren recite this prayer of freezing agony, warming themselves in their hate and their vengeance.

Whew! Aren't you glad you didn't ask? Eye-wink

[For fullest effect, and the origin of this piece's title, this prayer should be read aloud by a Shator High Priest with the single lines voiced as responses by the congregation.]

NOTE: Everything written above is purest screed. Trust me. Would I lie to you? Again?

Krypter's picture
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A Prayer

Interesting piece, but it sounds like so much narcissistic tripe concocted by conspiracy-besotted paranoiacs. Just what the gehreleths would think, I guess. Everyone in Planescape seems to think that they're the ones pulling the strings, uncovering the most hidden secrets and setting the most elaborate ploys, from the 'loths to the rilmani to the devils. Why not add the gehreleths to the mix?

I do like the idea of a slave god though, that's very cool. A demented being of utmost power, bent to the whims of his supine followers. A sort of unconscious feedback loop, much like advertising wherein both sides (advertiser and consumer) claim to be simply responding to the whims of the other. Now there's a secret.

Quote:
[For fullest effect, and the origin of this piece's title, this prayer should be read aloud by a Shator High Priest with the single lines voiced as responses by the congregation.]
Well I tried that, but the Shator seemed to be in a bad mood that day and it didn't inspire me as it should have.

Nemui's picture
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A Prayer

"Krypter" wrote:
Everyone in Planescape seems to think that they're the ones pulling the strings, uncovering the most hidden secrets and setting the most elaborate ploys, from the 'loths to the rilmani to the devils.

But we all know, of course, that it's the damn tweens who are the string pullers. The terrible, insidious, tricksy, alien, sanity-draining, tweeeenses...

Anarch's picture
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A Prayer

"Krypter" wrote:
Interesting piece, but it sounds like so much narcissistic tripe concocted by conspiracy-besotted paranoiacs. Just what the gehreleths would think, I guess.

woohoo! I may have been too subtle but that part, at least, I got right Eye-wink

Quote:
I do like the idea of a slave god though, that's very cool. A demented being of utmost power, bent to the whims of his supine followers.

Thanks! And... uh... supine? Is that a reference to their prayerfulness or am I missing something?

Quote:
A sort of unconscious feedback loop, much like advertising wherein both sides (advertiser and consumer) claim to be simply responding to the whims of the other. Now there's a secret.

I wouldn't have made the parallel to advertising meself, but if it works for you...

Quote:
Well I tried that, but the Shator seemed to be in a bad mood that day and it didn't inspire me as it should have.

Have you tried killing your body and recreating yourself out of slime and offal? Method acting, dontcha know. Eye-wink

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