Please explore. That's what worlds are for after all.
Rick Wasserman
Knoxville, TN
RickWass
The rough draft is complete at 75,000 words as of 7-25-14. It seems the my paranormal romance has transforemd into a paranorma murder mystery. The future of this series will probably be going that way. It is just more interesting.
Here is the background mythology.
Back at the beginning when humans were more animalistic, they had a profound connection to the spirit world we call The Eidolon. But Humans, unlike all the other creatures who continued to live in harmony with nature, began to change. They pulled away from living in harmony with the terrestrial world and strove to master it. The purposeful formation of tools and the command of fire were early examples of this. The Eidolon, in response, seeking to maintain the balance between the worlds began to take that excess spirit force that had been abandoned by humanity and channeled it to select humans who had not yet lost their contact with the natural world.
No one knows exactly when it started, possibly in the Neolithic age, but at some point, these humans began to be born with animal spirits. These hybrids of human and animal were two fully embodied spirits living in a single body.
While all sorts of hybrids could be found, certain groups gained dominance is specific areas. What would eventually be called the British Isles were home to the snake people. The spirit of the wolf was dominant in the ancient Celtic regions of Europe, the dire wolves to the north and east. Beyond them, across the northern Asian steps could be the major bear clans. Further afield, much of the African continent was dominated by the Big Cat tribes or The Lizard people of the Nile valley (cousins to the snake people). The region of China would be home to the dragons (intelligent lizards like komodo dragons) while the Australian continent became the last refuge of the True Humans. The American continents were never dominated by one specific type and were a blend of several types, Horse, Spider, Bison, and others. It is probably why there are so many types in the United States today, as it has always been a refuge for the disenfranchised…. But that is for later.
The Snake people and the Wolf clans formed an alliance of sorts, for mutual protection against the more aggressive Dire Wolves. The Bears kept to themselves for the most part. The Eidolon and the Terrestrial had found a new balance and for many centuries nature prevailed… or so it seemed.
The Humans, corrupted by secretive dark influences and proud in their arrogance, continued to try and dominate their world. The lands of the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates were made nearly barren through over farming the land. The people of that land, who were eventually known as the Persians, on the urgings of their king Xerxes were driven to conquer their neighbors in order to survive and the first of the great human empires was forged. In time it fell apart only to be replaced with the Egyptians under Ramses, the Greeks under Alexander and eventually the Romans under Caesar, each time covering more and more land like some fungal blight on the terrestrial sphere. The Roman Empire shattered the system of wolf clans in Celtic Europe to impose its own order. Paving the way for the onslaught of the dire wolfs years later that would bring that empire to its knees. But that was the least of their worries.
The Balance between Eidolon and the Terrestrial worlds had skewed further asunder with the fall of the great wolf clans at the hands of the Romans. This imbalance opening the way for the minions of a hitherto unknown third world, now known as the Aphotic Terrene to enter the Terrestrial sphere in greater numbers and with greater power than ever before. Their creatures had been small and mostly powerless before, but it soon became clear that it had been their influence over the humans that had pulled them away from the Eidolon. It was they who taught the humans to make tools and master fire. It was they who motivated the humans to forge empires and lay waste to the natural balance. The Eidolon’s view had always been in the now, but the Aphotic took the long view, now the time had come for their labors to bear fruit.
It is more or less at this time that the Snake people, possibly the first of the hybrids, who walk in both Terrestrial and the Eidolon worlds, predicted the emergence of a malevolent being they called the “Mind Bender”, son of the “Devourer of Souls”, the dark lord of the Aphotic Terrene. Who’s nature was diametrically opposed to the Eidolon in almost every way.
The Mind Bender was born under poorly documented circumstances to a supposed virgin woman in an obscure little town. The Snake people had foretold his coming and those who had heeded the warnings tried to eliminate him before he grew to power, but they failed. He grew of age and collected around him what the snake people call the twelve acolytes of the Aphotic Terrene. He supposedly does many good and miraculous things, so the stories tell, though those stories were mostly written by his followers. However, if he was such a good man, why was he feared by the other humans? The leaders of his community feared he would wrest control of the people from them. The Romans supposedly did not fear his magic, but they envied his ability to bend the minds of others to his will. In their human minds, it was certainly deemed a power worthy of capture and captured he was. The Mind Bender was sentenced to death, but not before being tortured to reveal his secrets. Those secrets were useless his Roman captors, for they had no strong connections to the Aphotic Terrene nor the Eidolon. They were just humans.
The lifeless body of the Mind Bender was stolen in the night by his Acolytes. A vile sort of “last supper” was then committed where the 12 consumed the body and blood of the Mind bender in a desperate attempt to preserve his power and maintain their connection to the Aphotic Terrene. Surprisingly, they were successful, and thus were the first generation of the Deoc Huile (Blood Drinkers) emerged into the Terrestrial sphere, created in what they more tastefully called “the Awakening”.
Working in secret, these Deoc Huile would bring about the corruption and subsequent fall of the Roman Empire and the usher in the “Dark Age” where the followers of the Mind Bender would attempt to rule the world from behind the scenes, using the “church” of the Mind Bender, and through the preservation of the Aphotic technologies developed by the Romans. Heedless to the servants of the Eidolon, they sought to turn humanity to their own purposes.
The Deoc were known to live for about 100 years, approximately 3 times the “normal” average lifetime in the Roman age. This caused them to periodically take on new lives and identities in faraway lands. Each of the first generation left shortly after the “awakening” to start a new life spread the words of the Mind Bender, and train their replacement.
During the fourth generation of the Deoc (about 400 AD), one of the recent scions of the 12, fourth in the line of Petros, known as Palladius and later known as Patrick, enters the lands of what would eventually become Ireland. There he used his powers to drive out the largest tribe of snake people, the Tuatha de Dannan, from their ancestral home. With the snakes no longer in influence, he was free to turn the humans towards the path of the Mind Bender. Over time, as Palladius gave way to his second life as Patrick, he had accumulated 36 devoted followers, more than any other Deoc in history. He did not want to choose a single apprentice to take his place, as had been the tradition among the Deoc for centuries, for he found all his most devout to be worthy. Thus it was that Patrick was the first of the Deoc to break the chain of the 12.
This is when Patrick (nee Palladus) tried to convert his followers into Deoc Huile just as the Mind Bender did. The Deoc, in order to pass their power along, had to give up all their blood to their apprentice. Patrick instead divided his body and blood among the 36 devoted followers in mimicry of the Mind Benders “last Supper”. His goal was to vastly increase the number of Deoc Huile in the world beyond the original 12 in order to better serve his master. However, he was only partially successful and the sub species of Blas Huile (the blood tasters) were created. Upon his death, Palladius/Patrick’s lead acolyte Secundinus, later known as Artorius became the leader of the 36 original Blas Huile and the line of Petros effectively came to an end.
Rejected as inferior by the Deoc, the Blas Huile continued to live in Isolation in the British Isles for several generations until the after the great war of the Deoc. There in isolation The Blas' numbers slowly grew as they discovered how to create more than one replacement scion. An ability not shared by the Deoc. Instead of comsuming the blood of the master, a mixing of the blood was effected, which allowed for multiple scions. Despite this advantage, the feelings of inferiority to the Deoc never leave them.
In the fifth generation, Blind devotion to the Ideals of Mind Bender had begun to erode among the remaining eleven Deoc. Some of the Deoc though that they should be seeking the favor of the father (the Devourer of Souls) over that of the son (the Mind Bender), declaring that the messenger was not as important as the message, and the message came from the father, not the son.
Abu al-Qasim, One of the fifth generation Deoc from the line of Didymus, A Deoc who had issues with the Mind Benders claims of divinity from the beginning, and well into his third lifetime under the name of Mohammed, created a new philosophy that ran counter to the prevailing Cult of the Mind Bender. Where there is no god but GOD, and Mohammed was his one true prophet. At first, this was tolerated by the other followers of the Mind Bender as this new philosophy was restricted to lands outside of the Cult’s influence. It was only when, during the seventh generation of the Deoc, the followers of Mohammed took the Holy City of the Awakening and things began to get ugly.
Eventually, Early in the tenth generation, things came to a head when the remaining 10 followers of the Mind Bender all decided to split and go their own ways and follow their own paths. (The East-West Schism of 1054 AD). The larger portion remained true to the original cult of the mind bender from their place in Rome to the west, while others broke off and formed a new order in the city of Constantinople to the East. It was suggested that one or two might have gone elsewhere, but that has not been proven. A three way split, all with opposing viewpoint, all laying claim to the city of the Awakening. It seemed war was inevitable.
The War of the Deoc (AKA the Crusades) is fought during the 10th generation of the Deoc. Called forward by the 10th Deoc in the Line of Shimon (AKA Kepha) Of the West against both the Deoc of the East AND the Cult of the Father to the South. Most of the Deoc on all sides are eventually destroyed and none save their human followers remained to mop up the mess.
Eidolon was not lost during this millennia of Aphotic domination, despite the efforts of the Blas and the ravages of the Humans. It adapted. Seeing an opportunity in the fall of the Deoc Huile, Eidolon brought about the plague know as the Black Death to further bring the humans down, so in humility they would turn back to nature and restore the balance.
Unfortunately, this left the way open for the Blas Huile, the lesser evil, to thrive. They spread out across the known world filling the void left by Deoc and human alike and established their little fiefdoms, collecting stray Hybrids to boost their power and blood from humans to enforce their domination. More human that the Deoc, once settled, their inherent sense of inferiority to the Deoc, however unfounded, drove them to dominate as many as they could. The Borgias of Renaissance Italy, the Mongol Invasions, the Ottoman Empire, the Nazi, and so forth. Eidolon, in response to this new threat, created a new spirit, the Mind Hunter. A spiritual being that would strive to understand nature in ways never thought of before, true science was born, but still the tide was not stemmed.
The Invasion of the Americas by the Spanish was entirely human, but the later colonization was made by the Blas and the free hybrids. The Subjugation of the Native Americans was Blas driven, as was the enslavement of the Africans. The partitioning of the African continent in the 18th and 19th centuries by European nations was entirely human without Blas or Hybrid influence, but still tore the tiger clans apart. The Dragons were brought low as well, first by the invasion of the Japanese during WW2 and later by the Communist Revolution. Even the True human were scattered or corrupted by invaders from across the seas.
The Eidolon has grown weak, The terrestrial corrupt, and the Aphotic Terrene stagnant
…Which brings us to the modern day.
Copyright 2012 De Planetae: Traveling the interweave. All rights reserved.
Rick Wasserman
Knoxville, TN
RickWass