Bestiary

Mithrysians - by T.A. Saunders ©2010 v1.0

Stats

Description Mithrysians are a tall, gangly people with black claws, sickly grey skin and usually black hair. Their eyes are excessively large, black and bulbous to allow them to see into the infrared spectrum for up to 180 feet. They have strangely beautiful traits mingled in with horrendously monstrous ones, giving them a bizarre and awkward appearance.

Lore In 8700 BF the Dragons of Imarel assaulted the city of Mithrys and buried the unholy temple of Ghurzaj'atahk the Usurper deep underground, using powerful and ancient magic to do so. The draconic ward used to seal the dark Shar`Vaire priests, necromancers and warlocks kept them from ever escaping and would trap any unholy relics and knowledge deep below the ground to ensure Ghurzaj'atahk the Usurper would never wake from its slumber.

The ward did its job too well in some ways and failed utterly in others. These Shar`Vaire understood all too well that they were going to starve to death in the lightless doom the Dragons had sent them. With no viable escape and no way to contact the world far above thanks to the ward blocking all manner of transportation magic and any sorcerous means of communication, they were left with but one option; pray to their sleeping master and hope their pleas for power were heard in ¹Ghurza's Dreaming. As the days went on and the battle above came to a still, Ghurza did not answer and one by one, Shar`Vaire began to die of lack of water, then lack of food and as days became weeks, lack of air also began claiming lives.

Perhaps it was the death wrought along with the prayers or something else historians have yet to discover, but eventually their sleeping master heard them in its dark dream and brought them aid of the most horrible and unthinkable sort. Large slug-like creatures, the size of a small dog burrowed from the ground and began to sift amongst the remaining Shar`Vaire…many of whom had resorted to cannibalizing the dead to survive. At first, they had thought this to be some means to dig out of the ruins and return to the surface, sent to them by Ghurzaj'atahk. Yet in the rayless prison, where only candles and magic lit the way it became evident what the purposes of these creatures were as they slithered and crawled towards the remaining Shar`Vaire. With no strength left to fight off these larvae of Ghurzaj'atahk, they merely allowed the creatures to burrow into their flesh. The screams would never be heard so deep in the ground below.

These larvae are how the first generation of Mithrysians were born. Hatching fully grown from the host carcasses, they exhibited many traits of their Shar`Vaire ‘parents' yet were twisted and corrupted into something far more terrible. Subsequent generations of Mithrysians are able to simply mate with one another, rather than introduce larvae from Ghurza. However they are able to call to Ghurza's dream and bring forth a larva to introduce into nearly any sort of creature; this is often done with cave basilisks and other beasts to produce loyal servant-fiends to protect them.

Since the destruction of their Astral Fortress the Mithrysians are not found in any particular abundance. Some have escaped to the Outer Planes, some managed to hide on the surface of Imarel, but the bulk of their population remains trapped in the destroyed underground temple where they were originally imprisoned. While trapped in this manner the bulk of the Mithrysians go into a sort of suspended animation, with but a handful tending to the entire sleeping population. Nobody knows how many are in that gigantic temple; some have estimated maybe only a handful, others have rumored several hundred. Infernal by nature, the Mithrysians require almost no sustenance to survive, readily able to live on the insects and small rodents that get into the temple and that provide enough nourishment to continue existing.

Mithrysians do not take mates as far as anybody knows; they are content to simply breed with each other and the male goes his way and the female goes her own if there is no other reason or attraction between the two fiends. Mithrysian couples exist, but they are very loose in their loyalties and often remain together simply out of a mutual goal, desire or simple like for the other. Mating outside of couples happens quite often; there are simply too few of them to dispute such things. Mithrysians also live as long as their Asyndi forbearers, giving possibility of a life nearly two thousand years long.

The Mithrysians are quite intelligent, despite what their horrific visage might lead one to believe. Much like their Shar`Vaire forbearers, they are primarily magic-users, though they are also known to become dark priests of Ghurza as well as anti-paladins. There are also those Mithrysians who simply enjoy killing and those become the berserker warriors of the society. As a whole, the Mithrysian people are slaves to Ghurza's Dreaming and continually strive to free themselves from their prison so they might serve its dark will. As such, they will always put this goal ahead of all others, including personal grudges, agendas and goals.

With skeletons and claws laced with Infernium metal, there is very little need to carry a weapon of any kind although they can. These claws allow them to climb rock and dig through dirt; even though they are not able to leave the massive temple, they have dug out a cave complex around it, for a means to trap rats or other critters, or discover bug nests from which to feed. This also makes Mithrysians incredibly durable and extremely hard to severe a limb from. It is quite possible that a boulder could fall on one of these fiends and they would crawl out from underneath of it, battered and quite angry.

The greatest weakness to the Mithrysian is light. Any bright source of light causes them to become very uncomfortable and sorcerous light can do severe damage to their thin, nearly translucent grey skin. Short exposure merely burns, but any prolonged exposure can burn the skin and eventually the organs right off a Mithrysians, leaving nothing but a charred Infernium skeleton. Having been recently exposed to Sunflare Shot and Sunflare Arrowheads, the Mithrysians that travel the surface of Imarel usually wear heavy garments and possess multiple means to generate sorcerous darkness to protect themselves.

Footnote

¹Ghurza's Dreaming is in reference to the sorcerous slumber Ghurzaj'atahk the Usurper currently resides in. Unlike most deities who consciously grant their worshipers boons and answer prayers, those who pray to the Forgotten Ones are heard in the creature's subconscious mind…in effect, in its dream. So powerful are these dreams that worshipers can actually draw divine aid from them, though in many cases such aid is as dangerous to the seeker as it is to those such aid is directed upon.