Created by Stonemaybe
The Iksphikix
First Age
Stonemaybe wrote:
‘The Iksphikix, a History', by Suf-j, Masterharper of Thellarr.
The Iksphikix were extinct as a society by the time of the First Divine Wars between the Gods. Individuals were rumoured to have survived until that time, in the more remote corners of the oceans, shunning contact with other races. Occasional encounters with merfolk, usually in the form of assistance offered to those in extremity, fed these rumours. Only a handful of such encounters, and none reliably reported, occurred in over five hundred years, but these nevertheless kept the Iksphikix alive in the folklore of the marine races, and the reports were even recorded by a select few land-based bestiarists.
Hence a detailed history of Iksphikix society involves a substantial amount of guesswork. This scholar has studied the oldest records of the merfolk of Mer Solus, where the memory of the Iksphikix is held in highest regard, and excavated certain ruins on remote islands, and feels that the following treatise, though far from complete, is as succinct an account as is possible in this day and age. It can only be hoped that with the recent Great Necromance, confirmation may be obtained from undead Iksphikix in the near future.
The Iksphikix were a crustacean race, in appearance similar to a giant sized crab. About the height of a normal human in their ‘shells’, they were probably about ten times as massive, measuring a metre from front to back, and almost twice that from side to side. However, from early in their history, they seem to have been able to dispense with their shells, although they still utilized them as humans do clothes, armour, weapons, and tools. I say armour and tools, but the Iksphikix were overwhelmingly a peaceful society. Martial pursuits were generally limited to driving off vicious marine monsters.
Like all crustaceans, Iksphikix were a long-lived race. An agricultural, pastoral society, and generally of a benign disposition, they were in a unique position among the intelligent races in that they could cultivate both beneath the waves and on land. In general, their land-based activities were limited to remote, otherwise uninhabited islands, where their presence did not intrude on the more war-like societies of Eiran.
However, their isolation did not protect their society. Their success in agriculture and the riches it provided, proved to be their downfall. As the other races of Eiran evolved, they called forth gods to be worshipped and to protect them. These were the gods of the dawn of civilization. The Iksphikix had never been theologically inclined, and as the only marine society of the time, found themselves disadvantaged. No God of the Sea arose to protect their interests, yet a Pantheon of land-based gods saw the Iksphikix’s advanced society as an opportunity for their own advancement, and sent prophets and priests to convert them.
The Iksphikix innocently rejected these overtures, and soon suffered the consequences. Their settlements on land were wiped out and their marine towns came under attack from the followers of the new gods.
Although individually physically powerful, the Iksphikix had no tradition of collective warfare. Their innate ‘magical’ abilities were based on agriculture and communication rather than aggression. Within a few years, every major Iksphikix settlement was destroyed or abandoned.
Initially in this turbulent time, the more confrontational members of the Iksphikix rose to positions of importance. Powerful war-shells were developed and utilized in skirmishes with the persecuting religious cults. Successful in the short-term, they nevertheless backfired on the Iksphikix, attracting the divine retribution of the new gods. The confrontational leaders were soon deposed.
The Iksphikix culture had all but disappeared by this stage of history. Only a few hundred remained. Fearing more attacks should they found more settlements, individuals remained apart, concentrating their efforts on stealth and establishing hidden refuges. A language was developed so that they could communicate over vast underwater distances, without coming into physical proximity. Their birthrate, never high, fell to zero.
Gradually, as they became less visible to the outside world, their perceived importance to the gods and their followers diminished.
As the Iksphikix communication system grew stronger, and the threat to their existence receded, Iksphikix magical abilities developed, mainly in the spheres of stealth, subterfuge, and guerilla politics. Perhaps their most important innovation derived from mother-of-pearl. A coating was developed for their shells, utilizing a ‘negative’ of mother-of-pearl, which hid the Iksphikix from the sight of the gods. This enabled the Iksphikix to take a much more aggressive posture towards their culture’s destroyers. Having learnt their lesson regarding direct confrontation, the Iksphikix now began to meddle in the relationships between the gods. Able to act invisibly to the gods, and to communicate instantaneously over any distance, they were hugely successful in stirring up trouble between gods with opposing viewpoints. Wars inevitably followed, small at first but growing until all Eiran was involved, and inevitably the gods themselves went to war, with disastrous consequences. Most of Eiran and her peoples were destroyed.
The Iksphikix had gained their revenge. However, as a basically benevolent race, most of the Iksphikix survivors were dismayed at the results of their meddling. They devoted their attention to helping the survivors of Eiran, teaching marine agriculture and how to live off the bounty of the sea. Foreseeing that in time more gods would arise, this welfare had another importance to the Iksphikix. The individuals and communities so helped were ‘encouraged’ to evolve, and became the marine races of today, the merfolk, the niaids, the undines, the kelpies, the sirens, the tritons, the limmiad, the nix and the oceanids. Populating the seas with intelligent races, the Iksphikix theorized that when new gods arose, the marine races would raise their own god to protect them. And thus it proved, with first Solus and now Undine holding court over the underwater world.
Thus the importance in history of the Iksphikix cannot be overstated. Fragments of their shells have been raised to the surface of the seas by Undine, to limit divine vision into the depths in certain parts of Eiran, and so in a way they continue to be involved in the current affairs of Eiran. The Great Necromance may prove to have many unexpected benefits to the living inhabitants of Eiran, and not least among them would be returning the Iksphikix to our world.
Appearance: The Iksphikix resembled great crabs, about as tall as a man, one meter long and two meters wide, though they could shed their shells and move about unimpeded if need be. Towards the last period of their existence, these shells were made of a mother-of-pearl-like substance that could allegedly hide them to the sight of the gods themselves. Males displayed a pattern of six to ten rows of green dots running in two lines on their shell: these dots grew lighter with age, until they became undistinguishable from the rest of the shell, usually marking the end of the male's fertility.
Habitat / Society: The Iksphikix lived on the bottom of the sea, though they were able to exist on dry land and performed a large part of their agricolture there. The Iksphikix were a social and benevolent race which saw itself as the shepherders of the marine races, and had a large part in their evolution. They were a shy race, not theologically inclined, that kept itself apart from the squabbles of gods during the First Age, but nonetheless ended up suffering because of the deities, which ultimately led to their extinction. Towards the last period of their existence, the Iksphikix had become adept at guerrilla politics, defense, and long-range communication, and their society had dissolved, turning the few remaining Iksphikix into hermits.
Ecology: The Iksphikix were omnivores, though they favored vegetables over meat, and gave rise to an agricoltural society both beneath the waves and on dry islands. Their reproductive habits were slightly different from standard crustaceans: females - slightly smaller than males, but otherwise undistinguishable by other races - would lay clusters of eggs in specially designated underwater caves known as "nests" or "birth caves", where males would fertilize them. The eggs were rather susceptible to temperature changes, so the caves were constantly guarded by Iksphikix who would also take care that no predators approached them. Though the Iksphikix could live on land, egg-laying always happened underwater, as the eggs would shrivel in dry environments. Egg incubation would take a whole year, before hatchlings would emerge, still soft and shell-less; the newborns would take over fifty years to reach their full adult size, though they reached mental maturity around age 30. A healthy Iksphikix could live up to 3-400 years, with females living slightly longer than males.
