The Durance and the Despiser's history

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Where does the threat of the skurj fit into the history of the Despiser's quest to destroy the world?

They would have awoken the Worm of the World's End if they had run their course. There seem to be two main options for their origins: either they are a bane that the Despiser forged in the foundations of the Earth, or one he created during his millennia of imprisonment. It seems as if there is no place for them to have been created by, say, "the cunning folk who would one day give birth to Kasreyn of the Gyre," especially if Foul's interaction with those folk constituted "an age of failure." Unless the "failure" of the skurj to destroy the world was the reason "the age" counted in Foul's eyes that way.

Perhaps the Demimages of Vidik Amar unleashed them. Findail does describe some of the interventions of the Elohim as directed towards less dire threats than others. Perhaps the skurj were recognized as a gravid danger by the Elohim, but only if allowed to go out of control. So Foul could regard the quellvisks as his "only dangerous achievement" at that time, since they, at the time, got farther than the skurj (which the Elohim maybe quickly sealed off). I don't get the impression that SRD engineers his stories in this way, though.

A third option is that they were forged by some other power without the Despiser's input. Suppose it was one of the Insequent. However, only the Theomach is known to have humiliated an Elohim and surely leading Kastenessen to his doom would have counted as a grave humiliation (unless, by the inverted logic of people like Infelice, Kastenessen's having a mortal lover degraded him to where the Insequent's doom for him was accepted by the other Elohim as fit punishment for his in their eyes already attained self-abasement?). —On the other hand, the Insequent do not desire the destruction of the Earth. (This they share with the Elohim, but if there is even one Elohim who proved willing to end the world (Kastenessen?), maybe there proved to be one Insequent who proved likewise willing.)

A croyel? Roaming around far to the north of the Land, a croyel or, let's just go with a horde of 'em, a horde of croyel, cooks up the skurj. Even in brighter language, this would seem a difficult route for SRD to go in order to explain the reason for the Durance.

The Viles, wandering far to the north? They did like messing around with the deep places of the Earth. A rogue Elohim like Kastenessen? That would connect it to a deeper Elohim history, possibly even explain the decay of that ring of trees in Elemesnedene (if it somehow represented the sickening by the skurj of plant life). The Giants, during some primordial age of their civilization? (Note how they have a quasi-technical name for the creatures: were-menhirs, which means something that transforms into stone ("Stone"), in this case something that is lava, a liquid ("Sea," metaphorically) form of stone, permanence in rest and motion simultaneously. Consider also Foamfollower's transfiguration in Hotash Slay.)

A wizard? Kasreyn made a massive cyclone prison for monsters that are comparable in individual power to, and currently allied with, the skurj. So no less than one wizard is known to have power over an entire species of monsters comparable in ferocity to those sealed in the Durance, although the wizard arguably depended on the collaboration of croyel in order to his triumph (thus negating an earlier paragraph partway). (Sandgorgons Doom is even like the Durance. Just imagine that as the impetus for the Sandgorgons teaming up with the skurj: both forms of life know what it's like to be trapped by epic magic.) Does it stand to reason that some other wizard out there might've had the power to create a species of such monsters?

They replicate quickly, from their own dead even. So a wizard making just a few of them, and then having them swarm out of control and threaten the Earth, is plausible, maybe.

That leaves room for another new character, or at least another new backstory, in TLD.

"Of course, it if was a wizard, Jerry, it might as well have been Kasreyn's kin." The interdimensional Giant addressed Jeremiah with a British accent.

"Maybe it was a Giant wizard!" Jeremiah exclaimed. Linden smiled at her son's theory, but thought it sounded perhaps like fan fiction.

EDIT: Plus, they might be one of those damn random confluences or w/e of Earthpower, like the Sandgorgons again, only diseased. Maybe they're mutants who ate an ancient bane, even. Like they roamed the depths of the Earth and accidentally devoured something under Gravin Threndor.

Too many damn options!

[shadowbinding shoe]

My current guess is that originally they were natural creatures who roamed in the depths of the earth. Something in the long past broke the separation between this underground lava world and the surface. Maybe it WAS a wizard, shivering to the bone from the cold of the north who thought it would be nice to get some heat from the fabled Seeps to warm himself up. In any case, the creatures who climbed up were transformed by their new environment and became the Skurj.

[Frostheart Grueburn]

That leaves room for another new character, or at least another new backstory, in TLD.

"Of course, it if was a wizard, Jerry, it might as well have been Kasreyn's kin." The interdimensional Giant addressed Jeremiah with a British accent.

"Maybe it was a Giant wizard!" Jeremiah exclaimed. Linden smiled at her son's theory, but thought it sounded perhaps like fan fiction.

Onyx Stonemage is clearly the answer here. Either she descends directly from this primordial giant wizard, or is actually the same character in clever disguise!

Just wait, and she will unsheathe her magical granite glaive at a crucial point in TLD and shout an ancient Giantish incantation. Rainbow light will blast through the ether, limning her graceful, delicate 11-foot frame of muscle and sinew with swirling argence and pink sparkles, thus bringing forth the revelation that she is actually the fabled Giant Sorceress Warrior Princess, who shall save the Land with her all-healing laughter, unmake the evil-turned skurj, and guide the brave company battling against the nefarious forces of Lord Foul through the deep gloom of the last dark with the light of her magical sword held aloft.

[Savor Dam]

Frosty...are you "running this up the flagpole to see who salutes" for your Bad Writing game submission? You may be onto something there.

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Nope...such things occur if I have too much sugar with my tea. And even without. For some reason, I was remembering the dreadful She-Ra cartoon earlier today.

The crap I grew up with...no wonder my brain's permanently addled.

And now that there's a legitimate chance to advertise it: anyone interested in an exercise in crack writing, create your own ending to TLD!

[shadowbinding shoe]

Ah! Haven't noticed the new contest in the Bad Writing thread. I'm definitely in. (still haven't done the second entry I promised for the bad drawing thread. Am I the one responsible for its long coma? I should definitely get back to that too.)