VESS'KA - New Lore

New knowledge pertaining to Gothenya's oldest native species...

Vess’ka

1. The Vess’ka are a highly mysterious species. They are incredibly insular societally speaking, and tend to shun the majority of various societies at large.
2. Much of what constitutes social norms for each clutch of Vess’ka is extremely alien to “above-worlders.” The irony here being the obvious fact that these “alien” beings are essentially the oldest indigenous species on Gothenya.
3. Everyone has their place in Vess’ka society. There are jobs and apparently castes. This does not mean that they do not think for themselves or have aspirations of a personal nature. It just means they value their position in maintaining a society that is essentially the eldest in existence. The venerable structure works because it works. Consistency is paramount.
4. Allegedly, upon attaining a certain advanced age, Vess’ka are then relieved of their clutch responsibilities and find themselves able to finally pursue personal aims. Most, if not all, Vess’ka encountered “in the wild” would be considered “elderly” by approximate human standards. What old age entails for a Vess’ka, however, is quite a bit different than (and in opposition to) the norm for pretty much any other species.
5. No one is certain of the potential age span afforded to the Vess’ka. It is known that the venerable veterans encountered away from their clutches are quite formidable, and capable out outpacing the youths from a majority of other sapient species.
6. Vess’ka seem to have a thought towards an afterlife. Is it some sort of heaven? An ethereal paradise where their toils are rewarded? Likely not. It may be closer to the truth that they believe in a sort of transformational ascendancy. Perhaps it’s a bit too obvious to equate this to the lifecycle of a butterfly.
7. SPOILER - do we later discover that there was indeed another sentient progenitor species on Gothenya? One at war with and eventually wiped out by the Vess’ka. Possibly via an act so terrible that the (then) warlike insectoids instantly and permanently became pacifists.
8. Building on 7, this other early native species could be a classic hyperborean style race of serpent people. The Ythil. Or something.
9. The Vess’ka have a small portion of their consciousness that exists in a sort of non-linear space. They experience this not with the immediacy of “the moment,” but more as a memory… of things past, now… and ultimately to come. They are the true prognosticators of future history. They understand that this is not an oxymoron or a paradox.

SOMETHING ELSE ABOUT THE VESS’KA

1. They utilize a form of hive mind themselves, but not always. Sort of like the Seraph, and possibly like the Eret Si’nu.
2. Do they share some sort of dimensional link? For they too don’t quite experience linear time the way most mortals do.

Language of the Vess'Ka

1. The Vess’ka - communication maybe not via telepathy, rather through airborne pheromone transmission. These particulates carry memories that are ingested and interpreted by a special sensory organ. It processes the information in the pheromones - actual experiential memories from the transmitting vess’ka. These become actual memories to the receiver, and are interpreted and assimilated as if they were experienced in the same manner as the originator. They only have a vague intellectual sense that these new memories were generated independently of them.
2. If they cannot speak, and as no other species has the proper organic equipment to properly receive their pheromones, the Vess’ka have themselves been widely misunderstood (and even vilified). This led them to choose isolation in order to help protect them from a world largely incapable of interpreting or understanding them.
3. How did they eventually learn to communicate with others? Artificial pheromone processors? A use of magic to alter the outgoing pheromones, making them semi-compatible with others? These others wouldn’t assimilate the memories in the same manner. They wouldn’t have that sense of amnesia regarding the individuality of “self.” The Vess’ka would transmit memories, simplified to express only surface details, no emotions or subtext. Nothing to convince the recipient of their own mutual experience. It is also considered vulgar by the Vess’ka forced to utilize this “low” communication, lacking all greater meaning or context.
4. Or a learned ability to harness the Eret Si’nu in a manner necessary to perform something akin to telepathy?
5. It seems clear that genetic time travel would be easily linked to this collective memory transference. It might even be the case that one would have to take the drug psychopomp in order to even communicate with the Vess’ka.
6. And it is of course addictive. And fatal to the Vess’ka from which it was procured. How badly must they wish to communicate that they would sacrifice their own kind to achieve it?
7. Evolutionary - Could they have once been the prey of creatures with exceptional hearing? Ones that had an equally terrible sense of smell? This could lead to why pheromone transmission became the operative form of communication.
8. Could the pheromones travel on waves of music? If such transmission were to be, then perhaps the ancient apex predator was actually soothed by the music, making them pause before killing their prey? The pheromones traveling with it might even be a fluke that happened to carry this property of memory transfer. It may even have been that it was useless until a line of Vess’ka mutated to evolve the proper receptors.
9. Does the language of the Eret Si’nu, the language of magic, have a name? Formal or otherwise? Pholisthal?
10. Languages of Law & Chaos. These might be offshoots or directly representative of the Vu’un language. What if the Vu’un represented law and the Vala’suun chaos?