The Ceres was a
Mammen trade ship that sailed from the city of
Ruzrugh in 279 and washed ashore in Roaroux five months later. Its legend would become part of the tale around the
Vampire Lord known as Gnawer.
The Real Ceres
The truth is muddy. The Ceres was a newer trade vessel at the time, a caravel designed for long travel across the seas. Records from Ruzrugh state that it had gone on five voyages prior to its final fated trip.
Gnawer by Jarhed
The small crew is said to have consisted of:
- Benegal, the captain
- Nehal, the navigator
- Anguri, the first mate
- Kahoda, the deckhand
- Srijan, the cabin boy
Alongside this, there was the stowaway Santosh, the only survivor, who was using the ship to gain passage away from Udai.
Many know this crew is far too small to operate this type of ship, which causes some to believe that the real cause of the tragedy was poor management of the ship by Captain Benegal.
The Strait of Ildial is the most dangerous sea in the world, and therefore many believe that it was simply the rough waves.
However, the ship was meant to go east to Martinau, yet it went southeast. The Strait of Ildial and Roaroux were not in their charted course, they were nowhere near the intended path.
Thus, many wonder if it truly was a Vampire, particularly Gnawer, that could have set them off course and caused the ship to crash.
The Ceres of Legend
To get a better understanding of the Ceres, one must look into how it is portrayed in the tale of Gnawer. How much of this is truth and how much is fiction is difficult to understand, as much of it follows what the sole survivor, a stowaway named Santosh recounted (though, of course, sensationalized).
Gnawer is written as a series of letters and other written accounts of semi-true events that are turned into a narrative by its author Pomp Cwildred.
In the story, Santosh is aboard the Ceres as it takes off. He is injured and seeking passage across the
Strait of Ildial to
Elone, and the crew, particularly the Captain, let him aboard.
Captain Benegal is the point of view for this section, writing a letter describing his crew disappearing, the ship making strange noises, and their path being off. It is an eerie chapter filled with tension, as Benegal also continuously checks in on the injured Santosh.
Benegal even believes he sees the silhouette of a Korvian dressed regally sitting on the ship, but he often disappears before Benegal can get a good look at him. This is, of course, Gnawer, the Vampire Lord of legend.
Ultimately, Santosh reveals himself to be the one behind it all, and a frantic final letter from Benegal is at the end before he, too, is killed and his letters wash up in Roaroux with the wreckage of the ship.
The story ends saying that Santosh was not a part of the ship's crew, and was sent onto the ship by Gnawer himself to prepare for Gnawer to arrive. He was an attendant and thrall of Gnawer, not an injured man. It then continues in further chapters by saying that Gnawer rampaged in Roaroux for some time thanks to its weather conditions before being defeated.
In truth, Gnawer survived the time of the Ceres and Pomp Cwildred, but the ship remains in legend as the method that brought him to his doom, the end of the line, yet it is also a sign of fated voyages destined to end in tragedy.
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