Hecath

A Dragonmoth or Asteria Symbiont. The Hecath Pilot
is visible only as a few strands on the head.

The Hecath, or sometimes Hecaat, are an odd, fungal-insectoid race indigenous to the plane of Waking Materia. They were one of the dominant civilizations in the plane's Dawn Age, prior to the arrival of the interplanar First Empires of Man, and have been the major nonhumanoid sentients on Materia thereafter. They are the only Arthropoids in the planar region.

The Hecath are actually a gestalt of two unrelated species, symbiotically linked: fungal saprolings lead by their highly intelligent Queens and a pony-sized, insectoid species that looks somewhere between a moth, a dragonfly and a pangolin, called dragonmoths. Saprolings take on various physiologies in adulthood, similar to ants and termites. One of the forms they can take is a "pilot", who grafts itself to a dragonmoth's brain, granting it higher intelligence and a drive to cooperate with the saprolings. These intelligent duos are called symbionts.

The Hecath do not typically trust or even fathom humanoid societies, though a few historical exceptions, most famously a gregarious queen named Raggedy Azra, did establish relations with the New Rozsan Empire, through the efforts of xenobiologist and Lichlord Vierix Clymenikari.

Only a few remote populations remain after the utter planar destruction of the Deluge, mainly on the far Voidward island of Ilhalvalaut and the subterranean expanses beneath Western Marai. Additionally, the highly mysterious Ghost Ships of Xois are thought to be Hecath colonies.

Description

See also: Hecath, Queens & Nurseries Image Gallery (External)

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Famed Hecath Queen, Raggedy Azra.

Etymology

Confusingly, the name derives from the Ancient Rozsan name Hecaat, meaning "Three Faces", despite the hecath being a symbiosis of only two species. The mistake was the perception saprolings alone were already two species: observers mistook the lesser saprolings and their Queens being unrelated, as opposed to different roles within a species, like ants and termites. Thus, they were named thinking it was three total species—the dragonmoths, the saproling workers and the saproling Queens—living in tandem.

Individually, the Rozsans called the fungi and moths krios and asteria, respectively. 'Krios' is shortening of krietnos, Rozsan for "few yet many", to reflect the confusion around how independent-minded each saproling really was. Aside from the Queens and the symbionts, saprolings did not show a strong sense of individuality.

The dragonmoths' Rozsan name asteria was simpler: a combination of aster ("star") and the suffix-conjugation -ia (denotes progeny or inheritors). These "star-children" were so named because of their starry plumage of fine, branching leaf-fur; the tips could even glow if the moths so desired.

Biology

All but a few humanoid scientists believed the dragonmoths & saprolings were independently intelligent and merely cooperative, however it's more complex. Separately, neither species are intelligent, with the exception of saproling Queens and the symbionts.

Krios Saprolings

The krios saprolings begin their lives as tiny, embryonic drones, living on mounds of "land stromatolites". Most grow into larger drone-sentinels called komainu, which generally act as warriors, labourers or medics/nurses. The rarest few become Queens: intelligent, chemo-empathetic command centres of each region.

But there is yet another aspect to the saprolings: while most drones become komainu, a rare few become pilots: a leech-like form that hugs the dragonmoth's skull, implants "roots" in their brain and grants them higher intelligence, on par with humans. Vierix Clymenikari believed that this was more of a partnership rather than pure control by the pilots, similar to a soldier and their horse. The partners are called symbionts.

Clymenikari noted that Queens tended to be served by a few dozen of these symbionts (rarely more than sixty or seventy), in addition to a much larger number of drones, komainu and domestic dragonmoths. Supposedly there were dozens, perhaps hundreds of Queens across the plane.

Though usually loyal to the Queens, "defectors" among the intelligent symbionts were attested to in Clymenikari's later memoirs. She did not mention them early on apparently because she was afraid these defectors would be seen as a threat by the Empire; she did not want to be party to genocide.

Krios Nurseries

The bustling activity of the tiny, infant saproling drones deposits intricate patterns of sediment, layer by layer, until they create enormous "land stromatolites" which Clymenikari called nurseries. These formations take the astounding shape of upside-down cones, standing on their pointed end. This is due to the gradually increasing diameter of the layers, each which can be imagined as coin-shaped. Thus, a stack of wider and wider sedimentary "coins".

The best preserved nurseries that have survived to the Third Age are those found in the gorge-mazes of Oloraan in the far-eastern reaches of The Skylands. The Arakh that reside there call them Sha-Magh, which translates to "starseeds". Their astounding preservation is due to an otherwise unknown type of "time magic" possessed by the Queens.

The Asteria Dragonmoths

Without symbiosis with the above-mentioned krios pilots, asteria are not naturally intelligent and mostly act as livestock. (If the intelligent symbionts have an issue with this, Clymenikari was not aware.) Wild dragonmoths were also known.

A drawing of the famed Hecath Queen Raggedy Azra in radial form
from the notes of Vierix Clymenikari.

Beliefs

Ilautian Hecath have a set of beliefs—vaguely analogous a religion—around the nameless Queen who first dreamt of taking to the sky, and from these dreams taught her favoured komainu to become the first pilots. Other such beliefs among other populations remain unshared with Humanoids.

History

Scholars are reasonably certain the Hecath lived for a long time during the Dawn Era, prior to the arrival of the First Empires, though this is only rough speculation based on the makeup of their uncanny, monolithic nurseries. They were an enigmatic species that took little interest in humans. They almost never ventured outside Hecath lands as they found the absence of their families' chemical signals too unsettling.

The Kelpeater Empire

The relatively uncurious Kelpeater Empire were aware of the Hecath but were oblivious to their intelligence, and as such conducted no interspecies diplomacy with the fungal insectoids.

The New Rozan Empire

The Queens very much had independent personalities and while most distrusted humanoids too much for friendship, some famous individuals seemed to have more gregarious natures, and would engage in exchanges of information with curious humanoids, most famously the Lichlord, xenoanthropologist and Herald of Nir, Vierix Clymenikari. She was able to befriend a particularly gregarious Hecath Queen by the word-name of Raggedy Azra. They developed a shared sign language as humanoids were incapable of the Hecath's scent-based language, and across decades exchanged untold amounts of cross-cultural information.

The Nireauan Hyperion Cults

A popular and bizarre set of Hyperion Cults came late in the First Age, as the politics between Nireau and the Hecath intensified. News of the "secret talks" between Clymenikari and Raggedy Azra are not difficult to find despite only a few surviving Nireauan libraries, suggesting this was a popular topic. The demigodlike power of the Queens became better understood by average Nireauans, and reaction was so polarized that factions came to blows in several well-publicized skirmishes, most famously The Hemlock Veldt Disaster.

When they were merely eccentric, semi-intelligent fungus-bugs, the Hecath were a passing curiosity through much of Nireau's history. When it was revealed the fungus-bugs were lead by their own pantheon of divine monarchs—in the form of the morphic, time-bending Queens—most reacted with fear. However a notable minority viewed this new breed of god as marvelous, and worth at least respect if not veneration.

To Professor Clymenikari's abject fear, Hyperion Cults began to pop up around her and Raggedy Azra. Philosophies varied in detail, but in general these cultists sought to join the Hecath in their "Hivemind World" and there either find "Paradise" or receive insights into its creation. (This is based on a false understanding of the Hecath's scent-based communication, which is easy to mistake for telepathy.) The unwilling new Cult Gods—Clymenikari particularly, who was herself a Nireauan and knew their entitled disposition—saw many bad outcomes from this partnership and few good ones.

Clymenikari asked the ruling Temporal Vanguard to find ways to discourage the cult, arguing they were a source of tension with a powerful potential enemy. Horror struck a second time: The Vanguard agreed, but thought a more permanent solution was pragmatic. Nef and Lakodalmas personally laid waste to the three major cult Halls in a violent arcane conflagration, leaving scattered survivors to warn of what happened that night. Nonetheless, diplomatic relations with the Hecath were better for it.

The Ghost Ships of Xois

Earliest reports of the Ghost Ships of Xois begin late in the First Age. They are now believed to be aquatic colonies of Hecath, though their nature and goals remain utterly mysterious.

Third Age

Most lineages of the Hecath seem to have been wiped out by the Deluge, save for four small populations. One population (perhaps populations) is the Ghost Ships of Xois mentioned above. Two populations have evolved to a wingless, subterranean subspecies; they maintain scattered Queendoms beneath the Emerald Expanse of western Marai and the volcanic archipelago known as the Spine of Jorm, east of the Broken Empire. The former are a highly reclusive people, while the latter maintain chilly relations with the marvelous dwarven civilization of Nibelheim.

The only surviving population of the original, surfacer Hecath are found in the jungles of Voidward Ilhalvalaut. Here they are mostly cordial with the local eladrin, who leave much of the diplomacy up to clerics of the Sword of Morningtide, a largely benevolent group that seeks to coexist with nature in all its forms.

Though there are thought to have been dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Hecath Queens prior to the arrival of the First Empire of Man, there are now thought to only be about ten across the entire plane: the Nibelheimer population is thought to only have one Queen; the Maraian and Ilautian populations two each, and there are an estimated four to six Ghost Ships, each presumed to have a single Queen.

Magic

It is written the Hecath had their own unique form of magic which Lichlord Nef—with Clymene's reluctant guidance—attempted to understand/reproduce but failed. It seemed to be 'time' magic of some sort, and the Hecath did not appear to perceive time linearly. This power was allegedly outside the ken of even the wisest humans, though there is some lingering rumour that Clymenikari was eventually able to develop some grasp of it and, adding this sort of time magic to her own wizardly repertoire, became an influential demigod that acted in defense of the Hecath.