Araxians¶
"We are all Arax, soon you will be with us." — one of the whispers of Seth'Arax heard by intruders on the Araxian Plane (S197)
The Araxians are the beetle-like hive creatures of the Elder God Seth'Arax, the Beetle-God of Supremacy, Nobility and Travail. They come in several broods, operate in swarms under Overlords, consume the dead and recycle the organic material in spawning pits, and in the Fifth Age they overran most of the human kingdoms on the north side of the Broken Sea. Behind the swarms stands the Thur'arax, the hive-mind Overlord that opens rifts to the Araxian Plane, and behind the Thur'arax stands the Pitch, the consumed souls of Seth'Arax made into a black, oozing instrument of control.
Overview¶
The latest account of the Araxians is short and plain: "They operate in swarms managed by Overlords. Their advance and expansion has been relentless, but have slowed recently. They consume the dead and recycle their organic material in spawning pits." Seth'Arax is "fully awake" in the age after the fall of the Sancturi Empire, and the Araxians are the second power of the world after the Divine, with Seth'Arax himself counted among the sources of magic through them (S112).
An older roll of the major races lists the Araxians among the great populations of the Fifth Age as "several broods under the control of Seth'Arax", and records a splinter: the Vrix, "Vermin Beetles, etc that have broken from Seth'Arax" (S024). The Araxian Empire sprawls "across the north and eastern edges of the Broken Sea", and its invasions, together with the release of several of the Elder Gods, "have led to the fall of every human kingdom on the north side of the Broken Sea" (S076). Proturas is described as "the last bastion of the Kalari races in the north-eastern part of Astia" after the Second Araxian invasion (S077).
The hive is literal. When a man of the Sancturi campaign was killed and brought back in an Araxian body, that body was "part of the Hive": he heard "Araxian whispers in an alien tongue", could sense the distance of the hive but nothing else, and "feels very uneasy in his own skin". A mortal whose soul is entwined with the hive without belonging to it is worse off still; Araxians can neutralize her easily and the powerful ones can control her outright (S198).
Gap
No source describes an Araxian body in detail, their lifecycle beyond the spawning pits, their language, or how an Overlord differs from the Thur'arax. The Vrix are named once and never described.
The Araxian Wars¶
The Proturan chronicles record two Araxian wars in the calendar of Proturas. The first, called simply the Araxian Wars, fell at the end of the 500s AL; Berek Beetleslayer earned his name fighting in its southern campaigns (S028, S107).
The Second Araxian War began in the 720s AL in the northern kingdoms. "After their defeat in the first war, the Araxians had reorganized and taken many subversive measures to weaken their enemies from within. This strategy seems to have paid off as the northern kingdoms fell one after another despite having numerically superior forces and generally having a significant advantage on the battlefield." The advance was held for nearly twenty years at Lorsythe, until the Lorsythian lines "broke unexpectedly and the entire kingdom fell within two years"; Droburg held two years more. The war ended with "the scorching of the south": the Proturan Brigades waged a scorched-earth counterattack that left the former lands of Lorsythe and Droburg "cursed and blighted", and "the Araxians found it difficult to project force through these barren, cursed wastelands and retreated back to their lands in the south". On the eastern flank the war caught the Oesterkull horde between two foes and drove it into Proturan vassalage; together Proturans and Oesterkull pushed the Araxians back to the falls of Dalmarond (S107).
The war reached into the Rift as well. The settlement of Lyrspire and its Terrun-side outpost in the ruins of Floren were destroyed, and Lyrspire "is now home to remnants of cut off Araxian forces"; the colony of Uthein that supplied the Proturan shipyards was lost in the same war (S066, S046). When the High Lord Councillor Harald Pallidine was assassinated in 798 AL, "evidence for the assassination points at the Araxians" (S107).
In the Sancturi reckoning, historians "mark the end of the Sancturi Age in 904 SM when the capitol Sanctorum fell to an Araxian onslaught led by the Thur'arax Dread Overlord Nikee, throwing the already besieged Sancturi Empire into complete chaos that led shortly to its fragmentation" (S112). Earlier, in the days of the Grotto, Araxians were already one of the "worsening situations" that drove old enemies to the council table alongside riftstorms and Guhvils (S006).
The Araxian kinds¶
The Araxians fought at the dwarven shipyards in the Sancturi campaign came through rifts in waves and in recognizable kinds (S197):
- Araxian Harvesters are small and weak, described as "small, weak rust monsters". They bite, and their tail sting harvests material: every sting eats away at the gear of whoever it strikes.
- Araxian Bloodbeetles come in swarms of "biting, blood sucking beetles that attach themselves to a target", draining the life from anyone caught in the swarm; those who escape must pick the beetles off one by one or burn them away.
- Araxian Beetle-Knights wield the khopesh, have high armor and strength, and can parry.
- Araxian Horned-Lords are hard-hitting beasts that prefer "to charge and impale" their targets.
- Araxian Screamers and the rarer Horned Giants also came through the rifts.
- Araxian Thralls are hosts fully controlled by a Thur'arax: at the shipyards a Frost Giant, several ogres including a two-headed one, and ogre zombies.
Gap
The Screamer is named only by a reference link and never described in the sources. The Horned Giant appears once as a possibility in a wave table.
The Thur'arax and its estates¶
A Thur'arax is the greater being of which the Pitch is the lowest form. The Sancturi campaign's account gives it five estates, from weakest to strongest (S197):
- Fifth estate, the Pitch. It cannot possess anything "but acts as a pure force of destruction".
- Fourth estate. It can fully control a single host, an Araxian Thrall, at a time, and corrupt numerous other creatures with partial control.
- Third estate. It can control multiple thralls at once by splitting itself into fragments.
- Second estate, the Araxian Focus. It can open portals to the Araxian Plane, but its core remains there while its consciousness is elsewhere.
- First estate, the Araxian Nexus. "It spans two planes at a time, the Araxian Plane and this one. It is conscious in both and needs to be killed in both!"
The Thur'arax that named itself Bhol-tho had split into fragments hiding near a dwarven power source, in cracks in the floor and in a pile of ogre corpses; the blue glow the party followed into the shipyards "is actually ancient dwarven power source the Thur'arax is using to energize itself". The warning given by the dying Lokgorm is the only remedy the sources offer: "Your only hope is to find the Thur'arax's heart on the Araxian Plane and destroy it!" Those who panic in its presence risk falling under its control, their spirit "bound in the Thur'arax Citadel" until released (S197). The Thur'arax Dread Overlord Nikee who took Sanctorum shows the title in use for the Araxians' commanders (S112).
The Pitch¶
The Pitch is "essentially an extension of Seth'Arax. Seth'Arax has consumed many of the greatest souls to walk on Terrun. These have become intertwined with his Einar soul and he can manifest themselves as 'pitch' when they are separated from him, which he uses to destroy and control. Further, each pitch can separate pieces of themselves to exert control over and/or corrupt/influence others. While this weakens the core, it can extend their control and influence dramatically. Completely destroying these satellites hurts the core." In the Elder Gods' own reckoning the Pitch is Seth'Arax's Ulraspex, the god-spirit that stands in place of an Ascendant for an Elder God who keeps no Ascendants (S101).
The Pitch takes several forms (S101, S160):
- Twisted Pitch: "dark black, pulsating and oozing areas snake across the flesh of the victim, often covering a good portion of the head". The victim keeps a portion of their consciousness but is driven by the master; the pitch enhances their body at the expense of their lifeforce.
- Spinal Pitch burrows deep, covering the spine and infecting the nervous system. The victim "look[s] the same, but can be under the complete control of the master at will", and the master can inject thoughts; it is used for infiltration and the early stages of asserting dominance.
- Swarming Pitch is a single pitch controlling hundreds of small creatures such as beetles, mice or insects, moving "like a single mind".
- Pitchwater is a swarm that "functions like a black water elemental".
- Pitchblade is "reserved for those who have dedicated themselves to Seth'Arax willingly": it infects a single limb, grants that limb powerful abilities, and collects the minion's soul on death. A pitchblade was the customary reward for passing the trials of an Araxian temple (S196).
- Pitchmorph, called Uhl'Arax in the older account, forms when a creature infected with Pitchblade, Twisted or Spinal Pitch dies: the pitch spends the body's remaining energy "in a final act to turn into a being of pure black ooze able to take many different forms", controlled by one of the lesser Uhl'Arax souls and short-lived.
A free Pitch Monster shows as "black, sticky tendrils" that do not like light; light slows and in time paralyzes it, and the Sancturi party trapped one with prisms, mirrors and shutters (S178). A Pitch has its own purposes: in the defiled Aquitanian Temple of Seth'Arax the Pitch "is trying to free its master/creator Seth'Arax" (S177). The being called Rupyt, "Merged Pitch Monster + Frost Giant", killed and drove away the other frost giants of its region and was once imprisoned in a temple built around it (S194, S196). The ogres of the Hand of Setarak worship "an awakened one" of Seth'Arax (S194).
Earlier accounts¶
The 2019 Sancturi record names the Pitch itself "Thur'Arax" and the Pitchmorph "Uhl'Arax" (S160); the later Elder Gods document gives the Pitch the -spex title Ulraspex and keeps Thur'arax for the greater Overlord-being (S101, S197, S112). The two readings are compatible if the Pitch is understood as the weakest estate of a Thur'arax.
Araxian rifts and the Araxian Plane¶
Araxian Rifts are "orange glowing rifts on the floors or walls (solid substances only) with blackened edges. Orange wispy energy emit from them as well as black flakes rising out of them." The wisps burn with necrotic cold; the flakes "bond (are absorbed into) with the target, darkening the clothing or skin", and every handful of them brings "Whispers in your mind" and saps the strength of those they settle on. Each rift comes from a den on the far side, and in battle a rift is as likely to open under a foe's feet as beside them (S197).
The Araxian Plane beyond them has a sky "black like a starless night with orange wispy clouds that dimly light the landscape. The land is bleak and looks like a volcanic wasteland." Flat, circular, perforated structures scattered across the waste are the dens that the Thur'arax wakens. Above them floats "a roughly triangular shaped structure connected to the ground by a thin column", crowned with a spinning obloid giving off pulsing orange light: the Citadel of Bhol-tho. Its lower levels are barracks for lesser Araxians, its middle levels prisons for controlled spirits that "seem dead" but can be revived, its upper tier forges working Araxian Darkmetal "imbued with the soul energies of the vanquished", and at the very top the Heart, encased in darkmetal, its surface reflecting images of the Thur'arax's lair in the mortal world. The Heart is guarded by the Faceless One, "a giant mass of beetles in the shape of a Large BeetleKnight in armor", wielding the darkmetal hammer Soulcrusher that "absorbs the souls of those it kills" (S197).
On that plane Seth'Arax whispers every few minutes: "We see you!", "We are coming!", "You will bow to us", "You bring doom upon your world!", "We will remake your world and fix that which was broken", "Arax rises again" (S197).
Chitines and the Vrix¶
The Elder Gods document directs that Seth'Arax use the Chitine "as one kind of minion" (S101). In the Drakkani Wastes the orcs keep "enslaved Chitnites (human-spiders underground miners)", and escaped Chitnites haunt the ruined dwarven fortress of Thorm'Mald (S469). The Vrix are vermin beetles that have broken from Seth'Arax (S024).
Gap
The sources do not say whether the Chitine minions of Seth'Arax and the spider-folk Chitnites of the Drakkani Wastes are the same creature, nor how either relates to the Chitines of the spider goddess Jorogu. Nothing beyond their name is recorded of the Vrix.
In Play¶
The Araxians were the principal enemy of the later Sancturi campaign: the party fought waves of them at the dwarven shipyards, defeated the Thur'arax Bhol-tho, lost and recovered a companion into an Araxian body, and left one of their number, Nicoleta, in the service of Seth'Arax as his Araxian High-General (S197, S198, S112, S076). The Proturan campaign is set after the Second Araxian invasion, with the cursed wastes of the scorched south between Proturas and the Araxian lands (S077, S107). Araxian rifts open only in solid stone or wall; a Thur'arax hides and throws minions rather than fight openly, and "a frontal assault is futile" (S197).