Hekatonkhire

[Obsidian Soul]

I was looking through B&E last night and I relized that there are at least four types of hekatonkhire.  You have the dead behemoths.  You have the ones who were formed during the death of the Primordials, like Vodok, from the spilt ichor and hatred.  You have the ones who were formed by the dreams of the Malfeans, like Loras, Death Sun.  The final type though is most interesting.  The last type are the former souls of the dead Primordials.  The living souls were forced to become dead souls and the souls already slain reformed as things dead.  


In effect, the fourth type of hekatonkhire should be the most powerful and the most sapient.  There are at least thirteen Malfeans, one for each of the Deathlords, though there may be more, so there should be at least thirteen former Fetiches.  There may be more, as the slain Fetiches that were later replaced during the Primordial War would have reformed when the titans died.  There are probably hundreds of former Third Circle Souls.  I also posit that, since the souls of the dead Primordials were transformed or reformed, their souls went through the same process, resulting in thousands of former Second Circle Souls.  Therefore, there are at least thirteen hekatonkhire more powerful than anything in Creation or Malfeas except for Ligier, hundreds that are as powerful as the Celestial Incarna and thousands that are as powerful as the Gods.  This means that within the Labyrinth there are forces powerful enough to conquer Creation or to destroy it.  


One can only assume that they don't approve of the Malfeans plan to destroy Creation and turn everything to Oblivion.  Otherwise, Creation would already be dead.  Perhaps these former souls are seeking to resurrect their former masters, so that they might live again as well, and are trying to moderate the insanity of the dead Titans so that they have enough time to do so.  Perhaps they quietly oppose the Deathlords and will work against them if it seems that they might succeed in their plans.  Perhaps they have their own plans for Creation.  After all, a Conclave of Thirteen Fetichs, a few hundred Third Circle Souls and a couple of thousand Second Circle Souls would be difficult to stop.  I wonder if even all of the armies of Heaven could stop them.

 

[Flagg]

Therefore' date=' there are at least thirteen hekatonkhire more powerful than anything in Creation or Malfeas except for Ligier, hundreds that are as powerful as the Celestial Incarna and thousands that are as powerful as the Gods.[/quote']
I don't see how this necessarily follows from what you said above.


-S

 

[Seiraryu]

Therefore' date=' there are at least thirteen hekatonkhire more powerful than anything in Creation or Malfeas except for Ligier, hundreds that are as powerful as the Celestial Incarna and thousands that are as powerful as the Gods.[/quote']
I don't see how this necessarily follows from what you said above.


-S

Me neither, Still.  However, I have thought extensively on the subject of the Malfeans' dead Souls.  I have a project in mind for thinking up these Dead Souls.  I'm thinking of totally splitting them from the "hekatonkhire," and giving them a new name.  The Yozi's souls are "demons," so the Neverborn's souls could be Spectres, Wraiths, or something else.  I, personally, like Wraiths.  Still thinking on it.

 

[Spook]

isn't the whole point of Malfean psuedo-death, that they ran outta souls when the Exalts ganked them?

 

[Viragos]

What? youre saying their souls cant have souls with issues letting go too?

 

[Seiraryu]

isn't the whole point of Malfean psuedo-death, that they ran outta souls when the Exalts ganked them?

I don't see it as the "point," no.  There's nothing anywhere that states that they "ran out of souls" (especially since a Primordial doesn't run out of souls, since the souls die but come back changed).  I think the Malfeans were killed by killing all their Second Circle souls, which debilitated the Third Circle souls, which allowed the Exalts to kill the Third Circles (including the fetich souls) and then kill the Primordials themselves.  With the Yozis, the Exalts couldn't manage for one reason or another, and so did the next best thing and encarcerated them.

 

[Persell]

It's also important to take into account Oblivion.  Any number of a potential army of these creatures could have disappeared prior to the creation of the Calender.

 

[Jakk Bey]

The Malfeans yearn for the release of the Oblivion, and dammit, the living keep making all that racket that keeps them from slipping towards it, but you could easily see even the more powerful shards of the Malfeans, these split off sections of their souls that weren't able to integrate back, they could take the plunge, and be damn selfish and embrace the Oblivion, and thus end their existance, which the Malfeans would like to do.  


In fact, the most sapient, the most capable, and with the most will would be the ones who might just choose to run straight into the Oblivion first. They see where the conflict is going, they see how long it could take, they see the suffering they'll be forced to go through, the mewling and puling piles of flesh bags they'll be forced to deal with, even the bastard children of the very creatures who brought down the Malfeans, turned to their purpose, but still a constant reminder, it might just grate enough that they say "So Long Suckers!" and make their run for the border.


Which pisses off their Malfean masters even more--and they're pretty pissed off already. Leaving those left behind with some serious baggage to prevent them doing the same, and cheating the Malfeans of their service, which in turn binds their power, and their volition.

 

[Obsidian Soul]

JK, you make a good point but, as this is not covered in canon, we can make any decision we want about the hekatonkhire.  It would be interesting if there is an army of hekatonkhire waiting for the Deathlords to overextend themsleves so that they, in one fell swoop, can conguer the Labyrinth, the Underworld and Creation.  Remember, the only people who can summon and bind hekatonkhire are the Deathlords and the Abyssal Exalted.  No one else has even a chance.  If you have thirteen hekatonkhire that are as powerful as Ligier working together, then you have a group that, working together, could tear any Deathlord to pieces and would be able to overwhelm to infant Solars, insane Lunars, infirm Sidereals and corrupt Dragon-Blooded.  With the other Third Circle souls, the Second Circle souls and an army of scepters under their command, it would be hard to stop them from doing whatever the hell they wanted.  They might even be powerful enough to taint Exalted souls, like the Second and Third Circle Demons, which would create an Oblivion Tainted Exalted to oppose the Deathlords and their minions.

 

[Persell]

How did you come up with the thirteen Malfeans? I always figured that there were at least four based on the deathlords' masters. Since none of them could have more than three masters, I figured that there were at least four.

 

[Persell]

I had thought 5 malfeans

 

[Obsidian Soul]

No number has ever been specified, at least that I am not aware of.  I thought that thirteen was a nice number, seeing it has cultural importance to some of us.  It also matches the number of Deathlords.  This does not mean that some Deathlords don't have multiple masters, it just means that some Malfeans don't have multiple Deathlords.

 

[Persell]

Well at least 2 Deathlords have the same master.


I didn't read that much, but First and Forsaken Lion and Princess Magnificent are held by He Who Holds in Thrall.

 

[Flagg]

Obsidian Soul: I still don't see how it follows from anything you've said that these undersouls of the Malfeans would be "more powerful than anything in Creation or Malfeas".


-S

 

[Seiraryu]

Seriously Obsidian... I'm kind of wondering the same thing as Still.  Where did you exactly find a place in any of your reasoning for that?

 

[Obsidian Soul]

Read the Summon Hekatonkhire spell in the Book of Bone and Ebony.  It states that some of the Hekatonkhire are as powerful as Ligier, a Yozi Fetich.  I figure that the former Fetichs of the dead Primordials would be among those as powerful as Ligier.  Yozi Fetichs are, from what I've picked up, more powerful than Third Circle Souls, which may themselves be as powerful as the Celestial Incarna.  So, with the exception of the Yozi Fetichs, the former Fetichs of the dead Primordials may be more powerful than anything in Creation or Malfeas.

 

[Silence In Daylight]

You've spelled out your reasoning, but where did you get your assertion that Third Circle Demons/Souls are comparable in power to the Incarna during current times?


 Even assuming that prior to the Primordial War, the above was true, the Incarna have reaped a whole lot of Essence from Creation. That has to push up their power level.


 Though it's not explicitly stated anywhere, the setting seems to treat the Incarna as peers to Gaea in power.

 

[Seiraryu]

I don't know how much obvious it can actually get, but umm... the only reason that the Gods (Incarnae) Exalted mortals to defeat the Primordials was because they were magically banned from acting against their Creators.  The Exalted were their way of circumventing a ban that was created to keep them in line... from this we can extrapolate that the Incarnae can, with all the Essence they've been reaping from the Creation they've sown, be considered to be at a comparable power level equal to the Primordials.  They just can't do jack shit about it, which is why the Exalted are still around, really.  It's more of a "just in case" thing, where it comes to the Incarnae.


Even if not, just because according to the spell in Book of Bone and Ebony some Hekatonkhire are comparable in power with Ligier, that doesn't mean <i>all</i> of them are.  Perhaps some of them, those which were the Fetich souls of the Neverborn, could match wits and power with the Green Sun, but there's no real basis upon your statement of "more powerful than anything in Creation of Malfeas," especially considering that the Exalted are in Creation, and they <i>did</i> kill and imprison the Primordials, so I think that makes them potentially much more powerful than some dead Fetich soul.