Khajiit Legend and the Settling of Masser

An Excerpt from “Khajjit Legend and the Early Colonization of Masser” by Sellus Ignius Flautus; 6E 105

To understand the history of the early Diaspora requires, at the very least, a review of the settling of Secunda.

The smaller of the two moons was first settled by Khajiit pilgrims who had made their way to Secunda by unknown provenance. Their society, if it could be called such, seemed focused on particular religious observances that required the cultivation and consumption of Moon Sugar. Their government was – by all accounts – a sham, asserting special dispensation from the Mane with whom they claimed regular communication; Exilic rumors that the cat-men had mastered Dreamsleeve communication have been proved unequivocally false, and this delusion of royal aegis was likely the product of drug addiction. When the first Imperial mananauts arrived during the reign of Reman I they quickly set to civilizing the Khajiit settlements and soon had a well-maintained bureaucracy that dispensed justice and order to all.

Unfortunately, records detailing the progress of the earliest Imperial settlements were lost during the chaotic times of the Interregnum, but the recent discovery of the so-called “Tatterdamalion files” promise to be of significant archaeo-historical importance. What has been discerned so far suggests a thriving community that offered the possibility of “an Empire across the stars”, had the line of Reman not been ended by an assassin’s blade. The Imperial mananauts were recalled from Secunda and it would be millennia before the children of Nirn returned. Except, of course, for the Khajiit.

Official documentation of these times are scarce but if the Clan Mothers are to be believed the Khajiit resumed their religious observances. It appears that less than a generation after the departure of the mananauts there rose among the Khajiit a wizard known variously as Ku’zhaj or Ku’mhajra. Allegedly sent by the Mane (!) Ku’zhaj discerned the workings of the magi-tek left by the mananauts and – according to legend – took a band of pilgrims to explore the Void. That he was accompanied by an Echmer named Atti or Hhran or Hadal-suun reveals the utter impossibility of this ancient legend. The story, at least, is an amusing tale of interactions with Daedra, Jills (!) and extra-Mundic creatures of uncertain description. After some years roaming the Void, Ku’zhaj and his Pilgrims returned and he was hailed as the Mane of Secunda. He is said to have lived long past the age of a normal Khajiit and was eventually entombed – so says the legend – in the Wheels of Lyg. As ridiculous as the story sounds it nonetheless reveals an important fact – the Khajiit of Secunda took to appointing, or recognizing, their own Mane. The practice continues to this very day.

Most of the Clan Mothers I have spoken to are in agreement with the written histories about the founding of the first permanent Masser settlements; but not all of them. According to the majority, the Mane announced, approximately fifteen years before Landfall, that he had seen a vision of great Exodus from Nirn, and that the people would need to prepare. The number of Diaspora would be great, he said, and required the settling of the other moon. Masser had never seen any serious colonization and the Bindings that rendered Secunda habitable had never been enacted there. Early expeditions were sent by way of Khajiit voidships (!) and told a tale of mythic impossibility: a corpse-world brimming with giant insects (the invectids), but resplendent with Sugar. Taming the plane(t) would be a long process, the scouts claimed, but the Mane was insistent. And so the New Rimmen colony was begun.

Just over a thousand Khajiit began the project and less than a hundred returned. No official records from the colony exist but the oral history – transmitted by the Mothers – tells of the coming of the Worms, and catastrophic loss of life. When an army of Thoghatt were sent to subdue the world, and never heard from again, the project was temporarily abandoned. Here the histories divide. The official records claim the Mane was able, through mystical contemplation, to commune with the spirit of Lorkhaj and make appeasement for their incursion to His sacred Flesh Divinity. Lorkhaj, impressed with the Mane’s profound grasp of purgative mythopoesis, rendered the plane(t) habitable and colonization began soon after.

This is not the story told by the Masserian Mothers who insist on a very different history. According to them the Mane had planned on abandoning Masser completely, and turning the Diapora (when they arrived) away. But Ar’thur’ra, a warrior of the Mothers, traversed the Void and came by diver’s ways to the Wheels of Lyg. There she underwent numerous trials and “protonymic purgations” until she came to the tomb of Ku’zhaj. Waking the wizard from his eternal sleep she told him of the troubles of the people and the coming Landfall. Along with the wizard’s Echmer companion Hhran (who apparently watched over his sleep for thousands of years), they made passage to Masser and there battled Worm and invectid alike. In the earliest, and most scintillating, tales they fought their way into a “cavern that could not exist without psycho-mythic imperative” and there fought the Lord of Worms – the dread H’sh’ai’durr’mha’lu’dn. The Lord was defeated by the Enantiomorphic union of Ar’thur’ra, Ku’zhaj and Hhran into the Oversoul Ra’zur’riin; in some accounts the Lord of Worms was so overwhelmed by the beauty of the triune Oversoul that it sacrificed itself to become the Earth-bone of Masser (this is sometimes referred to as the Covenant of Ra’zur’riin and bears some mythic resonance with the ritual of Je’m’ath; it is worth noting that Telvanni scholar Kalas Sul Saren has described the Union as the controversial Seventh Walking Way – the Blinding-Knowing by Beauty, but Temple doctrine is dismissive). The Mothers insist that the Oversoul remains forever in the Cavern of Worms, watching over the Covenant and keeping the people safe “so long as they partake of the Sugar.” (Unfortunately, the Mothers offer no mythical explanation for the coming of the Worms soon after the arrival of the Diaspora, or for the continued violence of the invectids.)

Hence, when the Lady-Lord Vivec came to the Mane in preparation for the Exodus, She found a world ready to receive the Diaspora.