Eight Letters from Ka Po'Tun

The following is a series of excerpts addressed from Zhu Hunyi of the Wuten Gong, a Ka Po’Tun scholar. These documents were recovered from the Reman Heritage Archives during the Post-Crisis Reconstruction, having thankfully been undamaged with the rest of the Heritage Collection.

The documents themselves are estimated to have been penned around 3E 300 and were allegedly delivered from Akavir by merchant ship before gradually finding their way to archives of the Imperial City. The letters have been translated to Cyrodilic in the margins prior to their storage in the archives, but most of the original Akaviri script has been lost to wear and tear. A damned shame; primary sources from Akavir are practically a treasure all of their own.

-Teonivus Valtis, Imperial City Archive Senior Manager

By name I am Zhu Hunyi of the Wuten Gong, Overflowing Scholar and proud martial aspirant after Tosh Raka, Glorious Dragon Aspect, Thousand-Times-Eaten Master of the Future and the One True Son of Jubal and Vivec, Unwilting Flower of the Resplendent East.

This one has heard the strange tales of the Foolish Ones who live in the distant pastward West, where the sun’s path sinks into the sea with the scarabs of old. You came to eat us and claim Akavir as your own not long ago, but your lack of mastery was your downfall. I write this letter to open your minds to the insight of Ka Po’Tun and cast aside your false idols so that you may pursue the path to heaven alongside us.

Here you shall find eight letters - one for each spoke of the Harmonic Wheel and one for each vertical truth that upholds the world.

To the Ka Po’Tun, you are the Otherkin - the worshippers of idols so bizarre and detached from the Aspects as to delve into absurdity. I suppose Ka Po’Tun must seem equally strange to the Otherkin from their eyes. What little you know of our culture is blurred and uncertain. Perhaps you pastward Otherkin see futureward things in a state that has yet to be determined? A thought for another time.

You think of Ka Po’Tun as great cats of fur and claw who walk upright like the Khaj of your barren deserts and cane grasses. Our kind do not share their shape; while they are born in such shapes, we cut and mold ourselves into greater shapes by pursuing the motions evident in the Aspects.

However, your judgements are not without some measure of credit. At times the emulation of the Aspects may occur in a more literal sense. This is proof that we have walked the path to heaven; we toil and toil until we have cut ourselves into newer, greater shapes.

This is the path to heaven walked by all kin of Akavir, from Ka Po’Tun to the Tsaesci to the Tang Mo to the Kamal. Our master was the first to learn this truth in the days when we were merely Po’Tun, taught by his six-times wise mother, the Martial Axiom. The uninitiated may misconstrue our words as being laden with malice, so I shall set a path of right-thinking into your mind: Vivec taught Tosh Raka to reach heaven by violence.

And by violence, the meaning of the words is Love. Do not forget this.

But this violence is different from the murder and subjugation endorsed by the crimson king of Yin-Lyg, who could love only with the motions of a spear. Love is the path which is stretched along the inner truth of the individual. The kin of Akavir follow this inner truth by exploring the motions of the Aspect whose nature sings in closest harmony with our own, and in doing so we mold ourselves into the shape of that aspect. Tosh Raka found his harmonic Aspect in the form of the Dragon, whose shape is tail-eating and endless.

As this scholar mentioned above, Ka Po’Tun was once merely Po’Tun. We followed the motions of the Tiger, whose Love strikes his foe by crouching low and making long leaps with the kick of his powerful legs. Tosh Raka was once Tosh Ra, but he reached heaven through the motions of the Dragons. By felling a resplendent Dragon with his motions and plucking the mastery from its burning body, he consumed the motions of Ka and showed us how to follow Love through emulation and consumption.

These teachings form a proud lineage of martial aspirants: Ka Po'Tun learned from Tosh Raka, who learned from Vivec, who in turn learned from the Barons of Move Like This and the Multiplier of Motions Known.

Akavir is not devoid of Men. The Otherkin believe the Tsaesci devoured the Men of Akavir, but this is not in the same sense as a Tiger plucks the flesh from its prey. To eat is to learn and achieve mastery of one’s motions so the eater may better find the individual Love that guides them to heaven, just as Tosh Ra ate the mastery of Ka in glowing golden streams to learn his motions.

Some pilgrims from Tamriel still inhabit Ka Po’Tun, having chosen to emulate the Aspects. This scholar has eaten them so as to better spread the mastery of the Aspects to the past, for the future needs a solid foundation. The Dragon appears to be the greatest source of common ground between Tamriel and Akavir. Here the Dragon is Ka, while the migrants and their descendants call him many different shades of Aka.

The Otherkin are not welcome in Ka Po’Tun, not while they worship their false idols. Even now we push them out and send them across the sea where they can worship their false idols freely. These letters are put to paper in hopes that one of the Otherkin might take them pastward and the rest redeem themselves by pursuing mastery of the Aspects.

When the Tsaesci sailed pastward to Tamriel they met another ruler of the infinite Dragon Aspect, Reman Ka. Thus the Tsaesci ate Reman Ka and were eaten by the Cyrod Men, bringing new motions and styles into your heartland. It was a productive exchange indeed, for Love is the greatest and most unique gift in all the world.

Perhaps if you had eaten more from the Tsaesci, your conquest would not have been so easily routed. Even now your attempts at expansion are still the subject of great mirth among the Snake Aspects.

Here is a gem of wisdom: Know your enemy and know yourself and you shall find no fear in a thousand battles. Know yourself but not your enemy and you shall find only despair.

Pilgrims from the Ever-Still North left their static land and brought Aspects of their own: the Fox, the Hawk, the Moth, the Wolf, the Bear and the Dragon - the last was the most revered. Similar to our own Dragon Aspect, yet different. Some say the Men of the North sailed from there to here in emulation of the Ka.

This scholar lacks mastery in the histories of the North Men and Kamal, but there is much common ground between the two. Most scholars attribute this to the similarity between your ancestral climates, but perhaps there is something greater behind these similarities. Were you the last ones to leave the Ever-Still North? Could something have come after, when the land had grown too cold for the likes of Men?

I shall end these letters with words of importance. The meaning shall be left to master on your own, Otherkin.

KA PO’TUN HÉ TOSH RAKA HÉ HSIEN TSAI!