Uutak Mythos Factions: The Hȳdan Cwellan

Part One of a new series focusing on the different factions and organizations that exist within the Uutak Mythos. Since the theme of the week is murder, I thought I would focus on assassins.

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>#The Hȳdan Cwellan >##“We are the fear of the dark our people have long since forgotten. We are the ever watching blackness that weighs the soul. We are the night embodied through death and misery. And when the Law yields it, we will consume your soul and leave your husk to the worms.”

The Hȳdan Cwellan (“Soul-Eaters”) are an ancient albeit unsanctioned order of Echmeri assassins that operate on Yneslea, and whose movements are untraceable. Armored in strange medium armor designed to resemble a screaming skeleton and armed with weaponry forged from a material as black as midnight, members are as silent as the Void and their exact roster is unknown. The Echmeri Directorate have repeatedly attempted to root out these individuals for centuries, but have never been successful.

Although abominated by the rest of the Echmeri population, who view acts of secret murder as dishonorable and cowardly, the Hȳdan Cwellan are still somewhat respected and barely tolerated due to their tenacity towards criminals that have broken the Law and have escaped the authorities. Therefore their primary interest can be said to be the protection of the Echmeri in general, even if the very people they’re safeguarding doesn’t appreciate or want it.

>#History

Exactly when and where the Hȳdan Cwellan originated remains a mystery, but the first recorded mention of their order occurred in 1E 779 after they left a note crediting themselves with the excessively brutal murder of Pravus, High Hypothesian of the Neglectful Acceptance at the time. Pravus had long been suspected of conducting sickly examinations on young children that often resulted in their deaths, and the people had wanted him executed. However, the other members of the Council fought to give Pravus a fair trial according to the protocols of the Law. But as Pravus arrived at the trial a shadowy figure erupted from the blackness and sliced him vertically in half, remarkably evading and knocking unconscious the dozen guards assigned to keep the High Hypothesian safe. Reports from the guards themselves were found suspicious by the Council, but the contents of the note found at the scene changed their demeanor drastically. Written in it were these words:

Do not try to find us. Do not try to destroy us. We sin openly for our people, we of the Hȳdan Cwellan, we whose souls are only half alive. We break the Law to preserve the Law, which leaves us with void sickness. Which leaves us in pain and damned.

But do not mistake us. We love the smell of blood, the look of fear, and the taste of death. Such things are our sustenance, and so our love is also selfish.

We are the fear of the dark our people have long since forgotten. We are the ever watching blackness that weighs the soul. We are the night embodied through death and misery. And when the Law yields it, we will consume your soul and leave your husk to the worms.

Since then, the so-called Hȳdan Cwellan has killed dozens of well known individuals throughout Echmeri history. Every single one of those individuals were hated by the populace for committing terrible deeds, however, so their deaths were often viewed as minor misfortunes than great tragedies. Thus the Hȳdan Cwellan have continued their unholy crusade against the mortal monsters of Yneslea, the mer that have turned their backs on the Law to become little more than criminals. Out of all of their targets only four – Hrahndeyl (who left the Archipelago before they could end him), Hannar Almost-King (who easily killed the half dozen assassins sent to kill him in his throne room), Nekros (the Lord of the Rotting Darkness was recorded to raise the Hȳdan Cwellan that assaulted him as his personal slave), and Uriel V (the first Tamrielic in history declared worthy of the Cwellan’s attention) – escaped with their lives still very much intact; all others have been reduced to bloody patches on the ground.

>#Theories On Their Origins

Halik-Javarius, the greatest studier of the Hȳdan Cwellan to ever live, has philosophized on the founding of their almost mythical order numerous times. In his work “Lives in The Shadows: The Worst Types of Darkness” he introduces his disturbingly popular theory that members of the Hȳdan Cwellan possess a mystimedical condition known as ‘autocessation’ brought upon by the actions of HRAHNDEYL’s apotheosization in 1E 775, when the ATEDA of Sound linked the souls of all Echmer to the Void. For the majority of the race this was an easy transition and no complications arose. But Halik-Javarius theorizes that about ten percent of the Echmeri population was affected by the tonal changes to their souls in a critically negative way. The Autocessation Condition dictates that those souls already reside partially in the Void as an accidental side effect of HRAHNDEYL’s binding, and the Great Nothingness is slowly consuming their soul piece by piece until one day they’ll suddenly cease to be. In essence, the unfortunate few that are born with this condition can be described as ‘soulless’ individuals who have insipid, anemic personalities.

In Halik-Javarius’ opinion the Hȳdan Cwellan all possess the Autocessation Condition, and that they view their minimal time in the Aurbis as something that must be utilized for making sure the Echmer people is as safe as they can be. The Autocessation Condition also affects how the Law registers an Echmer; because the Law is engraved into the soul and mind of an Echmer and Hȳdan Cwellan assassins have souls tainted beyond recognition, they have access to the Law and its protocols but the Law itself can’t register them in with the rest of the Echmeri populace – they show up as empty spaces in its arcane vastness. This enhances the Hȳdan Cwellan’s almost inhuman ability to strike out against those who break the Law before slipping away back into the shadows, as their own Law-breaking actions can’t be picked up by the rest of the Bat Elven people.

The Hȳdan Cwellan strengthen their numbers by finding young children who have the Autocessation Condition and convincing them to join their order, a difficult task they still nonetheless achieve. The truly saddening part of this theory is that according to Halik-Javarius autocessation should kill an individual after twenty to twenty two years, which implies that the majority of assassins are only fourteen to seventeen years of age – not even considered adults under the Echmeri Law. After reaching true adulthood at the age of eighteen surviving Hȳdan Cwellan are speculated to become the new teachers of the younger generation of assassins, becoming foster mothers and fathers before they expire.

>#Appearance, Mentality, and Arts of Death

These unsanctioned Echmeri assassins maintain personalities as cold as the glaciers in the Bitter Sea, and ultimately have a bleak outlook on life. They view emotions such as love and compassion as unneeded trivialities, and quickly train their minds to ignore them. At the end of this training the Hȳdan Cwellan become almost completely devoid of feelings for everyone besides those they view as innocent and other members of their order, but even then that form of caring is considered chilling.

The Hȳdan Cwellan armor themselves in tight-fitting leather garbs, probably created from the hides of giant lizards hunted in the Dweech, dyed an uncanny pitch black. This leather is then outfitted with bleached chitin carved in a way to resemble a skeleton with an eternal scream written across its skull. Those have caught glimpses of the Hȳdan Cwellan state some have wing-like apparatuses attached to the back of their armor, others that their skull-helmet visors cast an eerie blood-like glow. These small descriptions matter little, for it seems overall that the Hȳdan Cwellan view themselves as literal manifestations of mortal death and thus depict themselves as such.

Usually Hȳdan Cwellan assassins arm themselves with brutal-looking close quarter’s weapons like war axes, swords, daggers, and maces. Others have on occasion used two-handed weaponry as well, and the more blood-thirsty individuals have even utilized grenades to end their targets. Because these Echmeri assassins prefer to form their assassinations in the bloodiest ways as possible, the use of subtle murdering such as poison and harquebuses are rarely observed – despite this, however, all Hȳdan Cwellan remain expert deadeyes and alchemists.