Gracile, artistic, charismatic, social and rare, Aeth are
generally considered attractive, though somewhat alien.
BODIES
Slimmer bones, a less-dense build, a subtly-different
skull shape, a different musculature and long, lateral, pointed ears characterise
the group.
The stockiest and heaviest Aeth could be mistaken for
slender Somon, those of the most strange and gracile shape barely look anything
like human, seeming almost alien.
The shifting of their muscle arrangement, combined with
their hyper-sensory abilities, gives them a distinctive, flowing kind of
movement. They can move with incredible speed and surety without much of the
bobbing hip-to-shoulder flexing that signifies Somon and Deoth actions. They
move like water flowing across sand, like expert dancers or masters of the
rarest combat forms.
The lightness of their bones makes them vulnerable to
breaks, the power of their muscles proportionate to weight makes them roughly
as strong as a Somon, but faster, and with lower mass. The force of an Aeths
blow comes more from the speed of its delivery than the weight behind it.
With their remarkable senses and shifting, torsional
movement patterns, such blows inevitably land at the most vulnerable point, and
the curving slice typical of Aeth close combat is a familiar sight to those who
fight with or against them. They can open a neck like a second smile.
But against very well-armoured opponents, or anything
proof against cutting or piercing, their classic styles can have serious
limitations and wise Aeth practice with a range of weapons and styles for just
such occasions.
SENSES
The few scholars to have performed autopsies on Aeth have
discovered multiple corpus callosum; slim bands of white matter linking areas
of the brain across the hemispheres. Some Aeth have been find with two of
these, a handful have had up to five. Somon have one.
While their hearing, sense of touch and distance vision
is a little better than almost all Somon, the real strength (and curse) of the
Aeth, is their ability to process patterns
of complex information with enormous speed, fidelity and penetration.
They could literally find a needle in a haystack, if you
spread the whole thing out, spotting the shining metal instantly. They commonly
see camouflaged objects or hidden things. They can hear and understand two
separate conversations at different ends of a crowded room.
The average Aeth sees like a forensic artist, smells like
a great wine taster, touches like a fine seamstress and hears like a blind man.
All of this is happening, at once, all the time.
It’s both claimed and denied by the Aeth that they
possess a kind of taste psychometry, that by smelling or tasting something they
can divine aspects of its history, where it comes from, what it has been
exposed to.
No-one knows if this is a strictly physical ability, like
a kind of super wine-tasting phenomena, or if it includes actual psychic or
magical powers. Aeth seem to deliberately muddy the waters on this one,
sometimes suggesting or performing actions that suggest some level of magical
power, other times mocking and denying the same notion.
They claim to hate the taste of monocultured grains and
tame animal flesh.
AESTHETICS
It’s rare to meet a badly-dressed Aeth or one with a poor
sense of beauty.
'Bad' patterns are unpleasant to them, giving a kind of
stupid or awkward feeling, like bumbling language, lumpy sweater or wobbly
chair; frustrating and wrong. One reason they tend to prefer nature to
civilisation is that almost all of natures patterns are fractal, possessing
deep recursive complexity. Though it can be ugly, nature is only rarely awkward in the same way badly made
objects can be. But when you do see them in civilised lands they always have an
extremely tight and focused grasp on their aesthetics.
Aeth can tolerate ugly people, their skin, hair, iris, nails, breathing pattern, walk and
movement still have natural patterns inside them, but they cannot tolerate ugly
choices. People with bad or awkward
taste, especially nearly-good taste, are almost tangibly frustrating for them.
Most Deoth-made objects are well made and, though not
graceful, are finely proportioned and neat, making sense at every level of
construction, so are not displeasing to an Aeth eye. It is one of the few
things they have in common as groups.
As individuals, Deoth and Aeth can learn to get on quite
well if they have time to acclimatise to each others quirks - but they
generally do so through Somon groups. It’s been said more than once that
without Somon, with whom they both have something in common, there might be
very little interchange between the two.
PERSONALITIES AND
POLITICS
Aeth are a little more sociable than Somon, especially
the ones who semi-integrate in the Blackwater culture. But the major difference
between the two groups is their level of openness to experience.
The baseline level of openness for Aeth is at the higher
end of the human scale. In a sense, as a group, they all have an 'artistic'
personality. This makes them much less tolerant of stable pyramids of
authority. Very conservative Aeth are like reasonable Somon while those at the
far end of the Aeth scale seem to Somon, almost mad; hyper-sensory, manic, sensual,
unstable, interested in everything (briefly), communicating largely in song,
rhyme or verbal games, making almost everything a game.
And in some ways, terrifying.
This, plus their aversion to monocultured grains and
'tame' grown meat, means they usually have a low population density and
societies that focus on hunter gathering.
Aeth in hierarchies need to be rich to afford the rare
foods they can actually tolerate, unless they want to go out licking dew from
flowers, or drown themselves in drugs and alcohol to mask the unpleasantness.
Most Somon will never fully grasp that the differences
between "Wild" Aeth, "Blackwater" Aeth, "High"
Aeth and "Dark" Aeth, are really just differences in personality,
politics and diet.
"Wild" Aeth live as migratory hunter-gatherer
tribes in the Mountains of Reality. They are almost anarchist, having loose
family hierarchies.
"High" Aeth are closer to the human standard.
They like buildings, owning a library and being able to read a newspaper and go
to the theatre and they are willing to tolerate a degree of hierarchy, and
expensive food, to get these things. Because they live so long those willing to
interact with social structures and hierarchies, over time they usually end up
financially, culturally, magically and politically powerful.
The "Holy" or "Old" lines that still
exist in the closed palaces at the centres of many of the Grey Cities are, or
were of this kind but other such Aeth can be found in small numbers in a
handful of cities and settlements across the Blackwater.
"Blackwater" Aeth are those who can just about
tolerate the Blackwater culture, but who do not settle. They pass through,
moving through society like "Wild" Aeth move through a forest.
"Dark" Aeth are those who have realised they
can eat Somon and who do so. Some from a sense of racial superiority and
natural right, some from pure maniacal Anarchism, some because they have been
driven insane by the Wastes, the thieving rain, the children of Yggsrathaal or
just normal trauma. They make a culture of preying upon people, either
discretely, using subterfuge, or directly from marginal waste kingdoms and
roving tribes.
These creatures are regarded by most Somon as almost a
separate species; nightmare shadow-stalking predators. But of course any Aeth
could eat a person if they really wanted to.
DREAMS AND
REALITIES
Aeth can come wreathed in strange effects, as if they
were entangled in another world, strung slightly across realities.
Their shadow can arrive a moment before or after they do,
pooling like liquid. Reflections can be half a second slow, mirror selves make
strange unconscious gestures. Some Aeth cannot sign their name the same way
twice, or write the same name twice, there are some that plants bow to at unpredictable
times, saplings leaning like courtiers. Some are continually mistaken by their
walk for someone they are not. The portraits of some Aeth change expression
when no-one observes. With others, anyone playing or singing music around them
compulsively adds a timbre of tragedy to their voice or string, meaning they
only ever hear sad music.
whatever they experience in their dreams, Aeth almost
never speak about it, though they take it extremely seriously.
Their emotional state and even cognitive pattern can
sometimes be altered hugely by something they experience in a dream. They can
wake up crying or exalted, can change political, social or moral views while in
a dream or, even more rarely can seem to go utterly insane in a dream,
apparently suffering massive trauma, becoming incoherent, speaking different
languages, with more or fewer skills and powers or with a totally different set
of abilities.
This is not common, but it is well known. Aeth seem to
accept this as simply something that occasionally happens. It freaks everyone
else out.
You can never be entirely certain what you are going to
get with Aeth.
Many think the Aeth dream that they are somewhere else,
leading a different life, or that the Aeth may actually be in two realities at
once, or believe they are, or that they take part in a self-awareness that is
stretched across realities.
This might explain why they can have very strong
reactions to other Aeth they have not already met and of whom they should know
nothing.
TERAVORES
It’s a half-open secret that Aeth can smell, or sense,
many of the more common kind of monster.
“They were dumped into reality like cats into a
mouse-plagued barn.” - Vosis Fail, excommunicated Sophont of Yga.
Generally, if you are in Aeth lands, or lands they are passing
through in force, you are safe from monsters, as the two kinds will hunt each
other to extinction.
Less well known is that Aeth find many 'monsters'
delicious and will actively hunt them for food. They do not spread that
information about.
What is almost completley unknown is they also find Somon
flesh delicious. Even many Aeth do not know this, it is a closely guarded secret.
They only really become fully aware of it if they taste human flesh or blood.
One of the things that 'attracts' Aeth to Somon is their
smell; pungent but not displeasing, a little like cooked mushrooms.
This is part of what gives many Aeth their reputation for
sociability with Somon. Most Aeth are educated to process this as a cultural,
sensual or personality factor - many believe they are drawn towards Somon
cultures due to their "energy", invention, opportunity and the things
a dense hierarchal society can produce; music, arts, scholarship and amazing
clothes.
This is partly true.
But many Aeth will never fully grasp that, to them people
are delicious
HALF-AETH
As strange as Aeth can sometimes be, they hit many of the
classic markers for attractiveness to Somon. They are also open, social,
charismatic and often powerful.
A lot of people want to sleep with them, A few succeed. Children
are rare. Fertile children are even more rare, but Half-Aeth are lot more
common than almost any other kind of cross between Dreaming Peoples.
