Forkrul Assail
Race: Forkrul Assail, One of the Elder races.
Also known as: Krussail
Warren: Ahkrast Korvalain
Appearance: long-limbed, multi-jointed
Forkrul Assail (non-human): extinct mythical people (one of the Four Founding Races) - GotM, Glossary
Physical appearance
"...a tall figure (Serenity), spectral, its skin white, its hair pallid yellow and hanging in limp strands. It was wearing a leather harness that looked wrinkled and blackened with rot. There was something strange about its limbs....it possessed extra joints in the arms and the legs, and there was some kind of hinge across the creature’s breastbone. Its motion was oddly loose." - MT, UK Trade, p.589
"The cold made the air brutal, blinding him, shocking his lungs. Through freezing tears he saw, amidst a faint blue glow, a tall figure. Skin like bleached vellum, limbs too long and angular with too many joints. Black, frosted eyes, an expression of faint surprise on its narrow, arched features. The clothes it wore consisted of a harness of leather straps and nothing more. It was unarmed. A man, but anything but a man." - Udinaas's dream vision of a Forkrul Assail - (MT, UK mmpb, p. 206)
"'Not human - those limbs are too long, and look at the joints - too many of them. This thing could bend every which way.'" - ( DG, UK mmpb, p.808)
Past History
"In the Early Cycles in this Realm, three great peoples struggled for dominion, none of them human as we would know human. Bowing out early in the struggle were the Forkrul Assail, or the Krussail as they are now known. Not through weakness, but...well, disinterest." - (GotM, US HC, p.263)
"The Warrens of the Imass are similar to those of the
Jaghut and the Forkrul Assail – Elder-, blood- and earthbound –" - (
GotM, UK Trade, p.204)
"There are places, lass, where Forkrul Assail remain. Imprisoned for the most part, but ever restless. Even more disturbing, in many of those places they are worshipped by misguided mortals." -
Silchas Ruin - (MT, UK Trade, p.395)
Justice and the Forkrul Assail
"To achieve peace, destruction is delivered. To give the gift of freedom, one promises eternal imprisonment. Adjudication obviates the need for justice. This is a studied, deliberate embrace of diametric opposition. It is a belief in balance, a belief asserted with the conviction of religion. But in this case, the proof of a god’s power lies not in the cause but in the effect. Accordingly, in this world and in all others, proof is achieved by action, and therefore all action – including the act of choosing inaction – is inherently moral. No deed stands outside the moral context. At the same time, the most morally perfect act is the one taken in opposition to what has occurred before...In this civilization...its citizens were bound to acts of utmost savagery. Vast cities were constructed beneath the world’s surface. Each chamber, every building, assembled as the physical expression of the quality of absence. Solid rock matched by empty space. From these places, where they did not dwell, but simply gathered, they set out to achieve balance." -
Silchas Ruin on Forkrul Assail philosophy and civilization - (MT, UK Trade, p.394)
The Demise of the Forkrul Assail
"He was silent a moment then continued, 'The Forkrul Assail seem unwilling to pass judgement on us and each year there seem to be fewer of them in any case." -Scabandari Bloodeye - ( MT, UK HB, pg 3)
"Physically unique. In some ways more primitive, but as a consequence less . . . specialized, and so less constrained. Profoundly long-lived, more so than any other species. Very difficult to kill...They did fashion the occasional alliance. With the Jaghut, for example. But that was yet another tactic aimed at reasserting balance, and it ultimately failed. As did this entire civilization." - Silchas Ruin - (MT, UK Trade, p.394-5)
‘You killed them.’
‘These ones here, yes. As for the rest, no. I was too late arriving and my freedom too brief for that. In any case, but a few enclaves were left by that time. My draconic kin took care of that task, since no other entity possessed the necessary power. As I said, they were damned hard to kill.’ Kettle talking to Silchas in MT) (UK Trade p.394-5)
"They did fashion the occasional alliance. With the
Jaghut, for example. But that was yet another tactic aimed at reasserting balance, and it ultimately failed. As did this entire civilization." -
Silchas Ruin to Kettle - (MT, UK mmpb, p. 538)
The Just Wars
But Captain Faradan Sort laid a hand on his shoulder. “No need, Beak. These bodies -- Jaghut?”
“No. Forkrul Assail and Tiste Liosan. They fought on the ruins. During what they called the Just Wars. Here, it was only a skirmish, but nobody survived. They killed each other, and the last warrior standing had a hole in her throat and she bled out right where the Fist is standing. She was Forkrul Assail, and her last thought was about how victory proved they were right and the enemy was wrong. Then she died.”
“It’s the only dry land anywhere in sight,” Fist Keneb said. “Can any mage here banish the ghosts? No? Hood’s breath. Beak, what are they capable of doing to us anyway?”
“They’ll eat into our brains and make us think terrible things, so that we all end up killing each other. That’s the thing with the Just Wars -- they never end and never will because Justice is a weak god with too many names. The Liosan called it Serkanos and the Assail called it Rynthan. Anyway, no matter what language it spoke, its followers could not understand it. A mystery language, which is why it has no power because all its followers believe the wrong things -- things they just make up and nobody can agree and that’s why the war never ends.” (RG)
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