Icarium
| Name: |
Icarium |
| Pseudonyms: |
Lifestealer, Maker of Machines, Chaser of Time, Lord of the Sand Grains (DG, UK mmpb p.342), The Tusked Man (by the Den-Ratha) |
| Age: |
Hundreds of thousands of years old |
| Race: |
Jhag (Jaghut half-blood) |
| Appearance: |
extraordinarily tall, slitted grey eyes (DG, UK mmpb p.347), grey-green skin, long grey hair, with "ragged tips of tusks bulging the line of his thin lower lip" (DG, UK mmpb p.301-2) |
| Warren: |
Omtose Phellack |
| Further Info: |
He held the card position Obelisk on Seven Cities prior to the sanctioning of the new un-aligned card - Lifestealer
Known to the Cabalhii Monks as The One God.
|
Appearance
Hide-bound legs...an extraordinarily tall man, lean, wearing a faded Tano telaba. His skin was somewhere between grey and green, and he held in his long-fingered hands a recurved bow and a rune-wrapped arrow nocked and ready. His long, grey hair showed remnants of black dye, making his mane appear spotted ... ragged tips of tusks bulging the line of his thin lower lip. A Jhag. Didn't know they travelled this far east.' - Fiddler -(DG, UK MMPB, p.301-2)
'His slitted grey eyes...' - (DG, UK MMPB, p.347)
Mappo suggests that Icarium is approx. 7 feet tall - (DG, UK MMPB, p.42)
Weapons
"Icarium sat down on a flat rock and proceeded to oil his longbow, striving to keep the hornwood from drying out. Once satisfied with the weapon's condition, he turned to his single-edged long sword, sliding the ancient weapon from its bronze-banded boiled leather scabbard, then setting the oiled whetstone to its notched edge." - (DG, UK mmpb, p.44)
Brief History
Icarium is the son of Gothos and a non-Jaghut woman (according to Karsa Orlong there is some degree of Thelomen Toblakai blood in Icarium). His Jaghut father, Gothos, chose to imprison himself in an Azath house, however Icarium didn't know that and tried to free his father. He managed to deliver grievous wounds to the Azath, shattering a fragment of a riven warren (speculation is that this was the final sundering of Kurald Emurlahn) and as a consequence suffers from beserker rages and amnesia. The amnesia has made him obsessed with time so he has constructed countless mechanisms in cities all over the world to keep track of it.
The Nameless Ones, as servants to the Azath have forged Icarium into a weapon over millenia by assigning guardians or companions over the ages to watch over him to whom they gift longevity, amongst other things. His latest guardians being Mappo Runt and now Taralack Veed.
The two would seek each other out – they could do naught else. The dragon is negation. But Icarium is an open wound into Chaos itself. When his self shatters, when his so-called rage is unleashed, he is but a conduit, a portalway. This is why he cannot be stopped – he is not even there. Shall you do battle against chaos itself? Impossible. - Calm - (TCG)
History of Icarium and The Nameless Ones
""Why?" Fiddler whispered. "Why is Icarium so cursed?"
The Jaghut cocked his head, then abruptly swung back to the fire. "Wounded warrens are a dangerous thing. Wounding one is far more so. My son sought a way to free me from the Azath. He failed. And was...damaged. He did not understand--and now he never will--that I am content here. There are few places in all the realms that offer a Jaghut peace, or, rather, such peace as we are capable of achieving. Unlike your kind, we yearn for solitude, for that is our only safety."
He faced them again. "For Icarium, of course, there is another irony. Without memory, he knows nothing of what once motivated him. He knows nothing of wounded warrens or the secrets of the Azath." The Jaghut's sudden smile was a thing of pain. "He knows nothing of me either."
Apsalar lifted her head suddenly, "You are Gothos, aren't you?"
He did not answer." - (DG, US mmpg, p.804-5)
"The legends claim that Icarium emerged from this place, strode out from Raraku. A warren torn to pieces--Raraku changes all who stride its broken soil--gods, have we indeed come to the place where Icarium's living nightmare was born?" - (DG, US mmpb, p.581)
“As we fashioned this dilemma,” the third priest said, “so we must initiate its resolution. Chaos pursues this world, and every world beyond this one. In the seas of reality can be found a multitude of layers, one existence flowing upon another. Chaos threatens with storms and tides and wayward currents, sending all into dread tumult. We have chosen one current, a terrible, unchained force (Icarium) -- chosen to guide it, to shape its course unseen and unchallenged. We intend to drive one force upon another (Rhulad), and so effect mutual annihilation. We assume a terrible responsibility in this, yet the only hope of success lies with us, with what we do here on this day. -(BH UK HC, p.9)
“No. I am distressed by the notion of what they will release. Icarium is not a weapon --”
“Oh you fool, of course he is. They made him, and now they will use him … ah, now I understand Shadowthrone. Clever bastard. Of course, I am offended that he would so blithely assume my allegiance. And even more offended to realise that, in this matter, his assumption was correct.” She paused, then sighed. “It is time to send you back.”
“Wait -- you said something -- the Nameless Ones, that they made Icarium. I thought --”
“Forged by their own hands, and then, through the succession of guardians like you, Mappo, honed again and yet again. Was he as deadly when he first crawled from the wreckage they’d made of his young life? As deadly as he is now? I would imagine not.” - Ardata to Mappo - (BH UK Tpb, p.399)
Icarium's history as told to him by Taralack Veed
"Once, long ago, you were driven by the need to free your father, who had been taken by a House of the Azath. Faced with terrible failure, a deeper, deadlier force was born -- your rage. You shattered a wounded warren, and you destroyed an Azath, releasing into the world a host of demonic entities, all of whom sought naught else but domination and tyranny. Some of those you killed, but many escaped your wrath, and live on to this day, scattered about the world like so many evil seeds.
“The most bitter irony is this: your father sought no release. He had elected, of his own will, to become a Guardian of an Azath House, and it may be he remains so to this day.
“In consequence to the devastation you wrought, Icarium, a cult, devoted since time began to the Azath, deemed it necessary to create guardians of their own. Chosen warriors who would accompany you, no matter where you went -- for your rage and the destruction of the warren had torn from you all memory of your past -- and so now you were doomed, for all time, it seemed, to seek out the truth of all that you have done. And to stumble into rage again and yet again, wreaking annihilation.
“This cult, that of the Nameless Ones, thus contrived to bind to you a companion. Such as I. Yes, my friend, there have been others, long before I was born, and to each was imbued sorcery, slowing the rigours of ageing, proof to all manner of disease and poison for as long as the companion’s service held true. Our task was to guide you in your fury, to assert a moral focus, and above all, to be your friend, and this latter task has proved, again and again, the simplest and indeed, most seductive of them all, for it is easy to find within ourselves a deep and abiding love for you. For your earnestness, your loyalty, and for the unsullied honour within you." Pleased that he had reca;;ed with perfection the words given him, Taralack Veed studied the great warrior before him - (BH UK Tpb, p.430)
Cotillion talks of the possibility of a cure for Icarium
“It is less a curse,” he finally said, “than a … residue. The death of an Azath House releases all manner of forces, energies -- not just those belonging to the denizens in their earthen tombs. There is, burned into Icarium’s soul, something like an infection, or, perhaps, a parasite. Its nature is chaos, and the effect is one of discontinuity. It defies progression, of thought, of spirit, of life itself. Mappo, that infection must be expunged, if you would save Icarium.”
The Trell could barely draw breath. In all the centuries at the Jhag’s side, among all the words given him by the Nameless Ones, by scholars and sages across half the world, he had never before heard anything like this. “Are -- are you certain?” - (BH UK Tpb, p 444)
Mael's thoughts: Do you now feel as if you have come home, Icarium? I remember you, striding from the sea, a refugee from a realm you had laid to waste. Yet your father did not await you -- he had gone, he had walked down the throat of an Azath. Icarium, he was Jaghut, and among the Jaghut, no father reaches across to take his child’s hand. - (RG)
Dear son of Gothos and that overgrown hag, the stain of Azath blood is about you like a cloud. This was more than a curse -- all that afflicted this fell warrior. Deliberate skeins were woven about him, the threads of some elaborate, ancient, and deadly ritual. And he knew their flavour. The Nameless Ones. - The Errant on viewing Icarium - (RG UK Mmpb, P. 244 )
Icarium, Time and Memories
He travels the world over, building his temporal map, and, consequently, he appears in the myths and legends of many people.
‘Ah,’ Fiddler sighed. ‘The Trell. Memory returns. And your companion . . . the Jhag?’
‘He entertains your companions,’ the Trell said. ‘Feebly, I admit. For all his years, Icarium has never mastered the social grace necessary to put others at ease.’
‘Icarium, the Jhag by that name. The maker of machines, the chaser of time—’ -(DG UK Mmpb. p.240)
Fiddler: 'It's said Icarium is obsessed with time, true?'
Mappo Runt: 'Aye.'
Fiddler: 'He builds bizarre constructs to measure it, places those constructs in locations all over the world.'
Mappo Runt: 'His temporal maps, yes.'
Fiddler: '...Is that your vow Mappo? To keep the Jhag ignorant?
Mappo Runt: 'Ignorant of the past, yes. His past.
Fiddler: '...Without history there's no growth-'
Mappo Runt: 'Aye.' - (DG, UK MMPB, p.459)
Icarium is obsessed with time and builds mechanisms to mark its passage - (DG, UK MMPB, p.150)
- There are various large constructions in the Lether subcontinent, and he appears enough times that the Den-Ratha clan's myths tell of a Tusked Man.
- Icarium then slowed. A wound, yes. His machine was wounded. Its pieces had been twisted, shifted out of position. Ages had passed since he had built it, so he should not be surprised. Would it still work? He was no longer so sure. -(RG...)
- In the Imperial Warren - Icarium must have constructed a Wheel on Jacuruku prior to the razing of Kallor's empire.
- "His gaze slowly descended to the pit’s floor. It was crowded with rusted, corroded mechanisms, all alike though strewn about. Each was the size of a trader’s wagon, and indeed huge spoked iron wheels were visible.
Kalam studied them a long time, then he swung about and returned to the others, uncocking the crossbow as he did so.
‘Well?’
The assassin shrugged, pulling himself back into the saddle. ‘Old ruins at the bottom. Odd ones – the only time I’ve seen anything like them was in Darujhistan, within the temple that housed Icarium’s Circle of Seasons, which was said to measure the passage of time.’ - (DG UK Mmpb, p.372)
- In Seven Cities - In a destroyed city dedicated to the Seven Holies
- ‘I calculate that ninety-four thousand years have passed since I last stood here, Mappo. Ninety-four thousand. There must be some error in that. No city ruin could survive that long, could it?’
Mappo found himself shrugging. How could we know one way or the other?
‘The investiture of sorcery, perhaps . . .’
Perhaps.
‘Who destroyed this city, I wonder?’
You did, Icarium, yet even in your rage a part of you recognized what you yourself had built, and left it intact.
‘They had great power, whoever they were,’ the Jhag continued. ‘T’lan Imass arrived here, sought to drive the enemy back – an old alliance between the denizens of this city and the Silent Host. Their shattered bones lie buried in the sand beneath us. In their thousands. What force was there that could do such a thing, Mappo? Not Jaghut, even in their pre-eminence a thousand millennia past. And the K’Chain Che’Malle have been extinct for even longer. I do not understand this, friend . . .’- (DG UK Mmpb, p.464)
Icarias
They were called Jaghut. Returned to this way of living, in the cities they had abandoned long before. They were drawn to a humble man, a half-blood. They were drawn to his great machine of memories, this place he made by his own hand. What he did not possess within him, he built around him. To trap all that he was.
The city is called Icarias. (DoD)
The One God, Lifestealer
Icarium is known to the Cabalhii monks as the One God, Lifestealer.
“A moment!” cried the Senior Assessor, eyes now piercing as he stared at the lieutenant. “Icarium, the Jhag Warrior? Icarium, Lifestealer?” (RG)
References
'A Jaghut-blood wanderer around whom swirled, like the blackest wake, rumours of devastation, appalling murders, genocide...The Icarium he (Fiddler) was coming to know made those rumours seem ludicrous. The Jhag was generous, compassionate... This Icarium was too wise, too scarred, to tumble into power's river of blood.' - (DG, UK MMPB, p.456)
"By all accounts he'd ridden a Jaghut horse, and a Trell strode at his side..." - (GotM, US HC, p.402)
Icarium seems to have a kind of darkvision, neither he or Mappo having 'much need for artificial light, the darkness...offering no obstacle.' (DG, UK MMPB, p.172) Whether or not this is a racial trait is a separate question, though it seems likely.
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