SUPERSTITIONS

Xérăs

With Tam'nýer—a' being a world wrought with dead Gods and superstitions, this superstition is one instilled so much so that it affects basic house decor.

Xérăs is the Many-Faced Devil that resides within all mirrors. It watches you while you are at your most vulnerable; asleep, or naked. Xérăs does this as it's only way of living beyond the mirror is to possess a person for a day. Because of this terrifying power, mirrors are never placed in a bedroom facing the bed, or in a bathroom where it can see, or 'watch' you whilst naked because Xérăs requires this vulnerability to sneak into your mind and take over.

The reason why it is referred to as a Many-Faced Devil is that if you sleep or take your morning bath in sight of a mirror, your subconscious is at the forefront or you are too busy 'philosophizing in the shower' which allows for your guards to drop. This gives the Xérăs its in, and you may wake or vacate your bath with your mood changed completely on its head and not know why. This can cause a sour person to be cheerful and overly philanthropic, or render a generally copacetic person to a sour brute.

The danger of this is simple; a reputation takes years to build and seconds to destroy. However, relinquishing the hold of a Xérăs is easy as it lies within a good night's rest without the presence of a mirror. For the most part, it is cured with one night's sleep, but at most should only retain a hold for 3 days.

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Zäal

Püertagœ only

Zäal are another superstition for parents to use in order to discipline their children. Zäal are desperate women of the water who live in the aqueducts throughout Püertagœ, and are used to keep children from playing in the Republic's water supply as the currents can be quite strong. It is said that the Zäal are always looking for children and will pull them down if given the chance. Zäal are tormented by their very existence as they are literally made of the water, which is of course, life-giving, and yet cannot have their own. Out of desperation to be mothers, they drag children under the water, drowning them and making them theirs.

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Q'uerîl

Humans & Nkhya'jra primarily

Q'uerîl is an old wives' tale used mainly by parents to teach children to be honest. Q'uerîl was a young man, and with being young came the feeling of being invincible. Ambitious for better things, Q'uerîl decided that he could get anywhere by any means; what he could not achieve by himself honestly, he would be false and lie. Little by little, the more Q'uerîl lied, the more his heart turned to stone. Finally, as an older man, ruler of all he could want, richer beyond his dreams and without a need, Q'uerîl could not enjoy any of his achievements because he lost heart. Losing any form of enjoyment or compassion because he had been so dishonest his heart had become solely stone and nothing else.

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Khvylisa

Pertinent to multiple places but very prominently Püertagœ

Sweet, almost pixie-like. She sits and waits in the light of Nue for you to come, just on the brink of forest, brush, or jungle away from prying eyes. Sitting with her companion that we would know as an owl, she brandishes a large spoon. She will tell you to look into it, as if it were a mirror, and in one swipe, she will scoop you up, locking you inside of it. Men, women and children are all susceptible to her charm, the wonder she creates. Her skin looks soft as silk, he demeanor is playful, yet cunning. There’s a shine of intelligence in those eyes that gives you a feeling that she has witnessed countless millennia.

But what is her purpose? Sitting there waiting for people to come to her, weaving on song on the air in the night. Khvylisa is only active during the crisp Spring, Autumn and Winter seasons. She is the one responsible for when you lose a loved one to the snow with their bellies warm with drink. Khvylisa is a woman calling to those who are out later than they should be, doing something they perhaps should not be. She is the consequence when you may have already experienced Judgment in Püertagœ, and she is the shiv in mercenaries pockets in the dead of night.

Khvylisa is not a God, but a superstition to the denizens of Tam'nýer—a', who is thriving. People who mysteriously disappear never to be heard from again are usually attributed to succumbing to Khvylisa, but it also means that that individual may have been up to no good in a massive way. Perhaps your husband had been carrying on an affair for a month or more. Perhaps your child was growing up too fast, getting into things they shouldn’t have. Perhaps your wife is stealing your money, and poisoned your mother so that she could partake in your inheritance.

Whatever the case, Khvylisa knows, and she judges without hesitation.

While Khvylisa may caution people from doing things in the ‘cover of night’, dispelling the very idea that there is no true ‘cover’ in the light of the moon and shadows of night, Khvylisa poses more danger in the long run. This is because good people who get murdered on the way home from a pub can get smeared after death, especially if their body isn’t found. The military of Püertagœ particularly have a difficult time trying to reduce Khvylisa’s snare on the people, as it makes their investigations into disappearances all the more difficult as someone people are adamant on settling that they have come to blows with Khvylisa.

Khvylisa is sometimes also referred to as ‘The Man’s Whore’, furthering the shame and slander that comes with disappearing randomly, never to show up again. ‘Man’, of course, is used here to describe men, women and children, such as ‘mankind’. However, when in reference to a troublesome child disappearing she is regarded as ‘The Lullaby’. A very different feeling, as it is played off as though a temperamental child who would have surely grown up to be no good gave in and went quietly to sleep, as if saving one’s family from judgment.

In truth, Khvylisa bolsters Püertagœ’s graffiti of Judgment. If you’ve received it once, you are believed to be at risk of falling victim to her. She is the embodiment of consequence, fear and fate for ill-advised actions.

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Zlephka

added by Hades

Pertinent to the Z'sa'Ză-'Bäa

The Zlephka is an infamously popular superstition among the people in the mountains of T-'a'Ţăs'múr. It is spoken of as a monster, one that lurks in the darkness of the forest covered grounds at the base of the mountains. The Z'sa'Ză-'Bäa speak of it truly as though it were as real as the suns themselves, their fear of the creature is widely known.

This creature is said to have the body of a Wôrdiţ, but the head of a tree stump. Some claim that its fur, though short is so matted is appears as though it is molding. Some go so far as to say that its body is actually inside out, its flesh is really its entrails. But all agree that the Zlephka has a large gaping mouth with sharp wooden teeth filling the entirety of it. Its eyes like black pits, but up close one would see that they too are filled with these sharpened wooden spines for teeth. The Z'sa'Ză-'Bäa's fear of this creature is to the extreme.

They fear touching the forest floors when the night falls come. If one or two Z'sa'Ză-'Bäa are alone in the forest during the darkened nights, it is believed that this creature will hunt them. It only hunts in the dark. It is said to eat whomever it is hunting, chomping away at the face of its victims first, and as you go to push it away, its eyes then begin to devour you as well. Parents warn their children to never travel to the forest floors in during the dark nights. Many Z'sa'Ză-'Bäa have claimed to have seen it in their life times, but none have managed to capture it, kill it, or find any real remains. However, their belief remains steadfast. For this reason, the Z'sa'Ză-'Bäa will do far less trading during the seasons in which they have night times.

The origin of this story comes from a deep reach in the Z'sa'Ză-'Bäa's histories, so far long ago that none remember the time that it had begun or how many years had gone by. It was a superstition taught from before the Gods themselves had abandoned them all. A child had wandered to the woods surrounding the base of the mountains during the eerie twilight months and managed to spy a Wôrdiţ with its head stuck inside a log. Needless to say the animal was panicked, thrashing, and certainly waling unheard of noises. The fear that had struck the child by the bizarre sight had confused them and sent them scurrying home to their parents to tell the tale. Over generations the story had spread like wildfire and became warped to what it has been known of now.

 

 

The Kîn'Kaß

Khah' solely

Kîn'Kaß are strange but beautiful to behold, that is, if you manage to see one. Much like many folklore surrounding forests and jungles that depict ‘tree spirits’, the Khah’ have the Kîn’Kaß. They are no taller than the length of your hand, while some may only be the length of your pinky finger. They are quick to scurry away, and do not like to be seen unless they believe you have a good heart and wish no harm to the world around you. For this reason, children are the main one’s claiming to see them, still unburdened by the stress and responsibility of adulthood to skew their vision.

Like the Khah’, the Kîn’Kaß live together as families so big they can safely qualify as a proper tribe. Each individual wears a different color, and usually has horns adorned with their own spirit animal. That’s right! Even the spirits have spirits! The Kîn’Kaß mainly live in the large trees throughout the Sky-Coral Sea, and survive off the fungus houses that the Khah’ reside in.

It is said that if a house should be begin to fall into disrepair, or the fungus gets sickly that offerings should be put out in the home in a designated spot as an offering to the Kîn’Kaß, as they are the Healers of the Jungle. As if mirroring how the Storytellers speak to the Khah’Xia, the Kîn’Kaß speak to Uu’krieuvan and when Death & Reincarnation walks about, they will speak on your behalf to Him in order for your home to get His blessing.

In thanks to this belief, (or superstition), most Khah’ homes not only leave little offerings to the Kîn’Kaß at all times, but they also supply little houses for them. More often than not, they are located on pedestals in a nook near an open window so that the Kîn’Kaß are free to come and go as they please. Some Khah’ villages however, will have a communal home for the Kîn’Kaß. If this is the case, the home is usually at the epicenter of the village, and responsibility for keeping it clean, free of debris and the Kîn’Kaß fed is a shared responsibility.

The most gracious of offerings to the Kîn’Kaß aside from food is a small candle (think tealight) to keep them warm at night.

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सुसुकि · Susuki

Fawzia-Kedet primarily

It all begins with a rich merchant's daughter stealing into the night in an ornamented rickshaw. With her entourage of trusted servants aiding her, no more than 4, in the light of Nue, she embarked on a journey that surely the great god Hirself could understand as it was for her love and true companion, to her husband to-be and most importantly, of her own choosing.

She refused all the suitors that came and that her parents had arranged; heart & mind settled upon a lowly automata craftsman. His gentle way with her that echoed in his delicate touch and eye for detail in his work. Convinced that Nue would protect her, she fled with her servants and few chosen possessions, though she forgotten to say a prayer and give an offering before her perilous journey. Perhaps that is why her beloved servants were slaughtered when they were surprised on the road by a band of restless thugs; men who had too much to drink, scorned by their families for amounting to nothing.

Surely this beautiful rickshaw carried someone of worth, and wouldn't their families come crawling and begging to take part of their riches then? Once a ransom was paid, they would have to answer to no one but themselves. Though in their drunken haze, adrenaline and rapacity, they killed her servants, and tore the young woman from her mother's rickshaw only to quell their alcohol-induced lust prior to slitting her throat. The men were caught and hung, but the trail on which the hopeful woman traveled was said to be stained with her blood, and her cries of desperation took to being the only thing the breezes that crossed that place would sing. So, it became overgrown, avoided.

Now, as the tale comes back to popularity, as most love stories do (whether fulfilled or not), a shrine stands in that place. With funds from a small group of people who wanted to bring awareness to the story of the pretty young girl who dared to love the shrine was built. It is rumoured that when they were out to pick a place on the abandoned trail that they found an intricate automata in the tall black grass, worn by time and made priceless. No doubt, left at some point by her lover, the man she lost her life for.

The woman's tragic end is now marked by tradition. Some choose to celebrate it on the first night of Nue's week (Nue'qwi) and some choose to celebrate it every night of the week; dressing up in all their finery, or as ghouls to scare off the would-be murderers. They walk from the city and nearby communities to the shrine, leaving gifts and the leftovers of their shared feast that they hold there to nourish and ease her cries on the breeze, so that perhaps in spirit she can make the rest of her journey from so long ago. Because of the story of how the shrine came to be erected on its exact spot, some will even leave automata, and these become part of her shrine, simply known as सुसुकि·Susuki, which has become accepted as the young woman's name.

In beautiful irony, as the tradition is to dispel her wails of agony during her undoing, the walk itself is a thriving echo of Fawzia's history as a Nkhya'jran city: Ḍakaībhara.

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