by Eshatoh on December 23rd, 2009, 3:39 am
This is the product of the insanity and boredom produced by a 10+ hour car ride. It's nowhere near done, and what's already here will probably change much by the time I'm done, but I figured I'd post it and get input/criticism anyways.
Lavak
The Lavak are creatures, composed primarily of molten rock, that tunnel through Kalea’s many mountains and volcanoes. They are an important agent of volcanic release and help prevent massive eruptions. Nevertheless, because of their very nature, they are extremely dangerous and should be avoided.
Note that the plural form of their name is the same as the singular.
History
During the Valterrian, as Ivak raged across the world, the things that he had previously done over thousands of years, he did in seconds. Mountains thrust up and pierced the sky. Earthquakes shook the very foundations of the earth. Volcanoes erupted, shooting the very bowels of the earth up in molten fountains. He even created races—most were short lived and unsustainable, but there were a very few that lasted. The Lavak were one of those.
Since that time they have performed the duty they were given. Ivak just might have been at least partially sane when he created these.
Appearance
The Lavak have two different forms in their lifetime. The "seed-core" eventually grows into a fully mature Lavavk.
Seed-Core
The seed-core form of a Lavak has much in common with a rock. Because they are formed from molten rock that exploded outwards and hardened, a young Lavak can have any number of shapes. Most often, though they are flat on one side and roughly circular on the other, reflecting the shape of the land where the splotches of molten rock landed. Their color is usually black or red, though variations are known to exist. At most, a Lavak seed-core could have a diameter of three feet.
After a seed-core has cooled sufficiently from its original formation, it will sprout legs. These legs are long and spindly like a spider’s, each with a single joint. Seed-cores have been seen with as many as nine legs and as few as two. It is not known if these are the limits for the creatures, nor is it known how the number of legs is determined. Some have speculated that the size of the crystal shard plays some role.
If one were to perform the rather unwise act of cutting open a seed-core Lavak, they would find that the entire body except for a spot close to the center is composed of solid rock. In the center is a hollowed out cavity holding a shard of pure white, opaque crystal. This crystal shard contains the consciousness that directs the Lavak towards heat and animates the stone body of the creature and is marked with a third level gnosis of Ivak.
Mature Lavak
A Mature Lavak usually lives deep beneath the earth’s crust, swimming through magma flows and directing them to proper outlets. Because of this dwelling, men rarely see them. If they were visible, however, they would appear as shapeless globs of fire. A thin clear membrane holds together the entire structure, and within it lava flows. Somewhere in the lava floats a large crystal that slowly grows as the Lavak grows.
A mature Lavak grows larger the longer it exists. When it first comes to the magma flows, a Lavak is usually around one foot in diameter. Just before it dies, a Lavak could be up to 30 feet in diameter.
Abilities
If one didn’t know better, he wouldn’t even imagine that the seed-core and mature forms of the Lavak were the same creature. Their abilities are drastically different as well as their appearance.
Seed-Core
Although the seed-core appears to be made of solid rock, its body is actually made of the most powerful explosive in existence. In fact, its body is the only source of this explosive, thus its name, “Lavak Powder.” This is necessary because the transformation from a seed-core Lavak into a mature one involves large amounts of heat. The crystal at the center of a seed-core’s body is marked with a third level gnosis mark of Ivak, so that it can sense heat and, upon the occasion of its metamorphosis, direct the force of explosions.
While in this form, the body of a Lavak behaves basically as a very brittle rock would. Cold and water will not damage a seed-core, though they may make its body more vulnerable to shattering. Anybody with a good-sized sledgehammer could break one of these, although sharper implements are more likely to just glance off of its body.
Mature Lavak
A mature Lavak has mastered the gnosis skills that it possessed as a seed-core. On an impulse, it can move lava through Kalea’s underground and push it up to the surface. Its body is composed entirely of lava surrounded by a thin membrane, so if it was able to maintain its composition on the surface, it would be able to shape itself into any shape fathomable and light fires with a touch. What actually happens when it comes to the surface is that both the consciousness crystal and the lava body explode because of the difference in pressure.
Personalities
Lavak possess very simplistic minds both as seed-cores and in their mature form. Instinct guides their actions almost entirely. Those instincts are primarily guided towards survival, although Ivak did imprint a few that would further his purposes.
Lifespan
The life of a Lavak begins as it ends—with a fiery explosion. When a mature Lavak tunnels to the surface, it explodes the moment open air touches it. Globs of lava and shards of crystal go flying in all directions. When a shard of crystal lands in a puddle of lava, a seed-core Lavak is formed. The death of one mature Lavak can create as many as ten seed-core Lavak. Forest fires are frequently started through this mechanism—beneficial to the pine forests that litter the Kalea range.
Gradually, the lava hardens into the explosive stone that makes up the Lavak in their immature form. Then, the rocks will sit where they fell for about a week, slowly sprouting legs. Lavak are given a third level gnosis mark of Ivak in the moment of the death of their parent and use it immediately following the advent of their full mobility. Right away, they begin locating the largest heat source in the area and moving towards it. Because so many Lavak are born in close proximity to one another, they can often be seen moving in packs. Most of the time, the only heat source a Lavak can immediately is the sun, and so packs are often seen following its course across the sky.
In any case, large numbers of Lavak die before they reach maturity. Many follow the sun straight into the sea, where they die, oxygen being necessary to their life-process. Others fall off of cliffs, their brittle bodies shattering when they hit the ground. People even harvest a small number to make explosive powders. Because of this high mortality rate, although the splintered bodies of dead seed-cores are a common sight, the creature itself isn’t. If a seed-core were to somehow avoid all of these dangers without coming in contact with fire, it would putter to stop after twenty-five years, but up until that point it would maintain its full potency. These creatures are relatively rare, although anyone that travels extensively in the Kalea region is virtually garuanteed to see at least one.
When the seed-core finally locates a heat source strong enough to ignite it, it bursts into a huge explosion. The force of one of these blasts has been known to kill bears twenty feet away. The majority of the force from this explosion is directed downwards through Ivak’s gnosis and becomes the catalyst that the crystal core of the seed-core uses to burrow its crystal shard down into the lava flow.
It can take up to a year for the crystal to reach its new home, and once it does, instinct will direct it to use its gnosis mark to begin forming the membrane that will encompass its new body. At, first the membrane will be no more than a foot in diameter, but it can grow to be up to thirty feet in diameter if the Lavak is exceptionally long-lived.
In their mature form Lavak act in concert to relieve pressure whenever necessary. They do this by causing eruptions on the surface. While this would at first seem to be of negligible benefit to surface-dwellers, but it actually prevents larger, more devastating, eruptions from occurring.
Finally, when a Lavak’s membrane begins to shrink again, it will instinctually begin using its gnosis to move itself to the surface. This happens after about one hundred to two hundred years. When the Lavak reaches the surface, it explodes and starts the process from which it originally came all over again.
Last edited by
Eshatoh on February 22nd, 2010, 4:13 am, edited 3 times in total.
Thank you!
