The Creation of a Val Family and their relationships to the Valinor
Well, back to the tried and true storyline of the Vals. In this instalment, I look at the evidence that we have been provided about the formation of the various Val families to see how their powers seem to be acquired and how they have spread like the divine cancer those who play Elorii—and even some of those who play other Human-kin—claim them to be.
First, we have to look at a bit of the history here. The Vals—or at least the original Vals—were said to have been produced after the God’s War at the beginning of the First Imperium of Man. Wishing to see all that was to come and how the fate of the world would fall, Larissa the Farseer looked so far into the future that what she saw drove her mad. Wishing to provide his children with divine-empowered protectors to help them meet the coming darkness, Illiir commanded each of the Gods of the Pantheon to send down their Valinor to empower their designated champion with their divine power (except for Anshar, how didn’t have Valinor so her Vals got her direct essence. . . with interesting results). These beings were then crowned as the ruling noble caste of Humanity by their divine heritage and were charged with the equitable rule and protection of those humans not so fortunate to have been blessed by the Gods themselves.
First of all, we come into a few problems with this whole scenario. While the Vals in general seem to be far more long-lived than normal humans, they do not seem to have greatly extended their lifespans. While this may not seem like a problem, we see it very much becoming an issue for the continuation of the individual Val family when it comes to reproduction. Let’s face it: unless you are the biggest whore in the world, with harems of dozens of partners, you will not be able to significantly spread your Val blood very much in your lifetime. This is especially true with families like the val’Emman where their founder (named Emman, apparently) was female. While men can knock up hundreds of women at a time, women are fairly limited in their ability to pass on their genetic potential to only one per year or so, assuming they spend the rest of their fertile lives popping out the kids. So how did the families do this?
Well, there are many possible options. The simplest explanation is that the First Imperium of Man lasted for some two-thousand years, so assuming that each new Val produced even a single offspring to survive to maturity and reproduce themselves, eventually the family would grow. It is a slow-moving way of ensuring a heritage, however, so I can’t be completely on board with this theory because it seems almost wasteful for the Gods. After all, unless the God’s (or Valinor) continually watch over the Val that they created, there is always a chance for accidents and fratricidal wars to wipe out entire families. The Gods would have to know about Human nature and its own internal divisiveness, so I doubt they would go to the effort just to see them kill each other off.
A second option comes to us at the Year of Ill Harvest with the Serenity of Beltine (note: Spoilers!), and I feel brings up more options in this regard. When the special table of Heroes (including at least a val’Tensen, a Dark-kin, a Human, a Ss’ressen, and an Elorii) managed to stop Lucius Orata, in with its last bit of strength the Valinor transferred some of its divine essence to all the people of the party, creating the val’Sosi family. Each of these beings, regardless of their race (to my understanding), were imbued with identical powers, with each serving as (ultimately) the genesis for their own branches of the val’Sosi family. This implies to me that the Valinor probably didn’t imbue individuals with their powers, but imbued entire family groups with the same powers. By doing this, the Valinor would assure that there is a much better chance that a single calamity would not wipe out their divine children in one fell swoop while also explaining why all Val families maintain similar physical traits, but not necessarily identical (the blood is a BIT more dilute than if it came from just one individual).
Of course, this brings up another question: What about the val’Sosi? The ‘family’ that was created consisted of 5-6 rather desperate individuals, none of whom (to my knowledge) were related. Would their family be known for NOT being fairly uniform, or would they (at least the Human-kin val’Sosi) eventually blend into a more uniform appearance? This answer can be answered, at least to an extent, by the events of the end of Year 6 of the 3.5 campaign. During the reign of Emperor Calcestus val’Assante’, the Emperor (who was at that time being heavily influenced by Manetas, the fallen Pride of Illiir) erected a statue of himself even above those of the Gods of the Pantheon. At the time, this was viewed as the cause of the fall of the God’s Wall to the North, and during The Storm of a year or so later, the statue was destroyed (or at least heavily damaged) by the pelting of divine-inspired hail. For years, it was assumed this was done by Calcestus as an act of hubris, but when Manetas finally revealed itself (himself), the nature of the statue was finally revealed: The face of the statue wasn’t that of Emperor Calcestus val’Assante’, it was the face of Manetas, which had a distinct family resemblance. This suggests that it is the VALINOR which dictates (at least to an extent) the appearance of their Val progeny. If this is so, then all the subsequent (human-kin) val’Sosi should homogenize over time.
I should also note that it has been said previously that Mr. Lopez has stated that the first few generations of the Val’s bred true, with each child always being a Val, and it is only later (ie: more recent times) that the trait seems to have become a Dominent genetic trait, but not a certainty. I cannot remember the actual statements to this effect, as I believe they were before my time in this world of Arcanis, but that also does add a bit of weight in the whole ‘making sure these people survive.’ If this is true, it brings up some interesting things about the val’Sosi, and their ability to grow as a family. With the val’Hamen, val’Vasik, and to an extent the val’Baucisz dying off before our eyes, there appears to be some room for this new family to raise up in power.
But how were these Val formed? The general, rather crude, theory is that the Valinor ‘got it on’ with a bunch of humans, spreading their genetic and magical powers with lots of kinky angel-on-human sexing. That, as mentioned above, was somewhat undermined by the creation of the val’Sosi. Having reread the relevant portion of the Year of Ill Harvest, it is not made clear HOW the imbuing happened (as I’m sure it was intended to be only a special thing for that specific table, complete with NDA’s), but it does not appear the dying Valinor boned a series of different races, passing on its divine essence through sexual organs. This means that the act of imbuing the divine essence is through either some complex (from our perspective) ritual, or is an innate power of the Valinor. If it is the latter, this seems odd to me as you’d think that, after millennia watching over Humanity, with dozens, if not hundreds and thousands of their numbers ‘falling’ that we’d see WAY more Val families kicking around Onara.
But Nierite, you obsessive fanboy, you say! But surely only those Valinor still thoroughly in the Gods’ good graces could pass along their divine genetics and magic to humanity! Surely it is only through the Will of the Gods! Well, there is something to that. We really don’t know what the Will of the God’s is, for only other such Gods such as Henry Lopez can truly understand such immense divine creatures. That said, speaking from only a mortal’s perspective, we have two examples of Valinor who seemed to pass along their heritage by accident, or at the very least outside the direct will of Illiir and the rest of the Pantheon: The val’Vasik, and the val’Baucisz.
The val’Vasik family—now either extinct or almost extinct, depending on how many of them Xabal. . . absorbed during his final fight—was created after the Patience of Illiir, who was charged with ensuring the Infernals of the now-Unsealed Lands never escaped from their prison. A few centuries ago, the Patience of Illiir could no longer stand the horrors it had witnessed, and (ironically) lost its patience. In doing so, the majority of its powers were stripped from it, leaving an (admittedly very powerful) man in its place. Taking the name Xabal, the former Patience of Illiir led a group of slaves to what is now the City of Bastion. Over the centuries, the val’Vasik family came into being from Xabal’s divine essence, though many claim that the family was produced using. . . far more traditional means than it seems a non-fallen Valinor could. If this interpretation is correct, that means that even a fallen Valinor, such as Urumeh on the forsaken plane of existence seen in “Drinking Deeply from the Chalice of Midnight,” or even many of the Infernal Lords who rule in Sarish’s stead upon the Infernal Plane can beget Val families!
The other known outlier of this group are the val’Baucisz. As provided in the 3.5 supplement “In the Shadow of the Devil” (good read, by the way!), we get two rather contradictory stories about the creation of that family (mostly spread by their detractors). In the ‘official’ story, the val’Baucisz began their life as devout Sarishans living in Upper Annonica who loved playing with Infernals, and were irritated by the lack of attention given to them by the Gods at the creation of the Val race. Wanting the power of those they felt were their equal, the Baucisz trapped a Valinor as a normal Sarishan would trap a demon, and then tortured this creature (Mish, the Shadow of Sarish) until it granted them the powers of the Vals that they demanded to become. This supports the pervious assertions that the Valinor can simply (through some means) imbue humans (and other races) with a portion of their divine essence. However, there is another story that has been perpetuated (supposedly) by the detractors of the hated val’Baucisz, claiming that they were a tribe of savages who came across a wounded Valinor from the God’s War. These savages then fell upon the wounded angel, and ate it alive, with its powers passing on with its (apparently delicious) flesh.
_________________ Cody Bergman Legends of Arcanis Campaign Staff Initial Author Contact/Adventure Vetting
Haakon Marcus val'Virdan, Divine Holy Judge of Nier Ruma val'Vasik, Martial Crusader and Master of the Spear Jorma Osterman, Arcane Coryani Battlemage
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