Perspective of the Sereg'wethrin, Volume 4

Perspective of the Sereg'Wethrin, Vol 4 By Earar Di'Mana

4. Survival and the Underdark

I consider the Sereg’Wethrin’s exile into the Underdark as their transition from a military unit into a race because they themselves made the choice not to just dwindle in numbers as the years passed, but to maintain and to then expand their numbers. Of course the methods they chose to accomplish this were horrid, but given the mentality of the leadership, and the situation they were faced with, one can understand why they did what they did, if not at all agreeing how or being willing to implement it.

As an all male force, focused on military matters, the exiled Sereg’Wethrin started with no ability to reproduce, no supply of volunteers to join their ranks, and no experience in raising children. As they entered the Underdark, every member they lost in combat, old age, and accidents brought them one step closer to extinction. Being elves, it would take them at least 50-60 years to raise newborns to be effective members of their new society. To compound that, although they had forts and fortresses in the Underdark, these places were not suitable for massive numbers of Sereg’Wethrin withdrawn from the surface, nor were they adequate or sized for raising and protecting young, certainly not for any length of time. That first century in the Underdark was difficult to say the least. As a T’Nanshi military force, they had funding, supplies, and volunteers all from the nation they protected. Even their forts in the Underdark were in fact outfitted by T’Nanshi. Once exiled, supplies would have needed to be taken from the Underdark. The large increase in presence in the Underdark would have caused tension with the other residents in the Underdark.

The Underdark is a hostile and evil place, with its own inhabitants. The Sereg’Wethrin, to survive on their own, and to secure enough room for their numbers and facilities needed to displace some of them to carve a new home for itself. To do so, they created new enemies, and needed to learn an entirely new way of life, living in caves and not the forests for example. They survived based on two facts alone, strict adherence to orders, and dependence upon each other. To survive in a brutal place, they became brutal, but unlike most races in the Underdark, they worked for their collective survival, instead of as individuals. This gave them an advantage, and slowly they were able to better secure their locations to fortify and use even to this day as the centers of their society.

Now, there are of course aspects of the Sereg’Wethrin that just do not fit in T’Nanshi society today, but one aspect to be admired is their loyalty to each other. No Sereg’Wethrin has to fear betrayal from another Sereg’Wethrin. It is a hard life, yes, and the weak fall while the strong rise, but that is a part of the rules they all learn and understand. I've also learned through my studies and interactions that when a Sereg’Wethrin gives their word, they will die before breaking it. The hard part is getting them to give their word of course, and when they do, to understand the wording. This loyalty and honor allowed them to survive and eventually to thrive in the Underdark, where as other races would have failed.

I title this chapter "Survival", not for their survival in the Underdark, but the course they took to survive as a race. Faced with an all male force, and being long-lived elves, the Sereg’Wethrin took two paths in an attempt to survive. The Sereg’Wethrin, angry at T’Nanshi for what they perceived as abandoning them, turning on them, followed paths that lead them to kidnap and capture elves from T’Nanshi, both males and females. I wasn't there, and I can't know the thoughts and emotions of the Sereg’Wethrin of the time. Perhaps faced with the same situation I would have made the same choice, or perhaps not. But they did what they did in order to survive. What is true is that no Sereg’Wethrin alive today was there when this course was taken. All of them today were raised with this way of life, and a powerful fact of this current generation is the fact that they, on their own, have stopped this practice over the past 50 years of so. I'll go into this more in future chapters, but a recurring theme to me is how many mistakes were made in the past by all sides, but how many opportunities that has provided us today to correct the mistakes forgive each other, and try to reconcile our differences. The Sereg’Wethrin of today have taken steps, without prompting, to this end.

But, before we get into that, first we must understand the atrocities and actions committed long ago.

The taking of males and females was for different purposes. Taking young elven males was an attempt to make them into Sereg’Wethrin, just like they had done for thousands of years. The critical difference, which in the end caused this not to be possible, was that prior Sereg’Wethrin were volunteers, trained military elves, who were qualified and willing to move into this special force. However these elves that were captured were not willing, not volunteers, and did not have a military background. This caused the early attempts to make them into Sereg’Wethrin fail. Sadly, horrifically, the Sereg’Wethrin did not allow these males to go free, return them home. Maybe the first attempt harmed them in some fashion, and they couldn't be freed, but regardless, There Sereg’Wethrin took their condition techniques to a new hideous level. Most of the kidnapped elves died in the process, but those that did not were forever stripped of the will and minds, to become Nmal’maer, The Tortured Ones. These aberrations were deadly, powerful, and mindless. That the Sereg’Wethrin would do this to their cousins speaks volumes as to their leadership’s evil nature at the time, and their quest for power.

The taking of female elves, however, proved to be a successful way for them to sustain their race, but at the expense of the freedoms of the females taken captive. If time could be reversed, I would hope that the powers at the time would be able to alter course to avoid the fates of these captives. At some point in the recent past the Sereg’Wethrin seem to have met a balancing point with the number of females they have, and have stopped kidnapping new females. This is a significant change because it demonstrates that the Sereg’Wethrin did not wish to take Elves just for the sake of taking them, though wrong nonetheless, it is more understandable that they would take such actions merely to survive.

Most people have a misconception as to the status and treatment of females in the Sereg’Wethrin society. Bluntly put, they falsely think females are slaves. It is difficult for someone outside of their society to fully understand, especially those that do not understand the dangers of the Underdark. I wrote above that Sereg’Wethrin females do not have many freedoms. Though this is true, it is not because they are slaves. To best explain this, I am going to quote a letter I received on the topic, from a Sereg’Wethrin himself...

    "Sereg’Wethrin females are not so much slaves as they are a highly important and critical aspects of Sereg’Wethrin society. While they do not roam free, it is not due to our desire to control them as slaves, but the sheer importance of not losing any of them to the hazards of life in the Underdark. Our males are frequently killed, even in close proximity to our own bases. Nor are our outposts immune to raids any more than anyone else’s. We made many enemies carving out enough territory to sustain us in the Underdark. Those enemies do not hesitate to destroy as many of us as they can. If our females were to roam free as our males do, we would not have been able to end the practice of capturing Elven females from the surface. We have enough female Sereg’Wethrin at this time to sustain ourselves, but not an excess of them. We breed much like Nanshi, and not like Humans, Halflings, Shaahesk, Dwarves, or any of the other short lived races. It takes many years for a female to reach breeding age, and if she is killed in that time it effectively reduces our potential population significantly. One way in which our race does differ from Nanshi however, is that our females tend to birth males more often than females, at a ratio of about three to one. The combination of these elements means that we cannot afford to lose even a single female. This is the reason our female population is confined to our major fortresses. Not because they are servants and slaves to our most powerful, but because they must be protected at all costs, and that is best achieved in our most protected areas.

    Mentally Sereg’Wethrin females are exactly the same as males. They follow orders without question as we do, and will make any sacrifice for the good of the collective. They are Sereg’Wethrin, and their mission is to ensure our survival in a way that only they can, through procreation. There are no cells or cages for our females, and they are not imprisoned. They are well cared for, comfortable, and the things they need are provided. The practice of capturing Nanshi females is as gone as the practice of super-conditioning, and the Sereg females stay to perform their duties, to complete their mission. Because of our divided structure, most Sereg’Wethrin have not seen any of our females since they were younglings themselves. Because of our military culture those who do not fight are often seen as less valuable or weak. It is my belief that these factors have lead to the disrespect many of our personnel may show for females in general.

    I do not deny that our initial need for females lead to the capture and forced breeding of Nanshi, but this is no longer the case. It is far preferable for us to continue our race with Sereg’Wethrin blood, rather than with the blood of Nanshi. I have also heard that some of our initial females were volunteers. Loyalists who, when the Sereg’Wethrin were first exiled, wanted to help us. Those Sereg’Wethrin were all once Nanshi, and must have had families of some sort as well. These volunteers willingly birthed Sereg’Wethrin for us. I cannot confirm this story however, though it seems likely that not all Nanshi would have turned their backs on us when we fled the Spiritland. Soldier’s families, and those who fought by our side may have come with us."

Lastly in this chapter I wish to touch an opinion I have on the topic of the Sereg’Wethrin’s lack of a sense of themselves, even after hundreds of years of being separated from the Spiritland. As a military unit they were tasked with defending T’Nanshi against her enemies, which they did to great effect for a very long time. As described earlier, they turned their need to defend T’Nanshi into a hatred of the enemy to better fight them, for which they were exiled. Yet, here we are, hundreds upon hundreds of years later, and the Sereg’Wethrin society is still defined by their hatred of humans. I find this interesting because they have this hatred because of their defense of T’Nanshi, from which they no longer take orders. So, the Sereg’Wethrin are, for the most part, defined even still today from their objectives and orders they were given while serving T’Nanshi. Now, a large part of this is not by choice. The younglings were trained and educated from an early age to hate humans, and breaking from what you learned as a youth is a very hard thing to do. Yet, there is a difference between learning to hate something based on your own personal experiences versus learning to hate something because that is what you were taught by others. Often times, in the later situation, what you learn for yourself outweighs what people have taught you. At some point in the future, I believe that the Sereg’Wethrin will start to define their race on their own terms, to do what is right for the Sereg’Wethrin society to thrive, and not continue to base their focus on how to kill humans, which does not advance them at all. For a long time after the M’Chek - T’Nanshi war, I hated humans, and M’Chek, but this hatred did not serve me, nor benefit anything I cared about. I learned to put those feelings away, and focus on my priorities, what mattered to me, namely T’Nanshi. I hope that someday, the Sereg’Wethrin can take a step like that as well. This is not to say I ever expect Sereg’Wethrin and Humans to ever be friends, just that some day the Sereg’Wethrin will chart a course for themselves that is of their own choosing, and not influenced by events from when they were a military unit in T’Nanshi.