What is Known of the Mind Flayers

The malefic Outsiders of the astral void beyond the Earth are myriad in the Latter Age, but few are as distinct from the hosts of horrors as the beings known popularly as Mind Flayers.  Though they are believed to be long extinct, they still feature promptly in folklore and popular entertainments, attesting to their hold over humankind's collective imagination.

Little is known for certain about these beings. In Denizens of the Beyond by Pseudo-Vespydron, the most widely known work to examine them in detail, Mind Flayers are said to have come from the sphere of Mars, but whether they are natives to that world or from some even more distant home, even Denizens rather credulous author does not say. 

Pseudo-Vespydron uncritically accepts the cephalopod-headed humanoid appearance of popular portrayals and the idea that they were obligate consumers of human brains. The later (and comparatively more sober) histories of Malgrunda note no reliable descriptions of their physical form exist and put forward the theory that their purpose in preying upon the Earth was to acquire not foodstuffs but slave minds, derived from the destructive mapping of the brains of still-living captives. Perhaps the only place where she might be criticized in straying from established fact is in the time she devotes to Hseng's baseless assertion that the cephalopod skull is actually the memory of an environmental helmet with attached manipulators.

Druids of the Latter Age

 Contrary to the popular entertainments of the Latter Age, there is no cohesive group known as the druids. Rather, there are individuals and networks of individuals across several cultures that adhere to similar beliefs and practices. Though the Instrumentality labels druidism as heretical "Earth-worshippers," these practitioners generally no more worship the Earth Mother than the Instrumentality itself does.

Like the clerics of the Instrumentality, those that might be termed druids are aware to one degree or another that in more lucent ages the environment of the Earth and its citizens interaction with it were managed by a great Mind. This Mind is no more, at least not in any unified form (so the clerics believe), but the many of the component minds still haunt the world, and the particles of its sensory apparatus of that superintelligence still weave through the winds, fall with the rains, and course through the bloodstreams of animals. 

By means of secret lore and technology, the druids are able to converse and with the lesser minds that record and synthesize this sensory data. These processes are known as elementals. While the elementals occasionally form connections with more active systems on their own, the druid's involvement often bridges the two, giving the earth a voice to humankind that dwells upon it. Like the magi, druids are at times able to command the remnant nanotechnological systems, though how they achieve these powers is a closely guarded secret. Among their more impressive abilities, they can cause avatars to be instantiated from natural features for short periods of time or effect change in local weather patterns.

Unlike the Instrumentality, the druids do not believe that the Gaean mind is irrevocably destroyed. Instead, they view her as suffering from an illness, and illness from which they work to help her recover. They don't seek the re-ascendence of humankind, but rather the restoration of a balance they feel the Ancients achieved but then squandered.

Gifts of the Magi

In the Latter Age of Earth, magi are those few born with the Mark, a quirk or atavism of their genetic code, that supports full activation of the nanotechnologic interface within their brains, allowing them to become users of the system enveloping the planet. With this linkage made and mastered, a magus may command and the world responds. They can open the vast subterranean vaults of the Ancients, contain and control willful spirits, and send clouds of doom upon their enemies. 

The magi of the several collegia seek out newly emerged mages to teach them to use their gifts. Those wild talents who are not initiated into a collegium are known as sorcerers. 

The place of the magi varies across the cultures of the world. Where the Instrumentality is at its strongest their practice is generally restricted, regulated, and monitored. Occasionally they are outright banned, but their abilities are simply too valuable to governments and even to the clergy for this to be a common practice.

Nevertheless, the life of a magus is often precarious. Superstitious common folk can easily turn against them, and Instrumentality zealots are often eager to find a reason to punish or imprison them. Beyond that, the very forces they wield and the knowledge they seek can easily prove dangerous to them as much as anyone else.

The Instrumentality of Humankind

 

Lately, I've been thinking about my Scavengers of the Latter Ages idea, which is sort of a "hard" science fantasy setting, and reconsidering some aspects. Here's a new take on clerics in the setting:

"We of the Institute receive an intensive historical inculcation; we know the men of the past, and we have projected dozens of possible future variations, which, without exception, are repulsive. Man, as he exists now, with all his faults and vices, a thousand gloriously irrational compromises between two thousand sterile absolutes – is optimal. Or so it seems to us who are men."

- Jack Vance, The Killing Machine

Clerics are ordained individuals in the service of the Instrumentality of Humankind. The purpose of their order is the preservation of Humanity and its restoration as stewards of the Earth. To this end, they seek to discourage the worship of false gods such as digital minds and alien entities, and to limit and manage technologies that might alter humanity or thwart its destiny.

While the Instrumentality is technically a nonreligious entity, its organization and trappings mimic religious forms, and its exoteric teachings (officially allegorical) regarding the Earth Mother and the Primeval or Cosmic Man form the basis of a folk belief system, and this system, along with Instrumentality's ceremonies and rituals have developed into a civic religion in many places.

The Instrumentality is not a group of luddites, despite their goals. They hold technology must be understood and mastered, so that what is valuable maybe used for the benefit of humanity, but not it's transformation. They maintain, for instance, almost total control of advance healing techniques, and can wield terrible weapons if the need arises.

The Institute of Vance's Demon Princes series and the Church of Foster's Humanx Commonwealth are a big influence here but pushed in a more Dune direction by the Terran Chantry Ruocchio's Sun Eater series.