Ah, my Mother. I know you’re out there, writhing at the bottom of the sea. Other worlds have sand or rock, but we have you. You, who’s crushed the dreams of inventors by destroying, sinking and consuming all ships and flying machines that pass above you.
You, who prevents us from ever seeing the sunset or sunrise by making that part of the sky black with your presence. You, who keeps us from all the other beautiful tropics and islands that might exist, and all the wondrous people that might be on them.
You. You horrible, hateful hag.
— An Ode to the Fatherly Giants and Other Malevolent Things, Cerceim.
It wasn’t always like this. I mean, the All Mother’s always existed, but there was a time when she didn’t encompass all of the sea, and didn’t harm those who attempted to pass in it. Of course, this was long before the D’est were developed enough to even dream of sea-vessels. But on some distant day, when the D’est were progressed enough, they could have gone to foreign shores and colonised there.
And that's exactly where the hero-gods, who travelled on the back of giants across the water, went to and returned from. That’s the worst part, I think. There was just that little window that let us know what it was like. The most wondrous thing one’s eye could ever set their sight upon: the sea and the tropics. That’s what all the fables say.
They say there are huge expanses of trees, all in different brilliant colours. One might be a sun-bright and vibrant tone of violet, while the next a brilliant green, and the next, the colour of smell, and then one with the texture of divinity and yet another with the scent of kind spirits. And within these forests, there are archways and doors all to different worlds, and tribes which have so much food that often, they would die from excess.
These are the tales all who live in Yoren grow up with and fantasise and dream about, and the legends they commit to memory until they can half-see the tropics from ages ago when they close their eyes.
It was after all of that… that the Sea Mother grew up.
She was always the oldest, and even from the beginning, She was the biggest. None of us dared call Her out, because it would have been mortally insolent; and to begin with, there was nothing to disapprove of. She had previously – before any of us came to exist – decided that it was Her prerogative to assume dominion over the sea. To us, She had always been its ruler, and this was just the way of things. Then She decided to start… expanding. So She could cover all of it, to better practice Her ownership. Some of the gods had already started going out on voyages, and She wanted to keep an eye on them. She didn't want anyone on the sea unwatched.
That’s when She started to go mad.
— Taken from an interview with the Father of the First, submitted by an anonymous representative of the Polyecclesia Association.
There are various accounts of what, exactly, the All Mother is. The matter is mostly one of speculative mythology: She was the first sapient entity, so logically, there would have been none who could testify as to her nature first-hand. That is, save for the rocks and the water; the water generally proving unwilling to risk upsetting her, and the rocks usually presenting language difficulties.
In all accounts, the Sea Mother was the first living, intelligent or motile thing to come into existence, but this is attributed a varying significance. Common telling would posit that she was the first entity of any kind, pre-dating the gods and earth which came later, and the world was created around her; though this is patently not true (the First admit to recalling the All Mother mentioning her earliest memory being of the Yor’al forest, which runs along a cliff by the coast).
Alternatively, and somewhat more popularly, the All Mother was created by some unknown precursor to modern creators after the world was put into place, that she might spawn (and as such, serve as a proxy for creation) future generations of similar entities. Though highly disputed as the origin of people of Yoren, this is well known to be how the First came to be (even if some of them do deny it). And in fact, this is a tendency that continues: in modern times, the digested and – according to some – the Thosk are said to have arisen as the spawn of the Mother in her present state.
— A Comprehensive Mythology of the Lithiphobic, various.
they’re everywhere. they're on my skin. they're in my skin. and when they're touching my skin, they're on the pieces of rock stuck in it looking and they hate me
I feel wrong it feels wrong it's wrong
get out get out get out
leave me alone for god's sake
I know. I know it has to be my skin because it’s around me. It’s all over me and I’m under it and it wraps around me like an blanket full of
I remember. I remember when it wasn’t my skin. I remember when it was my home and my house and just there. but not attached
they weren’t in my skin then. they weren’t there at all. they weren't all around me moving and clawing make them stop get them out
I can’t make it stop. it’s been years and years but i can’t make them stop. all the fishes and the boats and the men and the things and the children
children that born in me and won’t leave
no matter how many fishes I strangle and choke and throw out they always make more before I can find them and the boats keep coming and I try to kill them and make them stop but they won’t
they won’t stop.
how do I
— Found scrawled on the sands of Yor’um beach, which was indefinitely flooded shortly afterwards.