Ghyll:Corpse birth

A corpse birth is not a very pleasant experience for anyone involved. The father gone, estranged, or uncaring, the mother dead, the friends missing, and the newborn hatchling greeted into his first life by the still and cold body of his mother nearby. With no concept of right, wrong or maybe, natural instinct kicks in: the mother's corpse becomes both a plaything and a first meal.

It takes a few days before the hatchling struggles from the nest to look for further sustenance. Still unsure of why the world is such a lonely place, parts of the nest, or the mother's body, are often clutched tightly as the young heads out on his first journey. In the case of body parts, this is, as suggested, an entirely unpleasant experience for those he happens upon.

A "corpse birth", which describes both the process and the living result, is not immediately accepted into a local community, largely because of the way he smells. Without the nurturing of his parents, without that "handling", the gut reaction is he just isn't "one of us". Only after the badge-like Dendel Striping is one visually "acceptable" (merely the difference between "our corpse birth", and a new, unknown, straggler) even as his smell continues to affront.

Rarely truly accepted, and almost never loved, corpse births lead lives of desperation, always scrounging for food and warmth in the alleys of large towns like Folktown or Iganefta or the wilds surrounding Alezan, the Elminster Mire, or similar locales. One benefit, if it could be called such, of being a corpse birth is escaping the stories of where not to go or fear. As you might expect, this doesn't improve their reputation.

Some stories of Carsok of Vulcrue place her as the first mother of both a corpse birth and the first non-Creator-"created" being. After years of waiting for her own egg to hatch, only to realize that Shtreiml had ensured the shell unbreakable, Carsok slit her own throat, hoping her life blood would give strength to her daughter trapped within. As the last drops of her life ebbed away, a crack formed, and then another. Freed, her daughter spent the better part of her life pursuing her mother's dream: imbalance between Quintuplets and Octuplets.

Citations: Dendel's Stripes, Nesting, Shtreiml.

--Morbus Iff 15:46, 3 Jun 2005 (EDT)