Ithaere the Drowned Mother

Origins and Birth

Ithaere the Drowned Mother was born from the collective terror of a world drowning.

The Drowning Bloom, the flood phase of The Roothollow Rupture, was not a single flood. Water rose through the upper-underworld of The Roothollows again and again, swallowing passages, then chambers, then whole refuges. The Elves of the upper Roothollows, whose survivors would become the Dark Elves, watched their world disappear beneath black water. They did not pray for the water to stop; they had long since accepted that it would not. Instead, they prayed for survival. They begged for "someone to save the children," for "the strong to protect the weak," for "a mother who would not let us drown."

Appearance and Presence

At the height of her manifestation, Ithaere took the form of haunting, tragic beauty.

• Visuals: She was a tall, gaunt woman with skin the colour of a drowned corpse, pale blue-grey, bloated and waterlogged.
• The Atmosphere: Around her, the air became cold and damp, smelling of silt and decay.
• The Voice: Her voice carried the quality of speaking through water: bubbling, distorted, and echoing, as if she were always calling from beneath flooded stone.

Powers and Abilities

Ithaere did not save people from the water; she demanded that the water be paid.

• The Tithe: She could save a refuge from a flood, but only if the strongest among them gave themselves to the water as a sacrifice.
• The Buoyancy of the Innocent: She could grant the ability to float to those who could not swim (children, the elderly, the injured), but only if someone else sank in their place.
• The Drowned Court: She could summon the Echoes of those who had sacrificed themselves to her, commanding them as a spectral host.
• The Weight of the Deep: She could drag a person or a raft to the bottom of the flood with a touch.

The Fall: The Receding Waters

Ithaere's existence was predicated on the flood. When the waters fell, so did she.

• The Withdrawal: In time the flood receded from the upper passages, leaving them ruined, overgrown, and unsafe rather than drowned.
• The Shift: The survivors' fear changed shape.
• The Desperation: In her final years, Ithaere tried to keep the flood alive.
• The Dissolution: Ithaere did not shatter; she sank.

Legacy and Echoes

Though Ithaere is gone, her echo lingers in the deep places of the world.

• The Laments: Dark Elf laments for the Drowning Bloom still name her, and the Gloamroot Covenant keeps her among its oldest griefs.
• The Tide That Took: Dark Elf parents warn their children: "If you stray too close to black water, Ithaere will take you as her tithe." The black-water eels that take wading children make the warning true often enough.
• The Floaters: Every refuge-line of the Roothollows keeps the name of one who went down so that a child might float, and those children's descendants still answer for the debt with a place at the front of every danger the line faces.
• The Silent Court: The Drowned Court has not been known to rise since she sank.
• The Tithe Stones: In the upper Roothollows, flat stones worn smooth at old flood-lines are said to be where the strongest were given to the water.
• The Tithe-Cults: Every few generations a refuge in desperate straits, besieged by raiders or cut off by a flood, begins to give its strongest to black water again in her name.
• The Whisper in the Deep: Those who work deep water basins sometimes report a voice beneath the surface, calling for "just one more." Most dismiss it as the movement of water through stone, but the superstitious believe it is Ithaere, still demanding her tithe.

Relationships with Other Entities

• With Aqua Prime: Ithaere was a harsh but honest expression of Aqua's nature.
• With The Last Chamber and The Measured Seal (Terra): No contact; Ithaere faded before either condensed.