Asmedons
The Asmedons (from Antissan asma, “at first, in the beginning” and dammaras, “servant [of the gods]”) are a purportedly supernatural race who are, collectively, key figures within the cosmology of Siriash. While they were originally thought to be a servitor race to the ruling deities, the Sebanants, within Siriash’s precursor faith Palthachism, their role and significance were wholly overturned by the revelations of the Book of Transcendence as discovered by Menrot of Linganthar at the end of the seventh century BCE.
The Palthachist interpretation
Within Palthachism, the Asmedons were originally identified as a servant race brought into being by the Sebanants, who were themselves individual fragments of the greater overarching figure of the Forerunner, from whose destruction the present universe was created. The Asmedons were conceived as a powerful race, capable of abilities which would be regarded as superhuman by the standards of normal humans; and it would arguably be the error of the Sebanants in granting their creations such immense power – even if greatly inferior to their own – that prompted the rebellion among the Asmedons which was to follow.
Although created as servants, the Asmedons grew to resent their lesser status and grew jealous of the power and rule exhibited by their Sebanant masters. In time, having studied the Sebanants’ skills in creation, the Asmedons created a servant race of their own, known as the Tessanes (probably from Antissan tepsanutar, “abased, dishonoured”). The Sebanants were furious at the Asmedons’ presumption and sought to discipline them; this caused the Asmedons to rise in rebellion against their masters in the celestial war known in Palthachist and Sirian cosmology as the Arayan.
The duration of the Arayan is unknown, and probably unknowable; however, by its end the Asmedons, even with the support of their Tessane servants, were forced to bow the knee to the majesty of the Sebanants. Fearing the prospect of renewed conflict if firm action was not taken, the Sebanants exiled their new enemies into a distant nether-realm. In the place of the Asmedons, the Sebanants created a new race of servants – deliberately cruder and much weaker than their predecessors, so as to prevent any prospect of a repeat of the Arayan – before withdrawing to a place of seclusion and leaving the world in the hands of their new creations. This new race would become the precursors of modern humanity; the Asmedons and their Tessane servants would become malevolent quasi-demons on the fringes of Palthachist society, ever eager to pull humans from the righteous path of devotion to the Sebanants, whose influence would be warded against by way of various rituals and practices, most significantly parkuyatar.
The Sirian revision
The discovery of the “lost text” which became the Book of Transcendence completely overturned this worldview. Written as the testimony of Nevaras, one of the leaders of the Asmedons during the Arayan, it revealed the truth which the Sebanants – and, by extension, the priesthood of Palthachism – had kept hidden. In this interpretation, the Sebanants were not the fragments of the lost Forerunner, but merely flawed and imperfect copies of his ineffable substance. Wandering the world created by the Forerunner’s discorporation, they encountered a second race of similar power to their own, the Asmedons; by largely unspecified means they tricked the Asmedons into pledging themselves to them as servants. Periodically, an Asmedon would “descend into oblivion” – taken to be the discorporation of his body and the break-up of his spiritual essence to provide sustenance for the Sebanants.
As in the mainstream interpretation, the Asmedons ultimately rebelled against their self-appointed masters, prompting the events of the Arayan, after which the defeated Asmedons faced the wrath of the Sebanants. Here the new Siriash veered away from the old Palthachism; the vast majority of the Asmedons were slaughtered, and most of the survivors were exiled to Arden with their powers reduced almost to nothing – where it was they, and not the Sebanants’ new creations, who became the first humans. A very few Asmedons were retained as servants and were allowed to keep most of their native powers, although their memories were erased as a precaution; in this fashion the status quo ante bellum was (almost) restored.
For uncounted ages this position was maintained; but Nevaras, by some unknown means or events, recovered his lost memories. He sought to enlist the aid of his fellows in taking the Sebanants on anew, but instead was betrayed by them and brought before the Sebanants to be punished. Nevaras was stripped of his powers and was banished to Arden to live out the rest of his days as a mortal human; but he was able to trick the Sebanants into leaving his memories essentially intact. As a living human, he crafted the testimony of the Book of Transcendence to warn humans of the perfidy of the Sebanants and their human agents.
Sociologically, the perception of the Asmedons as demons had acquired considerably more nuance; having originally been strictly speaking mysterious and dangerous heralds of the visceralities of life, which parkuyatar would temper and suppress to prevent bloodshed in the community, now new religious theories amidst the social upheaval which Siriash emerged from proposed instead a proper confrontation and harnessing of these powers, even uplifting those to conduits of a true otherworldliness which the ecstasy of battle or self-improvement provided. The hierology of Ascension duly developed from such premises, while parkuyatar itself became more participative in nature, often being morphed into war rites or other radically different forms, finally giving way to the prototypes of Sirian liturgy.
The idea of humans as a kind of “neutered gods”, and the perception that Palthachism in its original form was based on the systematic deception of its adherents, acted like acid on the already weakening base of the Palthachist faith, catalysing its collapse in favour of the new interpretation, which became known as Siriash (from Antissan ishiullas, “contract” – specifically, the contract between Nevaras and humanity at large).
Unlocking the power within
The Book of Transcendence claims that, as the descendants of the Asmedons, a race of superhumanly powerful beings, humanity contains within itself the potential to display the same powers, and that it is the accumulated burden of transgressions on the human spirit that holds it to the mortal realm and prevents it from manifesting these powers. Proper observance of the rites and mores of Siriash, it is held, will allow the spirit to ascend, initially up the levels of the Sirian Divine Hierarchy and ultimately beyond it, thus releasing the blocks on this repressed godlike power as the ascended spirit takes its place within the army which Nevaras has assembled to besiege the Sebanants in their citadel of Archtum. The idea that only through Siriash can the true potential of humanity be realised has been cited as one of the chief drivers of the at-times forcible proselytization for the faith undertaken by its adherents.
Some debate has existed within Sirian theology as to what was meant by “superhuman powers”, how they would be accessed, to what extent this happens as a conscious act, and whether this process is incremental or an all-at-once occurrence at the point of ascension beyond the mortal realm. Claims have been made that, at least in terms of greater mental abilities, this is an incremental process and, indeed, is frequently cited as one of the reasons for the innate superiority of Sirians within the Divine Hierarchy, as well as (under the framework of deictism) being a key driver of various social transformations within Siriandom such as the Industrial Revolution in more recent history. This argument is taken up at a more purely spiritual level in the Sirian concept of enlightenment. The arguments in favour of increased physical prowess are more tenuous, though on a more mundane level, reports of great strength being demonstrated are often shrouded by convictions of blessedness and righteousness being the ultimate source of such power. Claims to more obviously superhuman abilities are denigrated in the modern day, although they were more commonplace in past history and have at times been extended outside the faith, as in the case of the Abranoussan warrior queen Tetheyeth, who was adopted by local Sirians as a “noble enemy”.