Scáth (SKAH)

Bringers of Nightmares

Written by J. L. Gryphon

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Ambient sounds courtesy of tosha73 and EminYILDIRIM

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Greetings to those below. I am Death, though Azrael is the name I hold dear. Today I will discuss the scáth within two contexts. The first will be in regards to Vānima’s Religion of Velherr. The second will be other perspectives, but . . . ah dear.

I did say the scáth were a problem when we discussed The Void, and they are, but exactly how much of a problem no one knows. And that makes them even more of a problem. But to explain why, I’ll need to start at the beginning.

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The Beginning

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by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

Where do nightmares come from? Certainly they are a nuisance. They disrupt your precious sleep, they fill you with dread, and they send you shooting away from your comfortable pillow with a shout. What is the purpose? Some say it is to sort out warnings from the previous day, and indeed, nightmares do sometimes highlight our fears and help us overcome them.
But those nightmares are different from the ones I am meaning. True nightmares, the nightmares that cause you to writhe and scream with no purpose behind them at all. Nightmares designed to do nothing more than haunt you, torment you, and eventually send you gibbering and laughing to the madhouse if you do not first die from the stress. Nightmares that chase you during the day. Those nightmares come from the scáth.
So who are the scáth? Or should we be asking . . . what are they? The truth of the matter is no one knows. But people do have their theories.

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The Religion of Velherr

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The scáth feature quite heavily in the Religion of Velherr. So it goes with most religions, there is some fear of falling, some fear of betrayal, and some fear of a sticky end. Vānima decided the scáth would be her sticky end. Well, not so much hers as that of her worshippers who betray her.
It is believed that, if one betrays the goddess, they will go to the The Void when they die. In The Void, so the belief goes, is where the scáth reside. Beings of pure chaos and terror, they swarm the lost soul and reveal to it its deepest nightmares. Then they feed, devouring your terror like a vati draining you of blood, except since you are already dead, you cannot die again. So it is said the scáth will feast on your soul for all eternity, an endless cycle of pain, ripping, rebirth, and more pain.
Of course she made The Hollow to help spread this belief—that broken, swirling, shattered place that throbs with an ancient rage I doubt even Vānima fully comprehends. Fortunately I don’t have to go there very often. What dies in there, well, let’s just say there’s never much for me to collect by the end.
I understand in the land of elsewhere there is a fear of burning for all eternity in a place called Hell. I’m not sure which is worse. You’ll have to let me know what you think, those below.
Of course this isn’t the only believed ending for a soul. This brings me to the second context.

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The Children of Le Sair

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by Jim Cooper from Pixabay

It may interest you to know, those below, that Orostians do not fear fire at all. In fact, not one belief or world-ending fear I can think of in any Orostian religion even mentions fire. Instead, there does seem to be a recurring theme of darkness—a great, vast darkness that swallows the world. Certainly it is also believed in the Religion of Velherr that when the black unicorn rides from the east, the land will wither beneath her hooves, and all the sky will grow dark until even the sun loses its fire.
But according to the Children of Le Sair, in this vast, all-encompassing darkness, a being lives within. Or the being will be born after sufficient darkness has spread. Or sometimes the tales will tell of three, four, or ten beings accompanied by monsters. Some believe these monsters to be the scáth. Some believe there will be scáth, other monsters as yet unseen, and the single or however many beings will govern them in a new world order that boasts of killing the sun.
All life will wither. All food and water will turn to ash in your mouth. What remains will change. What remains will writhe, pop, and spoil, until even that will whine its last breath and slither into the mud.

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Other Perspectives

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by Yuha park from Pixabay

I agree, it is grim either way. Of course there are others who think the scáth are less of a threat than the two dominant religions would have you believe. The Religion of Velherr and the Children of Le Sair do certainly bear the most popular theories, but those of other faiths claim the scáth do not exist at all, that they are mere superstition.
Others believe they are simple creatures who may be warded away from sleeping souls with an iron horseshoe nailed above the bedroom door, or by leaving a little candle burning on the bedside table, or even with a ring of blood sprinkled around the bed so long as that blood was shed by a blameless soul. Loving parents will leave a light on for their sleeping children just in case, since of course children are believed to be the scáth’s favorite prey.
Within The Cult of Azrael, the scáth are believed to be born of a being I personally abhor. Who this being is, they don’t know completely. I did explain before that the hags are among the rare Orostians who can see me even without me directly revealing myself. I think they must have spotted me avoiding my brother a time or two, but being able to see him is quite a different prospect from seeing me, so what hazy image they received caused them to guess at his identity. They don’t know he’s my brother or even if they saw anything at all, but even so, I would correct them—if I was allowed to reveal myself—if only to say I don’t abhor him. I just . . . ah, well. I suppose it’s a moot point. Best they just forget it. Because it is a mistake to guess at my brother. It is an even worse mistake to assume you have him figured out. He’s . . . more complicated than you might think.
As for the scáth, well, assuming they are real at all—because “real” is the wrong word, I think—I can’t see my brother hating them. In fact, I’d say he would quite enjoy them, but that alone would be . . . interesting. A parallel and a contradiction all rolled into one. Hmm.
So there you have it. I did say the scáth were a problem, did I not? No one understands them—not even my brother, I suspect—and if they are “real” for lack of a better word, then considering the danger it is said they pose, then I’d say that lack of understanding is a very bad thing.
Then again, there may be one Orostian who understands them. Just one. But he is . . .
He’s not ready, is he? Even now.
Damn . . .

Signed your sorry narrator,
Azrael the Star of Death

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Book Information

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Image by Jacques Gaimard from Pixabay

Religious Significance
Spiritual/religious creature
Alternative Names

• Nightmares
• Children of Shadow
• Children of Darkness
• Echoes
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• Kushma (Sithuli)
• Vashmar (Zishlyn)
• Tantibas (Lingua)

Parent Religions

• The Children of Le Sair
• The Religion of Velherr

Believed Languages Spoken

• Faolainn (native)
• Orostian (worldwide)

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Star

Lifespan

Unending

Average Physique

Composed of shadow

Geographic Distribution

• Altyma
• Rhye

Related Organizations

• The Children of Le Sair
• The Religion of Velherr

Related Ethnicities

• Anathema
• Astrela

Related Myths

• Death - Me
• Shades
• The Morsus Swamp
• The Ripping
• Vati

Lilith
Brought Into Being by
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