Lyrinx
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Lyrinx are fictional humanoids in Ian Irvine's quartet The Well of Echoes.
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[edit] General Description
Lyrinx are described as 8 foot tall humanoids with huge wings, armour plating, six inch claws on their hands and feet, mouths big enough for a human head to fit inside and chameleonic skin. Lyrinx also have golden flecked, intelligent eyes and crests on their heads which show maturity and gender. Sometimes, a lyrinx infant is born lacking one or more of these features. Such children are allowed to fight if they are able and otherwise live normal lives but they are forbidden from breeding, to stop the deformities being passed on to future generations.
Despite their monstrous appearance, Lyrinx are as intelligent as humans and have a strong sense of honour.
In combat, they are worth two or more well trained human troops based on strength alone and due to their taste for human flesh, they are devastating to morale as well. It's often hinted (and in later books, stated openly) that if they engaged in an all out war of attrition against the old humans, they would likely win due to their strength and their numbers which are constantly larger than humanities armies due to them breeding more and reaching maturity faster. However, they rarely engage in open battle or conquest, preferring hit and run raids on vulnerable clanker and infantry battalions. When they do engage in conquest, they eliminate all humans in the area and sometimes create twisting mazes of tunnels in the earth under settlements.
By the beginning of Geomancer, they have conquered most of the island of Meldorin and two cities in the North-east. They also have small settlements in other areas that humans cannot live though most of these have few strategic advantages and their reasons for taking them are unknown.
[edit] Lyrinx Characters
[edit] Origins
The Lyrinx species originated on Santhenar eight thousand years ago. They were originally humans from the town of Lyr Rinx on the edge of the tar pits of Snizort in Lauralin who became very wealthy from mining and trading the tar and used this wealth to research and perfect early forms of the Secret Art. They were among the first people on Santhenar to gain this power and the other humans wanted this power for themselves. However, the people of Lyr Rinx also followed a philosophy that stated that only those who could learn the secret arts for themselves were responsible enough to use that power. They refused to share their secrets, teach others or work their arts for money. Eventually, a large army attacked and slaughtered many of the Lyr Rinx. The survivors now hated humanity and built a floating town on top of the tar pits so they could research for a way to leave Santhenar forever. They perfected a way to open a portal into the void because did not know how uninhabitable it was. When the other humans attacked again, most of the town fled into the void and the floating town of Lyr Rinx was destroyed and sank. They named themselves the Lyrinx to remind themselves of where they came from.
When they discovered how hostile the environment in the void was, they realised they had to adapt to their new home. Taking a species known as the Thranx as a model, they began using their arts to add new features to their unborn foetuses while they were still in the womb through a process called flesh forming. As they began to gain wings, armour and camouflage, they were able to survive better but lost most of their humanity, remembering only that they came from Santhenar, a place called Lyr Rinx, and that they were hated by the old humans there.
When the Forbidding was broken, they were able to find a way back to Santhenar. Since they had lost their identity as a species, the first fifty years outside the void were spent in hiding, trying to discover the whereabouts of Lyr Rinx and learn more about their history. They discovered where the town was located and established a hive of tunnels next to the Great Tar Seeps of Snizort but were unable to recover the sunken remains until the events of Tetrarch.
By the end of Chimaera, the Lyrinx society has changed substantially. The perfectly preserved bodies of their human ancestors and relics they find in Snizort make them question why they are fighting a war with humans if they are also human and since Lyrinx are built only for fighting and have no real culture of their own, what will happen if they win? Most Lyrinx stop eating human flesh. The biggest change is that the lyrinx with deformities are no longer looked down on as imperfect but are seen as the future of the species, when it will slowly return to its original human shape.
[edit] The Fate of the Lyrinx
Due to the questions raised by the Relics, the Lyrinx begin to lose their appetite for fighting but after surprise attack by the new council forces them from their homes, they are have no choice but to engage in all out war for survival. At first, the war goes well but the Relics are stolen by Gilhaelith who orders them all to gather at the town of Ashmode on the southern edge of the Dry Sea in exchange for the Relic's safe return. Even though they are denied their usual hit-and-run tactics, the Lyrinx look like they will still win through strength of numbers. However, humanity makes a final break-through with the Art and force the Lyrinx out into the Dry Sea. While humanity's rulers vote to exterminate the Lyrinx, Tiaan and her friends help them to break through humanity's armies and escape through an Aachim-created gate to Tallallame.
