Yokuhi, the Unsung Art of the Far West [Added OB]

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Yokuhi, the Unsung Art of the Far West
Radius Traximus

I had what I now realize to be the great fortune of bieng present at the Imperial Library in the Sun's Height of 414. I had very recently returned from the frozen north of Skyrim, where I had been working on a still unfinished research project into the Aetherian potency of the Falmer, who I believe knew many secrets of pre-Galerionic magick still to be uncovered. It was in this mindset that I heard a lecture by Redaria Valodius on Redguards and magicka. I believe it has since been published as a book under the title Redguard Attitudes Towards Magick.

I was not paying particularily close attention (it was given in the central promenade of the library, where I happened to be reading from the Gwylim-Beauchamp Encyclopedia) but a single sentence of it caught my ear. "The sparse number of Yokudan mages were hesitant to study outside the conventional schools of Destruction or Restoration, as those forms of magic carry a simple ideology," she said. I looked up at once.

If you have read my previous work, Schools of Magick, an Imperial Falsitude then you already know my opinion of the conventional classifications of magick. They were created by Galerion when he founded the Mages Guild in order to organize the teaching and magick for the masses. They are not, however, magickal laws, as they are often misconstrued, and they mean relatively little. I simply scoffed and went back to my reading. However, later that night, my thoughts went back to the subject. In Yokuda, they would not have used the schools taught by Galerion. Even in Tamriel, these schools did not come about until the Second Era, as many often forget. I began to wonder, what magick did they use?

I have since read through every book at the Library and at Gwylim. I have learnt Yoku (somewhat) and travelled to many ancient archives of Hammerfell. I have found an entirely different art of magick, all but undiscovered by Tamrielic mages. It is called Yokuhi, as opposed to Nudrihi, which is their name for the magick of Tamriel.

The powers of Yokuhi are as varied as those of the conventional schools. Hardly confined to destruction and restoration, Yokuhi contained more secrets than single person could ever learn. It was not practiced solely by mages, the concept of a profession devoted magick was foreign to Yokuda. Instead, everyone, from courtesans to kings, knew bits of it and used them in their life.

Take snake-charming, for example. It remains today as a simple form of entertainment in Hammerfell, but then it was an entire branch of magick, ranging from the inhabiting of serpentine minds to a form of summoning where a snake was created out of the sands of the earth. There is a recording of a priest to Satakal named Kupakh-Sekta who wore a robe made of many snakes, wrapping themselves around him. This may seem ridiculous, but I do not believe that it is impossible.

Another more obscure branch of Yokuhi was that of shehai, which was practiced most famously by the mysterious ansei. This was the art of literally bending air with one's voice until it formed a solid shape; it is said that a well-made shehai-sword is sharper than any natural sword in Tamriel. Shehai has, however, been used for other purposes as well. I have heard a story about a rich fool of a prince who paid nine wagons filled with gold, thirty barrels of diamonds, and two hundred of his finest swine to have a summer home built completely of bent air. Vain, but it is mentioned in three independent accounts, lending much to its veracity.

Yokuda was also once rich in a metal by the name of orichalc. This metal appears to have had great magickal potency, and was of central importance to the war between the Yoku and their enemy, the Left-handed Elves. Saint Diagna learned how to craft blades from it, which the Yoku used to ultimately win the war, and it is rumored that the Left-handed Elves had an entire tower made of the material, which they used as a conduit of magicka that was capable of unimaginable feats.

It is clear to anyone with eyes that Redguards are not incapable of magickal feats. The scarcity of Redguard mages is simply explained. "Our" magick, Nudrihi, does not come naturally to them. The falsely constructed schools are meaningless, and their traditionalist culture never adapted to the changing ways of magick in Tamriel. Unfortunately, much of the knowledge of Yokuhi was lost in the disaster at Yokuda. It is our duty as scholars and as magicians to delve further into this strange practice, new to us but truthfully ancient, and learn the secrets of Yokuhi, the unsung art of the Far West.

[Nanu]

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2.B.General.