“You might not feel it; you're probably uncapable of. But they are watching you. You, me, all of us. Observing the one thing they profoundly wish to make part of their personal, ever-expanding wasteland of chaos and madness: everything. A destructive swarm of depraved freaks that, no offense intended, make all of our ‘omnipotent’ deities feel like mere ants to them. I wish they were here just to destroy us, give us all a quick death; but no, they prefer to enslave us, torture our souls, mortal or not, for the rest of eternity, while we see them stepping and spitting on everything we have ever considered ours.”
- - Anonymous Androg
The Khaûrik-thazhaurin (Khaûr: 
), known primarily by the term attributed to them by the Zalax as the Ozax (Zalax Common: Swarm Folk), are a collection of Chaos Monsters associated with the Aberric Energy. Minor representatives of concepts entirely foreign to the First Gigaquadrant, the Ozax are entirely alien in their biology, physics, and mindset to the inhabitants of the First Gigaquadrant. The fourth dimensional inhabitants of the plane of Marrow, the Ozax are considered to be one of the most naturally aggressive entities, and their alien nature means that they are little understood, and effective means to fight Ozax remain undiscovered. While the Ozax have never been truly seen by others, as their geometries are incapable of being perceived, their influence remains felt throughout the Gigaquadrant - it's known that Ozax cultists are an extreme threat to others, comparable to the cultists of Angazhar.
Fourth dimensional entities with concepts entirely alien to all, with the concept of time being especially alien to them, the Ozax have never retained meaningful communication with the third dimensional life of realspace. The few times their third dimensional shells have been encountered has left remarkable scars on universal history; often taking place in religions as deities, or angels, while more noteworthy interactions between the Ozax and the realspace has left the First Gigaquadrant with numerous, usually destructive, events. The most notable interactions where the Ozax truly have interacted with realspace led to the various mass extinctions of the Eupherion Galaxy, which all were capable of being traced back to interactions between the realspace inhabitants of the First Gigaquadrant and Eupherion, and the Ozax.
History[]
Alien to linear time, the origins of the Ozax are shrouded in mystery, and are unlikely to ever be truly understood. There exist zero traces of how they first emerged in the vast expanse of chaos and the purpose of their creation, though it's just as like they're a natural intelligence that emerged from the birth of Marrow. What little has been gleaned from communications with entities related to the Ozax, and other, more knowledgeable chaos entities, state that the Ozax could've emerged from the body of the Aberric Essence deity Khi'voranix, though because the scales of difference between the Ozax and Khi'voranix, the meaning of this is obscured. Because of the equivalent to time in Marrow being a unique nonlinear concept, it's entirely possible that the Ozax truly have no origin, and have always been - and yet, their existence generates no paradox.
The Ozax themselves have little recorded presence in the First Gigaquadrant in recent times. The difficulty of moving freely between chaos realms ensures that the Ozax keep their presence in Marrow, and the intricacies in constructing third dimensional shells to inhabit require such elaborate rituals and organization, that it seems Ozax simply do not bother with the effort whatsoever unless a chance is somehow presented to them. The Ozax were known to have had considerable conflicts with the Aeon Enigmas, and the so-called Timeless War theory states that the conflict likely has a hand in the relative passiveness of the otherwise aggressive Ozax; with such conflict on such an incalculable scale, the Ozax have simply had different priorities.
However long the Ozax have been interacting with the Aeon Enigmas in their Timeless War is unknown, and the battlefields of which are equally as enigmatic. The Timeless War would eventually spill out into the First Gigaquadrant billions of years before the current era; the Ozax would eventually emerge in the Eupherion Galaxy, and would force the Aeon Enigmas to retreat through the galactic core into a differing universe. At some point in history, not long before the fall of Eupherion, the Iluvii utilized strenuous and deific means to create a powerful Psionic shield around the First Gigaquadrant; banishing the Ozax from the universe, and permanently removing their means to manifest of their own volition within the First Gigaquadrant.
While the Ozax haven't been yet observed to intentionally attempt a return to the First Gigaquadrant on a mass scale - the repercussions of which would be unthinkably high for the population of the Gigaquadrant - the Ozax have been known to occasionally cross paths with chaos cultists, the interactions of which tend to have immense consequences. Ozax have been singlehandedly responsible for massive extinction events throughout the Eupherion Galaxy as an indirect effect of direct communication between the cultists of Eupherion and the Ozax of Marrow. For example, the Tyahrano attempted to steal the Ozax's power for themselves, though this ended up causing a massive apocalyptic event that caused the genocide of much of Eupherion's life.
The Ozax were also known for their destruction of the Cahrinvaeri machine gods, though their interactions with the Cahrinvaeri in general are completely unknown at worst, and oddly esoteric at best. How the Cahrinvaeri were destroyed were unknown - despite the extreme power of the Cahrinvaeri, somehow, the Ozax had caused the sudden and immediate disappearance of all but a handful of Cahrinvaeri. The most recent direct interaction the Ozax had with Eupherion was a result of the extinction event that took the lives of the Zalax, which occurred roughly over 100,000 years before the current era. Through the machinations of who would later be known as Kharaahk, a successful link was established between Marrow and Realspace on the city-world of Anulaantha, which caused a massive breakdown of the laws of physics, caused the mutation and maddening of billions, and allowed a massive and undiluted flow of Aberric energy into Eupherion, causing the mass extinction of Eupherion.
Eupherion, and by extent, the First Gigaquadrant, came perilously close to total destruction by the hands of the Ozax and other Chaos monsters following the climax of the War of Ages. The destruction of the Tigris Galaxy by Lord Zhuleshxi caused repercussions that led to the destruction of the psionic barrier established by the Iluvii that kept the First Gigaquadrant safe from Chaos monsters. This event allowed a number of Ozax to manifest in their incomprehensibly complex fourth dimensional forms and retain their godhood levels of power, causing a Gigaquadrant-wide Ozax Crisis that was punctuated by the looming full emergence of the Ozax and the Heirax. The rifts in the barrier were repaired by the end of the War of Ages, however, and as a result, the Ozax and their corrupted victims were banished once again.
Characteristics[]
Nature[]
Despite considerable research by all manners of organizations, ranging from the Amber Crown to research sects of all manner of modern civilizations, the Ozax have simply not been able to be understood. What has been gleaned from the remains of Zalax research that was written down rather than stored in Dreamweave datapockets answers little of the nature of the Ozax. The most comprehensive knowledge of the Ozax has been gleaned from Cahrinvaeri dataspheres, though the information that has been gleaned from these artifacts is either corrupt, or too esoteric to understand. Active research is occuring frequently throughout the First Gigaquadrant, but there have been no successful attempts to explain the nature of the Ozax. Journeys into Marrow have been few and far between and have been entirely unsuccessful; Marrow's lack of a proper timestream and odd dimensions of space mean that maintaining a physical presence in Marrow requires particular gear to block off the senses to retain one's senses of self, location, and time. Because time is so alien in Marrow, 10 minutes in Marrow can be the equivalent of centuries in realspace ahead or before the initial time of entry, and vice versa. Travel in Marrow has been noted as being a theoretical method of time travel, though paradoxes may be a result of a successful attempt at the idea.
What little that is known about the Ozax demonstrates their alien nature. They are fourth dimensional beings, and not composed of matter like three dimensional life. Rather than matter, the Ozax are composed of strings of pure, chaotic "information" - they are Aberric energy rendered in it's most complex, concrete possible form. Because the "math" that makes up the Ozax does not exist within realspace, they cannot be calculated, and their existence seems to be pure anathema to the laws of physics. The forms of the Ozax cannot be measured with traditional notions of length, width, or depth, and their appearance seems to be only capable of being described through the word existing - they have no sense of form, they merely are. Likewise, this also explains how the Ozax are anathema to the laws of physics of realspace; the calculations and the laws of the universe seem to fold at the touch of an Ozax, and then fold further and further, creating a chaotic rupture in the universe that continues further and further until repairing itself or ceasing to spread, much like how a misfolded prion will turn other proteins into copies of itself.
While Ozax have been known to take individual identities in their rare interactions with third dimensional beings, the significance of these identities is unknown. The Ozax have a mercurial concept of individuality and the self at best, and Ozax "individuals" have been revealed to have simply been a merger of Ozax, one of many Ozax, or other such example. Whether or not the Ozax ever think of themselves as individuals is unknown either, as well as whether or not they truly think in the first place.
Religious Significance[]
“And so KHAKZZHN told the Faithful, 'feed your love to us, and we shall love you in turn.'
And so KHAAUTAÛKHA told the Unwilling, 'dream not of the fear, dream instead of the UNTRUTH, and I shall take you in my love.'
And so KARRAÛARANAN told the Willing, 'Sacrifice your pillars to us, and we shall make monuments.'
And so KHAKZZHN-KHAAUTAÛKHA-KARRAÛARANAN told the Anchored, 'Love me, as I love you, so that I may fill you with beauty.'
Thus, do the Anchored now dream not of what they see and feel, but the untruth - or rather, the UNTRUTH
AND IT WAS B E A U T I F U L
AND IT WAS H A P P Y''”
- - Hymns of REVELATION, 45,000 BCE, Zerilia Sector
Texts attributed to Aberric influence are generally hard to decipher; often requiring special AI intervention or brains addled with aberric energy to be capable of understanding whatever information they contain.
The Ozax are often associated with the cultists that follow them. Their alien nature and their near-deific levels of power have led many to associate the Ozax with being gods, traditional or not, while their extreme aggression and the "repercussions" of Ozax worship have been known to have many additionally label the Ozax as demons, though the label of demon is rather inaccurate. Worship of the Ozax has been (quite alarmingly) known to bear fruits - whether out of amusement, love, an afterthought, or some twisted plan, Ozax have been known to pay attention to their myriad cults. Being "blessed" by the Ozax usually means being granted Aberric energy for one's own use, though the "blessing" typically leads to fatal mutations, madness, and the risk of being turned into a Forsaken. Despite their madness and aggression, the Ozax cultists are particularly noteworthy for their ingenuity and ability to decipher the arcane and the esoteric. While modern science fails to find a way to communicate with the Ozax, cults often find methods through rituals, often of a disturbing nature, and communion to facilitate some manner of direct mutual interaction with the Ozax. There have been many cases of Ozax "deities" interacting directly with, and sometimes even speaking to, cult leaders and validating their belief systems.
Cults often have a disturbing fascination with living sacrifice, and often delve into madness because of the weight of the knowledge that they're given in return for their worship. Cultists glorify their mutations and typically have a somewhat disturbing psychological disconnect with the rest of their species; cultists quickly end up antisocial, before becoming rather disconnected with their culture and social cues. The end goal of many cults is usually to create third dimensional "shells" for their Ozax deities to inhabit, which is by no means a simple one and is nearly impossible to do through traditional methods, requiring specific rituals typically supplied by the Ozax themselves. Many of these shells are created through the sacrifice of the cultists themselves, who's organs and bones are directly possessed by the Ozax and molded into a new body to walk the First Gigaquadrant with. Because of the immense threat presented by an Ozax freely existing within the First Gigaquadrant in a shell, cults are brutally hunted down and stamped out by the governments of Eupherion.
Cults are usually characterized by the usage of the Ozax "language" Khaûr. Khaûr is, contrary to popular belief, not the language of the Ozax, but rather a "cursed" language invented by the Ozax to interact with their cultists. Khaûr is a deeply forbidden language composed purely of memetic hazards given written form; every icon in Khaûr has a word associate with it, and is usually highly dangerous to read or even look at without prior knowledge in safely deciphering Khaûr. An untrained eye, if unprepared to read a Khaûric glyph, has the danger of being struck blind upon reading it, going insane upon the very attempt, or being corrupted into becoming a mutant Aberric monster themselves. The cults of the Ozax are typically immune to these effects, though exceptions exist.
Forsaken[]
Quotes[]
“The things I saw when I pierced the veil. I have seen what reality truly is. There's no use fighting it, or them. The Ozax are inevitable. The only sane thing is to join them. To serve them.”
- - Sardon, Kornonger cultist leader
“In my studies, I occasionally came across references to them. There are times I swear I sensed their presence. I cannot shake the feeling that the ancients' deaths and our barriers are linked to them, somehow. I never thought I'd say this, but may we never find out what all this means.”
- - Notlan, Council of Sages founder.
“In my travels through the planes I've only seen shadows of these Ozax. Like many beings from beyond realspace they are dangerous and typically unpredictable. Their followers however seem to suffer from some sort of psychosis, similar to how devotees to other cults I've encountered. More study into these creatures is needed to verify the upper limits of their abilities and their behaviors. If only I could get ahold of a live specimen...”
- - Dr. Nu'Iva Shal, Master Mystic, Planeswalker, and Master of Psionics
“Or we just burn any of them we see from the face of the fucking universe”
- - Akistra "Queen Bitch of Stitches" in response to Dr. Nu'Iva Shal
“Utterly miserable. I don't know how I haven't melted into one of them, but through some quirk of fate I remain... mostly intact. I have at least fifty lectures on them.”
“All that power and you end up looking like you got full body gangrene. Think I'll pass thank you very much.”
- - Sirkar
“INSIGNIFICANT CREATURES. IMPERFECT MIMICRIES. SIMULACRUM OF GOD.”
