The Hyperliving

Right now the Heroes of Weaverham are exploring a small Duvan'ku crypt/dungeon hidden in the back of a larger cave complex. It's situated about 4 days of travel away from where Death Frost Doom is set and I was envisioning it as some sort of hidey-hole for the Death Cultists away from their main base -- so the question is: why this particular cave/area in particular? Is there something special in here?

Fortuitously, Zak S.was doing a RPG Magic 8 ball routine on G+ this week and I was able to ask him what one of the mysteries hidden away in this crypt was. His answer was as follows:


"THE HYPERLIVING. YOU THINK "OH, THE OPPOSITE OF THE UNDEAD, I'M SURE THAT MEANS THEY'RE TOTALLY NICE AND COOL" BUT NO, YOU'D BE WRONG.?"


My interpretation of this answer was that the Hyperliving are beings that have been extended into a higher plane of sensory input and experience, with a corresponding intensity of mental processes. Or, to put it another way, remember when you were 13 and things happened that made you really really angry or sad and how your body would do weird wooshing warm spells/chills/fuzzy bits and it was just INTENSE*? Well, multiply that shit by like, x1000. And add to that the self-knowledge that you've got a lifespan about as long as the replicants from Blade Runner.

So there you have the hyperliving, a bunch of over-excited, extremely emotional, basically manic nihilists, who predominately live for sensory experiences. You know, like feeling the wind on your face. Or the still-quivering warm flesh of the recently slain on your face. Either or.

So were the Duvan'ku creating these guys? I didn't think so, it doesn't really seem to be their style, they're a bit too grimdark and the hyperliving have a definite Viriconium vibe to me, so instead I think they're products of the long-lost Hyperborean civilization, whose eons-old existence has mostly been wiped away (either by their own collapse or by other hands) except for odd remnants found in the more remote and inaccessible parts of the world.

One of which is here, specifically, a strange room obviously not of Duvan'ku construction, either in terms of construction or materials, containing a half-dozen stasis chambers -- bodies suspended within multi-faceted prismatic columns. Several of them have been opened or are at least empty. Could that possibly be related to the adjacent room, the one with all the aging torture equipment and scattered bones?

SIGNS POINT TO YES

* - Maybe this was just me, dunno.