The Demimages[]
Only scant information can be gleaned about the mysterious race known as Demimages, apart from the fact that they inhabited a region named Vidik Amar. The Demimages are so minimally referenced throughout the three Chronicles of Thomas Covenant that most of what can be written about them has unfortunately to be pure conjecture. It is however known that they spent almost all of their time - albeit tragically ineffectually - in darkened bedrooms, trying (but sadly failing) to master even the most basic of sorcery.
Appearance and Powers[]
No living Demimage has ever been seen. Well okay, Jeremiah claimed to have spent some time with them while astrally projecting himself about the place before his actual bodily arrival in the Land, but leading authorities suspect that his memories on this subject more likely arise from his unwise experimentation with the more brightly-coloured of mushrooms.
The biggest clue as to the actual physical appearance of the Demimages lies in the race's name itself... "Demimage", or literally "short-assed wizard". On this basis, it is only reasonable to presume that the Demimages were stumpy little sorcerors. Again, given the secrecy with which this race of beings seems to be clothed, we can deduce that they kept their appearances largely hidden under their oversized pointy hats and robes.
The powers of the Demimages can also only largely be guessed at, although again, their name suggests that they weren't very good at magic. The one fact that we do know for sure is that one of their number, Jerrick, had a large hand in creating the quellvisks (see below).
Purpose and Post-Integration into the Previous Chronicles[]
As has been stated, much of the history of the Demimages of Vidik Amar can only be inferred. The following tale has been pieced together - as much as has proven possible - from fragments of the Land's oldest songs and legends.
In the Land's distant past, Lord Foul in his guise as a-Jeroth, decided one day to get his evil jollies by persuading the Demimage Jerrick that Infelice of the Elohim had the hots for him. I mean, Infelice of all people, a total babe, the Land's equivalent of the head of the cheerleading squad and homecoming queen, who invariably looked like she'd just stepped out of the high fashion pages of an over-priced glossy monthly magazine, panting longingly for someone who was effectively nothing more than a spotty über-nerd? Anyhow, despite the staggering unlikelihood of this, Jerrick fell for the story hook, line and sinker, as Lord Foul knew he would, because he'd seen the large poster of Infelice on Jerrick's bedroom wall, just above the box of Kleenex on the night-stand.
(If you're interested - or even if you're not - I'm quite sure there still are more of those posters in Elemesnedene... those Elo do tend to love themselves. ~a-Jeroth)
Little Jerrick spent hours wracking his brains composing a love letter to the lofty and lovely Elohim queen, pouring his heart and soul into it, expressing his hopes and dreams for their shared future bliss in the most flowery language that he could conjure with. When finally he was happy with it, he screwed up his courage and mailed it, waiting with bated breath for his beloved's reply.
In hindsight perhaps, Infelice's response could have been a little more considerate. Imagine poor little Jerrick's utter devastation when he received a reply of just four words, penned in arcane cerulean ink on creamy vellum that coruscated like incandescent samite. It read "Ohmigod! Barfbag city, creep!"
Jerrick, crushed, embarrassed, embittered and egged on gleefully by the Despiser, swore revenge on the haughty Elohim queen. Through hot tears of shame running down his sallow cheeks, he laboured mightily, summoning all his pitiful sorcerous skills to create the quellvisks, which he would then send forth to crush Infelice and her smart-ass hoity-toity associates into the ground.
Now, if truth be told, this plan was never going to end well; although individually as large as a house, quellvisks were docile quadruped herbivores whose only interest lay in eating as much grass as possible, chewing the cud, burping, breaking wind and leaving huge noxious mounds of manure behind them - a thing which happily made the region of Vidik Amar one of the most fertile in the world. Trying to metamorphose these dumb creatures into a rampaging horde was much like sticking flame decals onto a 1992 Toyota Camry and expecting its top speed to double instantly.
However, Jerrick was too enraged to see this - and frankly his theurgies were much too puny to attempt anything else. He toiled on alone, managing to apply plastic tusks, horns and talons to the entire herd of quellvisks via a combination of the blackest sorcery and the judicious use of duct tape. Once his labours were complete, he tied a cabbage on a stick to the back of the quellvisk herd leader so that the tasty morsel hung down in front of the pea-brained animal's eyes, pointed it in the direction of Elemesnedene and chuckled madly as the herd began its slow yet inexorable stampede towards the faery realm.
It took many days for the herd of shoddily customized quellvisks to reach the environs of Elemesnedene. The outcome of their passage across the Land was terrible to behold. Many a proto-Stonedownor awoke in the morning to find his vegetable garden obliterated and a mountainous mound of manure engulfing the stone hut of his elderly parents, from inside which muted cries and gagging noises could be faintly heard. However, at last the monstrous herd arrived, mooing, eructating and breaking wind at the borders of the Elohim realm.
Inside it was cocktail hour - which is less surprising than it sounds, since it was ALWAYS cocktail hour in Elemesnedene. Infelice, who with supernal knowledge of all events, had been aware of Jerrick's plans and the quellvisk herd from the start, but who had considered such pettifogging annoyances to be beneath her contempt, looked up from her perfectly chilled vodka martini. Temporarily abandoning her efforts to hook up with an Adonis-like Elohim jock named Kastenessen by batting her eyelashes at him eloquently, she irritatedly raised an exquisitely sculpted eyebrow at the steaming herd and with the smallest crook of her little finger, idly and immediately burnt the flesh from the bones of every single quellvisk. A further minute gesture with the cocktail stick-pierced olive from her martini caused the smoking skeletal remains to be instantly teleported far, far away - and deposited in a stinking heap upon a neighbourhood known as Muirwin Delenoth, a thing which Infelice spitefully considered fitting, since it was where a real estate deal had once gone bad for her.
It is unknown what became of Jerrick and the rest of the Demimages of Vidik Amar after this lamentable incident. Legend has it however, that Jerrick died just after the creation of the quellvisks, tripping over one of his many rolls of discarded duct tape and breaking his scrawny neck. It is further said that, upon hearing of the pitiable quellvisk fiasco, the rest of his race died of embarrassment.
Nevertheless, one good thing did come out of this tragedy. Eons later during the events of the Third Chronicles, Jeremiah, allegedly still semi-comatose from his over-indulgence on shrooms, came across the ancient quellvisk bones and, still higher than a kite, decided for some hallucinatory reason to build himself a personal rehab centre out of them. Perhaps it was the lingering magicks still inherent within the blasted skeletons that made this unlikely attempt to drift back down from la-la land to reality surprisingly successful.
Only Known Member[]
Just one name from this frankly embarrassing and geeky race has been passed down in song and saga.
- Jerrick