Nidhogg


 *  "I cannot breathe in a world so drained of aura, desolate in its future... I am to live the remainder of my existence in a constant turmoil of hunger. Of wait. I will lie with the rhythm of Terra's heart... Heed me, spawn, and carve Her slate to my design while I slumber... Then, you will honor me with your weathered craft, when the time comes..." 
 * —Nidhogg to the Burrowing Serpents, moments before burrowing into Terra's mantle for hibernation.

Nidhogg, historically referred to as Terra Firma, is an ancient Eikon spawned from wide expanses of aura in the time of Terra's birth following the Fragmentation. He is theorized to have been responsible for the sweeping valleys and rocky mountain ranges of La Mesca's central territories in archaic times while Terra's surface was malleable and an overabundance of aura erupted through its crust. As the progenitor of the Burrowing Serpents, many historians argue about the accountability of extinction events and instances of terrain manipulation citing Nidhogg as the sole entity responsible for such occurrences.

A common "disaster hypothesis" known as the Avalanche Events, the periods of elimination of over half of La Mesca's biodiversity over a short geological timespan, is commonly linked with the dormant Nidhogg's activity.

= Profile =

Physiology
Of the Eikons who either had descended from the cosmos upon Terra's burgeoning beginnings or were whisked into existence by its abundant auroras, Nidhogg is upon the largest of the primal beings, rivalling even celestial bodies like asteroids in size. Its serpentine form is said to have been up to ~170 meters in length, with a "wingspan" of roughly 40 meters across, though due to its dormant state, many biologists and geologists question the accuracy of these statistics derived from archaeological sources.

In it's active state, written accounts claim that Nidhogg's abilities pertained to "Terraforming", in which tremors, earthquakes, landslides and avalanches were common natural phenomena caused by Nidhogg's sheer size and speed in the beginnings of Terra's geological history. As such, Nidhogg's mere existence and its activities would have consumed colossal troves of aura from Terra's then-aura-rich atmosphere and even richer deposits, which would account for many Avalanche Events in Terra's primitive times.

From many ancient accounts, Nidhogg's most defining feature were its two "wings", said to flare to life with flames shooting through its "wingtips" equivalent to the Sun's rays. Biologists hypothesize that it had used some form of bio-rocket-propelled travel through geothermal vents in these "wings" to both burrow under the surface and possibly limited flight due to its serpentine silhouette.

= History =

Continental Change
Nidhogg is responsible for several accounts of tectonic activity, including the shattering of coastlines into rubble, the carving of valleys to make way for mountain ranges, among other instances of geological manipulation within La Mesca's central regions. The most well-known examples of Nidhogg's impact on La Mesca's terrain include the eponymous Nidheian Craters, the biggest sites of impact in early Avalanche Events, and the First & Second Splits that segment La Mesca into three "chunks". These splits are also major fault lines that heavily suggest a future geological event in which La Mesca would pry itself apart into smaller continents within the next ~10,000 years.

It is also indirectly responsible for the collateral damage caused by these natural disasters via several other "methods", many of which are catalogued in historical literature as "Nidhogg's brushes". Among them is the creation of the Burrowing Serpents, descendants of Nidhogg borne from the igneous crust of it's "scales".

Digging out from Nidhogg's own scales, the Burrowing Serpents were born from dense pockets of aura deep within the corporeal form of Nidhogg. They had spawned out of Nidhogg's desire to spread his influence across the land for where he could not reach himself. Deathly cunning yet wise and scheming, the earthly Eikon is thought to have expelled much of his aura to "preserve" his dominion over La Mesca's terrain with these "finer brushes". While they are not as titanic as Nidhogg himself, these Burrowing Serpents are giant wurms nonetheless, with stone crusted hides, thick scales, and rows of jagged teeth in its eyeless mouth, boring through the deserts, plateaus and mountainsides of La Mesca. They measure up to 30 meters in length and 4 meters in width.

Researchers and historians believe that there could have been as many as fifty to one hundred Burrowing Serpents at one point in the "golden age of aura", however this number is argued to be inflated due to their size.

Long after Nidhogg starved of aura and dug deep into Terra's mantle, the Burrowing Serpents are one of the largest factors in the natural disasters of medieval and current La Mescan history. Most currently reside in Lower La Mesca and towards the lower levels of Errans Spine, dormant or otherwise.

Hibernation
In a patched-together depiction of events, Nidhogg is thought to be one of the first Eikons to have "disappeared" from the surface of Terra in the advent of organic life not born purely from an aurasource. Due to Nidhogg's massive corporeal size, it could not be sustained in an environment where aura was quickly diminishing, and its surplus was beginning to dwindle. So Nidhogg roared, and a message was heard by the Burrowing Serpents. Nidhogg burrowed deep near the core of Terra's aura-rich heart, where Nidhogg would sleep for the remainder of his life. The Burrowing Serpents would paint the continent to Nidhogg's likeness so that their idol can sleep well, forever throwing La Mesca into a terrain ravaged by constant geothermal activity and weather phenomena.

Some researchers believe that Nidhogg's corporeal form would have already vanished by then, and that his hibernation is only a myth told by descendants of Terra Firma. There is no way to know for certain.

The Miracle of the Summit
As Nidhogg's children ravaged the continent in his place, the Burrowing Serpents learned many things about themselves. Not only did they have most of the terrain at their disposal, they could manipulate bodies of water inland as they wished. They were able to shove tectonic plates together with enough force that mountain ranges would rise toward the center of La Mesca. However, their earth-carving abilities had their limits.

Their massive, cold-blooded serpentine forms could only reach so far upwards before their body temperature succumbed to the cold, wintry conditions of the mountain peaks at Errans Spine, leaving fossilized bones and scales in their wake. For their ability to create grand mountain ranges, they could not topple them as easily.

The Burrowing Serpents devised a plan. Disintegrating parts of their body and a shred of their Aura with them, they chipped off boulders of rock, scale and bone from their forms. These chunks of stone would morph, pressurize and transform as the earth around them manipulates their trajectory upwards towards the mountain peaks, their rocky embryos blooming to life where the Burrowing Serpents could not. Even if the Serpents died out, their spawn would live on and maintain Nidhogg's weakening grasp over the continent.

Guarding the ridge of Errans Spine with the Sisyphean task of cultivating the mountain peaks to the liking of the Serpents, they soon became known as the Children of the Summit, or simply the summit walkers.

Legacy
Nidhogg's influence still affects the geological timeline of La Mesca in modern history. Spanning from the creation of the Burrowing Serpents to the elimination of life via the Avalanche Events and the genesis of the Children of the Summit, Nidhogg is a recurring entity in many historical pieces of literature. As one of the largest Eikon to have ever taken form, his sleeping omniscience grasps much of the continent in constant supernatural disaster in its supposedly dormant state.