K'Chain Che'Malle

The K'Chain Che'Malle [k-chain cheh-mal]Steven Erikson Q&A (see Question 15)An Evening with Steven Erikson by Nerdaí Irish Nerds - As pronounced by Erikson at 15:22 were a reptilian non-human race and one of the founding intelligent races in the Malazan Book of the Fallen.Gardens of the Moon, Glossary, UK MMPB p.705 Although evidence of their strange mechanisms, architecture,Memories of Ice, Chapter 9, Epigraph and barrows could be found on nearly every continent, they were presumed extinct.Memories of Ice, Glossary, UK MMPB p.1183 The Imass, Pran Chole, said the K'Chain Che'Malle were "no more--the ice spoke to them with words of death."Gardens of the Moon, Chapter 11, US HC p.253
Their power was said to have been so immense that they had kept the Elder Gods away from the Malazan world until their civilisation self-destructed. They were also said to have once ruled over the younger Jaghut race much as the Jaghut Tyrants had ruled over the Imass.Memories of Ice, Chapter 15, US SFBC p.500-503
The Tiste Edur name for them was 'Kaschan',Midnight Tides, Chapter 3, UK MMPB p.139 while the Awl called them 'Kechra, the Firstborn of Dragons'.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 4, UK BCA edition p.104
==Anatomy==
The K'Chain Che'Malle were intelligent lizards standing taller than a man, moving bipedally by balancing the weight of their torsos with a tapering tail (much like velociraptors and other bipedal dinosaurs) and pale, scaledReaper's Gale, Chapter 2, US HC p.70 skin similar to the underbelly of a snake. They selectively bred their own kind to take advantage of specific traits, the most noticeable difference being the length of the tail. There were the original long-tails (K'Chain Che'Malle) and the engineered short-tails (K'Chain Nah'ruk). 
K'Chain Che'Malle moulted their skin as they grew until they reached adulthood.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 14 They had superior senses than humans, including eyes that could see light humans could not and a nose that allowed them to scent prey.Forge of the High Mage, Chapter 15, UK HC p.222/223
=== See also ===
* Drone
* J'an Sentinel
* K'ell Hunter
* K'Chain Nah'ruk
* Matron
* Shi'Gal Assassin
* Ve'Gath Soldier
==Culture==
The K'Chain Che'Malle were the first race on the Malazan world to evolve intelligence, and they developed a culture of technological and magical sophistication hundreds of thousands of years before the evolution of hominids. Most knowledge of the K'Chain Che'Malle was retrospective, developed through inspection of their cultural ruins thousands of years after their extinction. As such, it was difficult to state anything definitive about them. It was known that they were eusocially ruled in the manner of ants, with a single female queen (the Matron) and thousands of male drones and soldiers. They were matriarchal and matrilineal.
The K'Chain Che'Malle appeared to lack a racial Warren to draw upon, instead employing gravity-based magic that mixed heavily with their technology. They inhabited gigantic structures known as Skykeeps, buildings so large they appeared to be floating mountains. Most Skykeeps were destroyed during the civil war that exterminated their race, though there were a few known Skykeeps remaining during the time of the Malazans. Examples included the one used by the Tiste Andii, Moon's Spawn, the one piloted by the remaining K'Chain Che'Malle on the continent of Lether, and a few others piloted by K'Chain Nah'ruk seen in the Imperial Warren (later destroyed).
Towards the end of their civilisation, the race's Matrons gathered together to meld their powers towards some unknown purpose. One result was the engineered resurrection of the extinct K'Chain Nah'ruk breed (dubbed the Short-Tails by Kallorian scholars). The experiment that broke from the control of the long-tailed Matrons due to the Short-Tail's independent nature and resistance to surrendering their magical talent to their mothers. This resulted in a civil war. In addition to internal struggle, a massive Tiste invasion occurred and a large-scale war between the K'Chain Che'Malle and Forkrul Assail. These conflicts were supposed to have destroyed their race, though at least two Matrons and a number of others survived until the events that occured during the Malazan Book of the Fallen (see Anatomy for more details).
K'Chain Che'Malle architecture made use of vast plazas covering thousands of square leagues. These plazas were lined by exquisitely fitted grey flagstones that seemed to be immune to age and weathering. One such plaza was known to remain on Stratem while another likely lay beneath the ice of northwestern Lether.Memories of Ice, Chapter 9, Epigraph The stone used in K'Chain Che'Malle Construction was nearly unbreakable even after millenia. They built domed stone tombs above ground for their dead.
==Magic==
The Elder Warren of the K'Chain Che'Malle was Kaschan. It was born from sounds beyond human hearing that bent and stretched light. These sounds were bound into words that loosened the bindings holding matter together. With Kaschan, K'Chain Che'Malle sorcerers could fashion skykeeps of stone that floated in air and twist rock so that it grew like living wood. The magic of the warren still lingered past the seeming death of its children.Midnight Tides, Chapter 3, US SFBC p.116
==Interaction with the Malazan world==
Most of the K'Chain Che'Malle appearing in the novels were undead or seen in visions of the past, though there were a couple of exceptions. 
==In Gardens of the Moon==
The inner ring of Malazan military commanders were each said to be equipped with communication devices looted from a K'Chain Che'Malle tomb. Made of human bone and verdigrised copper wire, the devices allowed users to speak across great distances. Whiskeyjack used such a device in Darujhistan to communicate with Dujek Onearm in Pale.Gardens of the Moon, Chapter 18, US HC p.385
== In Memories of Ice ==
The soul of a single living Matron was accidentally freed from imprisonment within the Rent on Genabackis by Kilava Onass. After hundreds of thousands of years, it managed to escape its warded tomb and raised hundreds of its children from their barrows as undead. But the Matron was driven insane in the process, and control of its children was co-opted by the Pannion Seer for the expansion of his empire.Memories of Ice, Prologue, US SFBC p.24-26Memories of Ice, Chapter 1, US SFBC p.57Memories of Ice, Chapter 19, US SFBC p.694-695 Undead K'ell Hunters were sent to assist the Pannion Siege of Capustan. The undead versions of the long-tailed K'Chain Che'Malle were slower and more resistant to normal, mortal pain.
The first direct interaction between the Malazan Empire and the K'Chain Che'Malle occurred at Coral during the Pannion War. The Battle of Black Coral pitted the T'lan Imass, Malazan forces, and the Barghast versus the undead K'ell Hunters and the forces of the Pannion Domin.Memories of Ice, Chapter 24Memories of Ice, Chapter 25
==In House of Chains==
After the discovery of Moon's Spawn, Osseric spent time in the fortress studying it. He observed that Moon's Spawn showed signs of damage, breaching, and slaughter. Nevertheless, a few of its original inhabitants survived long enough to send the fortress on its journey home over the northern icefields where it had become entrapped by a glacier. Osseric determined that Moon's Spawn had been one of the K'Chain Che'Malle's skykeeps and he withdrew from the world to continue his study of the alien mechanisms. From a Jaghut tower within a warren formed by Raraku's ancient memory, he observed a total of three skykeeps travel from the north to Seven Cities. None of their inhabitants survived contact with the continent's defenders, the Deragoth. The Hounds' presence likely explained why no K'Chain Che'Malle colony had ever been established on Seven Cities. Osserc also believed that the K'Chain Che'Malle were not of the Malazan world.House of Chains, Chapter 21, US SFBC p.685/687
== In Midnight Tides==
At the time of the sundering of Kurald Emurlahn, several hundred thousand years before the events of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, the K'Chain Che'Malle had ruled the entire Letherii continent. Enormous cities stretching for leagues and flagstoned plazas could be found throughout northwest Lether.Midnight Tides, Chapter 13, US SFBC p.403 Then an allied force of four hundred thousand Tiste Andii led by Silchas Ruin and two hundred thousand Tiste Edur led by Scabandari invaded the Malazan world through a violent rent. They destroyed an army of over sixty thousand K'Chain Che'malle in Lether as well as four K'Chain Nah'ruk skykeeps.
Afterwards, Scabandari noted that the K'Chain Che'Malle were all but gone from the world and their cities dead. Only Morn remained and the Short-Tails there seemed on the verge of rebellion.Midnight Tides, Prologue, US SFBC p.19-25 At Mael's request, the Jaghut, Gothos, sealed the wreckage of the battlefield's destroyed hive cities and skykeeps under a layer of Omtose Phellack ice.Midnight Tides, Prologue, US SFBC p.25
According to Edur oral tradition, the dying K'Chain Che'Malle race sought vengeance against the Tiste after their invasion. They sent their sorcery into the warren of Darkness like a plague, and their ritual turned Darkness in upon itself with an all-devouring hunger. The gates between Kurald Galain and every other realm were sealed, and Mother Dark herself was driven into the core of the Abyss. There, she would one day devour all that was around her, resulting in her own murder, the death of the Abyss, and the end of all things. On the brink of extinction, the K'Chain Che'Malle "locked all things into mortality, into the relentless plunge towards extinction...they forced all else to share their fate."Midnight Tides, Chapter 3, US SFBC p.116-118
By the time of 1161 BS, they were all but unknown to the human residents of Lether. The Letherii occasionally found and sold their bones and teeth in the markets of Trate without understanding what they were.Midnight Tides, Chapter 21, US SFBC p.629 
To date the only time they had spoken with other races was with Silchas Ruin in a parley attempt, though it was unclear if the parley actually happened or if Ruin simply sought it.
== In The Bonehunters==
Tales among the Nameless Ones indicated that an invasion of skykeeps had arrived on the Malazan world long ago when Human society existed only as small bands. But some opposition by the Jaghut, the Forkrul Assail, or the Elder Gods had driven them away from Seven Cities.The Bonehunters, Chapter 4, US SFBC p.152-153
While traveling through the Imperial Warren, Quick Ben, Kalam Mekhar, and Gesler's squad came upon at least a dozen K'Chain Che'Malle Skykeeps in the air above. Squad mage, Sands, announced the skykeeps had come from Chaos and Quick Ben immediately brought the group back to the Malazan world. The mage speculated that the Imperial Warren originally belonged to the K'Chain Che'Malle.The Bonehunters, Chapter 5, US SFBC p.193-194 Kalam, Quick Ben, and Stormy later returned and attempted to gain entrance to one of the floating fortresses. But Cotillion warned them off confirming that the skykeeps were indeed "filled with K'Chain Che'Malle."The Bonehunters, Chapter 6, US SFBC p.259-261 
Mappo and Icarium discovered a newly opened chasm within one of the Odhans of Seven Cities. At its bottom they discovered a K'Chain Nah'ruk Skykeep that had until recently been been encased in the ice of Omtose Phellack. Mappo and Icarium found Sorrit long dead inside, held to a Blackwood cruciform by an iron spike streaked with Otataral. Although neither knew who killed the dragon, Icarium recognised the ice ritual as that of the Jaghut, Ganath. Angered and distressed by the K'Chain Che'Malle's invasion and colonisation of the world, she had carelessly conducted the ritual without realising the Nah'ruk skykeep had been seeking refuge from the civil war with their Long-Tail kin.The Bonehunters, Chapter 4, UK MMPB p.200-202The Bonehunters, Chapter 6, UK MMPB p.280-284
Ganath was alerted to the destruction of her sorcery and returned to repair it. She noted that in addition to Sorrit's blood, Chaos magic had been unleashed to shatter her ice. She was also confused by the sense that time itself had been twisted within the fortress. But before she could repair the damage, she was ambushed and slain by K'Chain Nah'ruk.The Bonehunters, Chapter 16, US SFBC p.647-649
==In Reaper's Gale==
Silchas Ruin, Seren Pedac, Fear Sengar, Udinaas, Kettle, and the Shadow wraith Wither followed the South Jasp River up into the Bluerose Mountains. There they discovered the remains of a vertical fortress carved into the stone of the entire mountainside. The Acquitor believed the large gaping windows, shattered balconies, metopes, cornices, and friezes too worn to make out were signs that an ancient city had once stood there. There was still evidence of some massive collision that seemed to have obliterated the city in a single blow, sending rubble down the slopes. Ruin identified the place as the beginnings of a K'Chain Che'Malle skykeep from an early time when they were still open to the air rather than sealed defensively within stone. It had been destroyed by the powerful Starvald Demelain sorcery of at least a dozen dragons. Wither revealed that the dragons had acted against the K'Chain Che'Malle to stop them from vengefully annihilating all existence as their race slid into extinction.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 2, US HC p.52-53 Within the ruins they found a multi-room mosaic floor depicting the slaughter of a civil war between the long-tails and short-tails, with the long-tails doing most of the dying. The deaths of individual champions were recorded, whom Ruin identified to Udinaas as "Fouled K'ell, Naw'rhuk A'dat and Matrons".Reaper's Gale, Chapter 4, US HC p.99
Redmask returned to the Awl'dan from exile in the Wastelands with two K'Chain Che'Malle guardians: Sag'Churok, a hulking male K'ell Hunter, and Gunth Mach, a Drone in the process of becoming female.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 2, US HC p.69-70 Redmask did not reveal how he knew his guardians' names,Reaper's Gale, Chapter 10, US HC p.266 but he recounted the Kechra's history with the Awl people. Countless centuries ago, the K'Chain Che'Malle had fled a vast devastating war from the western lands of Lether and into the Awl'dan. Awl legend told of terrible battles that left the corpses of Awl warriors carpeting the plains. Then the Awl learned how to combat the invaders with new weapons such as the Awl'dan cadaran whip and Rygtha crescent axe, and turned the tide. In truth, the K'Chain Che'Malle were merely passing through and the Awl were just an obstacle on their way east.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 4, US HC p.109-110
The two K'Chain Che'Malle slaughtered their way through Letherii soldiers with ease at the battles of Bast Fulmar,Reaper's Gale, Chapter 12, US HC p.334-336 Pradegar,Reaper's Gale, Chapter 16 and Q'uson Tapi.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 22 But when it became apparent that the Awl had been finally defeated at Q'uson Tapi, Sag'Churok and Gunth'Mach turned on Redmask and tore him to pieces. Toc Anaster surmised that Redmask had failed the K'Chain Che'Malle and the alliance was over.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 22, US HC p.696-700 Inspecting Redmask's body, Kilava Onass identified his mask as made from the hide of a K'Chain Che'Malle Matron's throat.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 22, US HC p.710 
Onrack T'emlava told Quick Ben and Trull Sengar of a concourse the size of a city-state on the southeast peninsula of Stratem where ritual wars had been fought among the K'Chain Che'Malle. The practise ended when the Short-Tails rebelled and the ritual form of war was abandoned.Reaper's Gale, Chapter 10, US HC p.256
==In Toll the Hounds==
While investigating the cult of the Dying God in Bastion, Kallor spotted the remains of an enormous mechanism filling one of the city's abandoned streets. It seemed to have fallen from the sky, taking the wall of a building with it and tearing away riveted sheets of metal that exposed the twisted iron in its gaping belly. Smaller pieces of blue-coloured iron littered the street. Kallor thought the machine looked of K'Chain Che'Malle design.Toll the Hounds, Chapter 10, US SFBC p.410 Later Nimander Golit learned the Dying God had ridden the already broken machine up from the floor of the Abyss, which contained the junk of existence.Toll the Hounds, Chapter 12, US SFBC p.492
In a dream, Gruntle traveled to what appeared to be the Malazan world's distant past. In addition to tribes of Half-humans, it was home to K'Chain Che'Malle fastnesses in the mountains, Forkrul Assail pit-cities along the rivers, solitary towers of lone Jaghut, villages of Tartheno Toblakai, and tundra-dwelling Neph Trell.Toll the Hounds, Chapter 13, US SFBC p.515-520 
K'Chain Che'Malle were among the bodies piled in The wagon.Toll the Hounds, Chapter 13, US SFBC p.522
== In Dust of Dreams ==
Another K'Chain Che'Malle interaction with the Malazan Empire involved the appearance of a male and female on the continent of Lether, and the revelation that an entire hive still existed on that same continent. Gesler and Stormy aiding the only remaining hive, Acyl nest, and fought successfully against some remaining K'Chain Nah'ruk. It was revealed that Gunth'an Acyl, the reigning Matron, sacrificed herself to create an army of K'Chain Che'Malle. Where a normal Matron would only birth several hundred Che'Malle, she brought over twenty-thousand into the world in a short time. The exhaustive act of restoring her race broke her sanity and she perished before the battle, leaving her daughter Gunth Mach as the last living Matron of the Che'Malle.
The named K'Chain Che'Malle of Acyl Nest in the Lether Wastelands:
* Matron Gunth'an Acyl
* One Daughter Gunth Mach
* J'an Sentinel Bre'nigan
* Shi'Gal Assassin Gu'Rull
* K'ell Hunter Kor Thuran
* K'ell Hunter Rythok
* K'ell Hunter Sag'Churok
* Drone Sulkit'''
== In The Crippled God ==
==In Kellanved's Reach==
In the early days of of the Malazan Empire's formation, a joint troop of Orjin Samarr's mercenaries; Prevost Jeral's ex-Nom Purge regulars; and locals known as hill-folk of the hill tribes were making their way to the western coast of Quon Tali when they encountered - in a cave eaten out by an underground river - what was most likely an undead Ve'Gath specimen. Orjin's troop mage Yune, a Dal Hon elder and shaman, identified the withered, "great upright lizard", as an "undying" "K'Chain Che'Malle warrior" - which possessed "forearms" (and not swords) for upper limbs. The K'Chain warrior was successfully dispatched by dismemberment by individuals of the joint forces who had found it.Kellanved's Reach, Chapter 12, US TPB p.313-317
Kellanved and Dancer travelled to the Place of the Blooming Ice, an Imass village in the Elder Warren of Tellann that existed in the past--or in a moment held from the past. A gigantic stone structure there was the home of the tribe's Bonereader, Jahl 'Parth, who revealed it was a former city of the K'Chain Che'Malle. Her people had succeeded in destroying the K'Chain after twenty generations of warfare--a fight that had been her bloodline's only purpose.Kellanved's Reach, Chapter 13, US HC p.198-204
==In Forge of the High Mage==
The long-reaching racial memory of the Thelomen of the Great Fenn Range contained stories of an ancient war that had raged across the Ice Wastes of Quon Tali. It had involved a siege of one of the seven known K'Chain Che'Malle cities, also known as the Mountains that Move, by a coalition of races which had included Thelomen. A blast of energy released in the fighting had been responsible for creating the wasteland that remained today, much like another such mountain city had turned the land to glass on a great plain far south of Stratem.Forge of the High Mage, Chapter 2, UK HC p.33
(Information needed)
==In The God is Not Willing==
Damisk passed through the Beast Hold into an unknown realm where he found a world seemingly devoid of animal life other than what appeared to be Great Ravens flocking around four K'Chain Che'Malle skykeeps that floated overhead. He was forced to hide while looking for food when hundreds of two-legged K'Chain Che'Malle returned overland bearing butchered carcasses. He was soon spotted by one of the "Great Ravens" who were revealed to actually be a flying species of K'Chain Che'Malle which had skin-taut, leathery wings and fanged heads. The two-legged hunters, now bearing swords and long spears, pursued him to a pedestal in a clearing where an enormous grey-skinned god in chains was kept imprisoned. The god killed many of the K'Chain Che'malle with its six arms which bore a bow and an array of stone weapons. After Damisk freed the god, he fell unconscious. When he awoke, the god was gone and the four skykeeps had been shattered and destroyed and the corpses of the K'Chain Che'Malle lay in piles. Damisk assumed the god had been long ago chained by his worshippers to circumscribe his wrath, and he had been helpless to prevent the K'Chain Che'Malle from ravaging his world.The God is Not Willing, Chapter 10, US HC p.163-172/174
==Speculations==
The Malazan world was rife with reptilian variations on familiar animal species. See, for example, Lizard cats, Lizard-ducks, Lizard gulls, or Lizard-rats. Whether these species evolved naturally from similar environmental conditions as the K'Chain Che'Malle or were the result of K'Chain Che'Malle experimentation was not revealed.
==Notes and references==
 
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Category:Races