Kaeden

Warning: This page concerns archaic world setting information from the I.C.E. Age of GemStone III. It is not canon in contemporary GemStone IV, nor is it canonical for Shadow World as the details may be specific to GemStone III. It is only historical context for certain very old parts of the game and these things should not be mixed.

Kaeden (Iruaric: "queens") are malevolent insectoid constructs that were created by the Empress Kadaena, where Kadaena was their "high queen". They seemingly did not exist at any point in the history of GemStone III, but the fact that the word has that meaning is potentially relevant for translating the inscription on the Dark Shrine. "K'daen" itself as a composite of word parts would otherwise translate lierally as "the elder lord" or "high lord", while Kadaena also (vestigially) means "slayer." The Gogor, Shards, and Sentinels were other examples of her constructs that did exist in the game at various times.

The Kaeden and Shards were first mentioned in the "Book of Dark Tales" poem on page 3 of "Jaiman" (1989), which was then changed to include Gogor on page 31 of the Master Atlas Addendum (1990). These dark constructs are unable to reproduce as they are artificial beings, but they are far more complex than golems which are supposed to be made of a single hunk of material. They all had lore of sleeping since the First Era of the Shadow World history until being woken up and used by dark powers later. With the Kaeden there were hives with queens, whereas the Gogor had jars and leaders.

Behind the Scenes

In the language rules of Iruaric as made explicit for GemStone III, the letters "a" in Kadaena can be missing as a result of being glottalized vowels. In other words, the construction "K'daen" out of word parts would be transcribed "Kadaena" in later forms of transcribing the language, provided the pronunciation of "K'daen" for an ancient speaker of Iruaric was something to the effect of "Kuh-daen-uh". The correct pronunciation of Kadaena in Shadow World canon, along with dozens of other words, is given in Oxford(?) phonetic notation in a glossary of terms on page 96 of "Emer: The Great Continent" (1990).