Kaeden

Kaeden (Iruaric: "queens") are malevolent insectoid constructs that were created by the Empress Kadaena, where Kadaena is the Iruaric for "high queen" or "empress." They did not exist at any point in the history of the game, but the fact that the word has that meaning is 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", with Kadaena also carrying the meaning "slayer." The Gogor, Shards, and Sentinels were other examples of her constructs that did exist in the game.

These dark constructs are unable to reproduce as they were 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 vruul had urns 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".