Lost and found

January 1077:

At last, I found it. It took me months of dedicated search. Days and days I spent in my ship drifting through this blackness with only a small rhyme from days of old to guide me. But I persevered and came out triumphant. The moment I saw its glow in the windows of the port bow, I knew I had found a bewildering treasure, a true miracle...

I carefully planned a landing. No need of getting into uncontrolled hassles with primitive local tribes now the treasure of treasures is within my reach.

Once landed I got out my craft, I walked about for a bit. I took a handful of soil and crumbled it with my fingers. I felt the warmth of the old sun on my aging skin. I saw the strange colors and exotic vegetation. I smelt the strange but rich odors of an old world. Indeed a world filled with mysteries and legends...

Now I have to devise a cunning plan to capture one of the creature mentioned in the Nash's journals and pinch this awesome and miraculous secret that keeps them alive...

- From the secret diaries of William J.

Of journals and legends....

April 1076:

Incredible excitement.... !!! By sheer luck - if such a thing exists - I obtained two old travel journals of a chap called Rudolph Nash. His journals discuss a long forgotten world called Thamber. According to the journals, Thamber is a world of legends: wizards, witches, nights, magic forests and strange beings.

The journals contain references to its exact location although they are very cryptic. A discovery of the planet's exact location would require me to obtain a space craft, for which I have yet to obtain the funds.... but I'm determined to go there...

I feel an immediate urge to find this world and discover its secrets. It's almost a burning feeling rushing through my body... Some of the wonders mentioned in these journals... well, if it's true what he writes, the consequences are unbelievable...

- From the secret diaries of William J.

Not a legend!

"I assure you it is far from imaginary."

- Alusz Iphigenia Eperje-Tokay commenting on Gersens statement that Thamber is an imaginary world.

The Hormagaunt

What do we know of the "Hormagaunt"? Considering the implications of the possibilities astonishingly little! There are two important sides on the concept of a hormagaunt. First it involves a complicated procedure which extends a persons life and tries to prevent the body from aging up to the point that the hormagaunt achieves immortality. Second they're supposed to be legendary figures living on the planet Thamber. So we have two opposing forces: a documented procedure and a legend.

Needless to argue, but from a biological standpoint the procedure of becoming a hormagaunt is extremely interesting. Although modern medical science has come a long way with curing and even eliminating all kinds of diseases, the aging process is not yet fully understood let alone have we devised a method of stopping it.

The naive reader might say "Lets go to Thamber and find out". It's really not as easy as that. Thamber is for various reasons difficult to access and hormagaunts - when actually living there - do not advert their status publicly as the process of becoming one involves some very questionable proceedings.

[...]

- Biological Extremities, a post graduate paper by Rachael Thymms (biologist at Sea Province University, Avente)