News * Thra * The Production * Merchandise * Downloads
Fans * Links * Habidabad's Page * Site Credits
Skeksis
"They are part reptile, part predatory bird, part dragon." - Brian Froud
Click here to read the Pre-Production Notes for the Skeksis!
For every Mystic there was a corresponding Skeksis. SkekTek the Scientist was the counterpart of urTih the Alchemist. SkekAyuk the Gourmand was the alter ego of urAmaj the Cook. The Skeksis had control of the castle where the Crystal was kept; in its chambers they practiced their evil arts, hating one another as much as they hated the rest of the world.
Evil masters of a corrupt culture, they rule through the power of a darkened crystal suspended at the heart of their encrusted castle. From, there, they have turned all good in the world into evil. They have bird-like beaks and reptilian bodies, but under their elaborate robes of velvet, lace, and brocade, there is only decay.
Their figures are sinister and reptilian. They have hooded, uneasy eyes above their beaklike jaws. They stand bulky in the thick layers of robes with which they have draped their skinny, scaly bodies over eons, never removing a layer but adding another as one decays. They walk on their hind legs with their forelegs poised in the air. Their talons are arched and their heads protrude from humped cowls, thrust out as if to strike.
Their bodies decompose with remarkable haste, having no soul to arrest the process. It is like the creation of volcanic rock with the space of a minute or two. Their flesh seems to boil, rise, blacken, and then transform into rock that rapidly develops gaping cracks and festering caves. Soon they crumble into pebbles. A sour, grey dust thinly films the air.
The assumption that pure spirituality was in some sense a higher form of being than brute matter was not self-evident to them.
Force, greed, and ruthlessness are the qualities the Skeksis respect in a ruler.
Skeksis are carnivorous. They have been known to eat roasted Nebrie and small, hairy-legged shellfish.
They have cold reptilian eyes and long necks.
The Skeksis always use the Garthim for their hunting because they aren't terribly good at it themselves.
Pettiness was a strong suit among the Skeksis.
Since the division after the Great Conjunction eons ago, the Skeksis had left the urRu to themselves in their valley. They had to: the object and its mirror image could not be combined except in cancellation of both. In any case, the Skeksis never had needed the urRu: impractical, old, chanting visionaries, obsessed solely with their collective inner life, their values diametrically opposed to those to which the Skeksis ascribed.
The Skeksis had profited prodigiously from the knowledge and from their control of the Crystal within the fortress they had carved from the mountain that contained it. Along all the ley-lines of energy around the planet, they had continuously fed noxious pulses, fomenting misery and weakness throughout their world. And along the same ley-lines they had sucked in the geodynamic energies. Lightning focused into the Standing Stones of the Valley and transmitted to the castle. The Skeksis controlled the nodal points of the planet by terrestrial acupuncture.
To the Skeksis, the Division of the urSkeks was a great triumph; even the darkening of the Crystal is interpreted favorably.
Every one of the Skeksis desired to have sole credit for the Garthim.
They had a demand for repetitive flamboyance in their materials.
There were considerable mutation in the Skeksis during the period of their degeneration. The Skeksis did not care to keep records of their former appearance.
Much of the Skeksis' descriptions of their work was committed to parchment made from Nebrie skin. Smooth and unblemished, it crumbles after a few centuries.
The bodies of the Skeksis are founded on deeply disordered principles. Only in their heads does an intelligible pattern remain.
The following are the ten Skeksis:
Thra
Map * The Song of Aughra * Story * Creatures * Languages
Comments? Email: webmaster@habidabad.com
This is an unofficial DARK CRYSTAL website. THE DARK CRYSTAL, characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of The Jim Henson Company. © 2001. Artwork by Brian Froud. Visit the official website at www.henson.com.