Mockra

'Mockra attack' Interpretation by Corporal Nobbs

Mockra was a Warren also known as the Path of the Mind, and among the rarest warrens accessed by mortals. Mockra-based magic was used to subtly manipulate and influence the minds of others, often through illusion. By making use of proclivities to cloud the mind or fill it with frightening shadows, the target's body could be made to react as if what it sensed was real.

It was the most common natural talent, needing no formal training for some to sense ill thoughts directed at them as a whispering unease or as hair raising on the back of the neck.

Mockra could create a mental block that its victim was aware of and still be unable to penetrate. Targets of Mockra could be made to misread the passage of time or lose control of their bodies and become paralyzed. Mockra could force someone to fall immediately asleep or make their brain boil in their skull.

Mockra could be used to block specific memories, but the practice was not without drawbacks. The target would sense an emptiness and always feel on the verge of realization of what was missing. At the same time, the body would still remember and react to sight, smell, and taste without the mind understanding why. The target's whole personality would change as the missing memories gnawed at it. Traumatic memories could be eased by changing how the mind felt about them rather than blocking them. Such a ritual released all of the emotions at once in an intense period of weeping leaving behind a feeling of nothing or perhaps a small sense of remorse.

Mockra also allowed practitioners to see into the minds of their targets. Some practitioners used Mockra to divine visions of the future.

High Mage Ussü speculated that Mockra was the child of High Thyr and possibly associated with the Queen of Dreams. Meanas was Mockra's sister warren as it manipulated the mind through the cunning reshaping of light, shadow, and dark.

Some scholars of the magical arts believed Mockra was born in the jungles of Dal Hon.

"Mockra's Curse" was a condition where practitioners of illusory magic could cause themselves an existential crisis. They created so many lies through their magic that they began to suspect reality itself was a grand lie.

Notable users

• Benger
• Banaschar
• Calot
• Corlo
• Havva Gulen
• Pearl
• Quick Ben
• Senior Assessor
• Seren Pedac
• Shadowthrone
• Ussü

In The Bonehunters

Banaschar used Mockra to slip away from Hellian and the Kartool city guard. Afterwards, they could not even clearly remember what he looked like.

On the night Adjunct Tavore Paran brought the 14th Army to Malaz City, Bottle sensed that the city was roiling with Mockra sorcery. It was being used by Mallick Rel or his Black Glove to twist "the thoughts of the unsuspecting and gullible, filling skulls with the hunger for violence" against the 14th Army.

Shadowthrone used Meanas bound with Mockra to craft an illusion making the Throne of Shadow appear to be destroyed. Mockra added "filaments of suggestion, invitation, the surrendering of natural scepticism, easing the way to witness the broken throne."

In Reaper's Gale

Senior Assessor, at Yan Tovis' request, healed Varat Taun, of his madness using the warrens of High Mockra and High Denul, while talking with her about his religion. Mockra and Denul working together made a "physiological amendment achieved by the latter [Denul]. Expurgation of the taint and elimination of the blockages, via the former [Mockra]".

Preparing for the Bonehunters' invasion of the Letherii Empire, all the "wizards, shamans, conjurers and casters in the legions" of the army were ordered to learn how to use Mockra, learning rituals and illusions "to affect camouflage, to swallow sound, confuse scent". Mockra was widely used by the Malazan Marines during the invasion.

Clip, Fear Sengar, Udinaas, Silchas Ruin, Kettle, and Seren Pedac travelled in search of Scabandari Bloodeye's Finnest. During their journey through a series of ruins in the Bluerose Mountains, Seren Pedac started a conversation with a "voice" that called itself Mockra, the voice told her that using the Warren of Mockra was like a game of grammar: "[…] Twisting semantics, turning inference, inviting suggestion, reshaping a mind's internal language to deceive its own senses". Suggesting that anyone using Mockra on himself, "deceiving oneself", will eventually lead to his own death.

In The Crippled God

During his conversation with the three Eleint chained in Shadow, in search of a deal, Cotillion pointed out that the voice of Eloth (i.e. Mockra), had been heard in the mortal realms. The dragon said that dreams escaped all kinds of chains, even the most cruellest. (Suggesting that Seren Pedac may have spoken with a dream of the chained dragon.)

In The God is Not Willing

Benger suspected Mockra to be closely related to High Denul as both spun tightly around elemental chaos and created something out of nothing. He believed the mind had a role in healing and so slipped back and forth between the two warrens when practicing the healing arts. Benger used Mockra in combination with High Denul to cure Sarlis of her Blood-oil addiction.

Notes and references

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