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Petroglyphs
Why did the highly advanced Empyrean leave so many primitive carved stelae behind? Some scholars speculate that the Olthoi so thoroughly disrupted Empyrean culture that it regressed to a pathetic Stone Age condition, but Alatar Locke submits that this cannot be. Rather, he interprets the petroglyphs as an intricate taunt, calculated to disturb the peculiar visual apparatus and minds of the Olthoi.
In his famous treatise The Brain of the Hive, Locke states that an Olthoi queen gives instructions to her minions through a kind of dance, and posits their suggestibility to glyphs that recall its postures. Though limited in power, a petroglyph may render an Olthoi uneasy, or even so injure its self-esteem that it returns to the queen, crestfallen, for reassurance.