--and yes, these myths horribly disagree with each other NB
But then, out of the rock and sand and fire, came the first droplets of water, and with water, came rain. The rain, more than any have seen since, washed across our mother Athas' face, gentling nursing her to life. From water came Life, andfrom Life came the elements.
From the souls of mortal beings came Fire. From our breath came Air. From our blood came the sun. From our eyes came magma, for the eyes are the windows to the soul. And from our dusty feet came Silt and Earth, flooding the land with their substance.
For a time, this was all that was. The races lived in caves and mud huts, baking under the harsh sun, prey to the predators of the desert. Man and his siblings, the lesser races, cried out for salvation from the predation of beasts...and lo, their prayers were heard.
The spirits of water and silt, sun and sky, fire and magma, earth and rain, heard the mortals' pleas, and they chose a mortal man, Hamanu of Urik, to rule them and guide them from danger. They gifted Hamanu with strength and cunning and wisdom, and taught him to take magic from the ground, and to spin weavings of power with his mind. And highest of all the gifts they bestowed, the spirits gave Hamanu the right of the spirit kings: the power to grant spells to his priests, the templars.
Hamanu came to rule Urik, a mighty tyrant filled with terrible wisdom, but others, usurpers to Hamanu's divinity, rose up to rule other city-states. Hear me well, O my children: for only the Lion of Urik can save us from their depredatrions!
--more to come NB
Ah, much better. Where was I? Ah, yes: In the begining, there was Badna, Maker of Worlds and Creator of Athas. Badna has eight faces, mind you, all representing one of the eight elements. Each face had it's own will and intellect, making Badna the Eight-In-One, the Lord Who Is Many At Once.
But Badna was alone, as nothing but a stark void known as the Hollow existed. Badna was all there was, an entity of infinite power alone in the nothingness.
What's this you ask? How do I know this??! You foul heretic, our queen has declared it so! Is that not enough for you? Silence, lest I use my rank and cast you into slavery!
As I was saying, Badna was alone in the darkness of the Hollow, and he desired company, other beings that might keep him amused. So Badna took each of his fingers and chopped them off with a scimitar, and used them to fashion our world. He then took the stone of the ground, and made them his new fingers.
But still, Badna was alone. He needed lesser beings to accompany him. So, he tore out his heart, and tossed the burning organ into the sky, so that it became the sun! And he tore out his eyes, and they became the moons!
The blood from the sun fell to the earth, and formed the first men and women, animals and plants, and they all began to praise Badna's holy name!
But then, wicked sorcerers appeared, the earliest sorcerer-kings. They stole the power of Badna, and imprisoned him above the sky. These became the first sorcerer-kings.
But Badna had enough power to help one more sorcerer-king appear, one who would fight for truth and justice. Who was this virtuous soul? Simple, boy: our glorious Vizier, Abalach-Re! Badna gave her the power of a sorcerer-queen, and gave our glorious city-state to rule! Thus has it always been. Thus will it always be.
Why do you mock me?!? Foul wretch, I shall now smite you!
--more to come NB
That's great idea! Personaly I've began a similar work using the question/answer of RuneQuest (Genertela)... unfortunately everything is in french... when I've time (=not now), I'll try a translation!
But I keep the idea of Badna, his heart and his eyes.
Nefal
PS I don't want to be pompous but do you know theories about creation myths? What is observed often is (in anthropological point of view) the movement between the undifferenciated nature of the world and the differenciation. For example, you're right with myth of Hamanu: he's a member of his undifferenciated people (no leader, no different role in the community, etc) Now, why would it be different? He could, for example, violate a taboo of his people... kill the totem of the clan (the lion!!
)Now the creation of the element would take place here (something like this "from the tears of the lion came water, from his mane, air from his last breath, earth from his corpse." It should be done better!;)) Ok, now Hamanu his different from the other. Actually by this crime he's creating the social order, social class, etc.
Clear enough? Excuse me for my english!
Do not listen to the others from the sinful city-states, for they are pagan fools, not understanding that a true god rules us. All the other city-states drown in heresy and decadence, while we Draji keep the true warrior spirit alive! How would they know what Worlds have come before this one? They cannot!
In the begining, our Lord Tectiktitlay (may his sleep of death be a peaceful one) fashioned a great sphere of bronze and obsidian, and named it Athas. It had no seas and it had no life. Tectiktitlay grew wearisome maintaining this world, so he made people, tiny mortals like you and I, to maintain it for him. This was the First World, the first incarnation of Athas.
In the First World, humans and non-humans alike were made of bronze, and ate obsidian. We had no need for water. But we sinned, and in his rage Tectiktitlay destroyed the First World with fire and storm.
But our god was moved by pity by the pathetic pleas of the mortal kin, and he fashioned a new Athas, the Second World, this one a green and growing land filled with gentle rivers and life-giving rains. But again we sinned, and were destroyed.
This happened twice more, before the coming of the Fifth World, the world of deserts and burning sun and suffocating silt. This time, our god would not let us sin. This time, he would come down and lead us himself.
Tectiktitlay took on mortal form, and became a mighty sorcerer-king, the first of that line, and founded the mighty city-state of Draj, jewel of the Tyr Region! He fashioned we Draji into a tribe of war-chiefs and sacrifical priests, until all of the Tablelands feared us and our lord's hunger for hearts.
But then our lord vanished, saying only to the Moon Priests that he sought to bind a great evil, a Shadow of the East. Our lord died one day, and his Moon Priests felt his death like the loss of a cherished lover.
But all was not lost, O ye children! For our lord had sired a son, a god just as mighty as himself! The Son of the Moons has come to lead us to glory! Join me now in prayer, children, that we may praise our new god, and feed him with our devotion. The time of the Sixth World has begun!
--more to come NB
But into this chaos of sand came the Forest Lords, great gods of green and growing things, led by their queen, the Oba, who at this time had no name. The Oba commanded that green and growing things spring forth from the sandy wastes, and thus was her wish made manifest. Athas was born, and it was green and verdant, like our forest city!
In time, the gods had children, and these became the mortal races, from humans to sligs to half-giants. Each race was given a task, an area of the endless forest to patrol, a sacred duty they swore never to deny.
But deny it they did, when a trickster spirit named Nibenay appeared in the forest, spreading his lies and his deceit. Nibenay was a shadow, indeed, he was the king od darkness! But he was no god, and the Oba cast him out into the Outer Darkness, there to suffer in silence.
But Nibenay was clever, as all forest spirits are, and he tricked five other humans into joining him in darkness. These five, along with Nibenay himself, became the sorcerer-kings, defilers of such evil they laid waste to the eternal green!
As Athas became desolate and barren, the gods abandoned it, fleeing for their lives. But the Oba would hear nothing of the sort. She descended to the mortal world, and took the name Lalali-Puy, which in our tongue means "Protector of Gulg."
The Oba gathered those mortals who would worship her into a mighty host, and travelled to the very lair of the hated Nibenay. There, she founded our city, the glorious Gulg, and rules here to this very day.
--more to come NB
In the days of lore
Great Spirits walked the earth, titans
Titans
Of flesh and fire and sunlight,
And they
Strode the land like spirits
Of the Land!
Hark! Hear my tale, O ye who
Listen, for my tale is a
Tale of truth!
For I speak of times gone by and Ages
No longer living.
Long ago, titans shaped Athas,
Vast furnaces of power
And majesty.
Spirits,
Spirits they were, mighty lords of the
Elements, these titans. Wherever
They walked, all
Bowed before them.
O ye who listen, can you not hear it?
The thunder! The growl of the
Sandstorm? I hear, and I know the fury of
Titans!
I hear Agonmon, lord of titans, devour his children
The stars! I
Hear Gergonmon, queen of titans,
Ravage the
Earth with her poisons!
O ye who listen, can
Any
Save
Us? O ye who listen, one comes!
O ye who listen, rejoice, for our Hero has come!
Andropinis, Hero chosen by the sun and the Silt
Sea
And the land itself! Andropinis comes!
O ye who listen, he delivers us!
The titans are no more.
Praise our dictator, for he has saved us all.
--more to come NB
Why aren't you gone, girl? I command you to begone! A young slip of a girl like yourself should not be pestering old, weathered men such as myself! Shoo! Get gone! Go!
Sigh...you won't leave without an old tale, will you? I knew it; the youth of today are such frivolous creatures. Why, when Kalak was king, no child would have dared ask such a brazen question! Very well, child, I'll tell you the tale I have heard from my grandfather, from his grandfather before him, and so on.
It was said by my grandfather and his grandfather before him that our world was forged in a great workshop, with the sorcerer-kings as its blacksmiths. Of course I know this to be nonsense, but truly, the sorcerer-kings are the oldest things alive! Surely they are as old as the desert or the Silt Sea! For all I know, they could have very well forged the world.
But anyways, as the story goes, the sorcerer-kings bickered over who would lead them in conquest of their new home. Nibenay, always the shadowy one, wanted to rule from hiding, while Tectiktitlay wanted to rule as some sort of spirit-king!
In the end, the seven kings could not agree on how to split the world, so they fought. And in their fighting, they ruined what they had made. And when the fighting was done, they each conquered a city-state, to rule as they saw fit.
What's that, girl? You don't believe the story? Heh, I don't blame you. It's just an old tale, told by grandfathers to their grandsons. Satisfied? Good. Run along now. Your mother will tan your hide if you're not back home before sunfall.
--one more to go NB
Listen now, and hear the tale of our people, from days gone by and legends unheard by human ears!
Athas has always been, a great sphere of stone and sand that has circled our red sun since the dawn of the dwarf race. It has always been a harsh land, filled with monsters and tyranical humans and duplicitous elves. Nothing has a begining, nothing at all...that is, save the dwarves.
Many King's Ages ago, we dwarves were nothing but dust and sand, for we did not yet exist. The sorcerer-kings lived in their great city-states, the elves ran in their tribes, and the half-giants worked and played as only they could.
But the spirits of the land were not satisfied. The earth had no guardians, no race to keep it sacred. The land needed caregivers, and so the spirits of the land made such guardians, forging Alad-Din the Father of Dwarves and Sanrok-Din the Mother of Dwarves from the very bones of Athas.
These two went on to sire the dwarf race, the custodians of the bones of the deepearth, the places where the sun cannot reach. For a whole King's Age, we dwarves dwelt beneath the surface, lords of the deepearth, makers of gems and steel...
...but then came the Dragon. Our lore holds the dragons came from the deepearth, and it hunted us, a scourge that sought to scour the dwarf race from the face of Athas.
We fought the Beast of Beasts, but its foul magic was too strong. It drove us from the deepearth, and forbade us to ever return. And so we remain, on the surface, waiting for the day we can return to our homeland, away from the dark sun.
--more to come NB
Then other hunters came. Hoo-man hunters. Hoo-mans hunted not-hoo-mans. Many died. Land become brown. Land die. Water become brown and muddy. We not-sligs not so happy. Notsligs die. Many not-sligs die. Not-sligs hide.
We change. Now we sligs. Great rock in south sands change not-sligs to sligs. We pray to great rock. Great rock not answer us, so we not pray anymore.
--more to come NB
Originally posted by Jon, Oracle of Athas
Cool material, but maybe you should change the name Alad-Din to something else? It is awfully close to Aladdin.
That's the whole point. Further dwarf myths I had written up paint Alad-Din as being the owner of a wish-fulfilling monster known as a Djinnoth. The dwarf progenitor has that name for a reason.
--it was done on purpose, trust me NB
Originally posted by Jon, Oracle of Athas
*notes another lightning bolt contingency criterion*
Well, dang. An anonymous poster on an anonymous message board doesn't approve of something that pops up in a most likely untrue myth.
--my dreams have been crushed
NBHow about Alad-Din-Sain?
http://www.teenagewildlife.com/Albums/AS/Title.html
The players think of Alladdin, when, of course, its really David Bowie!!
(where's my lightning rod...)
*fails*
*head explodes*
Anyone know the best method of removing brain substance from a computer screen?
Edited for glaring typo...