According to one myth recorded in the Boccobite holy text, The Uncaring's Will, Boccob was the youngest of the elder gods, the son of Ioun and Bolothamogg. The other elder gods sought to keep the power of magic to themselves because they feared that magic, once loosed, would destroy the universe they had created. Boccob believed that magic locked away was wasted, however, so he undertook to liberate it from those who had locked it away.
The myth goes on to explain that magic was guarded by the first of all dragons, Io. Boccob stole it by casting an illusion on Io's tail, tricking the dragon into attacking it as if it were an intruder. With Io trapped in an infinite loop of self-destruction, Boccob absconded with the focus of magic in the universe, which took the form of a disembodied eye, binding it in a pentacle and hiding it in an ark. Boccob then betrayed the other elder gods by gifting the ark to the first of all archmages, the Demiurge. Thus it was that mortals learned wizardry.
An alternate text, a rare Baklunish tome known as The Book of Dead Names, claims the eye that Boccob stole was not the focus of all magic, but instead a powerful ward created by Bolothamogg that prevented the Elder Gods from interfering with the universe for as long as it remained on the mortal plane.
In both sources, the elder gods punished Boccob by trapping him in a crystal tangled in the roots of a great tree (Emmantiensien), though the Demiurge would later free him and take his place. Since then, a penitent Boccob has dedicated his existence to carefully balancing the various cosmic forces so that the magic he loosed (or, alternately, the elder gods) will not destroy all of creation.
I'm making things up, if that isn't clear. This is mostly inspired by the myth of Prometheus, and combines elements of the backstories of the comic book characters the Phantom Stranger and Agamotto. Ioun is from 4th edition and Bolothamogg is from 3rd edition's Lords of Madness. Io and Emmantiensien are from 2nd edition's Monster Mythology.
Ioun is one of the first generation of elder gods who formed after the self-immolation of the first deity, Atropus. She has been called a goddess of magic, prophecy, knowledge, and skill, but originally she was the personification of curiosity.
When the other elder gods were creating the universe and the first living things, Ioun was consumed with curiosity for what lay beyond. Having learned everything there was to know of the universe the elder gods had made, she moved beyond, venturing further and further beyond the unformed chaos at the edge of creation and into the void that lay past chaos's own edge.
There it was that Ioun met a guardian, a bodiless, cloaked figure that called itself Bolothamogg. The guardian proclaimed to Ioun that it protected the boundary between the universe the elder gods had created and the far realm beyond it, preventing the realm beyond from being tainted by the gods' creations. Ioun first attempted to use her power to destroy the guardian outright, but when that failed she tried to bargain with it, offering it her own eye in exchange for passage. Bolothamogg agreed to accept the eye, but only as payment for the right to engage in a contest of riddles.
Bolothamogg and Ioun created riddles so complex that mortal words cannot even approximate them, labyrinthine constructs in the divine language that sought to control the minds of those who contemplated them. On the very edge of reality, the riddles might change reality itself, putting the fundamental precepts of existence into question. As the minds of the two battling entities shifted and warped as they struggled with the tangled concepts they offered one another, they began to merge. At last their thoughts had become so intermeshed that it was impossible to tell one from the other. Slowly, the parts of Bolothamogg's and Ioun's minds that had merged became aware of itself as an independent entity in its own right. This entity knew itself as Boccob.
Boccob, a new god born from Ioun's curiosity and knowledge and Bolothamogg's timeless mastery over the boundaries of existence, was able to move freely between creation and the realm beyond, learning from each. Over time, Boccob became aware of the force of magic, which was capable of rewriting reality and transversing the borders between the planes. It is not clear if magic itself was born from Ioun's and Bolothamogg's riddle contest or if their riddles merely lay the groundwork for how magic could be manipulated, but Boccob became magic's first adept.
As for Bolothamogg and Ioun, no one knows if they still exist. Perhaps Boccob is all that is left of them. Perhaps they annihilated one another. Or perhaps they battle still at the edge of creation, equally matched, still spinning riddles beyond all conception.
High-flying stuff, creative ideas. I like it. I like the way how you interesting deities from different sources and used them to create story.
In my campaign Boccob is the strongest deity even though basically there are many greater deities of the same stature. He's a god of magic, not just arcane magic, so that gives him a bit of advantage
I can easily see Boccob as a creator deity, head of the pantheon type akin to Ra or Ptah or Amon or Brahma. He could have created himself, or come into being as magic became aware of itself and learned its own true name, at the beginning of time and made all of the other gods as experiments, companions, and pawns.
I like elder gods and I like multiple generations of gods, but some cultures - especially wizards, maybe ancient civilizations like the Isles of Woe - might have Boccob as the very oldest.
Let me think about how to start.
Yes.
(From a massive copper tablet recovered from a tomb in the Cairn Hills, believed to be a relic of the Isle of Woe culture. The rest of the tomb is long-since looted, and what might have been buried there is unknown. If the tablet had been small enough to carry, no doubt it would have been looted as well.)
The oldest magic is the magic of names.
Before there were names or words, there was only chaos, confusion. Everything was only potential, but nothing could be realized.
Then came the first Word.
Some believe the Word came first, and the Word created a voice to speak it and an ear to hear it. For how could there be a voice, when voice itself had no name? How could there be anyone to hear when only chaos existed?
So the first subject created the first object, and the first object created more objects until all words had come into being.
The first subject was the first word, and the first word was a name, and that name was Boccob. And the name Boccob created the god Boccob to hear itself, and to speak itself. And Boccob created the other words for everything that is.
To work magic, true magic, one must know the names of things. And Boccob is the keeper of the names.
Good stuff. I've long associated Boccob with Odin. Not Odin the All Father, but Odin who hung himself on Yggdrasil for nine days and nights, pierced by his own spear to learn the secret of the runes. Odin, sacrificing his eye at Mimir's well. Odin was one weird dude who was all about magic and secret knowledge when you read more about him.
I'd actually used the Odin myth as inspiration for Wee Jas. The intersection of death and magic, literally dying to learn magic, seems to fit her, plus the idea that the "Northmen" of the Flanaess are of Suel descent.
Ah! Another rasgon fever dream reminiscence, but is that "Purple Haze" I hear playing in the the background? Interesting ideas. Perhaps rasgon should compile his collected musings. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
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Interesting ideas. Perhaps rasgon should compile his collected musings. 