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    Canonfire :: View topic - Erythnul and the bloody fathers
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    Erythnul and the bloody fathers
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    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 30, 2017
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    Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:26 am  
    Erythnul and the bloody fathers

    Erythnul's blood, shed on the earth, spawns trolls, bugbears, ogres, gnolls, and wicked human warriors.
    An ancient tradition among the Yorodhi describes “men of blood” who sprang from clots of bloodied mud where Erythnul had battled giant gods. These ‘’men of blood’’ or “Red Men” captured demihuman women and forcibly mated with them to produce the first true human races. From the union of Eryrthnul’s bloody progeny and captive elf maids, the Suel sprang, lithe and talented in magic. From dwarf women came the Balklunish, with golden skin like the dreams of greedy dwarves. Mating with the hobniz spawned the nut-brown Flan. (This is why Flan don’t wear proper shoes, or did not, until Oerids taught them to do so.)

    But the Oerids came from captured centaur women. That is why the Oerids were the greatest horsemen of all humanity, from whom the Baklunish nomads stole secrets of capturing and taming wild horses.
    The Yorodhi priests say that other nations of men, even the other Oerids, have forgotten the true importance of Erythnul and fail to do the god the full honor he deserves as creator, even if in a partial and accidental sense, of humanity.
    The priests also say that Erythnul’s sanguine outflowing also spawned the races of trolls, gnolls, bugbears, and ogres, and that the gods of these races came from flecks of Erythnul’s divine gore.
    The gnolls’ eldest gods followed Erythnul like carrion beasts trailing a great predator. Only later did gnolls learn to hunt on their own.
    A tale of Vaprak’s birth is told of by the giants, but the Yorodhi know the truth: after eating a demigod giant child of Annam, Erythnul felt queasy. The demigod in his belly was not quite dead, and thrashed and struggled as it was being slowly digested. So Erythnul scooped out the Bowl of Ull and defecated in it. Then he vomited. From his scat came the ogres. From his vomitus, the trolls crawled forth. And the half-digested god-child was reborn as Vaprak the Destroyer.

    Hruggek of the Bugbears...
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
    Posts: 3310
    From: Michigan

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    Mon Jul 31, 2017 7:19 am  

    It's tempting to say that Erythnul is Vaprak, Hruggek, and Gorellik (an early gnoll god), and those are all just different names that different races call him in his different aspects. I considered that he might be the same deity as the gnomish god Urdlen and the giantish god Grolantor, too.

    But the idea that Vaprak was digested and defecated is appropriately crude.
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Mon Jul 31, 2017 1:34 pm  

    IIRC, Vaprak's published origin myth--probably in Monster Mythology-- involves Grolantor impregnating a giant goddess.


    I have the book (MM), but not on hand.
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
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    From: Michigan

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    Tue Aug 01, 2017 12:46 pm  

    NorkerMedic wrote:
    IIRC, Vaprak's published origin myth--probably in Monster Mythology-- involves Grolantor impregnating a giant goddess.


    I have the book (MM), but not on hand.


    Page 74: "Some tales tell of a hideous, vastly tall ogress who used magic to conceal her appearance in order to attract Annam, who mated with her to engender Vaprak."

    One possible interpretation of this is that the "hideous ogress" was Syrul. Beltar might also work. I'm pretty convinced by now that Annam is Boccob (greater god of magic, true neutral, withdrawn from active involvement, name almost a palindrome, etc.).

    "Erythnul excreted him from his bowels" is a more visceral and memorable origin for Vaprak, though.
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