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    Canonfire :: View topic - Mythmaking
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    Mythmaking
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    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Jun 13, 2008
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    Sat Dec 13, 2008 12:12 pm  
    Mythmaking

    Where can I find legends from the verious mythologies? Currently I am basing the Cult of St. Cuthbert of of Protestant Christian moderates and the Pholtines off of a super fanatical Catholic/Puritan/Jewish Crusader/Witch Hunter/Pharisee-Law of Moses mishmash. I'd like a little bit more detail to flesh it out with.

    The problem is I don't know if anythig like that even exists. If it doesn't I would have to write a whole bunch of legends myself. That wouldn't be to hard because I'd just rip them off of Old Testment stories from the bible for a short term solution but for a long term solution I'd need something a bit more comprehensive.

    Any suggestions on where to look?
    Black Hand of Oblivion

    Joined: Feb 16, 2003
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    Sat Dec 13, 2008 3:57 pm  

    I'm pretty sure I recall reading some fan stuff done on this very subject. Hopefully rip or thanael will pop in and post a dozen or so links to it(as they so often do). Wink

    Last edited by Cebrion on Sun Feb 15, 2009 11:36 pm; edited 1 time in total
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Sat Dec 13, 2008 4:27 pm  

    Excellent.

    I've always hated the portrayal of clerics in D&D because they didn't really mean anything. In every real world mythology there are stories that accompany the belief. No religion was ever founded on rules and behaviors alone so I've always tried to incorporate some kinds of stories into them. The Abrahamic religions all use pretty much the same basis and I've used them as a basis for the cults of Pholtus, St. Cuthbert and Al-Akbar, where Photus is the Cheif diety of all three. I know that isn't exactly cannon but it makes no difference mechanically and the stories fit well.
    GreySage

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    Sat Dec 13, 2008 4:32 pm  

    I can make some up. Let's see:

    The Creation
    In the beginning all was Chaos, without shape or direction. To combat the wrongness of this, Order arrived in the form of Pholtus, who emerged from the infinite Light outside Creation to guide all those within it to the truth.

    When Pholtus stepped into Chaos, the order his presence brought took the form of the temporal gods. Being created by the presence of Pholtus, they had coherent shapes and desired order. Because they were made from Chaos rather than the eternal Light beyond, however, they were capable of error.

    The temporal gods, with Pholtus' guidance, began to shape Chaos into the World and its races. They created servants - angels - to help them in their tasks. For a while, all was as it should be. Order was forming from Chaos and progressing toward the Light.

    The inchoate thoughts of Chaos, however, were filled with darkness and mischief. Enraged at encroaching Order, Chaos birthed demons who battled the gods and their servants. Some of the temporal gods stood strong against Chaos, even if they did not know the Light as Pholtus did. Some of the gods fell prey to weakness and became chaotic themselves: Erythnul, Ralishaz, Kurell, Olidammara, and others were tainted by the demons and turned their faces from the Light. These gods are now as bad as demons are. Even those gods who have not turned their faces from the Light are not to be prayed to, because they are capable of error and may guide you falsely. Only Pholtus always knows the Truth.

    The Theft of the Lights
    When the mortal races were first created, the heavens were filled with darkness. Pholtus knew this was wrong, because most mortals need lights to guide them to the true Light. So it was that Pholtus made four lights to shine in the heavens, two for each side of the Oerth. Thus, there would always be light in the heavens no matter which way the world turned. Pholtus put four of the temporal gods - Sol, Null, Luna, and Celene - in charge of watching over the lights and protecting them from Chaos.

    The forces of Chaos knew the lights would guide mortals away from their wickedness, so they conspired to steal them. To Celene (who some call Sehanine) they sent pretty dreams; while she lost herself in visions, they stole her light. To Luna (who some call Ehlonna) they sent pretty garlands of flowers and wreaths of leaves; while she adorned herself with their false beauty, they took her light away. To Null (who some call Nerull) they offered the stinking corpses of his enemies; Null, who had formally stood tall with righteousness, paused to gloat over the deaths of those who had displeased him, and he allowed them to take away his light. Finally they approached Sol (who some call Pelor), but alone of the four Sol stood strong against their temptations, refusing all they offered. Finally they began flattering Sol's great strength and ability to heal, and he began to waver. Fortunately Pholtus arrived then, having returned from battling Chaos elsewhere and seeing the lights disappear. Pholtus chased the minions of Chaos away and set about repairing the damage their weakness had brought.

    Alone, Pholtus ventured into the heart of Chaos, where the three stolen lights were being held. All demons and chaotic things shrank before the sternness of his glare. When he found the lights, however, they had already succumbed to chaotic taint. Celene's orb had grown green and pitted, and darkness swallowed it four times a year. Null's orb had grown entirely bloody and dead, its scarlet light hideous and unclean. Luna's orb was the least tarnished of the three; it was dimmer, and darkness swallowed it every month, but its features remained smooth and unblemished.

    Pholtus returned with the remains of the lights. He set Luna's orb and Celene's orb together for half the day, and left Sol's orb, which was still as bright as he had created it, in the sky for the other half. The unholy thing that were once Null's orb he cast into the underworld, banishing Null there with it forever and ever, though on the night of the Blood Moon Luna's orb turns as scarlet as Null's, and Null escapes to work evil. Pholtus then decreed that henceforth he would look after the lights himself, ensuring that they could never be stolen again. He then took as one of his symbols a silver orb, saying that like the mortal world it was dimmed by Chaos but not beyond redemption.

    Note: this myth combines the story of Anti-Liga from Greyspace with the fact that Nerull's home plane, Tartarus, is made out of scarlet orbs. I'm proud of it.

    The Wind Dukes of Aaqa
    It is said that of the races created by the gods, none were as true in the service of Law and opposition to Chaos as the Wind Dukes of Aaqa. For eons they battled the hordes of Chaos without complaint or reward, until finally they devised a plan to destroy the greatest of demons, Miska the Wolf-Spider. They created a Rod of Law that would banish Miska to the bowels of the Underworld, but in their pride they failed to ask Pholtus to bless it. When they finally battled Miska and his forces at the Battle of Pesh, Miska was banished but the rod shattered into seven parts and most of the remaining Wind Dukes were killed. If they had looked to Pholtus to guide them, the rod would have remained whole.
    GreySage

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    Sat Dec 13, 2008 5:57 pm  

    The Tale of the Two Brothers
    Before the Battle of Pesh, many refugees were driven from their lands by the forces of Chaos. Among the throngs were two brothers who traveled with their elderly mother. For months they traveled, seeking a refuge from the conflict. Their mother kept asking them to stop and rest. "Just a little farther," said the brothers. "We'll find a better place than this." Each time their mother grew weaker. Finally one brother decided that the time had come to ask for directions. Though his sibling was reluctant, they agreed, and they stopped a man in the road and asked him where their sick mother might find rest and refreshment. "You are too late," said the man, who was the god Pholtus. "Your mother is dead. If you had only asked earlier, she would have lived." The brothers began weeping. Pholtus then rewarded the brother who had decided to ask for directions by directing him to the heavens, where he might find a place for his mother's soul. So it is that one of the brothers, who is now known as Celestian, endlessly searches the heavens for a place for his mother's soul. The other brother, who is named Fharlanghn, searches the Oerth for a place to bury her body. If they would ask Pholtus a second time for guidance, their wanderings might cease, but they will not. In their pride they blame Pholtus for their mother's death, though it was actually caused by their own foolishness.

    Cuthbert
    Among mortals, there was no servant of Law as stalwart as Cuthbert of the Cudgel, who roamed the world showing Chaos and Evil the error of its ways.

    One day, some say during a mighty battle against a dragon, Cuthbert was struck with a blow to his head, crushing his hat and making him simple. Cuthbert thought he saw a star guiding him on a new path, but this light was false, not the true Blinding Light but a product of his own delusion. This false light led Cuthbert to deny the true doctrines. Where Pholtus teaches correctly that buying indulgences from his church can burn away sin, Cuthbert claimed that indulgences were a false assurance of salvation and an unfair burden on the poor. In doing so, Cuthbert's wicked teachings have damned many misguided souls to the Nine Hells, for faith alone cannot redeem a soul. Cuthbert also taught that holy books should be translated into Common instead of the original sacred tongue of Old Oeridian. In doing so, he has distorted their meaning and led many into error and corruption.

    Cuthbert's false vision of the Light has now become his starburst symbol, and too many deluded souls now look to it instead of the true Blinding Light that only Pholtus can guide them to. The thugs and blackguards known as the Stars and Chapeaux use armed force to keep people from seeing the true Light. The Chapeaux corrupt innocents while the Stars invade the minds of those who might otherwise find redemption.
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Sun Dec 14, 2008 7:25 am  

    Last night a friend of mine stopped by. I told him about this discussion and that I was going to be this into my campaign.


    Rasgon, have I ever told you that you are my hero?
    Master Greytalker

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    Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:00 pm  

    As long as he is not the wind beneath your wings - manus-nigrum Laughing
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Sun Dec 14, 2008 9:33 pm  

    I'll throw up some as soon as I can stop long enough. My friend and I do this sort of thing for his world. He is a big believer in legends being worth more than Gods any day of the week. He has one religion in his world loosely based off of the faith in Aslan in Narnia. I say loosely, because where Aslan would lead the faithful from one world to the next, and each would be more perfect, the Church of the Shadowlands only deals with the last world and the next world. The last world was a war between Chaos and Law. This world, where law has won, because there is order in the world (natural chaos is still true to its nature - it is the likes of the abberations and the undead that are unnatural). Here the battle is for good and evil. It is a greater sin to use illusion to fool others than it is to deal with a devil. The devil is evil, true to his nature, the illusion is an utter faslehood, and an abberation before the religions single god.

    There are a bunch of legends and myths that went into the religion that made it a lot of fun, including having an army of followers be blessed with magical weapons because they rejected their weapons, which had been made by an undead horde without their previous knowledge - the same undead horde that was pressing down on their gates.

    We wrote about six different religions, each with their own legends and myths, and that were very short of "rules" beyond what the temporal leaders of the church declared as "rules."

    I've personally always liked that approach, but never really considered applying it to Greyhawk. Actually we should do a legends and myths Postfest one of these months. The only rule being that you can't include game info in the post (although you can in related discussion posts, obviously). You can't make a judgement as to whether the myth or legend is true, and discrepencies will happen, and we should encourage them. No two cities that are sufficiently far apart should have the same exact myth - it should be personalized in some manner. Even better if you retell the same myth from the perspective of two different cities. A myth of St. Cuthbert told in Gran March and Verbobonc, for instance.
    Adept Greytalker

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    Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:17 am  
    Re: Mythmaking

    manus-nigrum wrote:
    Any suggestions on where to look?


    AFAIK there are very few such myths in canon. And those would mostly deal with the deities themselves not with their cults or followers. For example the story how Olidamarra got his carapace or his use of the Kanteel of the Oldest. Other stories are only hinted at or implied (For example Kord's relationship with Kelmar, or Kelanen's tests). Some are told in the descriptions of artifacts (Kuroth's Quill, Johydee's Mask, Vecna's story) and many were elaborated on in different fan publications. (For example Erik Mona's 2 great Baklunish Delights articles in the Oerth Journal which detail Zuoken's ascension).

    Bastion of Faith has a very interesting story for the faiths of Heironeous and Hextor, this time concerning not the gods themselves but a champion of them and his tragic tale. While the Guide to Hell has some details on the Cuthbertine faith (a devil hunting order), but not much on their mythology. Monster Mythology of course has lots of myths for many monstrous or demihuman D&D deities and demonlords but alas not for the greyhawk pantheons. Living Greyhawk Journal and the old Dragon articles have very good descriptions of some deities. (see the WotC thread below for a listing of the specific issues)

    So these myths are scattered far and wide mostly and are very thin.

    -the GHwiki should have some of that info and more sources.
    -this old thread on the WotC boards (and this one too) lists many resources for info on GH deities in general.
    -the Greyhawk Compendium site has a great deity section.
    -Rip wrote some great Heward/Zagyg Fiction and also a great tale about the Birth and Childhood of Iuz.
    -the Dicefreaks deities forum used to have many detailed writeups of Greyhawk gods, but not all have been reposted.


    Last edited by Thanael on Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:22 am; edited 1 time in total
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:51 am  

    I know that the last few of the paper versions of Dragon magazine were doing a series on the "core" gods. Each article went into some detail on the priesthoods and mentioned a few of their core beliefs and detailed a holy artifact or two. The back story on these contained some bare-bones mythology.

    There are also some myths contained in the Living Greyhawk Journals around the Cuthbertian paladins, I believe. I don't have access to them now, or I'd reference the issue numbers.
    Master Greytalker

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    Mon Dec 15, 2008 2:10 pm  

    MikelAmroni wrote:
    Actually we should do a legends and myths Postfest one of these months. The only rule being that you can't include game info in the post (although you can in related discussion posts, obviously). You can't make a judgement as to whether the myth or legend is true, and discrepencies will happen, and we should encourage them. No two cities that are sufficiently far apart should have the same exact myth - it should be personalized in some manner. Even better if you retell the same myth from the perspective of two different cities. A myth of St. Cuthbert told in Gran March and Verbobonc, for instance.


    I think that is a great idea for a postfest. I have a heretical flan legend with no canon footnotes that would be perfect for it.

    Kirt
    GreySage

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    Mon Jan 12, 2009 5:30 pm  
    Re: Mythmaking

    Thanael wrote:
    While the Guide to Hell has some details on the Cuthbertine faith (a devil hunting order), but not much on their mythology.


    Meant to comment on this before, sorry.

    That book did, however, contain a myth about Asmodeus and the creation of the multiverse, a version of events that has its supporters. For the myths I posted above, however, I think the origin of Asmodeus and the gods of Law in Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells is more appropriate.

    For Pholtus's church, I would modify it, saying something like:

    When the gods created angels to battle the demonic threat, the greatest and most shining among them was Asmodeus (an Old Oeridian name, cognate to the older term Aeshma), who personified divine wrath. With Asmodeus at the lead of the celestial hosts, great hordes of demons were slaughtered, yet still the foul creatures bred more of their kind. Asmodeus dispatched his lieutenant Moloch (known as Melek in those days) to destroy their young, something he did with great alacrity and zeal. With their spawn decimated by Moloch, the demons turned to a new source to expand their numbers: corrupting mortal souls from the true path and transforming them into new demons.

    This, Asmodeus declared, would not stand. He came before the virtuous gods and requested permission to slaughter the corrupt mortals as well. Some of the gods thought this was too harsh, while others thought it did not go far enough. Pholtus, shining with wisdom as ever. informed them that while such a punishment would not be too harsh for those corrupted by demons, it would be futile; dead, their souls would travel to the Abyss all the sooner. Instead, he directed Asmodeus to create a prison in the divine realm to issue corrective measures for those who had fallen from the Light. Only with the threat of punishment would mortals stay on the true path.

    When the gods came later to inspect the Hell that Asmodeus had made, they found that the angel had turned it into a source of power for himself, and that his minions were actively corrupting mortals themselves in order to feed themselves more power. When they complained to Pholtus, however, he only smiled. "Well it is for the true faith to have an Adversary," quoth Pholtus, "For righteousness untested is only naivete." He renamed the angels of Asmodeus devils, and directed the gods to oppose them where they could, but to recognize that the devils remained opponents of the demons, and that therefore they still supported the cosmic scheme.
    GreySage

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    Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:23 am  

    rasgon wrote:
    Cuthbert
    Among mortals, there was no servant of Law as stalwart as Cuthbert of the Cudgel, who roamed the world showing Chaos and Evil the error of its ways.

    . . . This false light led Cuthbert to deny the true doctrines. Where Pholtus teaches correctly that buying indulgences from his church can burn away sin, Cuthbert claimed that indulgences were a false assurance of salvation and an unfair burden on the poor . . . Cuthbert also taught that holy books should be translated into Common instead of the original sacred tongue of Old Oeridian.


    Nice twist on the "Martin Luther vs The Catholic Church" angle, with a little of Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin thrown in! Wink Too cool! Cool

    Rasgon, ole' buddy, you just have too much time to sit and think! Laughing Laughing Laughing

    Good job! Happy
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    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Tue Jan 13, 2009 3:08 pm  

    I use St. Cuthbert as a Christ figure, I hadn't considered using him as a Lutheresque reformer as well. Great idea Rasgon!
    GreySage

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    Wed Jan 14, 2009 8:45 am  
    Re: Mythmaking

    rasgon wrote:
    . . . I think the origin of Asmodeus and the gods of Law in Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells is more appropriate.

    When the gods created angels to battle the demonic threat, the greatest and most shining among them was Asmodeus . . . With Asmodeus at the lead of the celestial hosts,

    Pholtus . . . informed them that . . . it would be futile . . . Instead, he directed Asmodeus to create a prison in the divine realm . . . Only with the threat of punishment would mortals stay on the true path.


    [i]When the gods came later to inspect the Hell that Asmodeus had made, they found that the angel had turned it into a source of power for himself, and that his minions were actively corrupting mortals themselves in order to feed themselves more power.


    Asmodeus as Satan? Confused

    Unfamiliar with Fiendish Codex II. Have to look into getting that one. Rasgon, you're too good to be true, my friend. Happy
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    GreySage

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    Sun Feb 15, 2009 4:43 pm  

    This is a near-universal myth, found in the stories of a variety of races and peoples, for all that it is often banned as blasphemous (for example, the penalty for retelling it in the Pale is ten lashings). The identity of the Creator varies depending on the faith of the teller - it has been, in various versions, Lendor, Istus, Rao, Corellon Larethian, Gruumsh, Moradin, Annam, Io, and Pholtus. Sometimes the Creator is nameless, or referred to by a title such as the Nameless One, the Maker, or the First Cause. Many in the Flanaess profess agnosticism on the question of who originally made all things; there are so many conflicting tales on the subject that this often seems the safest path. The identity of Ralishaz never varies, though his appearance often does.

    Ralishaz and the Creator.
    A tale of blasphemy.

    On Godsday Ralishaz visited the Creator of the World.

    "Hello," said Ralishaz, grinning as usual. He became a beautiful maiden, dressed to impress in a garbage sack dangling with rat skulls.

    "Hello, Ralishaz," said the Creator, guardedly. He didn't much care for Ralishaz. Few do.

    "May I see what you're doing?" asked Ralishaz sweetly. He became an emaciated twelve-year-old boy, his face buzzing with flies.

    "I'd rather you didn't," said the Creator, trying to use his arm to hide the crystalline model of the Outer Planes that he had been tinkering with. He overestimated the distance and accidentally knocked Acheron off its stand. It shattered into hundreds of tiny cubes. The Creator cursed.

    Ralishaz winced simpathetically. "Perhaps adamantine wiring would hold better," he suggested helpfully. He aged until he became a wizened old man, his naked body coated in dust and fallen leaves.

    "What do you want, Ralishaz?" the Creator said, impatiently trying to scoop up cubes. He kept dropping them. One fell on his foot. He cursed again.

    "Oh," said Ralishaz. "Nothing in particular. Just being sociable."

    "What can I do to get rid of you?" asked the Creator, coming to the point. The model of Limbo squeaked dangerously as it spun toward Gladsheim.

    "Get rid of me?" Ralishaz acted surprised. "Well, that's not very sociable." Ralishaz was a crone now, his ragged dress hung with empty liquor bottles. He paused, thinking. Finally he said, "I wondered if you'd like to make a bet."

    "With you?" The Creator made a face. "I don't think so."

    "Oh, but you haven't heard me out," said Ralishaz. "This is a simple bet. There's no element of chance in it."

    "What's your bet, Ralishaz?" asked the creator wearily. He wondered what had happened to his models of Sheol and Purgatory. He hoped he hadn't lost them.

    "I wondered... well, it's silly, really, but I wondered if you've ever actually created anything."

    "What?" exclaimed the Creator. "I made the world! I made the oceans, and the mountains! I made the skies, and the far-flung planes of existence!"

    "Did you?" asked Ralishaz. "Because I've seen your plans, and the world doesn't look like anything like them. For example, in your initial drawings the mountains looked like perfectly smooth cones, not those lumpy, cracked things I saw in the Crystalmists. Why, some of them were even spewing lava, and I'm sure that wasn't in your plans. That looked positively dangerous."

    "You know perfectly well why the mountains are like that," said the Creator darkly. "You tapped me on my shoulder, and I was so surprised that I dropped them. And then I fell on them. I was sore for weeks."

    "Yes, that was terribly clumsy of you. But then, wouldn't you say that the mountains were really created by chance, and not by your design?"

    "Chance had nothing to do with it."

    Ralishaz feigned shock. "What's that? Surely you're not suggesting that I'm the one who created the mountains?"

    "Of course not, I..."

    "Supplied the raw material? Who gets credit for a sculpture, the artist who chooses the shape of the stone or the quarryman who digs it out of the ground?"

    The Creator was silent.

    "Well?" said Ralishaz. "Will you take my bet?" He took the form of a mature male of average height and appearance, his face free of expression, venomous serpents winding about his body.

    "What are the stakes?" asked the Creator.

    "Why, if I lose, I'll go away and leave you alone," said Ralishaz.

    "I like it," said the Creator. "And if you win?"

    "Then I'll stay and be sociable. I said it was simple, didn't I?"

    "It's a deal," said the Creator.

    "Fine," said Ralishaz. "Point to something that turned out the way you wanted it."

    "The oceans," said the Creator.

    "Really? Treacherous, full of storms, monsters, and ice, with hidden spires of stone to enare ships, tidal waves and tsunamis, islands unexpectedly sinking in the depths, coastlines rough as a three-day beard? Because I recall you designing a perfect circle, with deep ports in front of every city." Ralishaz became a young woman, dark and beautiful except for her bright red mustache.

    "Yes, well... that's a long story," said the Creator. "One you know already, because you kept showing up throughout the process. My chisel kept slipping, I spilled a whole pot of spicy chili in the Solnor, and I don't know where the aboleths came from...'

    "Yes, well, I don't think we can count that one. What else?"

    "Living creatures. Elves, giants, humanity, dwarves. Orcs. Dragons. I'm particularly proud of them."

    "All of those were your creations? Really? Then why do they treat one another as enemies, and credit a thousand other gods for your works? Why does each claim to be the only true race, and try to wipe out the others? They don't seem like the products of a single creator to me."

    "Conditions kept changing. When I created humans, the sun was shining, so they saw me as a golden being covered in light. When I created the orcs it was dark, and one of my eyes was hidden in shadow. When I created dragons I was wearing the new scaled suit you gave me, and my feet had somehow gotten lodged in my mouth..."

    "A series of unfortunate accidents, then. Didn't you mean to create them all at once? And weren't they meant to all look the same? Your plans show beings a hundred cubits tall, with four arms and both kinds of genitalia. I've never seen anything that looked like that."

    "I accidentally cut them in half," the Creator remembered. "And I ran out of clay after using so much on the giants and dragons, so I had to scale them down..."

    "I see," said Ralishaz. "And disease and death don't seem to have been part of your original design. Childbirth wasn't meant to be painful either, wasn't it? "

    The Creator made a face. "Nerull and Incabulos didn't behave as I'd meant them to. I wasn't going to make them at all until my animals outstripped their food supply, and then they were only meant to slow things down so that I could make more land to match the rate of their reproduction. As for childbirth, my design originally called for..." he stopped, and sighed. "Angels," he said. "Angels are perfect."

    "Are they really? Is that why so many of them fell from grace and became devils? Is that why they serve deities of wildly varying alignments and make war with one another? Weren't they meant to be strong enough to kill all the demons? They weren't even originally meant to have wings."

    "They can fly without them. They just have trouble steering. I added them so they wouldn't constantly be crashing into things..." the Creator paused again, and he scowled. His face turned red. "No," he said. "No, I'm not going to lose to you! Not when the authorship of Creation is at stake. I'm going to get rid of you once and for all, troublemaker. Born from my first mistake, the first thing I saw that I hadn't looked for! Miscreant, anarchist, pathetic mad thing! I'll win this bet! I'll be rid of you and everything will be perfect, just as it was supposed to be!"

    Ralishaz raised an eyebrow. He only had one of them at the time, so it took only half the effort. He concentrated, and separated his monobrow into three parts. The Creator wasn't paying attention, though. He was busy pulling out his pins. He used one to skewer a tree, missed, and pricked his finger. He cursed, and blood fell to the ground and spawned monsters. He tried again, and this time his aim was accurate. Emboldened, he pinned down an animal (herd) that happened to be passing by. Then he pinned down a bush, and a stream, and a man. Everything he pinned became still. He pinned a cloud, and he stuck smaller pins in the raindrops falling from it. He pinned down cats, dogs, and neo-otyughs (the story behind the creation of the otyugh was so embarrassing that he usually pretended it never happened). He pinned down slimes, jellies, and oozes. He pinned down elves, dwarves, and hobgoblins. He pinned down every wave in the ocean. He pinned down demiplanes, half-worlds, and Fading Lands. He pinned down quasielemental planes and paraelemental planes. He pinned down gods and demons. He pinned down Ralishaz. Finally everything in the multiverse was still.

    Ralishaz raised an eyebrow. He had five of them at this point. The Creator stuck pins in them all.

    "If everything is still, nothing can go wrong!" explained the Creator. He sneezed, and accidentally created smallpox.

    "Looks like you'll have to stay still as well," Ralishaz observed.

    "I will!" said the Creator. "Nothing will move, and nothing will change, and everything will be exactly as I intend it!" The Creator held his breath, closed his eyes, and laid on the ground. He held himself perfectly still.

    Ten million years passed. Nothing moved. Nothing changed. It was precisely as the Creator had imagined.

    There was, however, one problem. It started out as an undefinable antsiness, and grew over the eons until it was an uncontrollable compulsion to do something. Anything. "Odd," he thought. "I don't remember creating boredom."

    At last the Creator sat up. He sat up so quickly that he hit his head against the sky. Meteors rained down and destroyed a civilization.

    "Well?" asked Ralishaz. "Have I won the bet?"

    The Creator sighed. He finally scratched an itch that had bothering him for the past hundred centuries. Minute skin flakes became the first fleas. "You win," said the Creator.

    "Oh," said Ralishaz. "Oh, good. What shall we do next?"

    The Creator smiled. "I missed you," he admitted.

    "I missed you too, big guy," said Ralishaz.
    Forum Moderator

    Joined: Feb 26, 2004
    Posts: 2590
    From: Ullinois

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    Sun Feb 15, 2009 8:24 pm  

    That was incredible Rasgon! Did you write that story? I've never imagined Ralishaz being so mischievously irritating as in that tale. Kudos!
    GreySage

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

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    Mon Feb 16, 2009 12:41 am  

    Thank you! It was knocking around in my head all day since I was mentally merging gods and Ralishaz was the only one who wouldn't merge. The story didn't turn out exactly how I imagined it, though; Ralishaz is much more irritating in print.
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