The old gods of Aelsif

[Avianmosquito]

The old faith, also known as the true faith, cosmic faith or primal heathenism, is one of the oldest and likely the widest spread of the many religions of Aelsif. which tell of a precursor race called the "Aeldyans", progenitors of the modern races, who they looked down on as "intelligent beasts". Central to this mythos are the old gods, also known as the true gods, cosmic gods or great old ones. These can be separated into two pairs: The parents and the lovers, both pairs tell a long anthology of stories which form one large, central myth about the precursors' rise, their gods' entanglements, the betrayal of one of their deities, a great schism in their society and its eventually disintegration to leave the modern races to take over in their stead. While there may be some truth to the legend as there were certainly civilizations old enough to qualify, it's hard to tell how much, and it's almost certain that most of it will be false given the prehistoric nature of the fables and the aeons of revisionism that have occurred in the interim. But the most solid and consistent accounts are, of course, of their gods.

Aeldyshana/Nya-Za'Thoth and Aeldymyga/K'Macthia are the parents, claimed to be the primeval pair who gave birth to all beings divine and arcane, with Aeldyshana/Nya-Za'Thoth being The Divine, the master of divine will, and Aeldymyga/K'Macthia being The Arcane the bestower of magic. According to primal legend, the long-standing separation of arcane and divine magic, seemingly no different upon examination, merely denote "from Aeldymyga" and "from Aeldyshana" and otherwise have no meaning.

Their old names, Aeldyshana and Aeldygmyga, are their original Aeldyan names. Nya-Za'Thoth is the new sahuagin name for Aeldyshana and the best known name for her today. K'Macthia is the new sahuagin name for Aeldymyga and the best known name for her today. Aeldyshana means "our life giver", referring to the Aeldyan creation myth where Aeldyshana created the first civilization of Aeldya to service her divine will. Nya-Za'thoth means "that which we must forget", and relates to the sahuagin reinterpretation of her as a vengeful goddess of destruction seeking to end civilization to purge the world of betrayers and degenerates. "Aeldymyga" means "our life changer", relating to the Aeldyan creation myth where Aeldymyga raised the races divine and bestial alike, mentoring and altering them for greater strength and beauty.

This is where things get messy.

Demdyshana/It Yeek'Kal Thet and Demdymyga/Sha'nit-Feek'it-La'kep are the lovers, respectively the mistresses of Aeldyshana and Aeldymyga. Demdyshana/It Yeek'Kal Thet is The Great Beast, the goddess of nature, the sea, and blind faith. Demdymyga/Sha'nit-Feek'it-La'kep is The Beloved, goddess of society, the sky, and love. Demdyshana means "their life giver", referring to the legend of Demdyshana creating the beasts of the field, everything from minnows and mice to sahuagin and humans. Demdymyga means "their life changer", referring either to the northern Aeldyan legend of Demdymyga forming bestial civilization, or the southern Aeldyan legend of her corrupting the beasts into degenerate monsters and tricking her lover Aeldymyga into their trap. In northern Aeldyan legend, Demdymyga is seen as a benevolent being who elevated beasts and made Aeldya better for it, and Aeldymyga was an overprotective smother who tried to destroy the beasts to protect the Aeldyans. In southern legend, Demdymyga is seen as an evil corrupter, betrayer and degenerate who turned the beasts into infernal servants in a plot to murder Aeldymyga, and lured Aeldymyga away from Aeldyshana to her betrayal at the beasts' hands. This event is marked by a northern/southern schism and the disintegration of Aeldyan society.

This is also where we get the names Nya-Za'Thoth and K'Macthia.

The Aeldyans saw Aeldyshana as a benevolent creator who promoted right thinking, faith and godliness, and whose holy violence was precise and thoughtful; the least needed to keep the Aeldyan people from corruption and bestiality. The sahuagin see Nya-Za'Thoth as a hateful destroyer who seeks to undo civilization to purge the world of corrupt betrayers and interbreeding degenerates. This likely relates to the massive increase in fundamentalist militarism in the south following the Aeldyan schism, where the southern Aeldyans started to destroy the intelligent beasts of the world with single-minded abandon until their very own civilization dissolved.

In the north, the Aeldyans saw Aeldymyga initially as a loving, caring parent who protected them from evil and danger, but later as a cowardly smother who kept the intelligent beasts from power and society so they may never threaten her power over her beloved Aeldyan children, which she went so far as to twist the life and the land around their people to keep them and the beasts separated. The halflings must have picked up on this, as "K'Macthia" means "her mouth poisons the land", relating to area of separation, known today as the "otherlands", an ever-expanding wall of mutation and monstrosity now almost 1600 miles across that slowly creeps outwards to one day consume the world. The otherlands are not unlivable, but they are hostile and the halflings blaming it on K'Macthia "poisoning" the land fits into the Aeldyan legend nicely.

It has been suggested that the event that spawned the Aeldyan schism was the Betrayal of Aeldymyga by Demdymyga and the beasts. The southern version goes that Demdymyga manipulated the beasts into building a great temple for Aeldymyga and designing it to be destroyed when she entered, impaling her through the heart and leaving her trapped there forever. The northern version goes that Demdymyga and Aeldymyga were lovers, and Demdymyga convinced her to go there so she might see that the beasts had only good intentions towards her beloved Aeldyans, but that the building was dropped on her and her heart run through when she became violent during the meeting.

Either way, the fall of the temple and the central column running through her heart is a consistent part of the legend, though what this tale represents is anyone's guess. Perhaps a meeting between traditional Aeldyan mages and the modern races ended in violence, even the actual destruction of a temple: Many spells could collapse a building of that size, earthquake being a prime example, and according to legend both sides had great magic at the time. This could definitely explain the schism, the rebranding of Aeldyshana, and the massive outbreak of violence in the south that destroyed Aeldyan civilization.

Regardless, the four of them as they are known now have very definite traits.

Aeldyshana/Nya-Za'Thoth is a tall, thin being with blue-black skin, hunched legs ending in unguligrade feet, six long arms ending in thin hands of six clawed digits (four fingers and two thumbs), a completely featureless face, a giant toothless maw on her collar, a ring of heads that float around her waist, massive black-feathered wings, long curved horns, and six eyes running down her body. These are the massive holy eye of light between her horns, desire's eye on her throat, the soul's eye on her heart, the creation's eye where her naval shall be, the creator's eye on her lower abdomen and the lover's eye on the lower pelvis. The symbolism behind each of them is pretty self-explanatory by their names and locations, but just in case there will be some explanation below as Aeldymyga shares most of these eyes.

Aeldymyga/K'Macthia is a tall, thin being with red-white skin, long legs and digitigrade feet, ten core arms, four great wings made up of a thousand ethereal hands, massive downward-curved horns framing her face that sits atop her neck above her collar's gaping maw, the massive arcane eye as her face's only feature and five more running down her body mirroring the five lower eyes of Aeldyshana.

The eyes of Aeldyshana and Aeldymyga are fairly basic symbolism. The holy eye of Aeldyshana and the arcane eye of Aeldymyga represent their magics, the holy eye seeing divine essence and the arcane eye seeing the arcane ether, the same force interpreted and utilised through a different method. The eyes of desire on their throats symbolize ambition, and see opportunity to make progress and advance one's power, no wonder it sits almost touching a mouth. The soul's eye on their hearts represents life, the source of magic. The creation's eye represents the physical form and its needs. The creator's eye sits atop the uterus, and symbolizes the power to create. The lover's eye is in place of their ****oris and symbolizes attraction, love and lust.

Demdyshana/It Yeek'Kal Thet is a massive, hulking mass of flesh sprouting twelve long tails, or perhaps flagella, or arms, from her sides and back forming a ring around her body. Ahead of this sits two vestigial arms ending prematurely at the first elbow, connected by a form of patagium to a vestial horn ending prematurely just in time to catch it, creating a squid-head shape. Below this sits a very human face with two enormous squid-like eyes, an impossibly long tongue hanging out of it and two long arms originating on either side. The body itself has a very particular, familiar shape. If the fin-bases at its sides are the arms, and the lower-most tentacles are its legs it really does look like the torso of an obese humanoid female, with the face sitting upon her sternum.

Demdymyga/Sha'nit-Feek'it-La'kep is a massive, hulking mass of flesh covered in a half dozen enormous, glowing wings with a massive tail extending far behind her. She has a face much like Demdyshana's, though lacking the tongue, with two arms reaching out from the sides of it as well. Instead of a squid-head shape, she has a single long, fully formed horn at the front of her body. And once more, her body resembles a humanoid female, though one of a more medium build.

Remembering that Demdyshana and Demdymyga represent beasts and the rise of the modern races, respectively, their forms make sense. Demdyshana is obese and greedy, her tongue hangs out to grab food to feed her massive, obese body, she has many arms to grab and seize for herself, representing a bestial greed that the Aeldyans saw in the modern races, or "intelligent beasts" as they called them. Aeldymyga is thinner and thinner build that the Aeldyans, a very thin race themselves, saw as a step towards their own frame, she has a long tail trailing behind her and swinging around to collide with those below to represent the clumsy and accidentally destructive nature of the modern races in early civilization, and her great wings are there giving her lift, but not enough to get very high with her weight, supposedly a claim that the beast races would never elevate themselves to the level of the Aeldyans if they didn't become like them, not thin physically but shed of their bestial greed. The fact that the Aeldyans are generally portrayed as greedy and brutal beings who thought the entire world belonged to them makes this awfully hypocritical, but it's an open question if this is intentional or not.

These four characters are central to the symbolism of Aelsif, and some of their symbolism can still be seen in Aelsif's modern religions. Regardless, when playing a game in Aelsif, it's important to know who these characters are.