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The World of Teréth End - Religions - Dekàlan Gods/FONT> |
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"The messenger before you has the 12,000 Aur I promised for the coffers of your Temple. As always, it was a pleasure visiting Taldàna. I hope to return for a longer period my next visit north. Your hospitality was as always, memorable. I cannot wait for the next opporunity to extend this good will between our temples." - Old Taládan letter to a High Priest of Amra from a High Priest of Kandlan  |
Chapter Eight - Sudul - The Ordeal of the Sudul'ah The Jade Scrolls When the native prophetess Tezan'eh arrived at Ava Terèth, she was beaten and imprisoned in the coral cliffs. The scrolls she bore, each were wound about precious wood spools with jade handles. The guards who presented the scrolls to their leader claimed that a native had stolen the scrolls from a Sha'al shrine, a theft that might have had serious repercussions to the colony, were it true. The scrolls were lent to elders of the colony who began the laborious work of copying and translating the unknown tongue. What was discovered, was an epic tale of a woman named Sudul'ah who following a descent into the depths of madness, was re-born a goddess. It is unknown who made the decision to publish the scrolls, but may well have been inspired by the need to rally native populations around the fledging Dekàlan city-state. What follows is a brief overview of the jade scrolls' contents. The First Scroll In early time, when the leaves and the water were new, and their memories did not reach back so far, there lived a woman named Sudul'ah beside a deep running river. Every morning, the woman would walk to the bank, fill her ewer, and carry it back to her home in the trees. One morning while fetching water she stumbled and fell among the rocks at the shore. While lying in the water, her mind was filled with horrible sounds and dark and shapeless things. The day passed and the night afterward before she awoke. Frightened and wet she returned to her home and sat in a ball before the fire for many hours. During this time, staring into the flames afraid to sleep, Sudul'ah saw people and places she did not know. This was not new for she was a seer for her people. Though she lived removed from them when they required, she would "see" for them and give them advice on crops, hunting, and love when they called to her. She had done this since a child, warning her father not to hunt one night. He hadn't heeded his daughter's plea, and did not return. Now, as she lay before the fire, she saw many strangers' faces, staring from the flames at her. She did not know what it meant. Soon she heard a voice in the room with her, and turning found a large moth on the door. The moth told her that she had been the victim of Daggon'ah, a malevolent spirit that fills sleep with bad visions. Sudul'ah explained that she was afraid to close her eyes for fear of seeing the images again. The moth said that she would take the visions away, and fluttering from the door and around the room the moth left a cloud of silvery dust that settled on Sudul'ah and put her into a peaceful sleep. Sudul'ah dreamed of birds singing and pleasant things. But soon her dreams turned sour and the skeletons and gorgyn of her nightmares returned more harrowing than before, and when she awoke in screaming and sweating there stood over her a shadowy figure, not man or beast. It told her that Jarjath'ah's undoings would not be suffered. At that time the moth returned through an open window and the nightmares and dreams returned in succession. At this time a villager had come to the door of Sudul'ah to ask for a seeing, but found the woman crumpled on her house floor screaming, and crying, and smiling, and laughing alternatively. The villager did not see the moth or shadow, and could make no more of the scene than madness. Running back to the village, he told the people of the possession he had seen and they gathered their tools and weapons and marched to the house of Sudul'ah. The Second Scroll Note: The Second Scroll contains references which are known to have intrigued those translating the strange tongue. Early in this process it became obvious that the scrolls were not Sha'al in nature, which left the sages to believe it was a native work. Once the Second Scroll began to be understood it was thought that the work could not be native, for the indigenous people of the Dreamlands had not displayed knowledge of planar magic; a theory of metaphysics new even to Dekàlans of the day. Proving suspicions that the scrolls might have originated much further away were stymied by two facts; the jade handles of the scroll were of a kind found only around Jadth; and when messengers went to question Tezan'eh, she could not be found. The door to the seer's house was thrown open and the eldest woman went inside. The fire burned in its place, and the rugs of the floor were twisted and thrown about, but Sudul'ah was not found. The young man that had seen came forward and pointed to the floor where the tormented woman had tossed in her madness, but there was no sign except for a silvery dust that covered everything. While the villager was gone, Sudul'ah was torn into two wholes and each whole was dragged into the realm of its claimant. While one whole rested in the tranquility of Jarjath'ah's influence, the other struggled, tormented and agonized on the spike of Daggon'ah's wall. For a great time the two wholes lived separate, each growing within its sphere. Sudul'ah soon found herself in the gulf between these places and discovered that her hosts were absent for long periods, during which their attentions and influences waned. In these times she looked all about her and learned much of the secrets of that otherworldly place, and soon could see beyond it into the world she'd left behind. There her village continued without her. The roof of her home collapsed during a storm, much older than it had appeared so short a time ago. She watched her sister's children grow, and their children grow, all from her places within Jarjath'ah's peace and Daggon'ah's thorn. Soon her vision grew greater and she could see the dreams and the nightmares that played inside the minds of the mortals there, and she could see the visions for what they were. But while lost in the dreams of the mortals, Jarjath'ah returned and found her lost in dreams not her own. She woke Sudul'ah and asked where she had been. Sudul'ah loved the moth and trusted Jarjath'ah with all her heart, and so explained that she had visited the dreams of the world. This enraged the moth who exclaimed that she fashioned dreams for each person, and that this was not allowe. The moth carried Sudul'ah from her place and deposited her into the Ether promising never to visit her with dreams again. Sorrowful she wandered through the gulf until she came to gate of Daggon'ah where her other whole writhed upon the pike of the shadowy gate. She explained to her self what had happened and constructed a plan. The Third Scroll Daggon'ah returned to his place in the shadows to find his prisoner missing from her pike. Appearing before Jarjath'ah, the shadow protested but learned that the moth had set free her ward. She further explained why the woman had been released and stopped only to regard her adversary's horror. We have kept her too long, said the shadow. We must find her and place her where she can never find her way back before it is too late. And so the two left their places and searched every corner of the Ether, but could not find trace of the woman. They blamed each other for the oversight as they went, and soon fought madly across the scape of the sleeping mortal world. This was the First Maddening. Within the landscape of a world of shattered minds and stray thought, Sudul'ah carefully picked her way, knotting her fists around the dream stuff, and learning how to change it. Her hosts became lost in their war and forgot about Sudul'ah, until the First Maddening came to an end. The fighting stopped and when Daggon'ah and Jarjath'ah looked around, they saw a new place in the Ether. Enraged they charged the gate but were repelled, and when they stood and shook the daze from their minds they saw that their images were embedded in the gates of this place. They were defeated. Sudul'ah approached them and explained that she was now the Queen of Dreams and they would do nothing that she did not bid. Her first order to them was punishment, and their punishment was to end their works. They protested this but she would not hear them. Back in her place, she once again visited the mortals beyond the Kyurada Vor and found the people of the world suffering. At first she did not understand why this could be. The Maddening had ended, and with it their suffering should have ended as well. But as she looked closer she saw that a Second Maddening had overcome the people, and when she saw this she knew why. Calling her minions to her she explained that they would return to their work, for without dreams the mortals could survive. But before they left, she reminded them that she would watch all they did, and if ever they tampered with another as they had with her they would suffer greatly at the other's hand.
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Navigation Dekàlan Gods There are ten major gods traditionally worshipped by Dekàlans. Amra (beauty, love) Other gods have emerged in the same lands since the fall of Dekàlas. While some are new, some ancient deities have experienced a resurgence of faith. Eiron (law, duty) Details |
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Ref. PHB (Player's Handbook), FR (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting), © Wizards of the Coast  |
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