Don't you even worry about that. As Rey said, I'm also pretty sure that LB7 will have one or two really cool gimmicks and/or moments and the rest will fall short. Your project is such a labor of love, it's very evident.Originally Posted by Wyvern
Especially since we know our South American mythology and, like, 15 years of Nasuverse teaches us that they don't.
An Question or rather clarification you think that the Age of Gods ended with 12000 bc ? As i am in my version have other interpretations of it ? I must say that Thaumaturgic lore is interesting but i can't help it sounds a bit really scientific and not so mysteric wise i must admit ? And would you say that in Southamerica is one or are there more then a single mythospehre or Culturspehre like in Europe as example : Greco-Hellenic,Thraco Slavic ,Germanic etc ?
Also about the poles would given that after the freezing of Antarctica the continent is a Death world today respectively since over millions of years does that also mean that in terms of mystery were there no events ?
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In order.
Age of Gods enters its decline around 12.000 BC
Sefar attacks and causes the decline to go on until Gilgamesh flips off the gods when they tried a last ditch effort through him.
After that, a trigger in 700 BC causes the decline to speed up, to the point Gods and Divine Spirits no longer can exist without human worship backing them up. Around 0 A.D, humanity's population explodes and becomes the dominant species, thus beginning the age of man.
South America and the New World as a whole are a multi cultural sphere. I just established that their magecraft foundations lie on the concept of the Divine Trees and their off shoots.
The Poles are a refference to myths which regard the North Pole and South Pole as mythological areas. For example, some celtic myths say that the Celtic pantheon traveled to a land of ice up north to train for their comfrontation with the Fomorians. Some belie that area might have been refferencing the North Pole.
Heh. Us brazilians have to start showing off that we can be just as interesting as our neighbors! And I aim for nothing short of excelence!
So, I gotta ask, is there any part across my servants, magus, lore dumps and occasion fanfic chapter that you have enjoyed or found more interesting?
Last edited by Wyvern; December 5th, 2021 at 07:59 PM.
Servant List The Wyvern's Managerie Lostbelt Information South America of the Nasuverse Fanfics The Voice of Thunder
honest comment Howaito after the Greek Lostbelt and the rather low effort use of norse mythology in the respective Lostbelt even i wonder if they weren't abit lazy in to research into the mythology and say that after some focused mythology studies were in my profiles like them of the servants i try to stay true to the mythology .
So that i think that out of the Greek mythology one could realize more then hundred Lostbelt ideas so well do we know that Mythospehre .
- - - Updated - - -
Well have you a idea about why in the Levantic Region so many Pantheons of Gods are existing in a quite small Area ? And about the Divine Trees can i already say that in the Armenian Lostbelt there will be also on as in the original Armenian Mythology that were of indo europe category (i mean the one before it was influenced by levantine mythlogies) also a Divine Tree like the of the Nordic or Slavic mytholgy ?
would you saay the known Ygdrasil Tree is alao a Divine Tree of the Old World or is it phenomenon of similar but another nature ?
Last edited by Kabalisto Koga; December 5th, 2021 at 08:06 PM.
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Must be a really nice feeling to know that int he forum you have an Landman or Landswoman of ones land . in either case your love for your land and its culture is clearly feelable by effort you put into my Friend ! just out of curiousity do you have before the actual world crisis have traveled throughout Brazilia and whats you favorite dish from there am i curious?
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Honestly wyvern, great job. This is seriously great stuff. I look forward to what you're building up to.
Rookie Lorekeeper, Amateur Extraordinaire, and all around nasunoob.
Thank you! Fortunately I keep everything I do in terms of lore in my signature. Otherwise it would be too hard to follow. You guys look forward to Chapter 3 of VOT as well as the updated version of my Lostbelt in the Singularity Thread.
Who knows. I might also get a servant done too!
Sky's the limit.
Well, the furthest I've traveled inside my own country before the crisis was a one week visit to Fortaleza on the opposent end of the country.
It was hot, muggy, and smelled of fish.
As for my favorite food. It would have to be the good ol' Feijoada. You just can't go wrong with it!
Servant List The Wyvern's Managerie Lostbelt Information South America of the Nasuverse Fanfics The Voice of Thunder
i understand as honestly if one day my budget would allow it would i like to travel around the world and Brasilia would be one destination due to its rich nature and perhaps some old Ruins would be interresting ., Like which were the most rare wild animal enounter you had i mean have you seen a Caiman in the Wild as example etc? As honestly some tropic lands have a really esciting nature and wildlife during ineurope the nature is just rather boring nowadays .
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Okay as now currently in thte El Melloi case files the topic on mythology is spoken to might i like to bring life in this thread here .
So atfirst The NAture of Ergos Gods and the relation to water as from thein how Seth qualify as Water God ?
Aswell who Ergos third God could be .
Aswell what with the Divine Bodies in japan is like which methods of prserving their power could exist aswell which the identity of the atleast 8 Divine Bodies are and how Okuninushi could be the counterpart of Seth and how other figures aside Vajrapani could be inspired by either Egyot or Hellenic Stories and Gods like Nio in japan ?
My valued fellow enthusiast of Mythologies what are your thoughts ?
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Well, hippos and crocodiles were animals associated with Seth, and they're both very dangerous aquatic animals. So combine that with his murder of Osiris and his usage of water to get rid if the body(parts), perhaps he represents the destructive aspects of water?
*gets the worst of the dust, cleans the floors, cracks knuckles*
Unfortunately I'm not quite as visuospatially gifted as the people who've been taking us on a jaunt through South America, but recent events (like, a year ago) and the little bits we got in the LB6 materials from Comiket 100 have made me want to take another crack at Nasuverse Ireland. To whet peoples' appetites for the weird madness (mad weirdness), I'll leave two interesting bits:
1) The Age of Gods was ended by a regular human poet.
2) Bazett's God's Holder is the key to incorporating a very funny inconsistency in the Irish sagas (namely, that all the gods die in the Book of Invasions and yet keep appearing later.)
*emerges from the shadowy corner, covered in dust*
I am listening
"Let's see the color of your coin, my friend."
Behold my vault of Heroes.
Where the Heavens and the Abyss breath the Music of Humanity.
The King's duty is to provide. And provide, I shall.
University of Formatting | Gallery of Potential | Memorandum of the Extra Class Kings
Our Kingdom will grow. And we shall know each citizen.
Create-a-Servant 4 soon.
Alright, consider this one sort of an...extended prologue/attempt by me to get the voice of the character I'm trying to portray down/formatting experiment. I'm not trying to get fancy just yet (I'm very bad at coding stuff), but I want to make sure it's readable and the sections are coherent and make sense. Rather than dig too deep into the Nasuverse details just yet because they're definitely still the terminology bits I'm shakiest on. I tried to present it as more of a straightforward narrative with the hints of what I'm going to be talking about distributed across the chapter.
...And now I think I've done quite enough stalling, let's get on with it:
A Speculation On the Peculiarities of Ireland, with Accompanyinig Travelogue of Important Locations, as Presented for the Perusal of the Clock Tower’s Esteemed Department of Curses by Rhiannon of Clan Amergain, Fes rank.
Chapter One: Of Beginnings and the Names of Things
- Dated November 5th, 1989
"I am the wind on the sea;
I am the wave of the sea;
I am the bull of seven battles;
I am the eagle on the rock
I am a flash from the sun;
I am the most beautiful of plants;
I am a strong wild boar;
I am a salmon in the water;
I am a lake in the plain;
I am the word of knowledge;
I am the head of the spear in battle;
I am the god that puts fire in the head;
Who spreads light in the gathering on the hills?
Who can tell the ages of the moon?
Who can tell the place where the sun rests?"
- The Song of Amergain
To talk about the beginning, it is useful to talk about the end. These words which I have appended above, the ‘Song of Amergain,’ makes as much sense to me as it does to you. The exact meaning of the words my family’s honored ancestor left behind remain a mystery to everyone. What does not remain a mystery are its effects. With these words, Amergain mac Míl, Amergain the Poet, brought the Age of Gods in Ireland to an end. In the process, he fundamentally altered the very foundations of Ireland itself, brought an island halfway between the Inner Sea and the texture of Man fully into the Human Order, even if he could not fully excise the land of the curses placed upon it.
I speak of curses not in the general sense, of something debilitating placed upon an individual. I speak of the ones that are generational, ones that are built into the fabric of the land itself, that carries across generations and shapes the fates of future generations. It is these curses that have shaped - and continue to shape - the land of my birth. I will be conducting a more thorough review of Ireland and its Age of Gods in a future chapter, in which I will also speculate more on the nature of its inhabitants. For this chapter, however, I will introduce some key concepts and major players in the ending of the Age of Gods and present a more straightforward narrative from which I can later derive future speculation.
The Aos Síde
We speak here of the inhabitants of Ireland prior to the Mílisian invasion. The Book of Invasions tells us that these themselves came from overseas, displacing other people and enslaving their descendants, or leaving them to carve out meager existences in small enclaves on the island. We have some evidence to suggest that they were fairies, perhaps kin to the ones on the nearby island of Britain, but speculating on their specific taxonomy is, in my view, pointless. While they may be superficially similar to those of their island neighbor, their behavior, place in Ireland and its history, and their relationship with humanity, remains fundamentally different from that of the humans and fairies of, say, the reign of the Once and Future King. As such, I will use the name the Irish themselves gave them, the Aos Síde, the “people of the mounds,” the dwellers of what the Irish call the Otherworld. Like Britain, Ireland has always enjoyed a close relationship with the Inner Sea, and it’s not unlikely that this is where the Aos Síde originally came from. This close relationship has also resulted in many people being lost in the border between the two. The Clock Tower would refer to it as Fairyland, but I will choose to call it the Otherworld.
The Otherworld deserves some elaboration, as it will become a recurring point of conversation later. The Otherworld is first and foremost defined by stasis. In the Otherworld, generations of Aos Síde warriors fight the same battles day in and day out, with the same outcomes, waking up the next morning perfectly fine even after supposedly dying the night before. Weddings and revelries take place in perpetuity, and political alliances last for an eternity. The only way to affect permanent change upon the stasis of the Otherworld is to introduce a foreign element to it. It is to this end that the Aos Síde often kidnap human children and replace them with their own. Humans, as dynamic beings who do not belong in the Otherworld, have the rare ability to be able to meaningfully change it. They are, as such, of paramount value to the Aos Síde even as they consider them to be clumsy and transient, living a measly scant few decades to the eternity of the Aos Síde.
One particular quirk of the Aos Síde which we will revisit later is their perceived inability to lie. This is not actually the case, as Aos Síde are perfectly capable of lying when it suits them. However, one of the many curses layered upon Ireland is one that prohibits those who possess power from lying. However, the curse does not apply to lies of omission, misdirections, or merely cleverly changing one’s statements to appear to be more true. To take the truth and twist it into an incomprehensible shape is not a lie to the Aos Síde, and this method of very…selectively interpreting the idea of “the truth” would be adopted readily by the sons of Míl within a generation when they began to face similar challenges.
Among the Aos Síde, as among humanity, there are those who stand head and shoulders above the rest in power and gifts. They call themselves the Túatha Dé, or ‘god-like peoples.’ Once again, I will endeavor not to speculate too much in this first chapter about their exact nature, whether they are Nature Spirits who became Divine Spirits over time, simply extremely powerful fairies, or any of the myriad beings in-between. I will simply say that their name is fitting, as they are possessed of power to rival that of Divine Spirits. In contrast to the Greek pantheon, who organized themselves around the individual responsibilities for various aspects of creation, the Túatha Dé instead seem to have organized themselves around their profession. They are, in a way, ‘Gods With Jobs.’ Rather than being gods associated with the sun, or storms, or the sea, they are blacksmith-gods, physician-gods, god-kings, poet-gods and sailor-gods. As of the time of the invasion of the Sons of Míl, they were mired in a civil war, with three kings warring with each other for control of the island after the assassination of the previous king, Lugh. The re-emergence of Lugh in stories of Cú Chulainn, like the re-emergence of the similarly-dead Nuadu in the stories of Fionn mac Cumhaill, will be elaborated on in a future report.
The Sons of Míl
The people who ended the reign of the Túatha Dé and brought the Age of Gods to an end. The Mílisians themselves claimed to originally be from Spain, though as with most things about them, that is a subject of much debate. What is known is that they set sail in a great fleet in an attempt to conquer Ireland. Their first leader, Donn mac Míl, was drowned off the coast of Ireland before ever setting foot there, leaving his younger brother Amergain the Poet to guide the fleet. When he first arrived in Ireland, the Túatha Dé, confident in their ability to beat a group of runaway mortals, decided to make a bet with them - if the Mílisians went back to their ships and sailed ‘beyond the ninth wave,’ and managed to land back on Ireland even with all the might of the Túatha Dé arrayed against them, then they would be allowed to live on the island side by side with the Túatha Dé. Amergain accepted on his peoples’ behalf, and the Túatha Dé conjured a great storm to keep the sons of Míl at bay. However, at dawn, the day after the Sons of Míl had set out beyond the ninth wave, they found their way back to Ireland, not too far from their original landing site, kept safe by Amergain’s poetry.
Then, the Túatha Dé went back on their word. When the first Mílisians made landfall, they found the warriors of the Túatha Dé waiting for them, and in that moment, having now been caught in a lie, they had sealed their own fate. The Song of Amergain was sung, and the Sons of Míl went to battle. The Túatha Dé, for all their great power, fell like wheat before a scythe. Amergain sowed further discord amongst their ranks by telling the wives of the three kings that he would name the island after each of them if only they would join his side, further fracturing the Túatha Dé until they had no option but to come to the peace table. At the peace talks, the Túatha Dé suggested they divide the island between them, to which Amergain agreed…and his people would take the top half. Those among the Túatha Dé who survived the battle were banished to the Otherworld, forbidden from setting foot on the surface of Ireland except with express permission from the inhabitants above. However, Amergain too went back on his word, ultimately naming the island after the Túatha woman Ériu. This lie, too, would cost the Mílisians dearly - within a generation, they had begun infighting every bit as badly as the Túatha Dé ever had.
Connecting the Pieces
With this somewhat truncated summary of the final chapter of the Book of Invasions at its end, some questions may begin to emerge in the minds of those who read this record. I will endeavor to pre-empt some of them here and expand upon others in future records.
Where did the prohibition on lying come from?
This is a matter of some speculation, but given the chapter in the Book of Invasions in which Eochaid of the Fir Bolg is said to have “banished falsehoods from Ireland,” I believe it may originally have been his work.
Eochaid’s way of kingship looms large in Ireland, and even the Túatha Dé had to make some concessions to his rules in order to effectively govern the island. The Fir Bolg will be the subject of a conversation later.
What was the nature of the Mílisians’ Magecraft?
It certainly seems to have been downright poison to the Túatha Dé. It may have been a curse or prohibition of its own, making a contest between Divine Spirit and mortal into a contest of skill rather than a contest of power. It may have been that the breaking of the prohibition on lying weakened the Túatha Dé enough to make it stick in a contest of arms where before it had mostly been used defensively. It may be that it is simply anathema to strong Mystery, being a Magecraft centered so firmly in the Age of Man that it asserts its rules in liminal spaces like a texture waxing between the Age of Gods and Men.
Were so many of the Túatha Dé really all dead?
According to the Book of Invasions, most of the Túatha Dé were already dead by the time the Mílisians invaded. Some, like Ogma, had fallen in battle against the Fir Bolg, while others such as Nuadu Airgetlam, Brigid, Dian Cécht and others had fallen in the Battle of Maige Tuired against the Fomoir. Even the likes of Lugh had been assassinated midway into his tenure as king of the Túatha Dé. Their reappearance in later records is a subject for another time.
Is Amergain’s Magecraft at all related to druids?
No. In its broadest term, a “druid” is simply a person who performs Magecraft for the purposes of advising kings, keeping time, or going to war - increasingly the latter as the fighting amongst the descendants of the Mílisians became more vicious. In its broadest sense, “druid” just means “Mage.” In that sense, I suppose it is not incorrect, but the relationship is no stronger than that between Amergain and the average student at the Clock Tower.
I could not help but notice that you share a name with-
Give the brainiac in the back row a prize. No further elaboration at this time.
I have listened.
I will await further listening.
"Let's see the color of your coin, my friend."
Behold my vault of Heroes.
Where the Heavens and the Abyss breath the Music of Humanity.
The King's duty is to provide. And provide, I shall.
University of Formatting | Gallery of Potential | Memorandum of the Extra Class Kings
Our Kingdom will grow. And we shall know each citizen.
Create-a-Servant 4 soon.
Alright, here's the next part. I wanted to get one more out before the New Year and I wanted to give a little bit more of an idea of the flavor of Ireland before going back through the 'history' of the island. As always, questions/criticism/requests for clarification are always welcome:
A Speculation On the Peculiarities of Ireland, with Accompanyinig Travelogue of Important Locations, as Presented for the Perusal of the Clock Tower’s Esteemed Department of Curses by Rhiannon of Clan Amergain, Fes rank.
Chapter Two: Curses and Laws
Dated November 7th, 1989
While it may be tempting to go back and immediately revisit the narrative of the Book of Invasions, now is a good time to instead go and take stock of some of the unique aspects of Ireland that have endured, in some form or another, to this day. While the island today remains firmly within the grasp of the Age of Man, like many places, there are cracks and crevices where Mystery continues to leak through and where the echoes of the past still linger. These bear some examining and, if possible, some explaining. Once this is done, we will return to the story of the many takings of Ireland. We will begin with the thing that is the subject of this very department - namely, the many curses of Ireland.“They enchanted three sheep upon which was the horror of battle. Mog Rúith, the great elder, formed hounds from his bones.”
Curses of the Land, Curses of the People
I hardly need to explain in great detail the nature of curses to a body such as this. You have textbooks that amply cover this subject, and I have a limited amount of time to do each of these presentations. But I will spend some time to cover the most important aspect of curses in case some other department stumbles upon this record: when a curse has been done, it cannot be undone. It may be modified, transferred to a different person, it may run out of power, but it cannot simply be removed. This is the very power of things such as geis or other magically-enforced contracts. Once entered into, they are as close to bulletproof as it gets in our line of work.
And the sagas are indeed ripe with stories of curses wrought man to man. One need only look at the many curses leveled upon Conare Mór, the High King of Ireland, or the geis put upon the Ulster hero Cú Chulainn. Or, indeed, on the very threat of such curses being laid on the likes of Diarmuid ua Duibhne or Naoise by Gráinne and Deirdre and the consequences thereof. Ireland is a land of curses and contracts enforced with magic when those they are laid down upon are simply too powerful for mortal kings to contend with. Conchobar mac Nessa could not control his nephew with force of arms, but he could control him with knowledge of his geis.
But this only scratches the surface of the extent to which curses have changed the landscape of Ireland. It seems, indeed, as if the land itself is cursed, each inhabitant having left some indelible mark on it that subsequent generations cannot change, only attempt to accommodate. Eochaid mac Eirc, the wise and clairvoyant High King of the Fomoir, banished falsehood from Ireland. While this power and its grip over the island seemed to wax and wane with the righteousness of the High King, the inability to lie, especially among the nobility, became a strong and recurring feature of the Irish sagas. Indeed, even today, in those places where Mystery still saturates part of the island, those of us who work Magecraft carved into the foundation of the land will still find it difficult to tell an outright lie.
In a way, one could consider these less to be curses and more to be laws that are enforced by the island itself. They are covenants made by successive generations, and those generations who follow in their wake must adhere to them or feel the consequences. A king less righteous than Eochaid will find the land itself defies his rule. A liar will find swift, often unintended consequences of their intent to deceive. Meanwhile, those who know how to work the laws of the land to their favor will find fair weather and great wealth.
One curious aspect of this is that it seems in the old days, when Mystery was more prevalent, these curses, particularly that of the geis, were not restricted to those who practice Magecraft. Indeed, it seems quite commonplace among members of the aristocracy to levy a geis on one another, their contract seemingly enforced by the land itself.
The final law which we will briefly discuss here is the power of reputation, particularly that of shame and ridicule. To be ridiculed, in an Irish context, is to court death. The first instance of such a thing occurs during the Book of Invasions, when Bres’ attempts to make the Túatha Dé pay taxes, and one member of the court is so offended by the notion that he invents satire on the spot. His words are so cutting that they cause great boils to form on Bres’ face that permanently disfigures the previously-beautiful god, resulting in him being forced to abdicate his kingship after his sudden disfigurement. Satire, and the ability to wield power over another’s reputation through it, became a tightly regulated part of life in Ireland in the Age of Mystery, and possessing a person capable of satire was considered of great value. Illegal satirists, meanwhile, were considered social pariahs, and anyone who employed one was considered of extremely suspect character. Indeed, on one occasion, such an illegal satirist was struck dead by Irúsan, the King of Cats, for daring to perform illegal satire against feline-kind.
Poetry and Stories - the Fíli
This discussion of the power of words leads us to one of the less well-understood parts of the Irish landscape, that of the fíli. While Ireland had entire social classes of itinerant storytellers, people who went from community to community and told stories, the most prestigious, those who performed only for kings or other noteworthy people, were the fíli. A great fíli possessed not only the gift of language and poetry, but the gift of divining the future as well, a gift called imbas forosnai. This gift was chiefly associated with the fíli of Ireland, though it also appears in the possession of the warrior-trainer Scáthach. On an island where the power of the word had such weight, where poetry could bring down gods and satire could bring down kings and righteous men, upstanding and talented fíli were few and in high demand, forming one of Ireland’s native Magecraft-practicing groups alongside the druids. Responsible for maintaining the stories of the world, many of the fíli’s tales would be preserved and written down in what we now call the Irish sagas, and they may have had a great deal more secrets they did not reveal to curious monks.
Wise People - The Druids
The druids are perhaps the most misunderstood practitioners of Magecraft on the isle. Often thought to be particularly attuned to nature, the druids are as adverse to the untamed wilds as any other person in Ireland who has learned the first thing about the Aos Síde - never go into the wilds unattended, for the things in the forest will never let you leave if you offend them. Instead, it is better to think of the druids as the most visible practitioners of Magecraft on the island. While the fíli plied their trade in the guise of itinerant storytellers, the druids performed Magecraft of scale and spectacle. Enchanting beasts, summoning fogs and firestorms, prescribing the future of men and auspicious times to perform ceremonies, the druids were visible advisors to the kings and great men of Ireland. As they came into contact with practitioners of Magecraft from beyond the island, they were even more than happy to accommodate their teachings, as seen with Mog Rúith, an apprentice of Simon Magus. While the druids used wood for some of their arts, these were processed into wands from a certain type of wood considered to contain certain effects such as potent curses and then used as blunt instruments to strike a foe, essentially “pre-loading” a curse or other effect into the wand like a one-use Mystic Code.
Perhaps the most consistent element of druid-practice, however, is the use of breathing and concealment. “Druid’s breath” is considered the primary conduit through which Magecraft is being wrought, and almost no druid’s training is complete without gaining the ability to conceal themselves and, ideally, others. Whether through great rolling walls of fog, projecting their appearance onto others to throw off a pursuer, or simply the ability to conceal oneself from the perception of others, almost no druid family is without some variation on this trick.
While there were those who did not fall into the paradigm of either fíli or druid - sorcerers and witches of all stripes - we will address some of their peculiarities in a different section.
Curses of Gods, Blessings of Gods
This then brings us to the Túatha Dé and their somewhat complex relationship with humanity. As has already been outlined above, the people of Ireland brought the Age of Gods to an end themselves by killing most of the remaining members of the Túatha Dé and banishing those they didn’t kill to the Otherworld. While the Túatha Dé would occasionally frequent the surface in the intervening time, they largely remained in the Otherworld, content to stew in their resentment and plot the downfall of the people of Ireland. To say that this relationship is complex is something of an understatement.
However, the Túatha Dé would also continue to take people under their wing for their own inscrutable purposes, or occasionally intervene in the births of famous men. Conare Mór, the High King whose death facilitated the social collapse detailed in the Ulster Cycle, was the son of a man of the Túatha Dé. Cú Chulainn, perhaps the most famous warrior in Ireland, was the son of the supposedly-deceased god Lugh. Diarmuid ua Duibhne, the great Fíanna warrior, was the foster-son of Aengus Óg, the son of the Dagda and lord of Bru na Boinne, the largest estate in the Otherworld. While they may have been antagonistic towards the people of Ireland as a whole, they had their own soft spots, as well as those they earmarked for great acts of chaos. It’s no surprise that Conare Mór’s death triggered a civil war, Cú Chulainn’s acts spread chaos throughout the five provinces, and Diarmuid’s death ultimately facilitated the civil war that tore the Fíanna apart…
Then, there are the sovereignty goddesses. Just how closely these are affiliated with the Túatha Dé depends on the goddess, but many a king of one of the provinces of Ireland has found himself in that position through a woman (often appearing as old and withered) appearing on his doorstep when he is still a warrior and offering to make him King if he sleeps with her, often turning into a beautiful woman in the process if the warrior goes through with the deed. Fergus became King of Ulster by courting Flidhias in this manner, while the goddess Macha did the same for a previous, unnamed king of Ulster. The island, then, has its own opinion about how things should be, testing those who dwell on the surface to see what manner of reign they wish to have.
Finally, we leave with an answer to a tantalizing question: If the gods are dead, how come they keep returning? Firstly, of course, I should clarify that not all the Túatha Dé perished in their wars or internecine conflicts. Manannan Mac Lir, Aengus Óg, Midir, Donn-Ainech, the Morrígan and her sisters, to name but a few, all survived the politicking and wars of the Túatha Dé and became fixtures of the Otherworld in the intervening time. But yet, in spite of their deaths being recorded in the Book of Invasions, the likes of Lugh and Nuadu reappear in the tales of Cú Chulainn and Fionn. While it could simply be a result of the original chroniclers being mistaken, I will offer an alternative explanation. The gods left a curse behind for mankind in order to secure their ability to return.
I believe you call them Tradition Carriers. While the immediate function of the Tradition Carrier’s bloodline is to secure some piece of knowledge or relic from the Age of Gods, it is my belief that they also carry an encoding upon them that is meant to correspond to a host whose nature is alike enough to the god to act as a temporary vessel, allowing a fragment of the deceased Divine Spirit to possess them to enact some plan on the world. It is my belief that one such Carrier awakened in the first century BCE to spawn Cú Chulainn, while another would awaken from a relic possessed by Nuadu Airgetlam to beget the line of Fionn. This way, then, the Túatha Dé found a way to walk the surface of Ireland, even if only for a single human lifetime.
I return at long last. Thanks to DelRey for their help with adjusting some of my initial pitches, even if it means this version of Ireland has 100% less robots by volume in it. As recompense, I have put a face on our narrator:
A Speculation On the Peculiarities of Ireland, with Accompanying Travelogue of Important Locations, as Presented for the Perusal of the Clock Tower’s Esteemed Department of Curses by Rhiannon of Clan Amergain, Fes rank.
Chapter Three: The Taking of Ireland and the People of Nemed
- Dated November 8th, 1989
Ireland has always occupied a position on the frontier of Europe. While the powers of Europe were aware of the island from at least as far back as the Roman times, and the island itself shows signs of human habitation dating back to the Neolithic period, it has, if anything, remained more obscure and distant to the political movements of the continent than the nearby island of Britain. Knowing this, and knowing how slowly the rate of Mystery declined in the isle of Britain compared to its continental neighbors, one shouldn’t be surprised to find that the rate of Mystery declined quite slowly in Ireland, too. The Finn Cycle takes place roughly contemporary with the exploits of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and there is no reason to dispute the existence of Phantasmals and individuals of extraordinary power in Ireland at the time any more than there is reason to dispute it in Britain.“Despite these various considerations, I shall in what follows be speaking of the ‘Túatha Dé,’ not of ‘gods’ or ‘fairies.’ While the people of the síd may have originated as the former, and may have ended up as the latter, the use of either of these terms would not do justice to the rich and persistent ambiguity which, as we shall see, characterises their nature in the medieval sources.” - Dr. John Carey, The Mythological Cycle of Medieval Irish Literature.
And there is a degree of kinship between the traditions of the Isles, but Ireland’s story is also one profoundly different to that of the British Isles, and the root of that strangeness comes down to the island itself. While it is only speculation on the part of those who have extensively studied the island, our current operating theory is that the island itself may have once been part of the Otherworld. This would account for some of the strange rules that surround it, as well as the abundance of supernatural beings recorded in the Book of Invasions. It may simply be that for a substantial part of its history, Ireland had one foot in the texture of Man and one foot in the texture of the Otherworld, with the dominant inhabitants determining its exact status in the world. It may have been that there was once no Ireland at all. While it remains a supposition, we will move forward with the assumption that the island itself has waxed and waned in sync with the greater Human Order, only fully becoming a codified part of it with the Mílisian invasion.
Our overview of the supernatural inhabitants of Ireland will begin with the three most important "tribes" to govern it: The Fir Bolg, the Túatha Dé, and the Fomoire, beginning with the Fir Bolg.
The Fir Bolg
What exactly the Fir Bolg are is a subject of much debate. According to the Book of Invasions, they left Ireland for Greece after a great flood, where they were enslaved as laborers by the local populace. However, given the skepticism surrounding the identity of Nemed and the uncommon animosity between the Fir Bolg and the Túatha Dé that would seem somewhat out of character for such close kin, I present a different idea:
The Fir Bolg were once denizens of Greece. They may have been fairies, nature spirits, or something in-between, but they lived in Greece until something caused their flight. If the story of their enslavement is true, it may be that the remnants of the Theoi decided to appropriate them for some purpose or another - perhaps, indeed, for manual labor - but whatever their reasoning, they left the texture of Greece, perhaps escaping through the Inner Sea, and subsequently found themselves in Ireland. Given the island’s close proximity to the Inner Sea and, indeed, potential origins in the Otherworld, it may have served as the first potential destination the Fir Bolg could escape to. However they came here, the impact of the Fir Bolg cannot be understated. While the Túatha Dé ruled the island for longer, the Fir Bolg established something so fundamental to the function of the island that nobody else could ignore: The Sacred Kingship.
In some ways, the Sacred Kingship is very simple: it is a contract with the land that good rule leads to good outcomes, that a good king of sound mind and judgment will create an Eden on Earth, while a bad king, or worse, a good king who has enjoyed the fruits of the land but fails to enact good judgment, will rule a Hell on Earth. Thus was born the rule of Eochaid mac Eirc, the Good King. In Eochaid’s rule, crops grew without rainfall, deceit was banished from the four corners of Ireland, and everyone enjoyed peace and prosperity. Eochaid’s kingship set the example for all to follow, and his unfailing judgment proved nearly impossible to replicate for every king who followed him, all to disastrous results.
Of course, the reign of the Fir Bolg would eventually come to an end. First they attempted to negotiate with the new arrivals the Túatha Dé, but when they demanded half the island for their own use with nothing given in return, the Fir Bolg went to war. While Sreng of the Mighty Blows would succeed in fighting them to a standstill at the battle of Maige Tuired, even cutting off the arm of Nuadu and thus depriving him of his kingship, after the death of Eochaid mac Eirc and a hundred thousand of the Fir Bolg, the surviving remnant signed a treaty with the Túatha Dé, allowing them to settle in Connacht, in a kingdom that would come to be known as Irrus Domnann.
The Túatha Dé
The observant may have noticed that I have consistently referred to the group of beings commonly known as the “Túatha Dé Danann” merely as the “Túatha Dé.” This is both to save time, in the sense that I assume the majority of people are familiar with the full name, but also something of a statement about their nature. Without the possessive “Danann,” that is “of Danu,” the name takes on a different meaning: The God-Like People. This, I think, comes the closest to capturing the ambiguous nature of these beings which, on some level, are neither fish nor fowl. They came to Ireland from the Four Cities, four places of great learning and craftsmanship, from which they each brought a treasure. From these Four Cities, they sailed to Ireland, burned their ships, and resolved to never leave or speak of the Four Cities again.
What we can say for certain is that the Túatha Dé are the upper class of the Aos Síde. The Aos Síde are a category of being which includes the Túatha Dé, but does not only encompass them. A member of the Túatha Dé is of the Aos Síde, but not every member of the Aos Síde is of the Túatha Dé. The Túatha Dé stand at the apex, god-like masters of their craft or station, whether that be kings, smiths, physicians, warriors or poets. These all seem like quite human traits or practices to represent, which would seem to suggest that they are, on some level, gods or Divine Spirits. However, as part of the Aos Síde, they are also fairies, denizens of the Otherworld, and their relationship with humanity is at best reciprocal assistance and at worst malicious manipulation and outright hostility. While there are certainly gods with a fractious relationship with mortals - one would only need to look elsewhere in Europe for examples - the degree to which the Túatha Dé remain ambivalent towards humanity suggests their origin may lie with the fairies.
When I refer to “fairies,” I of course refer to the beings which act as the planet’s sense of touch. While some of them may possess the same or greater ranks of power than even a Divine Spirit, they are ultimately not beholden to human imagination or understanding. Gods exist in a symbiotic relationship with humanity, whether either party is willing to admit it or not, while greater Nature Spirits exist for the sake of the planet, ambivalent to the greater humanity and abiding by their own rules, acting in the interests of the planet as a whole rather than simply its most numerous and dominant species.
It might be that the Túatha Dé started as the latter, pure Divided Spirits of the planet, similar to the Fir Bolg, and eventually became the former. They may have been bound forever to humanity after being forced beneath the earth after the Mílisian invasion, but continued to abide by the laws of fairies rather than gods, explaining some of the strangeness of the Otherworld and the Aos Síde.
Their most lingering legacy, outside of their appearances in the sagas where they often end up causing chaos by unilaterally acting upon the heroes of the various sagas, is the profession system itself. Ireland’s laws were ultimately based on social class, and social class depended on your profession. Kings, warriors, poets, smiths and physicians were the highest, with the druids hot on their heels. From there flowed a labyrinthine system of status negotiation and hierarchy, with farmers, slaves and day-laborers at the bottom. While it was accompanied by a complex legal system, this system of laws deeply favored those highest in the professional order in many ways, the most notable of which may be that witnesses of a higher social order were believed to tell the truth even if they contradicted a witness of a lower social order. Those who stood outside it - who possessed no social class at all - were considered less than dirt. This system was implemented by the Aos Síde, and they imprinted it so strongly on the land that even the Mílisians could not escape it. Like many of these curses, it would fade as the Age of Gods continued to wane and the amount of ambient magical energy simply could not continue to feed the island’s many contracts.
We shall discuss some members of the Túatha Dé in more detail as we go through our travelogue, but I will leave this section here for now to talk about the final group of unsuccessful enemies of the Túatha Dé, the Fomoire.
The Fomoire
Much like their rivals (and, it must be said, frequent romantic partners) the Túatha Dé, the Fomoire are quite mysterious. Although frequently mischaracterized as giants, they are, in truth, not much larger than the Túatha Dé - indeed, many of the Túatha Dé are children of the Fomoire. The Book of Invasions suggests they may have been the island’s very first inhabitants, clashing with the descendants of Nemed over the rulership of the island until a great flood rose up and drowned all but one ship of Nemedians, from whom the Fir Bolg and the Túatha Dé both claim descent.
What is known is that they, in collaboration with the recent King of the Túatha Dé, Bres the Beautiful, built a land bridge from their home islands to Ireland. Three of their kings set foot on Ireland: Indech son of Domnann, High King of the Fomoir, Tethra, and Elatha. These three kings would attempt to impose a tithe on the Túatha Dé in order to both bolster their own coffers and provide Bres with funds to further improve his kingdom - they were rejected.
They attempted to broker a peace between the tribes by marrying Eithniu, the daughter of the Fomoire champion Balor, off to Cian, a high-ranking member of the Túatha Dé, but when Bres was eventually ousted and Nuadu reclaimed the throne, the Túatha Dé went to war. At the Second Battle of Maige Tuired, the new arrival Lugh, the son of Eithniu, would slay his grandfather Balor, and while many of the Túatha Dé perished in the battle, including Nuadu and Ogma, the latter falling in battle against Indech although ultimately successful in killing him, they would ultimately drive the Fomoire back, enslaving those who remained on the island. Those who were not killed were taken as hostages, made to labor under the Túatha Dé in perpetuity for having the temerity to tax them.
One of many theories that permeates on the fringes of those who deal with the ancient history of Ireland is that the Fomoire may be another group from outside who went native. Indeed, the story of Ragnarok provides us with a fascinating possibility. While many of the Æsir and Vanir are named either on the list of names of those who perished during Ragnarok or those who would survive the Twilight of the Gods, many more of them are unnamed in either, particularly those of the Vanir. It may be that the Vanir, or some of their servants, survived the initial battle but found themselves cut off from their home by a texture that was burned away. Attempting to make an escape for a place that still retained enough Mystery to act as a home, they found Ireland, a place that they may have attempted to lay claim to before but finding themselves in conflict with the first descendants of Nemed. This would certainly explain both their connection with powerful sorcery (seidr being a purview of the goddess Freyja) and their home of origin being “across the sea” to the east of Ireland, further away than the other British Isles.
Strange Places - Bull Rock
Bull Rock is a stone formation on the west coast of Ireland in the southwest part of County Cork in the province of Munster. On its own, this location may seem innocuous, but it has long been known to be a passage to the Otherworld. In the Age of Gods, in fact, it was not merely a passage to the Otherworld, but a passage to Tech Dúinn, the House of Donn. “Donn” means “The Dark One,” and appears here and there in the sagas, including as the name of the father of Diarmuid ua Duibhne. As such, they are usually referred to by patronyms such as “Donn mac Míl” for Amergain’s brother Donn, who died on the voyage to Ireland and never saw its shores, cursing the island with his dying breath.
The Donn of which I speak is Donn-Ainech, the keeper of Tech Dúinn and God of the Dead, and the tiny cave formation beneath Bull Rock itself was thought to be the entrance and exit to his house. Donn was one of the first of the Túatha Dé, a contender for kingship after the death of the Dagda, although he never sought it. He was also a warlord among the Aos Síde, one of the first to clad his warriors in iron rather than bronze. A temperamental god, Donn appears as both help and hindrance, sometimes killing people for the simplest slights, sometimes burying them in gold for the simplest acts of kindness. Tech Dúinn is said to be like a hostel, a place where the dead can find rest and comfort before embarking on their final destination - although whatever location this is has been lost to time.
Even to this day, those who seek passage to the Otherworldly Sea pass through Bull Rock, though it’s becoming more and more difficult to find a path to it in the first place, let alone return…
Last edited by Castellan; January 6th, 2023 at 06:26 PM.
This one was a bit of a struggle to write, but the questions helped a lot. Still a bit on the short end, but hopefully a fun read:
A Speculation On the Peculiarities of Ireland, with Accompanyinig Travelogue of Important Locations, as Presented for the Perusal of the Clock Tower’s Esteemed Department of Curses by Rhiannon of Clan Amergain, Fes rank.
Chapter 4: Foes and Familiars
- Dated November 10th, 1989
For this little seminar, we are going to take a break from some of the “big picture” elements of Ireland to instead zoom in a little bit and show you how some of the things I have been discussing play out on a more practical level, particularly as pertains to us, Mages living in the Age of Man. In addition, I’ve received a number of questions about what I suppose one could call the “Phantasmal Fauna” of Ireland that I am going to address as well. In fact, we will begin with these:
Phantasmal Fauna - The Eerily Mundane
Ireland is surprisingly short on outwardly fantastical beings. While there are occasional references to monsters dwelling in the rivers of Connacht or great sea monsters engulfing ships or whose bones are used to make great weapons, the sagas are largely bereft of beings that one might consider “Phantasmal” judging simply by their appearance.
The operative word here is “by their appearance.” In reality, many of the Otherworldly beasts are merely mirrors, uncanny or otherwise, of things that can already be found on the surface of Ireland. However, a closer look at their stories will reveal their otherworldly nature, if their unnatural morphology doesn’t do so already. Consider the case study of the Cú Sith and Cait Sith.
The perceptive among you may have noticed a commonality in the names of these two beings. While “Sith” is Scottish rather than Irish, the two languages are cousins, and “Sith” carries the same meaning in Scots that “Síde” does in Irish. In other words, “Cú Sith” means “Dog of the Mounds,” and “Cait Sith” means “Cat of the Mounds.” Like us, it seems the Aos Síde are quite fond of their pets. While these may seem to be simple animals at first, a Cú Sith is said to be as large as a cow, with a shaggy green coat. Normally silent, the Cú Sith will sometimes let out three barks as a warning to potential prey. Anyone who has not sought shelter before the third bark will, so the legend goes, die of terror. The Cait Sith have more internal variance, with many simply being black cats with a white spot on their bellies, indistinguishable at first glance from a regular housecat. However, they can also grow to be quite large and, unlike the cats of the ‘surface’ world, are remarkably organized. While they lack a King, the Cait Sith have a political hierarchy with their own nobles and profession system, and those high up in this hierarchy are much, much larger than ordinary cats. Irúsan, the last King of the Cats who was struck down by Saint Ciaran, was the size of an ox.
Likewise, animals from the Otherworld are notoriously ferocious and territorial. A voyager under the command of Mael Duin, traveling on the Otherworldly Sea, took a piece of gold from a hoard guarded by what he thought was a harmless kitten. However, as soon as he set foot on Mael Duin’s boat, the cat ripped clean through his chest, snatched the gold piece in its mouth, and jumped back on the island. Diarmuid ua Duibhne’s manservant, likewise, produced a tiny puppy from his pocket when he and his lord were pursued by three enchanted dogs. The puppy proceeded to kill one of them by jumping into its mouth and tearing its stomach apart from the inside out. Whether these are offshoots of the “same” type of Cú Sith or Cait Sith as the examples mentioned above, they are excellent illustrations of the manners of Phantasmal Beasts found in Ireland: intuitively familiar, and yet deeply uncanny. Other examples of these strange beasts include carnivorous otters the size of tigers, venomous hounds and, perhaps most uncannily of all, flocks of venomous sheep that can only be killed by something equally venomous.
In general, the Phantasmal beings of Ireland seemed to have preferred to take the shape of things that already existed in the environment, albeit altered to suit their particular purposes. In this, they reflect the Aos Síde, who are likewise quite humanoid in appearance. This relative normalcy has resulted in a great many Magus families adopting Cú Sith or Cait Sith as familiars, as many of them can blend in relatively well even in large crowds.
A Visitors’ Guide to the Aos Síde
While I have already elaborated a little upon the nature of the Aos Síde, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit some of the ways in which they interact with mortals. Like the fairies of other places, they are seldom seen in the present, but they remain active on the surface of Ireland when and if they can get away with it. And should you be stolen away to the Otherworld or simply fall into it by accident, it can be good to know what you can do to get out of the situation with your life and freedom attached.
Many a standard Magus procedure, of course, applies: do not give them your name, do not freely show your hand, do not sign a contract you do not know the full extent of. The Aos Síde will never lie to you, but they will omit crucial details or make it sound as if you are getting something fundamentally different out of any bargain you strike. Every interaction with the Aos Síde is ultimately transactional. They do not perform charity for anyone except family members, and they will only ever provide you with power that you have paid a (to them) fair price for. Likewise, be wary of how much time you spend in the Otherworld. A week on the surface may be twenty years in the Otherworld, or vice versa. While there are no recorded instances of someone returning to the real world earlier than they entered the Otherworld, it is not outside the realms of possibility, merely an unobserved phenomenon.
Should you wish to find a way to make yourself useful to the Aos Síde, remember the static nature of the Otherworld. As a mortal, you can affect political or social change on behalf of a particular patron. While your ability to affect things is largely dependent on what useful skills you can provide to said patron, even the ability to affect relatively minor things can be of immense value. This is the reason why the Aos Síde, even to this day, go through the trouble of kidnapping children. Sometimes, those who were kidnapped return to the mortal world later, almost inevitably possessed of such grand talent in whatever the Aos Síde taught them that they put anyone else in the same field to shame. Some powerful families with ties to the Túatha Dé have even allowed their children to be fostered by the Aos Síde, knowing they will return with great power if they survive their ordeal in the Otherworld. Precedent for this has been set by such individuals as Diarmuid ua Duibhne, who was fostered at the court of Aengus Óg. While there are recorded instances of such people returning, they often return with a mindset very similar to the Aos Síde. While this is welcomed by certain individual families who value the detached, transactional, if not downright dismissive attitude that comes with being fostered by the People of the Mounds, it does nonetheless have a profound effect on their ability to blend in with regular society, and these people often become reclusive.[As of this appendix, this seems to no longer the case, with at least one documented instance of a person finding themself in the past after falling into the Reverse Side.
- Appendix submitted November 9th, 2005, courtesy of Niamh of Clan Amergain.]
Strange Places: Brú na Bóinne
Speaking of Aengus Óg, the next location on our travelogue is his home of Brú na Bóinne. As previously mentioned, the Otherworld is a mirror reflection of Ireland, and where a Neolithic burial mound stands in the real world, in the mirrored Otherworld is the palace on the river Boyne, the greatest and most beautiful house in the Otherworld, owned by Aengus Óg, the son of the Dagda.
Much like Bull Rock, Brú na Bóinne is a place where the barrier between the surface world and the Otherworld is particularly thin. Careless tourists have wandered around the halls of the structure only to emerge in a great feast hall, while Mages with the courage or connections to seek out one of the Túatha Dé in their own hall have attempted to use it to contact one of the few of the God-like People to ever personally foster a mortal. In the modern day, none have returned from such an expedition. Brú na Bóinne is now an informal meeting location, a place to forge contracts or broker deals, knowing that any violence on the surface may invite the Lord of Brú na Bóinne’s attention, something few Mages truly want to experience.
I never heard of the cats.
Love it
"Let's see the color of your coin, my friend."
Behold my vault of Heroes.
Where the Heavens and the Abyss breath the Music of Humanity.
The King's duty is to provide. And provide, I shall.
University of Formatting | Gallery of Potential | Memorandum of the Extra Class Kings
Our Kingdom will grow. And we shall know each citizen.
Create-a-Servant 4 soon.
As a friend of mine once joked "man, at least in Australia the sheep won't kill you. In Mythic Ireland the sheep might just get you too."
I appreciate it! In hindsight I almost kinda wish I'd started with the vorpal kittens and flocks of venomous sheep, that's usually the kind of thing that makes people go "ooooo" even when you start talking about weird profession laws and things like "oh yeah if you get caught helping a farmer fix his plow as a king you're now demoted to the legal status of a farmer, congratulations."
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