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 Primordials / Volcanos/ Iakhovas / Ship of the God

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T O P I C    R E V I E W
sleyvas Posted - 16 Sep 2016 : 16:57:47
So, I'm noting that many things that I would consider Primordials unsurprisingly have ties to volcanos. There's Zaltec over in Maztica who had a connection to Mount Zatal, and the other Maztican deities also had ties to different volcanos. Talos has ties to a volcano over in the Vilhon area. Big deal right?

So, then I started thinking about Iakhovas, "he who swims with Sekholah", and his forced destruction of the Ship of the Gods island via its volcano. In my head (and I know some others here too), it would seem that Iakhovas was more like a lesser primordial with a shark aspect. So, was this destruction of this volcano some kind of attack against another primordial? I note that the island was filled with priests of Geb.... and I've suspected that Geb and Grumbar might have some kind of ties (hesitant to say the same individual, more likely to say they use each other).

Just noting that with the name of the island... this might somehow be tied with other things.

I hadn't really thought about another thing too until just now. It was Talos that raised up both Velsharoon and Malyk as gods of magic (one of necromancy and the other wild and destructive magic) just prior to the spellplague. I wonder if there was more than meets the eye to this particular plotline.
19   L A T E S T    R E P L I E S    (Newest First)
Markustay Posted - 20 Sep 2016 : 22:13:03
Akadi is a great fit for a primordial 'sky goddess'. That could even be when 'it' first took on a female aspect. It would also explain why she had no worshipers of her own (although given the time frame, there weren't a whole lot of advanced peoples around for that).
sleyvas Posted - 20 Sep 2016 : 13:46:00
Talos as a storm or cloud giant deity would indeed make some sense. However, look at his personification as Bhaelros down in Calimshan. Bhaelros is depicted as something more akin to a genie with a metallic colored or yellowish dragon at his side on a chain. If that doesn't scream Primordial/Dawn Titan, I don't know what does. That being said, I'm not necessarily adverse to the concept that the giants weren't primordials themselves (although they kind of try to make it out like the "dawn titans" were the primordials and the gods of giants were at odds). You know, I wonder who he "unknown sky goddess" was that birthed all those giant deities for Annam... some small part of me thinks it should be a combination of Shar and Selune.... but the timing doesn't quite fit.



The Idol of Bhaelros itself is a spectacular statue over 30#146; high, covered in beaten gold and inlaid with huge, precious gems. In fact, the entire temple, and particularly the Chosen Plaza, is covered with the finest paintings, tapestries, sculptures and other artwork imaginable. The followers of Bhaelros believe that his spirit inhabits the idol, so they show it the greatest respect possible. It is also believed that if the temple is desecrated in any way, Bhaelros (accompanied by a great dragon which Bhaelros keeps on a chain by his side) will emerge from the idol to exact his revenge.
Mirtek Posted - 19 Sep 2016 : 23:05:11
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

Anyone have a clue how long Orcus has been around?
Well, he once was a mortal human who went to the Abyss after his death and climbed through the whole ladder from dretch to balor and then to demonlord
Markustay Posted - 19 Sep 2016 : 21:46:31
Connecting Orcus to the Orcs always seems like a good idea to me.

I'd probably have him as Garagos then, and when he 'died' he became Orcus. Anyone have a clue how long Orcus has been around?

Talos as a Storm Giant makes a lot of sense, and it still fits with my assumptions about Akadi/Teylas: He may have been a Priest of Akadi... or whatever her name would have been in Jotun. Then he ascends and becomes a deity, perhaps with her/its help. It makes a lot of sense that a Primordial of Air would have to work closely with Storm Deities of any pantheon.

And as you said, then he broadened his horizons and became a war deity for primitive human tribes.*



*The Giant trilogy had a name for these - Skrals, or some-such. I no longer have the books. Just looked it up - they call the primitive humans of the far north traell (I guess taken from the Norse 'thrall'). I would assume this is their name for the 'Ice People'.
Wrigley Posted - 19 Sep 2016 : 09:05:05
As Gruumsh gets a lot of space here I will add my version.
Original diety of orcs was Orcus who was defeated by former green elven god Grumas that was banished and cursed by Corellion. Grumas then took Luthic as his wife to cement his position and spawned Baghtru. Poor Orcus become a demon and struck a deal with Shar...
BTW Bane is originaly orcish warlord from Thar that has been elevated to godhood by Jergal and he (Bane) does not get well with Gruumsh either.
Talos is originaly storm giant god but with decline of giant civilisation he become more focused on other aspects of his portfolio and has been able to find broader audience this way.
Gary Dallison Posted - 19 Sep 2016 : 06:41:37
Well Elaine herself stated recently that the novel should not be treated as a history book, especially regarding ancient history. Its probably more a commonly held belief than the actual events, or even worse one ancient elf's opinion based on memories (which are biased, mutable, and contextual).

So im fine going with the orcs not worshipping the orc pantheon until the grey orcs appear. GHoTR has a line saying they worshipped demons and fiends which is good enough for me.
Markustay Posted - 18 Sep 2016 : 22:52:08
Except that in the Evermeet novel, Gruumsh comes to Toril VERY early. Or was that just Malar?

quote:
Originally posted by Mirtek

Talos and Garagos were both around in the netherese pantheon

Its a 'Timey Wimey' thing.

I believe both Lathander and Aumanator were worshiped at the same time as well - a little 'overlap' is allowed. After all, we are talking about 'human perceptions' when it comes to religion, and it probably takes a few centuries to get everyone 'on board' with the new deity.
Mirtek Posted - 18 Sep 2016 : 22:21:19
Talos and Garagos were both around in the netherese pantheon
Gary Dallison Posted - 18 Sep 2016 : 20:53:31
How weird is that. I wrote an article on the orcgate wars and theorised that prior to this moment the worship of the orc pantheon was unknown among orcs (the orcs in the north west of faerun worshipped fiends, beast totems, giant gods, maybe even human deities of destruction.

Then the orcgate opens and through come the avatars of the orc gods who kill the gods of the old empires and thus cement their worship through acts of legend.

The worship of gruumsh then spreads north and west with the grey orcs until it reaches the vast and the galenas.

From there it crosses to the moonsea and thar where they mix with the mountain orcs from the north and then spreads back to the north west of faerun through mountain orcs.

At least thats what i do with the orcs. The mountain orcs are stuck in the north and gradually spread south and east with eacj horde after the death of delzoun and eaerlann. The grey orcs explode into thay and maraud across the north east of faerun. The mixing is with the orcs of vastar. The religion follows the orcs.
Markustay Posted - 18 Sep 2016 : 20:29:07
I'd prefer to think that Gruumsh had some sort of connection with Talos, but actually being him all along doesn't sit well with me, or established lore. Wasn't there also some sort of theory floating around about Gragaos turning into Talos (maybe during the Dawn Cataclysm)? I would DEFINITELY use that. It could be that Garagos was split into the Gruumsh/Talos we saw in the Realms later on.

Now, since Gruumsh is a primal deity of the Orcs, we have to also assume that at some point in the distant past, a single Manifestation of Gruumsh came to Toril, and either became Garagos, or merged with some other early FR god to become Garagos. For whatever reason, the Gruumsh aspect was repressed for centuries and FR's orcs were just mindless brutes during this time period.

A theory I had was that an aspect of Gruumsh came over with the Orcs during the Orcgate wars (*cough* Warcraft *cough*). The Orc pantheon went a little nuts and attacked (and killed) most of the two pantheons in the Old Empires. It was right after this that orcs started to become ascendant in the Realms - smarter and more cunning. Could it possibly be that Gruumsh from 'planet orc' (Draenor?) sensed his lost 'piece' (Avatar/Manifestation) and began a plan to reunite with it?

So, about a 1000 years after the Orcgate wars, the Dawn Cataclysm happens and Gruumsh rips his gruumsh-half out of Garagos, leaving behind the remnants of another deity - Talos (which, now that I think about it, could have just been a piece of Teylas, or Akadi... hmmmmmmm...). Then the Sundering happens, and something bad happens to Talos (and if my idea of Talos actually being a piece of Akadi bears fruit, then it makes sense a Primordial would be adversely affected by the re-arrival of Abeir), and now (the re-united) Gruumsh claims to have always been Talos... which is sort of true.

A bit convoluted, but I think I covered all the bases, and all the lore remains intact (he both WAS and WASN'T Talos).
Wrigley Posted - 18 Sep 2016 : 11:27:19
Idea of Gruumsh being Talos sound wierd. For me Talos is original god of storm giants who went haywire into destruction.
sleyvas Posted - 18 Sep 2016 : 02:50:39
Oh, and along the lines of the above... it may be that at some point, Abeir and Toril can totally separate into 2 separate crystal spheres (if that didn't actually happen with "the sundering".... because we don't know what actually happened on that scale.)
sleyvas Posted - 18 Sep 2016 : 02:48:34
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

Didn't Talos turn out to be Gruumsh in disguise, or some such? Or am I mis-remembering?
Thats the only reason why I mentioned Gruumsh - I though there is no more 'Talos'.



*Strangely, this asterisk/footnote is actually for the post above this one. Just re-reading it and I noticed i never made the comment I wanted to, regarding 'Primordials being used as uber-Power Batteries'.

When I typed that, I got a picture in my head of the Green Lantern Corps powering their rings off a giant lantern.... THAT CONTAINS A PRIMORDIAL!

Dun dun DUUUUN!



According to a dragon article, Gruumsh made claims that he "had always been Talos". The fact that Talos had disappeared after the Spellplague and therefore wasn't around to contradict this statement. It seemed like the only reason Gruumsh did such was to try and get the other gods of the furies to turn on the Seldarine.

I'm more of the mind that Gruumsh quite simply lied, and Talos and some other deities were sent to Abeir. In fact, my belief is that some planes went to Abeir (and that some planes came to Toril, such as the elemental chaos). My thoughts there were that the elemental chaos always existed, but it was "shunted" over to Abeir and Toril had the more orderly elemental planes only. Now, possibly due to the Spellplague/Sundering.... the lines between Toril and Abeir are still a little more fluid than they were, and possibly now Abeir has access to some outer planes.
Brimstone Posted - 17 Sep 2016 : 10:25:13
Gruumsh was Talos all along. The Sundering fixed that..
Markustay Posted - 17 Sep 2016 : 07:46:40
Didn't Talos turn out to be Gruumsh in disguise, or some such? Or am I mis-remembering?
Thats the only reason why I mentioned Gruumsh - I though there is no more 'Talos'.



*Strangely, this asterisk/footnote is actually for the post above this one. Just re-reading it and I noticed i never made the comment I wanted to, regarding 'Primordials being used as uber-Power Batteries'.

When I typed that, I got a picture in my head of the Green Lantern Corps powering their rings off a giant lantern.... THAT CONTAINS A PRIMORDIAL!

Dun dun DUUUUN!
sleyvas Posted - 16 Sep 2016 : 19:18:22
Oh,and along those lines... what if Talos had some inkling of the spellplague occurring and knew that he might get transferred to Abeir as a result. Not a definitive thing mind you, but more like maybe a hint from Savras that its in his best interest that X happens so that the actions of the spellplague can be reversed.... or so that he's not in the realms while Shar is ascendant so that she doesn't swallow him up.
sleyvas Posted - 16 Sep 2016 : 19:14:57
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

And other times, I remember why I loved this place so much...

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

So, then I started thinking about Iakhovas, "he who swims with Sekholah", and his forced destruction of the Ship of the Gods island via its volcano. In my head (and I know some others here too), it would seem that Iakhovas was more like a lesser primordial with a shark aspect. So, was this destruction of this volcano some kind of attack against another primordial? I note that the island was filled with priests of Geb.... and I've suspected that Geb and Grumbar might have some kind of ties (hesitant to say the same individual, more likely to say they use each other).
My thoughts here is that Iakhovas was normal (albeit ENORMOUS) Megalodon who managed (with Umberlee's help?) to join with the 'shark over-mind' (collective consciousness of the shark species) and become a demi-god. Shark's thoughts do not amount to much more then "EAT!", so Iakhovas is just the embodiment of (their) primal hunger.

I think Geb and Grumbar had one of those 'deals' I often talk about in my musings, where a primordial lends some of its power to a deity, and the deity gives back some of its 'Faith Power' to the primordial. Primordials lack this natural 'connection' to living (mortal) beings, and the few that want to indulge in religion have to make these types of deals. On the other hand, primordials are little more than living embodiments of pure elemental power, which explains why so many groups use them as uber-power batteries.* They are almost like 'Over-minds' of elementals, in that regard (so perhaps primordials ARE gods, but only to creatures on the elemental planes, or in 4e, in the Elemental Maelstrom). I think Teylas was another of these 'conjoined' (not really) gods (of the Wastes) - just Talos acting on behalf of Akadi.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

I hadn't really thought about another thing too until just now. It was Talos that raised up both Velsharoon and Malyk as gods of magic (one of necromancy and the other wild and destructive magic) just prior to the spellplague. I wonder if there was more than meets the eye to this particular plotline.
I would say this is excellent fodder for OUR musings, but I truly doubt they had anything like that in mind. I doubt anyone currently working there knows 95% of the 'old lore', and would even consider tying things together in such a manner. We can play with the idea that Gruumsh had this secret, long-range 'master plan' all along, but the simple truth is that the whole Talos/Gruumsh thing was just another victim of the 4e down-sizing.

Of course, for my own spin on things, I like to think Gruumsh (Gru-Maas) and Corellon (Cor'Elion) were brothers, and thus, Gruumsh is actually a very clever (truly ancient) elf (Fey, actually - back then there were no 'Elves). That means that him having such an amazing, milenia-old set of plans works very well in that scenario. Or it could simply be that he is bitter, and is constantly dropping such 'monkey wrenches' into the works of Faerūn, and seeing if any of them bear (evil) fruit.




Good to hear your response. On the Talos / Malyk / Velsharoon thing..... I'm not thinking about any connection to Gruumsh. I'm more thinking... hmmm, Shar was trying to steal the spellplague... but Shar was also trying to usurp Talos to a degree (taking his role as destruction).... what if Talos was kind of "feeding" Mystra on the sly some additional aid, all in some kind of backhanded way of screwing over Shar.... Not sure how to connect that.... but the idea is playing over in my head.
Gary Dallison Posted - 16 Sep 2016 : 18:37:12
Im sure ive seen the answer to what actually happened in that volcano somewhere and i know i did a bit of a revamp on it in my alternate dimensions issues.

If it were me though and the whole horrid 4e stuff hadnt already duplicated it, i wouldve placed one of the lost gods of unther in there (the old empires book said many fled or were driven away by gilgeam). The priests of geb were keeping it asleep but they all got killed. The whole iakhovas thing id have as a coincidence (they do happen) or as part of a plan by Dagon who i used extensively in my rewrite of the whole iakhovas events
Markustay Posted - 16 Sep 2016 : 18:28:01
And other times, I remember why I loved this place so much...

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

So, then I started thinking about Iakhovas, "he who swims with Sekholah", and his forced destruction of the Ship of the Gods island via its volcano. In my head (and I know some others here too), it would seem that Iakhovas was more like a lesser primordial with a shark aspect. So, was this destruction of this volcano some kind of attack against another primordial? I note that the island was filled with priests of Geb.... and I've suspected that Geb and Grumbar might have some kind of ties (hesitant to say the same individual, more likely to say they use each other).
My thoughts here is that Iakhovas was normal (albeit ENORMOUS) Megalodon who managed (with Umberlee's help?) to join with the 'shark over-mind' (collective consciousness of the shark species) and become a demi-god. Shark's thoughts do not amount to much more then "EAT!", so Iakhovas is just the embodiment of (their) primal hunger.

I think Geb and Grumbar had one of those 'deals' I often talk about in my musings, where a primordial lends some of its power to a deity, and the deity gives back some of its 'Faith Power' to the primordial. Primordials lack this natural 'connection' to living (mortal) beings, and the few that want to indulge in religion have to make these types of deals. On the other hand, primordials are little more than living embodiments of pure elemental power, which explains why so many groups use them as uber-power batteries.* They are almost like 'Over-minds' of elementals, in that regard (so perhaps primordials ARE gods, but only to creatures on the elemental planes, or in 4e, in the Elemental Maelstrom). I think Teylas was another of these 'conjoined' (not really) gods (of the Wastes) - just Talos acting on behalf of Akadi.

quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

I hadn't really thought about another thing too until just now. It was Talos that raised up both Velsharoon and Malyk as gods of magic (one of necromancy and the other wild and destructive magic) just prior to the spellplague. I wonder if there was more than meets the eye to this particular plotline.
I would say this is excellent fodder for OUR musings, but I truly doubt they had anything like that in mind. I doubt anyone currently working there knows 95% of the 'old lore', and would even consider tying things together in such a manner. We can play with the idea that Gruumsh had this secret, long-range 'master plan' all along, but the simple truth is that the whole Talos/Gruumsh thing was just another victim of the 4e down-sizing.

Of course, for my own spin on things, I like to think Gruumsh (Gru-Maas) and Corellon (Cor'Elion) were brothers, and thus, Gruumsh is actually a very clever (truly ancient) elf (Fey, actually - back then there were no 'Elves). That means that him having such an amazing, milenia-old set of plans works very well in that scenario. Or it could simply be that he is bitter, and is constantly dropping such 'monkey wrenches' into the works of Faerūn, and seeing if any of them bear (evil) fruit.

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