Part 256: The Gods of Syrupleaf
A lot has been written about the strange and varied panthenon of Syrupleaf. Here you can find some information on these bizarre but powerful entities.
Vox Nihili wrote :-
By the way, 64bitrobot is a "faithful worshipper" of this demented god:
Kennel wrote :-
The Pantheon of Syrupleaf
(Ardent worshipper, Faithful worshipper, Worshipper, Casual worshipper, Dubious worshipper)
Doren, goddess of wealth 
Female dwarf
11 followers
Royal W, sewermancer, geri_khan, Manuel Calavera, Whitecloak, Spoonboy, Mehuyael, Screaming Idiot, Eumenides, Male Man, Steelion
Ner the Special Glitter, god of consolation, storms, the rain, lightning and thunder 
Male dwarf
10 followers
Manic Mole, SWATJester, That Guy Bob, Kallisti, bobthethurd, Draceran, OrangeSoda, Alius, OutOfPrint, Slaan
Egul, god of the wind
Male dwarf
8 followers
JosephWongKS, Dongattack, Syntax!, pumpinglemma, Recursive, Smuggins, MysticalHaberdasher, Firos
Moldath Purpleinked the Cave of Color, goddess of mountains and jewels
Female mountain goat
7 followers
Skullbuggy, hankor, Skaw, Murder Mystery, Goosekrieg, where yo man, Koorisch
Avuz Gemtin, goddess of minerals and metals 
Female dwarf
7 followers
Rixaxun, Bobbin Threadbare, Bobatron, Gerblyn, Deki, Tag Plastic, Green Intern
Litast, god of children, day, the sun, the sky and rainbows 
Male giant bat
7 followers
64bitrobot, HeliTurtle, Tinny Turtler, TheWhiteCrane, Illarkul, A124!, ultimatequix
Lumen the Embraced Incenses, god of oaths, marriage, family, birth, pregnancy and creation 
Male dwarf
5 followers
goldjas, Strangest Finch, Drakenel, Idles, Jazzimus
Atith Poemhummed, god of festivals, revelry, music, dance, longevity and youth 
Male dwarf
5 followers
Vox Nihili, Globofglob, Sirocco, TowerofOil, FlocksOfMice
Imketh Singedbanners, god of fortresses and war 
Male dwarf
4 followers
tehsid, Deadly Hume, Spermy Smurf, Phrederick
Dakas, goddess of light 
Female dwarf
1 follower
Imlemon
Gods with no followers
Ostësh the Sadnesses of Silence, god of misery, torture, games, luck and gambling 
Tithleth Owlcurses the Nightmares of Twilight, god of treachery 
Sarcose wrote :-
When Ner the Special Glitter created the dwarves he wanted them to be in his image; chaotic and maddening, embodiment of the storm. But such an idea reminded Moldath Purpleinked the Cave of Color too much of the despised humans, and as Ner cascaded his meteoric spawn down unto the planet Moldath Purpleinked hacked apart the flat, rocky land they were to lay upon to create a mountain mightier than all other mountains. This, Moldath declared, would be called "Mountainhome," and the first dwarves crashed into the mightiest mountain and burrowed deep beneath, where they gestated for aeons, taking upon the stalwart traits of their cocoons until finally they emerged molded of rocky bodies, sinews of magma.
Ner was angered mightily by Moldath's actions, and cursed the mountain the children were buried in, that they would hate the sunlight and be trapped beneath the stone forever.
But the mountain was alive, growing in awareness. The mountainhome had attained its own sentience, and it stole the curse from Ner and turned it into a mantle of godhood. It called itself Avuz Gemtin, and fashioned an image for itself of a female Dwarf. It's dominion, minerals and metals, and its role, the Dwarfmother. The Mountainhome.
Pieces of the curse seeped through still, and any Dwarf who has spent too long inside will become sick at the sunlight.
Daeren wrote :-
Funny, I went a completely different route. Who says Dwarven philosophies have to agree, though? Litastians believe differently than Nelites after all.
A Treatise On The Glory Of Litast
Taken from 'Musings of Urist Uzgobavuz whilst in Playpalace, vol. XVIII'
Praise be to Litast, great and mighty!
Dwarvenkind has long been a race that lives beneath the surface, cleaving soil and stone to our will and plundering the treasures of the land from Avuz Gemtin's very womb. In our race's hubris we have forgotten much of the mighty power of Litast, eyeing the Great Light with suspicion. Indeed, if we turn our face from him for too long, when we gaze upon him we are stricken with nausea and disorientation. Too many take this as a sign that the Light is evil, without truly understanding. Litast's glory is overpowering and sustaining: how do you think the Upper Lands became so lush with life, why only the Dwarves and our blood-sworn enemies clambor down into the folds of the earth?
Litast was once sealed within the earth, and the Surface World was as cold and dark as the deepest depths of our mountainhomes. However, long before even the Age of Myth, a civilization of Dwarves freed him from his glowing prison beneath the mountains, and He ascended to the sky, His massive form and the force of His will freed at last. He charged the Dwarves to explore the depths of the lands to free any other imprisoned Gods and to serve as His emissaries to the Underworld. However, our promise to Him has long been forgotten, but He has not forgotten us. He still exacts tribute from us in his own fashions.
Tell me, what is it that every Dwarf has in his gut? Alcohol. A true Dwarf is so suffused with it that the sacred fumes waft from him in waves, ascending to the heavens to Litast, where He drinks his fill of the vapors. However, too many dwarves have forgotten this duty, sequestering themselves where the fumes cannot escape, so when they gaze upon His face after years in the Underlands Litast takes His tribute, and the interest owed, by force. He strikes them with nausea and forces them to vomit forth all the alcohol in their gut, the vomitus a tribute to Him. It is in this manner that He gains His lost tribute, and great movements of dwarves to plunder the dead are considered banquets for Him. I myself, as a true believer of Litast, have begun to vomit up my daily meals of Kitten Steaks and Wine as tributes to Him once I have absorbed enough alcohol to keep me lucid. It is a practice I encourage heartily, for I've never been in such good shape.
Skullbuggy wrote :-
Of Moldath Purpleinked the Cave of Color
Moldath rose from the ground as massive quakes ripped through the earth. Her eyes shone like finely-cut rubies, and her horns made of polished diamond. Her two cloven hooves glittered like gold, and her fur glinted in the sunlight.
The dwarves looked up at Moldath and beheld the gigantic being, and Moldath looked down at them. "Why have you summoned me here?" Moldath asked, in a voice that boomed like thunder.
"Please," said one of the dwarves, "give us a place to live. The humans have claimed the plains, the goblins have claimed the badlands, and the elves have claimed the forests. We've no place to go!"
And Moldath pondered how to help the dwarves, and how to create a home for them. And then it was decided that they would live within the earth, so Moldath took a hoof and drove it into the ground. And the earth did shake and tremble, and, like a miracle, the ground rose into the sky, peaking high into the clouds. And Moldath turned to the dwarves and said:
"This is a mountain. There will be many others like it, but this will be yours. It will be where you will live, where you will die, where your sons and daughters will be born. You may mine ore from within its core, and you may smelt whatever metals you may find, for it is yours." And Moldath drove another hoof into the ground, and mountains did rise all over the globe.
"Thank you, Moldath!" said a dwarf. "Need we know anything more?"
"Yes," said Moldath. "Many dangerous creatures may live within, so be prepared to fight them off. After all, I may have created these mountains, but I've no knowledge of what lies inside." And Moldath did return into the ground from whence she came, and the earth did seal itself up, much like it did before.
And the dwarves carved homes into the mountainside, and as the years went by, the dwarves did create a massive thriving colony. And it was called the Caves of Color, and it was splendid.
And many others made colonies like the Caves of Color, and these were known as Mountainhomes. And the Mountainhomes thrived, and those pussy elves and their faggoty fucking trees can kiss our ass because mountains are fucking kickass.
The end.
On the batty form of Litast
The world was not always filled with "special glitter" and pretty things, with pansy greens and fluffy bunnies. Litast is a creature of the dark, realized as a dark spot in the sky when he manifests himself to the world, blocking out the sun once every (however long a solar eclipse takes..). For in ages past when Litast was in his tomb before being freed by the Dwarves, he was an angular, leathery creature, and while he was imprisoned, the darkness was freed.
But when Litast was freed, the darkness poured back into him as if into a great vacuum, and the world was filled with light, and beautiful things began to grow, and the hated elves began to worship the beauty, began to envision the sun as a delicate or, perhaps, majestic creature, when the very concept of majesty and delicacy is alien to the world Litast came from: there, there is only the impressive terror.
When Litast lets his power run free the light lingers in the sky as the sun. When he wishes to make himself known to the world, the world darkens for a day, and his terrors arise..
When the Dwarves began to forget their bondage to Litast he captured a passing caravan of humans and mutated them horribly with unspeakable deeds, sending them down as batmen to scare the Dwarves from their caves that they may tribute the alcoholic vapors and Litast may sup.
----
Still need to figure out where the "children and rainbows" come in though...
Kennel wrote :-
Here's translations for first names:
Doren = Diamond
Ner = Lake
Egul = Control
Avuz = Mine
Moldath = Avalanche
Litast = Torch
Lumen = Jest
Atith = Straw
Imketh = Just
Dakas = Color
Ostësh = Mess
Tithleth = Rumor
Eiba wrote :-
nielsm posted:
The question remaining is, what forms adamantine in the first place, and why does it have this strange strand structure?
I'm imagining some sort of titanomachy style gods vs. demons battle in the mythological past.
Edit:
Daeren posted:
That, or when Lumen got jiggy with Moldath/Avuz, not all of the union became Dwarves if you know what I mean.
Hey, this is pretty tame compared to some real myths.
Sarcose wrote :-
On the Dawning of the Sky
And lo, as Ner did beat his stone all over the faces of the mountain gods whilst Doren videotaped, Litast looked down in disgust and sent the light cascading down to reveal their actions to his husband/wife.
But Ner was a quick thinker with a devious mind, and he enabled his metallic payload to sparkle and shine in the light, to glitter one might say, and thus created the first rainbow. And when Ner leapt back into the sky he smiled knowingly at Litast, fuming with rage, and told him, "I will make the rains now, and forevermore your light will produce the badge of my victory over you, a reminder of how I beat you at your own game." And thus, the rainbow to come after the storm was born, a mark of delighted sunlight to the dwellers of the world, but truly a strike of anger by the Bat-God Litast who could do nothing to stop it.
On the Children of the Sky
But Litast was no fool. He, coming from the darkness, was as cunning as Ner the Special Glitter. He knew that, in spite of Ner's misgivings, his Dwarfy children were still precious to him, and he carried them off within their dreams to the world of rainbows, and sent his own batty children to swoop down and whisk them away during the daylight when the rainbow was highest and brightest, making the Dwarves fear the rainbow, the children revere it. Yet Litast did not harm the children, and they were always returned safely.
Litast became as a saint among the Dwarves, feared but also revered at the same time. Feared, for the harsh sunlight and the terrifying darkness. Revered, for the love of the children. And at the same time, the symbolism of the act of bringing children to that rainbow was not lost on Ner, who could do nothing to prevent his actions lest he arouse the suspicions of his husband/wife Lumen as to the true nature of the rainbow.
And so Litast had his worship, and his vengeance, and became known as the horrible Bat-God of rainbows, children, the sky, and the sun and daylight.
----
I had no idea this would get as dirty as it did.
Daeren posted:
I thought Lumen was the God of Creation...
Edit: THIS IS THE WORST BUKKAKE EVER
Crap. For the longest time I read Lumen as female because of the post about Ner and Lumen getting married, so I gathered that Ner would be the, er, "sauce" of adamantine.
Maybe Lumen holds such acts to be more sacred though, whereas Ner is more of a devious god, and Lumen would never um, splooge on something just for fun. Or maybe everything Lumen's precious seed touches becomes alive so he spills it sparingly lest it overrun the world.
I AGREE THIS IS A HORRIBLE BUKKAKE
Daeren wrote :-
Sorry for the double post, but I just got done with a Grand Unifying Mythos for the DF worlds. It hardly covers everything and is easily open for debate (This represents, as it says, Orthodox Nerity) Feel free to ignore bits of it if you'd like when making your own tales.
In the beginning, Lumen the Embraced Incenses cast forth the land, laying the rocky orb into the void. However, his effort exhausted him, so he delegated the creation of the races to the other gods. Lumen proceeded to sleep for centuries. You may call it sloth, but let's see you make several kilotons of matter out of wholecloth and not want to take a fucking nap.
The other gods bickered amongst themselves as to whose children would live where. Sir Prancibald, father of the Elves, claimed the forests, Odin claimed the plains for Humanity, and so on and so forth. Soon there was simply not enough room for everyone's creations to fit. Litast the Cunning, bat-god of fire and demons, had staked his claim across most of the land, and all of the sky. He had the world in his iron grip. However, his lieutenant, Tithleth the Nightmares of Twilight, struck a deal with the other gods. Litast and all of Demonkind (except Tithleth) would be sealed deep beneath the living earth, far from the touch of the creations of the gods, and the gods would give Tithleth dominion over the Void beyond the skies. The other gods agreed, and Tithleth made his move. Litast was struck down and hurled into a glowing pit with his children, many of Tithleth's servitors falling with them to ensure their defeat, and the world swallowed them whole, bound with the very 'life-essence' of Lumen himself, donated in his sleep. Demonkind would forever hate the Starspawn, and the factions of hatred would eventually splinter, co-mingle and interplay long enough to lead to the civil war that lead to the creation of Holistic Detective the Unholy Maw.
Soon enough, the world was populated, only a few wretched lesser deities unrepresented. Lumen's sleeping drool rained across the orb, giving watery nourishment to plants and filling the seas. The sacred spit soon gained a measure of sapience, and called itself Ner, 'Lake', in admission of its original duty.
The many creation myths begin to branch at this point, if they hadn't already. Dorenites say Lumen awoke and had sex with the closest Goddess, Doren, and their children became Dwarvenkind, full of life and love of wealth. Orthodox Nerides say that Lumen took a fancy to Ner when he awoke, seeing himself in Ner's image, and miraculously became pregnant with Ner's child, who would become the first Dwarf (and the origin of the first Crossbow Marriage, once Lumen found out). Revolutionary Nerides believe in the myth of Ner's sole creation of the dwarves, and Moldath's curse upon them to hate the sun. There are many, many interpretations, but for this text we shall expound upon Orthodox Neridy.
Dwarves, being late to Creation, were denied access to the lands of the other races, and were turned away constantly. Soon they went to one of the goddesses who denied to make a creation on the land: Moldath Purpleinked. She heard their pleas, and created the great Mountainhome, The Cave of Color, for them, pledging to become a patron of Dwarvenkind. Seeing their chance, King Torg of Koboldkind, Anansi of the Cave Spiders, the nameless Demon-King of Goblinkind, and dozens of other gods scurried into the mountains and caves created in the aftershock. However, they were met with a new force: Avuz Gemtin, newly born goddess of gemstones and precious minerals. Avuz hurled as many of the vermin out as she could, but some hid deep in the blood of the earth, while others hid in chasms so deep they could feel the heat of the Demon Pits. This is why monsters lurk within mountains and canyons, and yet Goblins and Kobolds are forced to live half-lives in towers and caves.
The mighty Dwarves of the Cave of Color soon made an underground empire, masters of their domain. They soon discovered Lumen's Gift, Adamantine, and followed it to its source, the first Demon Pit. Demons driven insane by their imprisonment surged forth to destroy all the Dwarves had built, but one Dwarf stood in their way in the tiny hall that lead into the pit. St. Imketh Singedbanners held the line, slaughtering demon after demon with his mighty hammer. The hammer eventually shattered, and Imketh drew his sword and continued on. Imketh slaughtered thousands of the hellspawn, eventually going through every weapon the fort had ever made. Once his final dagger broke, Imketh began to break the demons with his bare hands, hurling them back into the pit as they crawled out. Eventually Litast himself emerged, looming above Imketh, and dealt him a lethal blow. However, Imketh's final action was to flying tackle Litast into the pit once more, the flames consuming him whole. His sacrifice was not in vain, for Litast smashed his head against the lip of the pit and fell unconscious for a year and a day. When Litast emerged once more, he had changed, a beacon of light, changed by the heroic actions of St. Imketh. He thanked the Dwarves of the Caves of Color and ascended to the skies he had laid claim to long ago, a shining disc in the heavens. Before, the world had been dimly lit by the faint glimmer of the distant gods, but Litast's light shone on the world. This is when Litastianism was formed, a multi-racial religion that kindly glosses over its master's Demonic origins through ignorance, claims of reform (which have mostly shown to be true), or willful suppression. At least they preach the destruction of the maddened Demons and Starspawn.
Soon afterwards the epic legend of Ner's orgy with Moldath and Avuz, and Litast's foiled revenge, came to pass. Litast began to take Dwarven children to the rainbow, his response to Ner's insult. One in particular caught his attention, a sweet child named Dakath. He was so enchanted by her childlike wonder that he bestowed upon her his dominion over light, and she became St. Dakath. To this day she rides atop Litast as he soars across the sky, looking over the world laughing with eternal wonder at its beauty.
The event commonly recognized as the start of reliably recorded history was the creation of Atith Poemhummed. Lumen, growing bored with Ner, decided have a bit of fun. He created a clone of himself and had his way with himself. Ner, enraged at the betrayal, murdered the clone with a bolt of lightning. Lumen, enraged at being interrupted, cursed Ner and his storms to be unable to move under their own power, floating heavily in the sky. Ner belched forth Egul of the Wind, his eternal valet, in response. Lumen gathered up the charred Adamantine-covered offal of his clone and sewed it together into a new form, his true child, Atith. Eternally young and eternally partying, Atith is an incredibly common choice of worship among both young and old Dwarves. In fact, the party he threw to celebrate his existence is the first commonly accepted event in multiracial history.
However, this was not the end of the creations of the Dwarven Pantheon. I hardly need to tell you the horrible tale of Boatmurdered. However, dark whispers have emerged that the final inhabitant of the fortress, the feral child Dodok Astlumash, eventually became so consumed by her grief and hate that she gained a spark of divinity within her, taking on the name Ostësh, the Sadnesses of Silence. Playing cruel games with those she comes across, casting them into nightmare worlds, and manipulating the lives of leaders to drive them mad, she wishes to see the entire world flooded with magma as her forefathers did.
'Course, them's only rumors.
Skullbuggy wrote :-
An excerpt from "Why There Gems in the Mountain?? and Other Moldathian Myths", by Zog Mengigam, Great Scholar and Archivist
***
...and lo, did Moldath look upon the mountains, and she did say, "this looks pretty good." But the dwarves were not happy.
"Moldath," the dwarves said, "while we're glad you've made us such a nice mountain, we're a bit worried because we haven't got much to work with."
And Moldath was surprised. "Did I not just make you an entire place to live in? I mean come on," said Moldath, "you can at least be happy about that, you ungrateful halflings."
"Dwarves," corrected the dwarves.
"Look, I know what I said," said Moldath. And Moldath did sigh and return to the surface world from her great cavern under the earth. And Moldath did look at the dwarves, who were all so unhappy.
"Oh, Moldath, thank goodness you are here!" they said, on their knees in prayer.
"Make this quick," said Moldath.
"Alright, alright," said the dwarves. "Well, the problem is... we've not got a lot of things inside the mountain. Like, at all."
And Moldath was flabbergasted. "Are there not rocks in there?"
"Well, yes."
"And are there not minerals in there as well?"
"Yes, there are minerals."
"And are there not metals, even?"
"There are metals, my Lord."
"So what's the big problem?" Moldath asked, clearly aggravated. "You've got plenty to work with and then some--why can't you just make do with these? For Armok's sake!"
"Well, the thing is-" The dwarves hesitated for a bit before continuing. "-all of that stuff is quite nice, but it doesn't have this certain... je ne c'est quois?"
"Quit speaking gibberish and tell me what you want," said Moldath. "I am a very impatient woman. Goat. Woman goat."
And the dwarves did mull it over for a bit, and because Moldath was rather impatient and was fidgeting with nearby trees, they came out with it. "We want things that glisten in the moonlight. We want to have sparklies all over our arts and crafts and armor and weapons and instruments! We want... well, there's no name for it yet," said the dwarves, "but we want whatever you're going to call it!"
Moldath groaned. "Well, if you insist, I can try a little something." And Moldath did take a cloven hoof fashioned of the hardest diamonds and cut her wrist open. And blood did spill from her wrist and into the mountains, glittering and twinkling as it fell, like stars dropping from the sky. And Moldath's blood did harden and settle into the rocks and stones, and thus were created jewels and gemstones.
And Moldath did heal herself back up, and she did ask the dwarves, "what do you think?"
"Wait, you mean we have to dig for it?"
"Well, yeah, I assumed since you live in the mountains that you could have just dug for them."
"... Come on, really?"
Moldath did grunt, and said, "look, I'm done doing favors for you topsy-turvy tipplers." Moldath did then burrow back in the ground and retreated into her lair below the earth. "See if I do you jackasses anything nice ever again."
And that's why we have to dig for these really tiny clusters of gems deep within the Mountainhomes--but whatever, at least we get to decorate our bone flutes and tiny tiny goblets with them!
The end.
Sirocco wrote :-
If you thought Litast was ridiculous, be glad you're not a sand raider.
Also, my new fortress is called 'Joyousrack' and I approve immensely.
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