Naga mythology and theosophy

Administrator Posts : 129 Join date : 2012-02-03

This fragmented document is part of the Magin jāhilīyah, the infamous collection of 'heretical teachings' espoused by the Sidan religious leader Mukham encouraging the learning and use of sorcery and summoning in his new Caliphate. Official doctrine denies the divine inspiration of these words, and suppresses dissemination of the jāhilīyah. Much of the content of the Magin jāhilīyah is still a mystery, in both origin and meaning. This specific text, printed in ancient Naga, seems to be a fragment of a much larger Naga treatise on magic and the divine.

Welcome and greetings to all the trawlers. Blessings, first, upon the [way-walkers? treaders?] of the path - Ss'ar, illustrious Queen of the inverse blade, whose 7 names are fanged poison ; Sysmus, [crowned in] Thorns and clothed in the bloody ways of conquering Kings; Ss'lornh, Pariah-Prince of the Dread-Ways, poised to murder the world. And blessing to (s)he of the 7 and 1 names, and ninety more besides, vanguard and trespasser, we seek of [her? him? they?] only that which we speak of [in moonlit tones?] - Liberty. Know that I speak in the first and last virtue, whose character is a cold dagger - truth.

Know the first heresy - The words of fearful [traitor-priests?] proclaim our birth from [eternity? divinity?]. This is a lie. All are born of this world, which the [eldest dead? first-walkers?] called Aeria; that is, the skin of the corpses of dead and rotting Kings; the third creation. Lying [traitor-spirits] of the [first worlds? first creation?] speak in side-ways words to convince our kin to STAND STILL AND LISTEN; the truth is that all creation is murder. (S)he came, murdering, to show - MOVE LIKE THIS.

Know the second heresy - We were born into this world to murder it. To do otherwise is to [suffocate? stagnate? to be buried] in the flesh of fearful [backwards-gazers?]. We know the meanings of the stars. Movements have been given us, AS (S)HE, ALIKE WE, telling us how best to escape [suffocation]. Mimic-Dancers, star-signs. Ss'ar whose nature is the poisoned fang and [shadowed touch? deceiving kiss?]. Symsus whose character is fury and war, the nature of a ruling king. Ss'lornh, who said I ALIKE AS (S)HE and made a crown of blood forged from the flesh of traitor spirits. They are [dawn-treaders] of past creation, poised to make a fourth. We coil in their image, and so (s)he. Spirit of first creation, whose names are manifold mystery - SS'AR'ESS.

Know the third heresy - We are not the first. Others came, [eldest dead? first walkers?], murdered in their sleep by [traitor-spirits], their shed-skin to join the refuse of this creation. Still, before, [coiling-spirits] walked the path and have since [departed? escaped?], cutting a new path. This creation has a ruling king; behold, the [visage? image?] which Ss'lorhn beheld - the Triune head of the ALL-IN-ONE. His neck is suited for the blade. Kill him with poison. In his flesh lies the [pathway to royalty]. This is the secret truth that (s)he guards - REACH HEAVEN BY VIOLENCE.

Administrator Posts : 458 Join date : 2012-02-04

In 262 BP, two hundred sixty-twp years before the reign of the Maylarn dynasty and one thousand fifty-three years before the current reign of King Deleric II of Sanctimonia, a senior researcher belonging to the Archivists of Light received a strange request. Relayed by a bound spirit, the researcher was called to the remote island of Al-Djal, which itself was the domain of the reclusive and antagonistic Naga sorcerer Asarluhhi-Utta. Guarded by a legion of bound demons, chimerical beasts and undead servants, the island and its inhabitants had long presented a severe danger to all that surrounded it, raiding ships, coastal villages, and generally spreading terror along the South Sea. The last known enclave of the Naga Mage-Lords, it had long been a source of myth. The message was surprising, to say the least, speaking of an incurable plague (later thought to be the Aturcga Plague which ravaged Sida for centuries) which had killed all of Asarluhhi-Utta's Naga kin who lived with her on the island, and which threatened to kill her as well. She requested that the researcher come to the island, under her protection, and record a piece of Naga culture that she feared would be lost. What follows was translated by an enslaved and maimed Sidan, and transcribed by that scholar.

This is what I learned, I and Kin, under the tutelage of Den-Mother En-men-lu-ana, who taught a clutch of two hundred seventy others. I still remember that time, clearly, better than your beastly minds could. It was the height of the hegemony, and an energetic time. The wars between the Lords had ended, with the city of Pazurish-Dagan in full glory. We had killed or enslaved the last of the other worthless races, and driven the Mušḫuššu-Ka to the edge of the eastern mountains. I remember the parades of captives, and their blood running down the steps of our Black Stone, house of our Lord Dagan Alaruhi-Utta. I remember you too, human. You were the weakest of the beasts, hardly suited for labor or seed or sacrifice. It was a glorious time. This was nine hundred thirteen years ago, by your reckoning. But this is what I and Kin were taught.

Part One - First Snake and the Birthing Place

First, there was the Birthing Place, and it was eternal. Coiling and Coiling, it was and is Snake-Den, where everything that is and was and will was born and died. Snake coiled over snake, moving and moving so much, with so little room, one could hardly breath or think. So many, so much, writhing over another until one could not tell where you began and the others ended. One day (as days were reckoned in this time, by the coiling, which is to say that one day was all) a little she-snake thought to herself, "I am Lahamu." And she held to that thought, but the snakes coiled, and she found herself thinking, "I am Lahmt." And they coiled, and she thought "I am Lahmanu." And they coiled and coiled and she did not know WHO she was and she could not breath. Then she bared her fangs and with poison bit and swallowed and killed her way out of the Birthing Place for many days (by the reckoning of that time, which is to say, for eternity and more). And the other snakes struck at her and hated her and she was Pariah, but she did not listen for she knew that only by her killing did they have names which to hate her by in the first place. And after those many days, she finally came to the surface, and cried, "I am Ss'ar'ess, First Snake!", and these were her first and only words. Then she departed the Birthing Place, leaving a trail of stars in her wake. And the Birthing Place died, the shed-skin of all the murdered snakes gathering together into a great egg, which some say glistened like crystal, which was the First Creation, Ss'ar-Anui.

Part Two - Aht and the Egg

When First Snake left, those snakes that had survived gathered together and pondered the egg and its confines. They marveled in fear at the glistening dead-skin of their murdered brothers. Then they looked to the sky, and saw the great trail and shimmering stars, but turned away, suffering blindness. They were weak spirits, and fearful of the name they saw in the stars, and wanted no names for themselves. Yet they could not ignore the scalesigns of the egg, which pulsed and grew in their midst while they skirted at the edges, unable to find warmth. They wanted to go back to the Birthing Place and languish in warmth and solitude, but First Snake had done her work. It was then that a great old snake, one of the largest of the clutch of the Birthing Place, gathered them together and said "If we must have names, I will be the first and greatest among you all." So he took the name Aht-n, and proclaimed himself name above all others, first and only. (This is because the snakes that lived were so fearful and angry at the name of First Snake that they spit and cursed her and struck at any who spoke it.) So the brood gathered under the sign of Aht, and they resolved to hate the name of First Snake forever, and try to engulf the egg she left behind. So for many days, each snake tried to swallow the egg whole. But even mighty Aht-n himself, with the biggest gullet and mightiest fangs, could not eat the egg. This continued for many days (though with the end of coiling the days had greatly shortened and could be numbered at last.)

Part Three - The Name-Birth of Ss'ar

Even while this was happening and the nameless snakes under the sign of Aht plotted to consumed First Snake's egg, the ghosts of their murdered kin began to slink around within the egg, skinless and formless, knowing their own death but little else. It was as a new Birthing Place, where many spirits coiled together, nameless, but unlike the Birthing Place, fearful of their own namelessness. They feared losing themselves, and fought desperately to keep their own, weak forms. For a while they hated the name that had condemned them to this skinless fate, weak and pitiful, but as they silently considered their living brothers, they saw the trail of stars leaving the once-Birthing Place, and realized that the death given to them by First Snake had been a kindness. They saw that, in the Birthing Place, though strong and alive, they were no better than weak spirits, in lacking names. First Snake had shown them, through fang and venom, both the horrible truth and how they might escape it. They endeavored to give themselves names, each and all, for in their weakness they lusted for power and identity, unlike their living brothers beyond the egg, who feared death and the cold so much that they wished for the embrace of Aht. But the skinless ghosts of the crystal-like-egg knew naught but cold now, and knew the importance of names, without which they were but shifting shadows. Thus they were called the shadow-kin by their wrongheaded brothers. And within the egg, the weakest of the spirits saw the name etched in the scars, and dreamed of a name of her own. So she took the name Ss'ar, after the star-name, and in this became the greatest name above all others, above even Aht, for even though she was a weak spirit, in her name was the way of killing her enemies; to coil around as shadow, shifting like the Birthing Place, and strike at her enemies until their blood and fallen skin proclaims her name. And this was yet the early years of the First Creation.

Part Four - Kel and the Second Creation

Beyond the egg, Aht and the snakes-of-Aht continued to plot and plot, wondering how they might eat the egg to remove its bothering presence. It was then that a weak snake, who in his secret hours called himself Kel (though he dared not speak it to the other snakes, for they loathed any name but Aht) brought himself before the great snake Aht, and proposed how they might deal with the egg. He said to them, "Let us not eat the egg, for it is of hard crystal and upsetting to our stomachs, and its passing would only leave the void that separates us from the Birthing Place. Instead, let us take skin-wrappings from it and fill them with breath, and birth new snakes to join us in our coiling, that we might be warm and close once more, and go back to the Birthing Place." Aht was hesitant, and jealous of this little snake's words. Yet he held back from devouring little Kel whole, and told Kel, "Let us see how it is done." So Kel, using knowledge learned from the stars (the other snakes did not know this or Kel would have assuredly been devoured) stripped a length of skin from the egg, shaping it into a great long snake and breathing life into it. And Kel, fearing death, looked to the great assemblage of Aht and said, "Behold, his name is Aht." And the snake breathed life, and they all coiled and coiled, pleased that they had one more snake to their name, to fight off the cold. And so Aht and Aht took to the egg, and began whole-heartedly stripping away at the egg, bringing fear to the ghosts inside. And many new snakes were born, but all were given the name of Aht, denied their own names. And Kel was aghast, for in truth, he had not wished an end to the egg, only to give birth to his own clutch; and now Aht was robbing his clutch, naming them their own. And Kel despaired for his children, and slinked around the edges of the once-Birthing Place. In his despair, he called the name that he saw in the stars. And to Kel's surprise, First Snake answered. She appeared, whirling along the star-path she had constructed, and struck viciously at the snakes-of-Aht that would eat her egg and replace it with Aht. And the Great Snake Aht rose up, mighty and powerful, but First Snake was peerless, and took Aht in her fangs and dashed him 888 times against the rocks, cursing his name and filling it with poison. And Aht and the name of Aht died, all the snakes that took his name rather than taking their own. Her work done, she took to the skins of the dead-snakes around her, her second murder, and added their skins to the egg. And to her sorrow she had found she had murdered Kel as well, but did not speak even in her sorrow, knowing that in their name-hate the now skinless snakes would devour Kel again and again in vengeance. And this was the second creation, and the end of the name of Aht.