Urmaac Mythology
Brothers will fight
and kill each other,
sisters' children
will defile kinship.
It is harsh in the world,
whoredom rife
— an axe age, a sword age —
— shields are riven —
— a wind age, a wolf age —
before the world goes headlong.
No man will have
mercy on another.
The Origin of the World
Before there was sea, or soil, or sky, or any warmth, there was only the gaping abyss of Neamhní. This chaos of perfect silence and darkness lay between the land of the everburning fire, Tír Tine; the land of endless ice, Tír Oighir; the land of unceasing wind, Tír Gaoth; and the land of the unclimbable mountain, Tír Salachar.
Frost from Oighir and billowing flames from Tine crept toward each other until they met in Neamhní. Amid the hissing and sputtering, the fire melted the ice, and the drops formed themselves into Chwythu ("The Roar"), the first of the godlike but destructive Primordials. Chwythu had no body, no form, and no structure... only a voice. While it slept, it dreamt, and while it dreamt it roared more Primordials into existence. These Primordials began to dance around the slumbering form of their progenitor: Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath; Yog-Sothoth; Nyarlathotep; and dozens of other alien Primordials.
Warm winds from Gaoth and rich soil from Salachar also met in Neamhní. Sprouting from the soil and nurtured by the winds, a great tree Amhrán (“Song”), emerged. She nourished the Primodrials with her fruit, and they, in turn, spat out the seeds onto the ice and the soil, scattered them into the winds, or even tossed them into the fire. Her seed slowly took root as Athair, the first of the Óir tribe of gods. Athair adopted two of the other seeds as a son named Mac and a daughter named Óire. Mac and Óire, in turn, would become the parents of many other gods.
Mac and his sons slew Athair and set about constructing the world from his corpse. They fashioned the oceans from his blood, the soil from his skin and muscles, vegetation from his hair, clouds from his brains, and the sky from his skull. Four of Mac's sons, the great Titans, traveled to the four most distant points of Tine, Oighir, Gaoth, and Salachar, where they hold Athair’s skull aloft above the earth.
The gods eventually formed the first humans, a man and a woman: Gasúr and Cailín, from a branch and a flower taken from Amhrán. Then the Óir built a great fence around their dwelling-place, Domhain, to protect them from the Primordials.
Gasúr and Cailín had many children, some of whom took wives and husbands from among the Óir, others whom married amongst themselves. All these children would eventually become the ancestors of all the great tribes of Humanity.
The Origin of the New Gods
Gasúr and Cailín were not the first creations of the Óir. Before they made humanity from the branch and the flower of Amhrán, they also created a rache of servants from her leaves and named them the Sidhe. The Sidhe were one with the world of Domhain and they rejoiced in its bounty. But the Sidhe were lonely, and wanted other intelligent creatures to keep them company. So Mac called on Síoraí, his faithful old smith, and asked him to create someone to trade with the Sidhelien. Síoraí agreed and created some of his people, the Dwarves, to live on Domhain. Dwarves lived in mountains, and the Sidhelien in woods of a small continent on Urmaac. They often traded and exchanged art and culture, living in peace and happiness for ages.
But when there is nothing wrong, there are evil forces that try to make something wrong. Evil spawn of the Primordials, the demons and devils discovered the world of Domhain crept into it through the cracks and joints in the great wall. Through their machination and corrupting influence did the evil races such as Orcs, Goblins, and similar come into being. For a long time Sidhelien and Dwarves fought against these minions of evil, but they couldn't hold them back forever. It was the children of Gasúr and Cailín, the race of Humanity, that turned the tide and restored the balance between good and evil to Domhain.
Ardrí, the oldest son of Gasúr and Cailín, was the most warlike of all their children. He spent a lot of time fighting evil creatures with Sidhe armies. Banríon was their oldest daughter. Unlike her older brother, she was calm and calculating, always trying to prevent him from charging into his death. Ciúin was a quiet girl, always residing near the seacoast, trying to spend as much time in water as she could. Trádáilindulged in trade and often traveled between the realms of Sidhe and Dwarves, bringing high-quality goods back with each her journey. Crann was the most friendly with Sidhe, and spent most of his time in the woods, enjoying the creations of his father. Draíocht was interested in magic and nothing else. He spent a lot of time communing with Amhrán, learning the words of her great songs.
The family lived in happiness, but everything comes to an end. Jealous of their happiness, a powerful devil known as Asmodeus came to the world, trying to take it from the Oír. Ardrí expelled Asmodeus from the world, but not before the devil managed to do what he came for. Cailín was afflicted with a deadly hellish disease, and not even the gods could help her. Overwhelmed with thoughts of revenge, Gasúr left his world and went into Neamhní, searching for Asmodeus, trying to find and destroy him on his home plane, once and for all the times. Asmodeus could not hide long and was soon discovered and destroyed in a fierce battle.
Gasúr tried to take Asmodeus's devilish heart from his corpse, but to his surprise failed to find it. Then Asmodeus's spirit rose from his smashed body, roaring with evil laughter. He told Gasúr that he encased his heart in the center of the world and that it can never be removed without destroying Domhain itself.
Desperate, Gasúr captured Asmodeus's spirit and took him to Mac and Óire. After a long time of pondering, Mac and Óire decided that they could not destroy their creation just to undo Asmodeus. Instead, they and the other Óir gods decided to sacrifice themselves and turn this world into an eternal prison for Asmodeus.
Using the energy of their own divine essence, the Óire erased all memories from Asmodeus, putting him into ages-long sleep. Their energy almost gone, the instructed Gasúr, Cailín, and their children to take care of the world, and to help Asmodeus become a force for good once he reawakened. Finally, they erased all knowledge of gods from the minds of thier beloved servants the Sidhe and the Dwarves.
With the Óire gone and Asmodeus in sleep, Gasúr, Cailín, and their children rose to godhood and created their own peoples. Ardrí created the Konig, a warlike people like himself. Trádáil created the Breckmaanjar, a nation of wanderers and traders. Crann created his Rjur who lived in the wildlands as one with the nature, such like his father's Sidhe, yet in a way unique to Humans. Ciúin created Char, seafaring people who kept eye on the horizons.
Draíocht was against the idea of creating another race from the beginning, but did so when the majority decided that it should be done. He created the Aval and gave them the least lands in Urmaac, some tiny islands none of his siblings wanted, and never paid much attention to them.
These tribes lived in peace and happiness until Asmodeus awakened, and some time after that event. Ages after he was imprisoned, the former devil awoke as a young deity, knowing nothing of the universe and secrets of good and evil. The other gods accepted him into their ranks, teaching him of all they knew. Even Draíocht was delighted with his eagerness to learn.
However, happy times lasted short, as always. Young Asmodeus noticed that other gods had their people while he didn't. For the first time he felt jealousy, a thing new to him, a thing he could not learn from his tutors. With jealousy, came the memories of jealousy he felt towards Domhain, and then the other memories slowly started coming back one by one. However, he didn't confront his enemy's children immediately. He learned more, regaining his power. He created his own people, the Helån, who grew to match those of Ardrí.
In his power, he foresaw the events that would lead to the Battle of Mount Deismaar and his own destruction. So, when he discovered the way out of Domhain, he kept waiting for the battle, planning to escape in the last moments and let the other gods destroy themselves. He whispered lies and half-truths into the heart of one of his mortal servants, Azrai. Azrai, in turn, used her beauty and wisdom to manipulate Haelyn, the great heir to the tribe of Ardrí... and their battle would eventually reshape the world.
Theme: Order from Chaos
Thematically, Chwythu is the personification of the chaos before creation, which is also depicted as the impersonal void of Neamhní. Both Chwythu and Neamhní are ways of talking about limitless potential that isn’t actualized, that hasn’t yet become the particular things that we find in the world around us. This is why the humans describe it as a void. It is nothingness. But it nevertheless contains the basic stuff out of which the all things are made – the four elements which create the Primodrials and the primal matter of Athair’s body, which the gods tear apart to craft the world.
It’s extremely fitting for Chwythu to be the progenitor of the Primordials. For they are the forces of formless chaos, who are always threatening to corrupt and ultimately overturn the gods’ created order. But the Primordials are more than just forces of destruction.
This also explains why Chwythu is depicted as a hermaphrodite who can reproduce on its own asexually. Differentiation, including sexual differentiation, didn’t exist yet. The gods had to create that as part of their task of giving differentiated forms to what had previously been formless and undifferentiated.
Chwythu’s name provides an additional – and rather poetic – instantiation of this role as the personification of primordial chaos. Recall that Chwythu’s name means “Roar”. The scream, the wordless voice, is the raw material from which words are made. But the wordless voice of Chwythu can only create the chaotic terrors of the Primordials. Amhrán, who's name means song, comes from the same source, but she is the source of the gods of order. Metaphorically speaking, she is making words out of a scream.
By taking formless matter – represented by Athair’s body – and giving it form, the gods were, metaphorically speaking, making words out of a scream.
Theme: Centrality of Conflict
Humans of Urmaac are famed for their eagerness for battle. It should come as little surprise, therefore, that conflict is such a central theme in their creation myth – and that conflict is itself a generative force.
Chwythu is born from the strife between fire and ice. Likewise, Amhrán is born from the cooperation of warmth and rich soil. We can surmise that that particular opposition would have had a special poignancy for people living what was more or less a subsistence lifestyle in the cold lands of far northern Urmaac.
In order for the gods to fashion the world, they must first slay Athair. This is the first intentional taking of a life in the universe, and it’s performed by the gods themselves. It isn’t presented as a crime or a sin, as in the Biblical myth of Cain and Abel. Rather, it’s a good and even sacred task. This isn’t to say that the Urmaac valorize killing as such; they distinguish between lawful and appropriate killing and unlawful and inappropriate killing. But they embrace what they see as the necessity of having a warlike approach to life, for the sake of accomplishing great deeds that bring honor and renown to one’s name.
