Talons of Kramah

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    • I was hoping in the World Guide we would get some of the famous folktales of 'Klirarah's Amoruous Adventures' or 'Hropa's Infinate Appitite' but it was nice to actuall 'hear' the Devah speak (In the Basic Compendium's Prologue we only get Kramah's thoughts) in the Story of the Creation of Caste, but that brings me to a previous question about the Devah I was told only Nagamissa explitly had a child with a mortal Janah and that was againt Great Mother and Father's will in the story of the creation of caste it explitly said Shriman is a son of Muhhijibh...It is said the Devah are the Parents of the Janah so from what I gather from information on the backstory I got from this forum the Devah's transformation into Gods was a slow gradual process so either they weren't complete Gods at this point in time, or their Transformation into Gods was recent enough that they still had children from when they were mortal
    • Yes! You are quite correct! At first, after the arrival of the Children of the Great Mother and Father, these first jánah (the "people", who included all the Devah spoken of in the Partakám, and many thousands more), blessed as they were (according to lore) by their holy parents with practical agelessness, became the progenitors of the rest of the peoples of Dárdünah to follow (who were certainly long-lived in the earliest days, but were nonetheless "mortal" in comparison to the "Firstborn Jánah", the Devah). Many generations passed under their wise and benevolent rule for two thousand years before The Thousand Years of Darkness (the age of the Devah Wars). Here's a bit of info you might find interesting, pertaining to those early, formative ages after their arrival upon Dárdünah, which might help answer some of your questions:


      10,000 – 9200 years ago - The Wandering
      What Dárdüni historians say:
      During this time, the Devah and the jánah wandered upon their new world like children, filling themselves with the understanding of their new home. They learned to thrive upon the bounty that Dárdünah offered. For many countless years they wandered thus, the ageless Devah guiding the jánah across innumerable lands of endless variety. Many generations of jánah lived and died beneath the light of the two suns, under the beauty of the three moons.

      Key understandings:


      • The first Zoics settled together as they attempted to understand this new world and their new selves, despite their many differences, and because of their unique circumstances and innate cultural understandings. By the time they chose to explore they were already advanced toolmakers with the ability to store and transport the excesses of food and belongings they created.
      • They only “wandered” during these times in search of areas to settle that were less dangerous from a standpoint of the native insectoid life. Suthra both great and small were (and still are) the apex predators of the world of Dárdünah, and though the first Zoics and their children were long-lived, they could still be killed.
      • Though they certainly hunted and gathered food as necessary to survive in their journeys, they already recognized the need to obtain and cultivate the specific flora and fauna that were safe enough for them to use and eat. Even as they traveled they collected seeds, used the carapaces from edible suthra as bowls to hold potted plants they grew along the way, and kept small herds of various suthra as food, pets, and even beasts of burden.
      • With so very few of them to begin with, and with the world being so very dangerous and alien to them, it was lucky that the seeds of advanced civilization already germinated so strongly within them. As quickly as they could find them, groups of these first Zoics settled in the “safer” areas based on the individual needs of their differing animal-like physiologies.
      • As the first settlements prospered, and the first families began to grow, they and their children maintained trade, communication, and unity across the distances that separated these settlements.





      9200 – 8000 years ago - The Age of Splendor
      What Dárdüni historians say:
      The Partakám goes on to say that finally rested from Their tasks, the Great Father and Mother awoke and spoke once again to Their beloved children. The holy text tells of the rise of cities as the will of the Great Father and Mother began to be felt again. It describes the earliest civilization, the great city of Janágaram, the City of the People, where the Devah were said to rule. According to the Partakám, the Great Father and Mother knew that Their children would need guidance. Thus, They appointed Their Firstborn Children, the Devah, as protectors and guides for the rest of the jánah. The Devah became the benevolent rulers of the jánah and taught them many things, including farming, crystal craft, mathematics, an alphabet, architecture, and many other wonders. This Age of Splendor was said to last for more than a thousand years.

      Key understandings:


      • Their memories of the scientist couple had been shared from the beginning, and the basis for the Zoic’s understanding of them was rooted in the ancient cultural templates that were their mental legacy. Something about this couple’s identity remained intact and powerful in this new universe, and from whatever gulf of energy they had translated to, they eventually seemed capable of speaking to the first Zoics once again, as if emerging from some long slumber. They spoke lovingly, as if the Zoics were their children, in powerful dreams and visions.
      • The Zoics viewed the couple as gods, calling them “Great Father and Mother”. The very first Zoics were referred to by their descendants as the “Devah” which meant the “divine” because they saw their seemingly immortal parents as the direct children of the gods. All of their many offspring were (and still are) referred to as the “jánah”, which means the “people”.
      • The Devah, seemingly capable of communing directly with the Great Father and Mother, now became fountains of information pertaining to the acceleration of civilization advancement. The small settlements rapidly grew into marvelous cities, with a centralized “capital” where the largest concentration of the Devah lived and ruled.
      • Population during this time certainly grew, but within limits based on prosperity and cultural peace, mixed with the dangers of their new world outside of their cities.




      8000 – 7000 years ago - The Thousand Years of Darkness
      What Dárdüni historians say:
      Amasúrah eventually grew jealous of the other Devah’s power and influence. She used her cunning to unlock the mysteries of the dark void of Narákah, the Swirling Hells and found ways to bind demons, using their essence to grant herself vast powers. She gathered together Sarpah followers who she had seduced with her lies, and taught them to become the first summoner sir’hibasi. Armed with her disciples and her demons, Amasúrah waged a terrible war against the other Devah for control of Dárdünah.

      Krilárah knew that Amasúrah had used the power of Narákah to increase her strength, so she beseeched the Great Mother for aid, who took Krilárah into the Path of Dreams. This dreamworld granted Krilárah amazing gifts of prophecy and warding that allowed her to successfully combat Amasúrah’s demons. Krilárah passed this knowledge on to her own pupils, thus giving birth to the dreamwalking sir’hibasi.

      The great War of the Devah continued for a millennium, and all the wonders that had come before were undone in the terrible tumult. Neither side seemed capable of defeating the other. Shining Janágaram crumbled into dust. Many generations passed under the dark cloud of war, and terrible rifts were formed between the various races of the jánah.

      Eventually the Great Father and Mother commanded the Devah to return to the Edge of Heaven where they would remain forever, to watch over and guide the jánah out of the darkness into which their terrible war had plunged them. In anger over the abominations she had unleashed upon the world, They hurled Amasúrah and her servants into the Swirling Hells of Narákah. There in the void, Amasúrah and her disciples became demons themselves. The demons she had summoned from the abyss fled into the shadowy places of the world.

      Key understandings:


      • Whatever the actual source of the initial conflicts between the Devah was, it is certain that there was some kind of great cultural divide that began to form between the Sarpah and the rest of the jánah, which then further created tensions between the Paksin and the Vajrah as a result.
      • These tensions eventually shattered the relative peace enjoyed during The Age of Splendor, and eventually the mortal jánah were divided into factions that fell under the command of the various individual Devah, who began to take “sides” against one another (perhaps over land, resources, or dominance over the followers of other Devah). These groupings apparently swore fealty based on assumptions of spiritual power according to the religious attributions of the “favor” given each Devah by the Great Mother and Father, and as a result have often been referred to as “Devah Cults” by more modern scholars.
      • The mortal followers of the ageless Devah waged war upon one another as the now-divided factions attempted to wrest control of certain regions and maintain holdings against their rivals (sometimes along “species based” lines that favored the Devah they followed). These conflicts have historically been referred to as the “Devah Wars”.
      • At the end of this terrible age, and by the time the dust had settled, the ageless Devah were nowhere to be found; taken, the priests claimed, back to the Edge of Heaven by their angered Parents, and disallowed to physically rule over the jánah. Only through prayer and vision could they continue to guide their children. This was the beginning of the rise of temples devoted to the Devah in general, now viewed as “gods” in spiritual form only, and of the various Holy Orders representing them.



      So, as you can see above, there was indeed a period of time when the janah (including the first-born of the Great Mother and Father), all dwelled upon the world together through the first three ages. While the Devah walked the surface of Dárdünah in flesh, they had been expected to act as the "ultimate parents" of their own children, and though they no-doubt interacted with them directly (sometimes even amorously, as fate might have it), they were generally supposed to be stewards to the mortals of Dárdünah during the delicate ages of their development. That reference to Shrimán, in the tale of how the Caste System came about, being a "beloved and honorable son of the Devah Muhjíbh", might have indeed meant he was literally a direct child of the Devah, or it may merely have meant that Shrimán could trace his lineage back to Muhjíbh though many generations before him... To those sages who originally told that tale, it would have made no difference which meaning applied.

      It was the terrible outcome of the Devah Wars during The Thousand Years of Darkness that supposedly forced the Great Mother and Father to remove their firstborn children (the Devah) from the world so that such powerful beings would no longer directly have rule or direct physical influence over the weaker mortal jánah. It was only after that, when the Great Mother and Father hesitantly allowed Nagamíssa to return to the world in the flesh to secretly act as an advisor to the suffering Sarpah people's leader (this version of the story being primarily told in the northern Sarpah nations), that They forbade her from essentially having a child with a mortal (just as it had become forbidden for any of the other Devah to do so). When she disobeyed Them, in Their anger They forced her to return to the Edge of Heaven once again, but her tears fell to the world and became terrible demons, including a giant demon-vürtach that began ravaging her own people! She begged once again for Them to let her help her children, the Sarpah folk, but this time they only allowed her to visit her demi-god son in vision, and only let her bestow power into "gifts" he already possessed, which allowed him to defeat the terrible sky-demon, but at the cost of his own life. This is all outlined in the mythological lore of the The Padh-shu-sén Festival of the North (page 184 of the World Guide).

      As for more individual folktales of 'Krilárah's Amorous Adventures' or 'Hröpa's Infinite Appetite': those kinds of things might get elaborated upon later, either in our modules or mini-adventures we create, or perhaps in the eventual "Traveler's Guides" to the individual nations we have planned... Such tales might be the source fiction for shrines characters might visit, artifacts they might find, smaller localized festivals, holy places upon the world, or other interesting story-hooks that could be used for gaming purposes. Fun stuff!
    • Teenage Mutant Sarpah wrote:

      So...Hopefully have that to look forward to, learning about what each of the Talons lost in exchange for their powers I find it interesting that taste was one sense lost but not smell
      Yes,...that's right. Jvalah's sense of smell remained, but her mouth was forever filled with nothing but the taste of blood once she came into her full powers as a Talon... The aspects of what they lost were based more on mysticism and iconic meaning than they were limits to physiology specifically... It's fun to play with that kind of Karmic "give and take" when it comes to balancing power gained over loss suffered...
    • Initally when imagining the family I imagined them all as Golden Lion Tamerians like their ancestor Devah, after some time thinking about I began imagining Shriman as a golden lion tameran his wife as a Reeve's Muntajac, the first to children still as tamerans cuz I don't know their actions in the story remind of monkeys the next son who begat the Holy Caste is also a Tameran because he's described as small, the High Caste son as a lion, the trade caste as a domestic tabby cat and the youngest son as domestic bull