Dismembered Ducks

From: Stewart Stansfield <stu_stansfield_at_eZbZG4WVGSixitjhpoigDCzyMDX_HtjIoH38PiIIhxxxzx_7s_BGgSVozw9Mt>
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 14:08:29 -0000


I was going to add a little (or large) myth to the ongoing discussion, but guessed that if I did, I'd be told off. I don't mind if you lot tell me off... hey, way things have been going, it seems to be getting rather kinky... This a rapidly typed, abbreviated version:

In My Glorantha...

The Drulzekki or Caladran durulz worship the great volcano god Loueydril, the first true sun. 'Louey' (to other Greater Gods at their weekly poker game) was instigator of all creation when he ate the Cosmic Chilli.

He was happily flapping along on his migratory jounrey across the infinite void, as ducks are prone to do, when he started feeling a bit peckish. Thus came one of the first thoughts... 'hunger'... which is the bane of all races today, especially trolls. Louey, being an omnipotent being, turned these thoughts into reality, and created the Flavoursome Firepepper. It was his first creation, and didn't all go to plan. There were still a few bugs in the system. And we're talking about a chilli on a par with the one Homer ate in that Simpsons episode.

The chilli roared through his belly and shot out the other end (not without some pain), coalescing into the land of Guanote'ela. Yet though the chilli had departed, the pain continued, and a great fire arose within Loueydril's body. His feathers sweated blood and in doing so gave birth to the First Son, Xlaloc Xorn, the manifestation of Violence. Still the heat grew, and Loueydril created his Second Son, the Wind, blustery Umatathoa.

But the inferno would not abate, and the buring inside drew great salty tears to his eyes, which gushed over Guanote'ela as the Qlolac the Sea, the Third Son. *That's* why the seas are salty. A great irritation and itching befalls his beak, and he sneezes out a portion of his inner burning as Kwala'ikki the Mischief-Maker, Fourth and Final Son. Finally he can take the remaining heat no longer, and the body of Loueydril bursts into flame, and he becomes the sun.

Louey shone down on his creation, and when the lingering elements of his pain had passed, was quite impressed.Guanote'ela grew under his gaze, and it was then that Loueydril noticed another...er...effusion among the land, a shining white egg. From this hatched Drulzekka the Egg-Mother, who rapidly bossed all the bickering Sons into order. She mated with the sons and in turn bore more eggs, from which hatched the Drulzeks, the chosen race of creation.

Other races and beings were created from the rich matter of Loueydril's stool. The Trolls ad Dwarves grew out of the dark gunk of Guanote'ela to mold its form (in opposing ways). Plants grew so as to feed the Drulzeks, especially plantains... yum!, and were guarded by the Yellow Elves.

Things started to go a bit wrong when Umatathoa the Wind Lord got all naughty with a licentious primal force known only as the Earth Witch. Their child was called Orloc the Stormfire. He lacked a bill and feathers, but was fairly furry (which is why all the Heortlings are hairy, see?). His kin were known as hwooomansh in Drulzek parlance, and as soon as they appeared things started going to the cleaners.

Umatathoa, Orloc, the Earth Witch and Welm (a being who had arisen from gold, got funky with the Earth Witch and created his own race of hwooomansh) got together with Argana'a'a'a'a'a the Troll King, and decided they didn't like the superior, beneficent and wholly wise rule of Loueydril and the Drulzeks, and were going to do something about it. Umatathoa tore off his own bill and got the dwarves to fashion it into a gigantic duck whistle.

They then got one of Orloc's flunkies, Yurmaal, to take this whistle, and lure Louey into a trap. Unsuspecting, Loueydril followed the enticing cadences of Yurmaal's music, and rather sillily followed him down into the Abyss of Woe. When he reached its infinite bottom (yeah, yeah) he was shocked to see Yurmaal before him. But before he could react, Umatathoa cast down Orloc Stormfire, who shore off the Creator's wings.

If this wasn't bad enough, after they whisked Yurmaal out of there, the Earth Witch and Argan-a'a'a'a'a'a'a'a'a'a'a'a'a'a'a'a....a grapped a huge piece of Guanote'ela and lumped it right on top of the Abyss of Woe, trapping Loueydril there. This became known to humans as the Vent. And his trappers were called forever after the Darkbringers.

To say the ducks were pissed at this is an understatement. The world went dark, and when the benign gaze of Loueydril was gone, Chaos started seeping into the world. Yes, that includes Kwakodemon and Quackboth, who formed themselves in the form of the Drulzeks so as to tempt them to badness. At this point, the ducks were torn. Turn to fight Chaos, as even the Darkbringers were doing, or try and free their Creator?

It is now that the tale turns especially sad. For the greatest warrior of the Drulzeks was Xlaloc Xorn, the First Son. He fought Chaos long and hard, but when the Darkbringers agree that Welm should rise into the sky as the False Sun, he could stomach this insult no longer. Some say that he made a pact with Chaos, and turned his anger onto the Darkbringers. Climbing to the very top of the Vent, he lept into the sky and slew Umatathoa with one stroke, regaining for himself and his followers the power of flight, which all other drulzeks had lost with the mutilation of Loueydril.

Then he rose to face Welm himself. Welm's fire was powerful, and burned off all of Xlaloc's feathers, leaving a leathery hide. Yet he wounded Welm, who can only stay in the sky for so long each day, and sinks below the ground so that he can heal himself with the poultices of the Earth Witch. Xlaloc Xorn waits at the Gates of Dawn for Welm every dawn, to do eternal battle. His followers became the Xorns (or Sorns) and are vicious warriors of the Eastern Isles.

Qlaloc raged meaninglessly in the oceans, caring little for the predicament of his kin. Only Kwala'ikki and Drulzekka remained true out of Loueydril's first children. They, together with the first duck Ducka Fowl and Kuaktxulub the Eviscerator, Xlaloc Xorn's greatest lieutenant who had seen the error in his master's ways, went on a quest to try and free the Creator... a quest that would become known as FOUR AGAINST THE DARKBRINGERS.

They found a passage that wound deep beneath the Vent, down into the Abyss of Woe. Below them they could see the burning, raging form of their creator, but they had lost the power of flight, and could not reach them. Then Kuaktxulub had a cunning plan.

"Hold on folks, I've got a cunning plan!" he cried.

And then he performed the first ever Evisceration Yodel Beserk. "Come here, Ducka Fowl" he beckoned, and Ducka Fowl, old, senile and never the brightest of the nest, edged forward. Kuaktxulub then raised his razorclub--his weapon, a klanth-like form that he stolen when he slew the Scaled King--and sliced it across Ducka Fowl's belly.

"What the...?!?!?!" Ducka shrieked, but Kuaktxulub ignored him and drew out
his intestines, forming a ladder. He cast it down into the Abyss, but it would still not reach.

"It won't weach!!!!" screamed Loueydril, panicking in a manner rather
unbefitting of the Lord of Creation.

"Yeah, yeah... keep you feathers on," muttered Kuaktxulub. With a dangerous
look on his face, he raised his razor-club and spun round... only to strike nothing, and hear the flippersteps of Drukzekka and Kwala'ikki flapping off into the distance.

"Bugger" emoted Kuaktxulub, looking down at the disembowelled form of Ducka
writhing on the ground. Now Kuaktxulub was no coward, and he knew what he had to do. Once again he evoked the powers of the Evisceration Yodel Beserk, and with admirable (?!) courage plunged the razor-club into his own belly. Out slopped a steaming mass of death god's innards, which Kuaktxulub happily gathered up and affixed to Ducka's on Kuaktxulub's Ladder.

Again he cast it down, but still it wouldn't reach. "Hold on, I'll be back in a jiffy!" he called down, and hobbled off, a little the worse for wear, back up to the Overworld. This is the reason why Drulzeks seek to capture their enemies, whom are then ritually disembowelled by yodelling Kuakti priests on the skull-formed ziggurat of the High Temple of Loueydril. Their intestines are cast down the slick steps into the lava-lit Smoking Lake out of which the foul temple rises.

Underneath the Smoking Lake is Kuaktxulub's Realm of the Dead, a horrid mirror image of the realm above. He collects the intestines, and fashions them into a ladder that will one day prove long enough to rescue raging Loueydril. And then you'll be for it. When a Kuakti warrior dies, he is ritually disembowelled and sent on a reed boat into the smoking mists, so that his God may take him.

Erm... it's still a little sketchy after this...

Stu.            

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