The stories in the Entekosiad are about Derdromos. ViSaruDaran and Turos are two of the Lodril like gods that defeat him. He is the lord of the underworld before ViSaruDaran comes and defeats him (by being compassionate, which he cannot bear, so he has to leave). Then ViSaruDaran wins the three earth goddesses. ViSaruDaran is obviously related to Lodril (and does the things Lodril does according to the Dara Happans - conquers hell and divides it into four parts), and Derdromos is referred to as the Monster Man, among other titles. The whole story is repeated with Turos (also a version of Lodril), though he simply beats up Derdromus, and wins only Oria. The footnotes (written from the point of view of Valare Addi, the Lunar T&Jer who collected the Entekosiad) identify Derdromos with Ganesatarus, but I think Monster Man is a better identification.
You could also make a good case for Azerlo, Derdromus' wife, as being identified with Annara Gor (Dara Happan goddess of the third underworld), as both of them seem old, and both are specifically said to be ugly. The fact that we know next to nothing about either of them helps. She is the one that helps ViSaruDaran to escape. Whats the Gor appelation doing here, anyway? Is it Dara Happan? I thought probably Esrolian.
Derdromus also makes people lose their way, so that they do not receive the secret of immortality from the Moon Goddess (only creatures who shed their skins learn the secret).
>However this does not gibe with troll perceptions of ZZ as a
>Troll Death God or (IMO) human perceptions of him as the Dark
>Side of Lodril.
I'm not convinced that Monster Man is the Dark side of Lodril, more likely Lodrils great Enemy - a mistake an outsider might make, but never a worshipper.
And as for Monster Man being identified with Zorak Zoran - I think the link here is tenuous at the very best. Monster Man is more a jealous god of the dead, like Hades or Arawn, than a vicious killer. He defeats ViSaruDaran by playing ouranekki (a mysterious board game) for a little bit of his power each time, and always winning. That doesn't sound like ZZs style to me! Monster Man is the old Lord of the Dead, not the wielder of death - you come to him, he doesn't come to you.
So I think ZZ as the Dark Side of Lodril will remain most emphatically IYO, as I don't think either half of your thesis (Monster Man = Dark Side of Lodril, ZZ = Monster Man) is very plausible.
So tell me who it is that believes that ZZ has three eyes, and we can come up with another theory.
Anyway, while I showing of that I am such a sad waste of life that I brought the Entekosiad to work to answer questions like this one (actually to help me keep up with the Shargash debate raging in email, in the hopes I might actually contribute), here is another Entekosiad theory.
The Ash Man.
The Ash Man is a folk myth of how death comes. At birth, you are
given an Ash Man, and as the flame of life burns your spirit, the Ash Man
gets stronger, until he struggles with your flame of life, you get sick, he
wins, you die, and he carts you off to the halls of the Dead.
The question is - The Ash Man from Dorastor - is he an Ash Man in the same sense as the myth? Or is he something else entirely, and his ashy nature and his title mere red herrings? And if he is an Ash Man (basically, a personal death), who or what is he the Ash Man of?
The alternative is that it is all mere coincidence, and he is basically a spirit of the land, like a nymph, but he was turned into the ash man when the ash flat was devastated, and is ashy as a representation of its state. I guess you could even come up with a theory that combined both - to defeat the spirit of the land that was once the ash flat, someone summoned up its Ash Man, which killed it, dragged it to the halls of the dead, but then returned to haunt the wreckage it had created.
Too much bloody Gloranthan obscurity for today, anyway
Cheers
Dave
The Gods only know how to compete or echo - Gilgamesh
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
-William Blake
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