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 Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 10:54 pm
[ Here Goes A Banner ]
1. You Are Here
2. History of the Nosoi and Daimones
3. The Past; A Forgotten Affliction
4. The Present; Thirlane Road
5. The Future; Notes from An Accountant
6. The Terrible Times of Etteras, Former Priest of the Goddess Anitel
7. Here There Be Accoutrements
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 10:55 pm
The Nosoi
In Greek mythology, the breadth of human emotion and condition is personified by the daimones. They were many and varied, some seen as spirits or demons, some as minor deities or gods. Some even developed cults of followers. Most were something far, far less.
The daimones had form and intelligence, their shapes and minds as varied as human emotion itself. They included Nike, Eris, Hypnos, and the fearsome Keres.
The Keres were among the evils released by Pandora's box. Dark, winged things that feasted on the dead of the battlefield, they screeched and clawed and terrified.
Silent but no less terrifying were the nosoi, or sicknesses. They came from that mythic box as well. Vast in number, they ranged from the weakest of ailments to the deadliest of diseases. They were so vast and terrible that Zeus, to ease man's suffering, took the power of speech away from the nosoi. They became a silent affliction, but still a powerful one. Even today, when the gods are long gone, the sickness and death from Pandora's box remains.
< o >
History
The nosoi (sing. nosos) were spirits, frequently associated with the Keres, but quite broader. Where the Keres could be seen as death on the battlefield in specific, the nosoi embodied all manner of sickness in all walks of life. (As such, the Keres in their role as plague could be seen as a type of nosoi.) From Hesiod's description it is clear there were many nosoi, their exact number and names are not given. It's probable that some of the named daimones could be classed as nosoi, but for this concept I'm choosing to work with the idea of an unnamed one.
That's not to say that this concept's nosos in its own time did not have a name. Given that daimones are simply named for Greek words, it's presumable that any disease would have an associated daimon of the same name. In light of the fact that Zeus removed the power of speech from the nosoi, I decided it would be more interesting if this nosos's name had been forgot.
While the word demon may have its roots in the daimones, the concept is a vastly different one. The daimones are not specifically evil, or horned and winged, or any of the other things modernly associated with demons. They are good as well as evil and have no set features, though apparently most could fly. The Greeks and Romans both saw daimones merely as forces for good or ill, and many were seen as guardian angel-type influences.
The daimones are usually described as children of Nyx. Despite being born of Nyx, the vast majority are not considered gods, merely spirits, something between mortal and god. They could be seen as divine ideas and forces given shape. They are usually describes as flying or aery or otherwise unearthly. It's clear that while some were regaded as physical creatures, others were not existant on a physical level.
My largest basis for this nosoi concept is the information written by Hesiod. Though the mention is brief, it is very clear and informative.
Hesiod:
Of themselves diseases (nosoi) come upon men continually by day and by night, bringing mischief to mortals silently; for wise Zeus took away speech from them.
The fact that the nosoi are daimones provides a further area of related research.
A Roman equivalent of the nosoi is Morbus, a netherworld daemon who brought pestilence. Other presumable equivalents are Pestis, Lues, Macies, and Tabes, but less information is available save for the fact several are words for various diseases, including syphilis.
Further information on daimones and the nosoi can be found here:
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 10:58 pm
Thirlane's history in specific goes here!
Thirlane was some minor disease. People forgot his name. He got wiped out completey, either by modern (for x00 BC) medicine or maybe someone slayed him to defeat the ailment he represented.
Then he went to a party and got drunk and came home with a lampshade on his head!
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 10:59 pm
Who is Thirlane Road?
For now, my notes.
Thirlane's not a happy fellow. He can't talk. He was robbed of the gift of speech by Zeus. He's sort of given up on trying to talk, too. It's a good thing Etteras hasn't.
Thirlane is further gender-confused. Boy? Girl? Thirlane isn't either and isn't sure where his place into the world is. He doesn't like the word "it" because he's not an object, but he's not sure about male pronouns either.
Since Thirlane can't talk, he keeps a journal. Or at least he will if I ever finish him. It's written in Greek. He has trouble writing, though, and it takes him a long time to get his thoughts out. That's why he doesn't just carry around a notepad to try writing to people.
Thirlane likes tinkering with things. He tries to put things in order around Etteras's house. Since the world of communication is barred to him he focuses instead on the world of the physical, things instead of ideas. Whenever he sees people talking or especially debating he gets lonely, so he tries to mostly stay inside. When he's with groups of people he feels left out and forgotten.
Etteras is trying to teach him sign language. Thirlane eventually gets to be quite proficient with it.
Thirlane's very sickly. The disease he was now afflicts him. He also gets other illnesses. Irony. Poetic justice. Because he's always so sickly, sometimes Thirlane wonders if he should just give up. Being sick drains his energy and motivation to do things a lot of the time. He tries to continue because he wants to repay Etteras for everything.
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 11:01 pm
Notes from An Accountant: thoughts, designs, and plans.
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 11:03 pm
The Terrible Times of Etteras, Former Priest of the Goddess Anitel
Which weren't really so terrible.
Notes:
Etteras is the son of a high priest and a ceremonial virgin. (A virgin only at the times of ceremony, that is. Apparently.) His father was very important, his mother not so much. As a virgin's child, Etteras was slated to be castrated, a fate he never fought. He was raised in the Temple of Anitel. He felt distanced from other children because of his scheduled castration. He liked the illuminated texts of the scriptures and studied to become a priest.
He was a fairly quiet person, seeing no point in trying to make anything else of himself despite the urging of some of his friends. He didn't want to anger the goddess.
So he became a priest and did that for a while, but found no real joy in it. The other priests thought he was sort of a downer. His friends all went off to pursue their own lives outside the temple, except for the one of two other temple children who entered the priesthood, too.
Anitel was frustrated by his lackluster performance and gave him a quest to complete, but he failed it. They exiled him from the priesthood. He found some work doing minor healing magic and decided to study magic, but never managed to commit to any specialty. While tinkering with portals Anitel took pity on him and ousted him through one to the University of Magic. He puttered around there for a while collecting lots of stuff, starting about a million projects and never finishing any.
He's rare in that he lacks an elemental alinment. He can do prettymuch any kind of magic. If he'd stick with one for any length of time he'd be a formidable mage, but he just shifts endlessly from one thing to another. Jack of all trades, master of none.
He knows a little bit of most any magic you can think of. Illusions, charms, sorcery, conjuration, necromancy, divination, teleportation, summoning, scrying, enchantment, the list goes on and on. He even knows some card tricks.
When the University closed they gave him a job at the Council of Mages out of pity. He's an adjuctory member who sits in an discussions just to oversee and assist. He's mostly used for magical classification, a task so tedious even he finds it boring, but since he knows a little bit everything he's quite good at it.
He still prays to Anitel and she protects him. As frustrating as she finds Etteras, she does have genuine affection for him as a temple child.
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 11:05 pm
Accoutrements
Thirlane is named after a street in Roanoke, Virginia. Etteras recently stayed at a motel on Thirlane Road. The words were then stuck in his head, he could not get them out. Clearly they had some great power. When he found this wand child who could not speak, he gave the words to the child, thus ridding himself of their influence and empowering the wordless one.
Thirlane's image song of a sort is Freezing, by Suzanne Vega and Philip Glass.
If you had no name
If you had no history
If you have no books
If you had no family
If it were only you
Naked on the grass
Who would you be then?
This is what he asked
And I said I wasn't really sure
But I would probably be
Cold
And now I'm freezing
Freezing
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