Asides Part 2
These pages are meant to be read alongside the lore - ideally as optional / additional informative information, so it doesn't forceably interrupt the pacing. Dip in+out as you read along for some context (both mythological and game-based) peppered thoughout your lore-read. Wait, didn't we go through this before?
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Nidhoggr & The Ecosystem of Yggdrasil
Yggdrasil (and to a lesser extent Nidhoggr) is a relatively central entities and concept within the Norse Panthon, and one I'll dedicate a bit of time to, given how the entirety of Yggdrasil was unceremoniously boiled down to a plot device within the lore.
But first of all - derailment. Obviously.
Yggdrasil is one of a somewhat common feature within world mythologies - a World Tree. It might be the most famous example, but it's far from the only one, with the general 'concept' of a tree being the foundational backbone of reality being mirrored in religions and folklore across every single continent; with a few other examples in Pantheons represented in SMITE too!
Yggdrasil itself, (while not a really talkative type being a fuckin' Tree) was delightfully said to be in constant, unrelenting agony whenever communicated with; and either solemnly and nobly performing it's duty of 'just existing' (choosing to live with the pain) OR yearning for the sweet release of death. Being eaten alive by dragons / heavenly deer above, below and on all sides, rotting from the outside and having some old bitches rub sand in the wounds does that to a tree.
In-lore, we're at the Lake of Hvergelmir, however the roots of Yggdrasil branched mainly into 3 areas (don't forget, interdimensional mega-tree here - Ratatoskr puts ultramarathon-runners to shame for some gossip); the aforementioned 3rd root-cluster headed to Hvergelmir Lake within Helheim, but also the 1st root-cluster into Urdarbrunner Lake within Asgard and the 2nd cluster into Mimisbrunner Lake within Jotunheim - the three lakes being the source of Creation, Knowledge and Wisdom in that respective order.
To begin with let's start our tie-in with who you already know and who's just been mentioned - Nidhoggr.
Nidhogg(r) was the Norse-Hell's / Helheim's chief tormentor of the especially-evil souls, and was also the entity Ratatoskr would relay unironic, infamously petty, bickering / gossip 'messages' to, from Vedrfolnir, a pale hawk that lived perched between the eyes of a giant nameless eagle atop Yggdrasil (who between the two birds, were said to have saw and known of all things). Nidhoggr himself is easily the most iconic Norse iconography still known of today, as he was the most common dragon seen on the bow of Viking Longships (usually along with, but more commonly than, 2 little dragons you might have heard of - called Fafnir and Jormungandr), and within various other design motifs. These iconic Viking longships translate literally as Dragonships - with their figureheads being the foundation for later historic vessels to have such designs on the front, to bring a combination of good luck and characterizing the vessel - later medieval vessels opting for intricate maidens (or for the English, Lions). Not to be confused with Dragon Boats, a Chinese vessal that features in-game as a ward skin, representative of Chinese Dragons, who in of themselves are their cultura version of water spirits / entities.
Nidhoggr and other various dragons also appear on structural corners and sometimes isolated obelisks, as a way to ward off the worst evils. If the Celts were still around, they'd probably quite mortified and exraordinarily offended to see that Cu Chulainn's Rage meter is a motif of Nidhogg (yep, that's who it is), given they were regularly under attack from the Norse.
As for 'who' Nidhogg is, he was Gigantic Dragon / Adder / Wyrm that lived in the Lake of Hvergelmir (source of the 11 Elivgar rivers - not only source of all water in reality, but also the source of creation itself, and technically the thing that brought about Ymir so lets hope the dragons don't shit in the drinking water) and was the chief of all the innumerable named (Grafvitnir, Grafvolludr, Goinn, Moinn, Grabakr, Svafnir, Ofnir etc) and unnamed wyrms and serpents that would chew on the roots of Yggdrasil, that were each individually seen as other punishers / tormentors for more specific evils. Nidhogg took care of the real Norse scumbags, but there still were other crimes that needed punishing, with their respective, specially annointed punisher. These wyrms also doubled up as the jailers and overlookers for Hel, while she overlooked the mundane dead within the same realm (Helheim being a subsection of Niflheim, the roots of Yggdrasil acting both as a home for the wyrms and a gilded cage for Hel).
Nidhogg's specific allocation was to chew, strike (bite) and torment the absolute worst souls in the Norse afterlife, primarily the crimes of traitors and oathbreakers - but on the side, also dealing with extreme examples of murderers and rapists; such as serial killers or mass-rapists who would target virgin women (don't forget, this was back in the day, pre-feminism bullshit, when no-hymen-no-diamond wasn't 'a' media-shunned standard, but 'the' prerequisite for most hypermonogamous marriages). Such untrustworthy / evil types of living people were known as Nid [TL: 'consumed-by-darkness' or 'malice-filled'], like how prisoners will call similar types 'snitches' or 'rats' today. To fill the etymology out, -hoggr was a suffix of 'to snake-strike' [TL: a verb for the action of a striking snake, but also a concept of 'chewing / consuming in the first bite'] - hence 'Nidhoggr' translates as anything from 'Chewer of Mailce' or 'Striker in the Dark'. Layers of definition, lots of interpretation. Also if you remove some letters you get Niggr, lol, even if the -r is semi-silent
On the other hand, Nidhoggr had an equally important role for the dead, this time at the end of the time / Ragnarok - namely to ferry the souls of the survivors and greatest examples of humanity to the hidden, golden paradise of Gimle - a place enigmatically thought to be outside of the 9 Realms itself. While this is less known of today, Nidhoggr was definitely a notable figure for the Norse - he was both the greatest punishment and the pathway to the greatest reward any one person could attain as a result of their actions in life.
On the other hand, there are many more named beings surrounding Yggdrasil. Aside from the main 3 (4) animals of Yggdrasil;
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- Ratatoskr - The Tusked Squirrel / Rodent, Messenger of Yggdrasil, scurrying around all over the tree and relaying instigative gossip between...
- Vedrfolnir & The Eagle - The Pale Hawk and it's mount, Overlookers of the 9 Realms, located on the highest branch of all of Yggdrasil.
- Nidhoggr - The Great Dragon, {See above}, located at the lowest entry-point of the lowest roots of Yggdrasil at the Lake of Hvergelmir.
there also was also;
[Sorry for the formatting, it's the only way I can condense the bullet points]- Eikthyrnir {Ike-Thi-Yuh-Nir} - Another very well known animal next to the main 3, a large, Ethereal / Heavenly Stag, who would chew on both the central barks of Yggdrasil and within the Laerdr (the best grazing spot Yggdrasil has to offer, a grove of immaculate foliage that branched just above Valhalla, within the realm of Asgard), and whose antlers created the water that replenished Hvergelmir (cascading off it's antlers like rivers / waterfalls down the tree) - similar in concept to how the River Ganges is said to flow from Shiva's hair.
- Heidrun - Similar to Eikthyrnir, but chewed solely on the Laerdr section of the tree - the only difference was that Heidrun was a small goat that had to stretch it's neck as high as possible, and was constantly producing 'milk'. This 'milk' was the supremely high quality mead / alcohol for the nearby Valhalla, Realm of the Glorious Dead within Asgard.
In short, Heidrun was Valhalla's beer tap. - Mimir (or as his friends called him, Mim
- no, really) - A Jotunn / Frost Giant that drank from Mimisbrunner (named after him) and was known as the wisest being in the Universe. 'Was' being a key word, as he was beheaded during the Aesir-Vanir war - while his headless body still dranksfrom Mimisbrunner, his talking, decapitated head was Odin's chief advisor. Is also the reason why Odin is missing an eye - he willingly sacrificed it, in a trade for wisdom from the Mimisbrunner (as in, Odin didn't lose it in conflict). - The Norns (Urdr, Verdandi & Skuld - literally Past, Present and Future) - Three Crones that acted similar in function to the more famous Moirai of Greek pantheon (Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos) as the ones who oversaw Fate; literally known as 'the Fates' within Old Norse language (again, like the Moirai were to the Greeks). The departure however comes from their day-job - unlike the Moirai's iconic thread-spinning, it was the Norn's job to collecting the dew of life's memories for themselves as it condensed over Yggdrasil, and in exchange for the memories of all living things used a mix of water and sand from the Lake of Urd to patch up Yggdrasil's rot with ultra-fertiliser - essentially gardeners / tree doctors of the Universe.
- The Harts (Dainn, Duneyrr, Durathror & Dvalinn) - Four Red Deer (similar to Eikthyrnir, but lacking the scope / importance), that perched within the misty upper branches near Vedrfolnir, and whose chewing created the source of all the minor rivers throughout the Realms as it cascaded from their antlers. While it's uncertain what they represented, their ominous names (Dead, Deafening, Unconscious and Slumbering Growth respectively) and characterisation as supremely apathetic and / or undead
yeah, Norse Pantheon's got Zombie Deer, bitchindicated that they were the Patrons of the Seasons (it's complicated). - Vidofnir & Hraesvelgr - Another duo of birds, similar to Vedrfolnir & The Eagle, but rather than being perched at the top branches, they would instead fly around around the upper branches or just above Yggdrasil, placing them at the absolute top of Reality. Vidofnir was a rooster that (again) sat at atop of the beak of the larger bird, but instead of being one of the more famous / cool / well known Apocalypse-alert Roosters that existed throughout the various Realms, he was pretty obscure and had the role of watching the gates of Helheim to make sure there were no escape attempts on behalf of either the dead or Hel herself. Garmr may have been the guard dog and enforcer of Helheim, but was too friendly towards Hel, and if any souls escaped he would ultimately be stuck inside Helheim - Vidofnir was the watchman who tracked the ones who were on the loose for later detainment.
In this duo however, Hraesvelgr is the more well-known of the two; given as a colossal polymorphed Jotunn with a huge wingspan that was responsible for the source of all winds, as he soared around Yggdrasil (usually in a Northern direction). Also, Hraesvelgriswas the only other animal native to Yggdrasil after Ratatoskr who has currently a direct depiction within SMITE. Prior to Odin's Onslaught.
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Tanuki & Robin Hood
tl;dr related is as close as you're ever going to get to robin hood, bitch
not the amaterasu skin you moron, the two thieves in the foreground
- small, furry, and non-canon
Wait.... am I derailing with this Aside again? ... ... Of course I am lmfao
To take this from the top - what the fuck even is a Tanuki, and where does Danzaburou come into the equation?
Tanuki, much like Kitsune, are the Japanese understanding of the animal of the same name. The word 'Kitsune' is simply the Japanese translation for a fox, because to a historical Japanese understanding, all foxes were inherantly magical. Likewise, Tanuki are simply raccoon dogs, because to the historical Japanense understanding, all raccoon dogs are inherantly magical. And no, raccoon-dogs are not raccoons, raccoon-dogs are different to coons and genetically closest to small dogs (as the name implies), while raccoons are closer to Coatis and other Ringtails. In reference to the pic below, they may have similar markings and build, but Racoons have much more dextrous hands and feet, while raccoon-dogs simply have paws (on top of other distinct differences, such as their skull shape, ears, size and walking pattern - raccoon-dogs again being much closer to dogs than racoons).
As for words used in close association to Tanuki - Bakedanuki / Bake-Danuki is just another name for Tanuki (or more specifically referring to them in a monsterous / Yokai-context, even though the terms are interchangeable, and Tanuki is far more colloquially used in both cases), while Mujina are a closely related but ultimately separate species of Yokai, linked to badgers over raccoon-dogs.
The Tanuki assume a role of one of Japan's many regional yokai trickster-races - not the only ones, but definitely one of the most colloquially known. With their deft polymorphing skill, innate luck, signature belly drum to announce their deception from a distance, and a penchant for meddling in other's affairs; one might even think of them simply as the harmless and iconic joke-creatures they're modernly advertised as - but they are still Yokai nonetheless, and like the vast majority of yokai, the source of their power is unbridled resentment. Tanuki have absolutely no inhibition in performing outright malicious and evil acts if given the chance - ranging from abducting (and killing) children, tricking merchants with their 'wares' with the explicit intent of starving them to death once the con is over, setting buildings on fire (to 'hilariously' drop water on the fleeing inhabitants heads, and just leaving the trapped ones to die) and even possessing other creatures to lead them to their unwilling death (as they're still conscious, trapped in their body).
And if a Tanuki's back is to the wall, there's nothing stopping them just outright slaughtering anything that can overpower... which they will then incorporate into their next prank (exemplified in the widely known Japanese childrens-tale called Firecrackle Mountain / Kachi-kachi Yama - which starts with a particularly stupid Tanuki getting caught, yet it successfully tricks and murders a naive woman... before tricking her husband / it's captor into unknowingly cannibalising her cooked remains).
It's all for laughs - and they've got a pretty desensitised sense of humour.
lol
The Tanuki however..... are fucking morons.
The Taunki are powerful, capable and more than willing to do extreme harm to those around them, however are simply too stupid to ever present any meaningful threat for the most part, at best making fools of those around them - and anything past that, resulting in them making fools of themselves instead. Combine this with their diminutive physical abilities and penchant for blind alcoholism, and they're certainly one of the more harmless Yokai species, and are generally looked fondly upon for their antics, on top of the general luck that's brought to their surrounding while one is around.
This sheer stupidity, combined with their underlying vicious and evil streak is also the source of an iconic feud in their mythological 'rivalry' with Kitsune race of Yokai - the Tanuki envious of what the Kitsune are capable of in practiced skill and deception, while the Kitsune embarrassed and annoyed that they have to deal with the retarded Tanuki on the daily, as the Kitsune actually have responsibilities by being envoys of the Divine (and also having less 'raw' magical capabilities than what a Tanuki can do, if it wasn't so damn stupid). The Kitsune appear stern and are known to be easy to anger, but are benevolant for the most part (Tamamo-no-Mae / Da Ji being the definite exception), meanwhile the Tanuki are jovial and merry... as they actively plot your ruin and / or death for a cheap laugh. Just... incompetantly so.
To further compare with the Kitsune, while 'powerful' Kitsune are simply the longest lived ones (manifesting up to nine tails), there is no such distinction between Tanuki. For the most part Tanuki are isolate creatures, and the only physical variation in their species is..... how 'lucky' they are (aka; how huge / golden their testicles are) - otherwise, they're beholdant to nothing and operate on their own. With one exception.
Much like bandits, Tanuki find themselves forming gangs around successful and famous examples of their species, hence the various local racial-leader-Tanuki around Japan. There's no co-ordination, no central 'council' and no outright 'leader' of the Tanuki (if you were thinking along the lines of Skaven), but most regions of Japan have a local Tanuki tale, which usually manifests as the 'leader' in a given area.
Yet even in a psudeo-race with a genetic pool as hopelessly polluted as the Tanuki, there is still a chance for the birth of a kind of prodigy that only appears once every thousand years similar in a way to what Otto van Bismark was to the germans
At least.
It happened.
Danzaburou had arrived.
What made him unique?
He wasn't retarded.
Sado Island is a relatively large island in North-Central Japan, with a high population of raccoon-dogs and where foxes are all but extinct - and coincedentally or not, where Danzaburou calls home.
In typical backwaters local-legend style, there's many variations of the myths surrounding Danzaburou, however the most prominent one is the one where he successfully genocides purges the rival Kitsune from the island.
As the myth goes, Danzaburou, hosted the rival Kitsune of Sado Island for a drinking party - having previously lobbied for the two yokai-races to at least become cordial with one another. The Kitsune, not as experienced at holding their drink, were easily manipulated by Danzaburou, and by no time he had them bragging about how much better they were at polymorphing than their Tanuki hosts, and that the best a Tanuki could do was a disguise themselves a sorry bush or gangly tree - until Danzaburou sternly declared he was greater than all of them combined, and that he could defeat them all by the end of the month if he wished. The Kitsune mistook Danzaburou's threat for a joking challenge, and Danzaburou simply stated that he would put on a grand procession through the streets of the island-capital, disguised as the Feudal Lord himself, in front of all the humans present. The Kitsune, still slightly drunk, took him up on this, and wandered over to the streets, only to find such a grand parade passing through the streets. The Kitsune, snuck into the procession, and played along for a while, disguised, until one exclaimed that the Feudal Lord himself that he was an amazing imposter, and that the foolish humans were none the wiser.
What the Kitsune did not realise was that Danzaburou's dealings with the humans meant he had timed his party at the same time as the parade - the more recluse Kitsune having not meddled in the affairs of humans unless necessary. Immediately, the entire military parade turned on the Kitsune - but as the Kitsune ran for the forest, they could find no path back in.
What the Kitsune did not realise, was that the new gangly trees and sorry bushes that lined the road were the perfectly disguised Tanuki, blocking their escape.
And for the few that escaped, what the Kitsune did not realise, was that Danzaburou had wanted them all dead from the very beginning - as they were promptly hunted down and killed by the overwhelming number of Tanuki left.
And on that day, every last Kitsune was genocided off of Sado Island, placing Danzaburou as the chief of the Yokai and supernatural affairs on that island - even above some the major Gods that the Kitsune served (eg Inari). From there on out, Danzaburou and his small bandit-army of Tanuki would appear in a variety of nameless folk legends, usually placing him as a source of all mischief and general pest for the denizens of Sado island. It's simply due to Sado Island being detatched from the rest of Japan, that nothing else more powerful came along to 'depose' him.
I'll admit I had to resort to cross-referencing Wikipedia for some leads on Danzaburou, owing to obscurity; only to find he's apparently one of the 'Big 3 Tanuki of Japan', reminiscent of the widely attested 3 Great Demons of Japan. A tall claim indeed! Something I've certainly never heard of before.... so, I chased the sauce up on such a claim - only to find it was 'sauced' from a literal who book from the 70's, equivalent in validity to those old unofficial videogame guides you'd find in the childrens section of a library, and is an ultimately meaningless categorisation.
This kids, is why you don't use Wikipedia, and certainly not without checking sauce - mythology in general is littered with this bullshit, with how subjective and cultural it can be - always DYOR where possible (yes, even if you don't trust something I've put here - wouldn't want to be hypocritical).
While I don't deny Danzaburou's cultural importance to Sado Island in any way, or perhaps this '3 Great Tanuki' grouping may be a legit thing (which I highly doubt, given the lack of mention literally anywhere else); nonetheless, all too often some faggot can write some fanfic down offsite and link it to the Wikipedia article as 'le citation', which then shows up on search engine due to SEO. It's basically how they use 'trusted news sauces' to politically slander people there too, with the rampant corruption between Wikipedia and Western media outlets. Oops.... shouldn't have said that... now I'll get a kotaku article saying I'm a cringe fake gamer, which'll become the first thing people see of me, when they look up who Lorefag is (now I guess you know why these people in media are still employed despite their otherwise lack of relevance).
It's also my sneaking suspicion as to why Danzaburou was chosen as the Tanuki rep in-game - the lazy interns just checked the Wikipedia and thought Danzaburou was a big guy (4 u) in Japan - instead of far more famous and collquially well-known legendary Tanuki such as Gyoubu or Shukaku & Bunbuku (the latter of which Danzaburou even makes references to in his voicelines). Tip-toppest of keks if so.
Oh, and for all you weebs out there, yes the designers for Danzaburou were well aware that Tanuki and Bakedanuki are supposed to have humongous testicles. To dodge the ESRB, you can see them hanging off his waist as metaphorical jars and I think you can see the au naturale ones swinging around in the open if you turn the model a few degrees, but in all honesty it looks more like a gunt than some balls. Even then in both cases, they're quite small - given most of Danzaburou's species would have to literally wheelbarrow their balls around, or sling them over their backs and wear them like hooded cloaks. For a Tanuki, the bigger / more golden their balls are, the luckier the specimen in question.
Don't ask why the Japanese are like this.
One thing's for sure though, Americoids are quite arrogant when they imply that perversion [literal word for which = Hentai] only became a thing in Japan after they dropped two nuclear warheads on ultimately secondary nip cities. Tentacle rape doujins can be attested back as far as 1800's Japan, 2 centuries before the Japanese surrendered WW2 because of the imminent Russian invasion. Oops... sorry burgerbros... truth hurts....
>So what does any of this have to do with Robin Hood, Sir Lorefag?
LoRez has been on record multiple times as looking for an excuse to put Robin Hood in the game for ages now (being highly disputed in-house, mentions of Robin going as far back as 2014), but couldn't bring themselves to do it.... because rea..so..n...s......
Even ignoring the Great Old Ones, Robin Hood (circa ~1200 AD) predates the Voodoo Pantheon outright; and his myth stems most solidly from Hereward the Wake (a guerilla Saxon leader against the Norman Invasion of the bong isles in 1066, who was kicking around the South-East of bongland in modern-day Norfolk / Essex - the 'band of merry men' being the peasant army leftover from Harold's failed campaign to deal with both Harald and William at the same time) - which therein further predates even more Pantheons.
If we have both Guan Yu (circa ~200 AD) and Da Ji (circa ~1000 AD) in the same Pantheon (a difference of ~800 years), then throwing the Archer into the Arthurian Pantheon (as Robin Hood, or as Hereward) as a leader of the Saxons (who are acknowledged in the lore) should have been fine (the difference being ~500 years, and on top, since Arthurians came through le isekai portal, could still have been played off in a way to work alongside one another). But yeah, again, I don't know and I don't even think they know, past whatever excuse comes to mind at any given time.
Even more oddly however, is that Danzburou is far from the best Japanese 'fit' for Robin Hood, with the absolutely legendary Goemon (and to a lesser exetent Nasu no Yoichi or Nezumi Kozo) mirroring many aspects of Robin Hood's myth.
Goemon fits the bill almost identically even, to the point he's commonly referred to in the West as 'the Japanese Robin Hood' - a thief ninja-samurai from a noble background, that stole from the rich to give to the poor, led his own band of merry men proto-revolutionary thieves, who was unnaturally skilled in combat / trickery, and came into direct conflict with the current rulers of the time - so famous in fact that he's become almost his own mythological entity within the abstractionist Kabuki theatre that Japan is known for (tl;dr YOOOOOOOOOOOOO). Goemon's legend departs from Robin Hood's in that while Robin is married to Maid Marian by King Richard the Lionheart after holding out against the tyrannical King John; Goemon ends up trying to kill two different Emperors of Japan (Nobunaga and Hideyoshi), and is promptly boiled alive along with his son in a giant kettle-pot after the second attempt fails (the pots nowadays being known as Goemonburo / Goemon Baths though at a lower temperature when people bathe in them).
The similarities are far moreso than... well, glorified vermin with oversized balls from an semi-obscure localilty. I unironically think part of the motivation was the furfags in LoRez wanting a small male animal to fantasize having sexual relations with. Unironically. Don't forget the degenerates we deal with here, just because they're too pozzed to show some boobs off doesn't mean the more cretinous ones can't work their influence.
And hey, he's had solid playrates since release, so who's to blame 'em.
Regardless, Danzaburou is referred to as 'like Robin Hood' quite a bit in his design notes - so the reason why this obscure coondog is in the game, is probably because he's about as spiritually 'Robin Hood'-y as LoRez were comfortable getting.
Maybe they'll do a Robin Hood skin for him in future based off that furfag version of him in that one movie. Maybe the pro-Robin-Hood sleeper cells within the dev team will somehow come across this loredoc, and USURP LoRez from the inside out after reading the triggerphrase "KILLALLWOGSLMFAO, GOAH GE' /ARELAD/ ROBBY'OOD IN'T GAME FER T' INGURLISH CAM ON LAD".
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SMITE!!! Geography
The implication is that they're at the ruins of the ex-coastal city of Ur, the town connected downstream from the major city of Uruk, which in turn was South of Babylon City proper - modern day South Iraq.
I say 'ex-coastal', as the coastline of the now Gulf of Persia has receded greatly, to the point it's farther inland than the length of Kuwait to the South. It has been nearly 6 millennia since it was built, give the place a break.
The counterpoint to this however, is that they're apparently at a tectonic line which caused much of the damage to the temple - which is impossible, as there was no cities within the Babylonian / Sumerian / Akkadian / Assyrian Empires that fit the bill of being both Coastal and particularly close to the Arabian / Eurasian faultline - the closest one being the near-ish-coastal city of Susa, a part of the Elamite Empire, which had a far more heavily modified version of the Mesopotamian Pantheon than it's regional neighbours, to the point you cannot make such direct comparisons as the afforementioned empires (which shared enough overlap between them that you could reasonably make a case for them being colloquially equitable).
Susa would not be absorbed by the Babylonians until the Neo-Babylonian Empire wiped out the Elamites around ~500BC - at which point the regional Pantheonic religions were on a decline anyways (in competition with the rising foundations of the Abrahamic religions) and so it wouldn't 'fit' as an ancient temple to a Primordial God.
It's a sorry state of affairs when I think it's at the very least plausible that they might have actually gone with the non-Babylonian Susa over Ur, because of the 'sus' meme that was prevalent at the time. Fucking clowns.
Smoothly and unsubtley segueing into the other topic of this Aside; on my trawl across the interwebz, I've come across many-a-map of "the SMITE Pantheons! on a map!!!". Well, pretty much all of them are wrong to some degree. Or shit. Or both. Most are both.
Which is where I come in! I just decided to do the most straightforward thing, and make a historically accurate + detailed map, with consideration for the variation in practice over time in each Pantheon.
The 'key' for the below maps is as follows:
- The darker regions refer to the 'core' areas the Pantheon was worshipped in. If said 'Core' moved over time (such as the Roman movement from Rome to Constantinople in the Byzantine times, or the gradual movement of Celtic focus from Central Europe to the Northwest of the British Isles) it just indicates which area SMITE is focusing on for brevities sake.
- The lighter regions indicate where the Pantheon was practiced in a major way and exerted influence at one point in history or another, with the a general cutoff ~1500 (because then it starts to mess with the 'natural' spread of the Pantheon's extent, such as for Hinduism during the British Empire)
- As for the additional lightest regions of all, for some Pantheons:
- For the Voodoo, I've gone to the liberty to indicate the areas it's formative Pantheons came from.
- For the Babylonians, I've made a similar distinction between the Babylonian Empire (Darker) and the Neo-Babylonian Empire (Lighter, less relevant), as the extent which the Pantheon varied between the two eras (the two 'Babylonian' civilisations being nearly a millennia apart, after all). Note, the area the Babylonians (and later Romans) were in, is indeed touching the coast - it's just the sealine has factually receded in the years since then.. and they didn't build cities in the sea.
- For the Slavs, the lightest region indicates the rough areas where 'Slavs' practiced 'Paganism', however weren't formally incorporated into wider 'Slavic Paganism'. It's just...... complicated. I (and you) ought to ignore said lightest region entirely, as they factually weren't part of the Pantheon. At the same time however, I already know if I didn't, somebody would "ACHSHUALLY POLAND IS SLAVIC RITE???" me, and I'm not going to be able to autistically lurk the thread 24/7 to be able taunt them for the humiliating fact that they're polish.
- For the Lovecraftians, there are narratives set all over world, from New England to Egypt, from the deepest Congo to Alternate Realities / Space. I've marked Lovecrat's home state and where he reasonably would have drawn inspiration from (as he sets quite a lot of his works in semi-local areas), however according to his canon, there is apparently quite a large concentration of Eldritch beings located in Antarctica (as described in the Mountains of Madne̷s̶s̴)̶,̶,̵ ̸s̴o̷ ̴I̶ ̶f̷e̵l̶t̵ ̷i̵t̶ ̴w̴o̷u̶l̷d̵ ̶b̶e̸ ̴a̸m̶i̸s̴s̶ ̶t̶o̴ ̵e̸x̵c̷l̷u̷d̷e̵ ̶t̵h̴e̸s̶e̵ ̶l̵o̸c̷a̵t̶i̵o̵n̶s̴ ̸o̵f̴ ̵f̷o̷c̶u̶s̵.̵ ̷I̶'̸v̷e̸ ̷a̸l̶s̸o̷ ̴p̸u̷t̸ ̸d̴o̷w̶n̵ ̵t̵h̴̺͌ę̴̋ ̶͙̆č̴̼a̵̳̓n̸͚͛o̵̮̓n̴̜͂ ̸͇̈́ļ̴̕ọ̸̎c̴͈̈a̸̠̔t̴̖̾ǐ̶̗o̶̞̐n̴̰̆ ̵̋ͅo̸̘͘f̶̩͊ ̴̛̱R̵̦͂'̵̨́Ĺ̵̠y̴͋͜e̷͚̾-,̶̙͠
P̷̢̛̪ḣ̸̫̜͊͝'̷̬̬̾̚͜͠n̴͓̑̽̀g̵̡̹̅̾l̸̨̻̭̋͋͒ú̴̱̘͖̀͑ȋ̷̟͗̕ ̴̞̭̼̎́m̷͎̓͌̍ģ̸͕̣̈́̑͗l̴̨̪͈̒̉̈́ẅ̵̮̗́̇̿'̴̹̝̌̽̿ṇ̷̐́̕ạ̵̛̭͔̅͠f̸͛̃͜ḧ̷̝͈́ ̵̪̫̌̀͝C̵̠͍͉̈́̏͑t̴͙͐͝h̸͎̳̜̋̑̊u̷̼̽̇̀ľ̸̺̈́̋h̷̙̕u̵̧̹͍̅́́ ̴̢͎̖̆͠R̶͚͔̖̈́'̷̞̞̊͝ĺ̷͓͉̯́͝ȳ̵̙̓e̵͇̿̏͜ḥ̵͈̏͋̚ͅ ̷͙̳̈́̇̐w̸̳̌̓̅g̶̭̀́a̴͇̾̾̒h̷͕̾'̸͇̖̄͂ñ̷̬̏a̴̧̜̞͐̎g̷̟͉̀̀̊l̴͔͓͗̂ ̴̜̹́̈́f̴͓̰̝̋̉h̷̪̪̭̎t̴̢̯̑́ͅa̸̟̪̾̽g̵̛̺̝͗͜n̷͙̪̰̋̃̊!̵͖̲̎͂̍͜
As a final >inb4, I've deliberately left the Hellenistic period for Greece out of consideration. While practices were essentially identical in the areas already accurately indicated / back at home for the Greeks, the Pantheon's practice in the areas that were conquered was notably different, to the point it's better identified as the Hellenistic Religion in it's own right.
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wat is, an how 2 beat a cthulhu
Look at this handsome devil.
"To R. H. Barlow, {Esq.(uire)}, whose Sculpture hath given Immortality to this trivial Design of his oblig'd ob'd'nt Serv't" Cthulhu (Profile sketch) 11th May 1934 - ~ - H. P. Lovecraft
If only burgers still spoke as elegantly as that today...
I'm also going to refer to Cthulhu as xe/xim, not because faggot pronouns; but because it will probably annoy you, it looks like mysterious alien words and reads better for the context of shit that nobody really understands (lol get fucked troons YWNBC). In-mythos it's a 'he', but it gets messy when considering the breeding patterns of the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods, as I'll later detail.
>hurr durr just ram a boat into xim to kill xim lol that worked in Lubcravts werk rite?
>yeah, incomprehensible mountainous blubbery alien horrors job to yachts all the time like when i threw my wife off of one for the insurance
Wrong, retard. Cthulhu effortlessly survives and immediately regenerates from that experience; and it's heavily implied to be an insanity-delusion / hallucination of Johansen anyways. Like a really fucking bad LSD trip where you see your arm explode and reform because you leaned it against a table. Except, instead of an arm, it's the monster chasing you. If it wasn't immediately obvious, everybody in the Call of Cthulhu is implied to have died, because it's a Lovecraft work.
See... one does not simply defeat an Eldritch being.
Let's take it from the top.
Cthulhu (pronounced K-houll-ou and phonetically spelt closest to Chulu, a seeming play on words for Cthonic, Cull and Ghoul; Cu-Thuu-Loo is just the faggot modern rendition) is one of Earth's resident Eldritch beings / Great Old Ones, and while probably the biggest xuy (4u) in the Earth-based Lovecraft mythos - xe ain't got shit on the power level of an Outer God, and instead fulfilling a role closer to that of a regional Archpreist to the based department Church of Eldritch Shit in the Lovecraftian canon (with other scaling comparisons generally putting most Outer Gods like Yog or Shub vs Cthu being like comparing a mundane Archpreist vs literal Angels, and Azathoth as not!God - they're just complete worlds apart in power scaling). Cthulhu's abode is a place known as R'Lyeh - a non-euclidian city located in the middle of the South Pacific, where in of itself, lack of understanding of non-Newtonian physics will get you at best lost, or at worst killed just by assuming something that is not the case.
Below is 'roughly' what such R'Lyehian non-euclidian architecture would look like. For Ares to successfully attack R'Lyeh in-lore, he'd have to be a fucking genius in terms of geometric mathematical theory. Or the lore intern wasn't aware of this, and just thought it was a fishy-city.
Fun Fact - R'Lyeh is actually in the game on a playable map - or more speficially in every playable map in the game, in the form of Cthulhu's Ult completely shifting the skybox. It's located in the South-East of every map, usually best visible on the Order side; which given most maps are set roughly in the European setting, is a directionally accurate reference. The huge mountains that appear to R'Lyeh's left are likely a reference to The Mountains of Madness; another work from Lovecraft. While there aren't any other direct references when Cthulhu Ults, the sunspot-sun on the current Assault map has a unique eldritch-y design for when Cthulhu Ults. I don't have an image of this skybox texture, and it'd be impractical to try to screencap, so you'll just have to keep an eye out for it in-game.
Described according to xis foetid holy idols / in-universe scary figurines as a miles-tall humanoid Octopus-Dragon (making xim technically the 4th playable 'dragon' in the game; after Ao Kuang, Fafnir and Jormungandr) that walks with a calculated stumble; Cthulhu's key strength (described as best as possible - don't forget this shit is supposed to be incomprehensible) is that xe can inferrably mind-read everything around xim, without relying on direct telepathy - like a kind of echo-location within the subconscious / unconscious realm, that allows xim to see all things of all types, anywhere and everywhere around xim. Xe then uses xis vast intellect to deduct what said things are from the information xe assertains from this 'all seeing vision' / the 'shape' of the unconscious, before shaping / influencing these thoughts and ideas without 'directly' altering with them (usually in the form of dreams and visions). Basically, the same way a bat uses echo-location, except Cthulhu can use the same thought-echoes to mould what xe 'sees' within consciousnesses, into what xe wants it to become. Omnipresence, mindreading and brainwashing all in one.
The downside of all this, is that (while not particularly malevolent, in xis own incomprehensible way) xis 'influencing' is akin to trying to use a wrecking ball to lightly drive a nail into plasterboard, simply because of the difference in powerlevel in xis mental fortitude vs everything xe deals with. And also, if you're too physically close to xim, it'll just obliterate your mental fortitude without xim even doing anything, like standing right next to an ultra-loud speaker and expecting your ears to come out un-blown. I mean, xe is trying to do it as lightly as possible, give the xuy a break. This usually ends up in driving every human xe interacts / interferes with completely mindbroken, insane and derranged (but ultimately getting xis general message across nonetheless). Not that xe particularly cares, humans are quite disposable and insignificant compared to xim, and xe's got more mortals to 'turn' to the light of the Outer Gods (or whatever incomprehensible message xis purpose is to spread).
Xe used to be able to use this echo-telepathy to communicate with the astral Outer Gods from light years away, but after an unknown event happened, xe was cut off from them, and in turn entered a kind of hibernation within the depths of the sea, at the heart of xis city, R'Lyeh (also referred to as xis bedchamber); only maintaining small cults on the surface for maintainence as xe slept, just for whenever xe'd get xis signal back - which is why xe's known as 'The Great Dreamer' (as xe's literally doing all this shit in xis sleep, xe's *just* that far above everything else). There's also the later implication that the original chief deities of the Chinese Folk Panthon (Fu Xi, Nu Wa, Shennong + the 5 Emperors including Yellow Emperor, and the Red Emperor that Xing Tian serves etc) are effectively on xis cult-payroll as xe sleeps, in exchange for immortality; as well as a few other long-term backup cults dotted elsewhere around the world, which may or may not be representitive of other Pantheons within the Lovecraftian mythos. It's canonicity is disputable at best.
In terms of combat / Cthulhu extermination purposes, xis incidental mindbreak powers are coupled with the innate strength that comes with being the size of a literal mountain, along with xis characteristic hyper-regeneration - yet at the expense that xis blubber-hide is actually pretty easy to destroy.
In gameplay terms it would have been interesting and accurate if Cthulhu had little Prots and Health (not just for a Guardian, but full stop), but could overcap on an already high HP5 to make up for it, while still retaining xis Guardian role (like Xing Tian's HP5 passive gimmick, but way more extreme). As of writing and ignoring abilities, Cthulhu is in middle of the pack in terms of the decent Guardian HP5 at Lv1 (oddly Nike & Gilgamesh being the tied highest at Lv1), and tied 4th highest at Lv20 (behind 10 other Gods) - but that's besides the point.
Cthulhu's really just not very combat-geared, xe's just a preist that has a major size and mental / psychic advantage. All in all, even considering xe was imagined before the Nuclear Era, Cthulhu might be able to tank 1-2 nukes on a good day at optimal angles, but otherwise it's an even matchup (Nuclear Warhead vs Cthulhu = Tossup match). Yes, modern day humanity could indeed quite easily dispose of a Cthulhu, if presented with the threat assuming the person launching them doesn't caught and mind-blasted into a catatonic state, because Cthulhu is listening to everything you think of, even if it's drowned out by the noise / thoughts of every other living thing in the Solar System. Given xe's been sleeping for millions (or more) years, without any contact from the Outer Gods, it's likely xe's the sole-outreach Preist for Earth that showed up on our doorstep, and so it wouldn't even be a Tyrannid-esque scenario either, where dealing with the first is only a herald for more to come.
Deal with Cthulhu, and the Outer God interference would pretty much be over and done with overnight. At least in our civilizational lifetime.
BUT (and this is a big BUT) - xe's technically immortal anyways until you kill xis respawn point... xis youngest child.
Yes, Cthulhu is a family ...m-man (???); and with xis far-off astral leech-wife-thing Idh-Yaa, xe has 4 kids (Shinzo Abe would be proud). From oldest to youngest, these include a writhing mass of mouths (Ghatanothoa), a frog-giant (Ythogtha), a tyrannosaur-starfish (Zoth-Ommog).... and finally, xis respawn point and only 'daughter', Scylla Cthylla, who will just rebirth xim every time xe dies (in Lovecraft mythos, associated more with The Kraken than Messina's Scylla).
I say family 'man' though, because Cthulhu may have cheated on Idh-Yaa, and had kids with loads of other Great Ones (no concept of loyalty...). One such example-child being with Nyarlanthotep..... who is also described as generally male, despite being formless. As a quickie on Nyarly (because he's the second most well known name in the mythos and I wanted to bring him up because xe fits the general bio that would be expected of the next Great Old One release), Nyarly's described as the 'One with A Thousand Forms' (or Crawling Chaos) with xis 'true form' seemingly being a humanoid 'thing' with multiple mouths all over xis body and thick tendrils in place of limbs / a head, but more commonly showing himself as either a pitch-black grimacing shadow-pharoh and most commonly / iconically of all a tall, handsome and jovial, yet pitch black gentleman in a sharp suit with slick hair "without the slightest sign of negroid features" (unironically think Roger from The Big O but pitch black). Rolewise, xe's the general messenger of the Outer Gods to the Great Old Ones, popping in, out, up and about in all kinds of random places; as a cross between an inspector, secretary and regional manager waaaaay above Cthulhu.
I don't imagine Lo-Rez went as far as to think this through (maybe because we already have a Scylla, but probably because the loli of the game being forceably asexually self-impregnated on astral command and painfully rebirthing a colossal tentacle monster wouldn't have flown well with... well, Western marketing at the very least), so the mechanic is probably gone from the SMITE Universe, but it's interesting nonetheless.
But by the Gods... since Scylla is already a skin-magnet, and there's already being a pretty large series of Eldritch skins spanning from before Cthulhu was even brought up in development... if they make a Cthylla Scylla skin, I can only think of the potential backlash those cashgrabbing morons would ge-
WAIT OHNONONONO It's not amiss that Terror of the Deep has a heart motif on her stomach either - and was seemingly made by the same outsourced artist that did many of the blatent furfag skins (Swift Scurrier Neith, Mouse Force Ganesha, Hammerhead Vulcan, Dragonspawn Horus etc). I think that genuine degenerate knew exactly what they were doing....
...do it faggots, i dare you, see what happens.
So to finish up this aside summarily - how 2 kill cthulhu gg no re in-lore?
Medusa (or/or Stheno / Euryale).
Xe literally can't not-look at her, xe's not technically damaged at all for xis hyper-regen to kick in (as xe'd be 'converted' to stone) and xis corporeal body is still present as not to warrant a respawn; probably the biggest upset / hardcounter possible in SMITE. At the end of the day, Cthulhu isn't a God in the slightest or any sense of the term. In line with the Cthulhu mythos - xe's just an incomprehensibly intelligent and powerful worshipped creature relative to us, and can die all the same.
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Well...
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Technically.
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After all...
......that which is not dead can eternal lie; and with strange aeons even death may die......
*Note to self: Trying to make sure everything is incorrectly spelt xe / xim / xirs is fucking hard and way too complicated. I'll give me a pass this time, but don't curtail to troons in a potentially real scenario with the mentally disabled in the future, because you WILL trip up. Even on my 7th damn proofread I'm finding he's and him's. God bless I don't live in a country where such an encounter could land me jail time, fuck the 'free' world.
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Babylonian Details and the Urreligion
This is the point in which we actually got some actually decent writing nods that likely went straight over your head, and that shows that the intern that writes the lore the professional writer at Lo-Rez actually did some serviceable research on the mythology, which I'll go on to explain now.
It's back to the norm shortly after - but we can still enjoy this while it lasts.
When Tiamat inspects Zeus and recognises him somewhat, it's likely she sees her son Adad in him, since Zeus and Adad's appearence / physical depictions were almost identical and both were chief Storm Gods - even if they were completely different, when taking cross-pantheonics into account.
She might also have seen Marduk in him too if Lo-Rez were retarded (oh wait, they are) and just read the Wikipedia page, which is inaccurate in it's lack of context that I'm about to give, but that's much more of a stretch from a mere aesthetic glance. While the Zeus / Marduk fulfilled a similar-ish role of sky-based Pantheon-heads (and depending on your Greek Poet, dragon-slayers), they appeared completely different to one another and their mythos comparisons basically end there. Marduk is actually Kronos's counterpart within the Babylonian pantheon (Uranus being Enki / An, and the lineage up to Tiamat / Gaia / Terra mirroring other figures likewise) - and the Greeks then acknowledged that second generation defeated those therein, at the behest of the Mother Figure of Tiamat / Gaia. The key part of this link being that the Titans (like the Babylonian Gods) demanded human sacrifice, while the Olympians (and Greek culture) did not.
The reality is that when taking cross-pantheonics into account, it's less direct carryovers, and more 'lots of aspects taken from lots of places' - Zeus likely borrowed some minor aspects from An, Adad, Marduk, Enlil and many others.
But aesthetically? Zeus is basically a 1:1 image of Adad for sure, just without that Iranian skin tone.
The 'many names' line is in probable reference to the clusterfuck of civilisations within the Fertile Crescent, who each ascribed to generally the same core Pantheon, each with their own spin. The Babylonian Pantheon could just as easily be Sumerian, Akkadian, Caananite or Assyrian - and if you give more leeway with how far removed they were, Elamite and Hittite too.
And those are just the notable Pantheons we know of that existed within that timeframe and haven't been completely lost to time - humans were scrounging around that general region for roughly 7,500 years or more (waaaaaay before that 'Jesus' guy came along), and there's a good chance there were a few civilisations alongside the Babylonians we haven't heard of (for example, we barely know anything about the Celts, and they only disppeared just over 1 milennia or so ago).
From there, we've got cross-pantheonics too - to which Tiamat was very much a 'general' Goddess concept that many pulled from - the idea of the Primordial Mother. She fits best with the entity of Gaia within the Mediterreanean and later European pantheons - but a good case could be made that she's both Nox and Chaos itself (the family tree was less complicated back then, Tiamat was just Big Momma you now have the mental image of Tiamat played by Martin Lawrence / Eddy Murphy / Richard Pryor ).
Note that when I say this - I'm in no way implying Tiamat was the original, direct sauce for all of them - only that she shares a figure that was widely replicated. We just don't have enough data to determine which cradles of civilization created their own Tiamats, and which borrowed aspects from a neighbouring cradle / 'our' Tiamat - it's just that Tiamat's general image was the one that was sourced from the Fertile Crescent cradle and was exported West toward Minoan civilisation and then wider yurop. The idea that things could be born of a singular primoridal and ethereal mother isn't exactly a hard-to-come to conclusion, after all.
For the 'Cedar Forest' throwaway line, that's a very important location within the Epic of Gilgamesh. Described as the 'Land of Cedar', it was the Shamash's (God of Sun) divine territory, and where Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight Humbaba, a Chimeric-Giant (morality of Humbaba varying on your translation - some painting him as a good guy that Enkidu sympathises for, others painting him as an ultra-demon). This is key, as Babylon was a land without wood, and in slaying Humbaba, Gilgamesh not only begins to build his renown / quest for immortality but also brings infrastructural timbers and materials to Babylon.
If you were wondering, the Land of Cedar is currently thought to be around about modern-day Lebanon, the Westernmost part of the Fertile Crescent that much of early civilisation was founded around - the Fertile Crescent being an arc of land North of the Gulf of Persia, starting from Palestine Israel The Levant, through Syria and through Iraq - sometimes including the area from South Turkey, Cyprus and the Northern part of Egypt surrounding the Nile.
The Fertile Crescent is pretty obviously named, as it's the most / only fertile land in the central region of the African-Eurasian continent today, and the largest geographical chokepoint that primitive homonids would have had to overcome before spreading around the rest of Earth and thus evolving into the various races of today. What's less well known is that 'Fertile Crescent' was not in turn indicative for the state of the rest of the region - no, we're talking so far back in Earth's history that there was a land bridge to both Australia from Asia, and the British Isles were conjoined to Europe. Instead, the region known as the Sahara Desert was a grassy Steppe, much like the Mongolian Steppe today - to the point that the first Egyptians (and for a good few milennia) wouldn't have been anywhere near a desert - the area outside of the Fertile Crescent wasn't as much 'inhospitable', as much as it was just supremely mundane - endless flat grassland as far as the eye could see, with no afforestation. It was only after a combination of a minor skew in the Earths tilt (and increasingly evidenced, extremely poor farming practices that abstracted far too much water from the region, fucking up the water cycle), that the desertification of Northern Africa and the Middle East began.
It's no small statement to say that the Sahara Desert is the largest man-made creation on Earth.
Finally for a neat detail bit I'd like to note on before we move on; the glowing murals that appear behind Tiamat's back (that act as her 'magical' wings) while she flies / charges shots are actually accurate cuneiforms (tl;dr language before heiroglyphs, relevant to Mesopotamia) - accurate both in translation and historical form they were in during the Babylonian period.
The central circle (Dagal) translating to Divine Being / God, the three magic-wings (spelling An-A-A) translating to God-Water-Water and the cuneiforms on the inside of the bit that conncects the central circle and the 'wings' translating to "God - Reviving / Life-giving - Female - To Conquer" ("Dagal - Ti - Munus - Kur") - the correct / 'proper' translation of 'Tiamat' in heiroglyphic cuneiform (as in, it isn't just treating Cuneiform like an Alphabet). Again, I can't shit on this in any way (and I woldn't want to) - it's very well thought out, and I'm willing to give HiRez a lot of benefit-of-the-doubt in regards to the Babylonians.
Oh wait, Munus as a cuneiform is also directly based off of the shape of a vagina - so there you have it, I guess SMITE is actually an M-rated game running under the radar lol
For Tiamat's design itself, Tiamat needs more pronounced lips and is missing her udders ...tsktsktsk.... - Titanforge, I can't give you full marks, but she's definitely one of your best works, 9.8/10 A*, give the employee / wageslave who made her a damn pay rise.
Back to Babylon. Just like the previous Arena aside, we now fall onto a myth that has a surprising amount of imagery within SMITE - namely, Tiamat's counteraction to her Divine Rebellion. I could explain how it goes... but why bother paraphrasing, when I can just lift the bit from the Enuma Elish directly for you?
Note, Babylonian Cuneforms are primarily heiroglyphic, so punctuation doesn't exist / has to be added in-post.
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ilu Anum ma share irbitti uallid; ene sig dalhamun ak imhul shu tum; ene iri agi agaamma idallah ilat Tiamat; ilat Tiamat dalahu bal sukudu udma giuna ina ilani nukusu gal tagtag; sunu shag nigazig inanene lipishma; sunu gu de ilat Tiamat amanene dug; Abzaam harmaki inaruma; marsiish tabbakima kaliish tuushba; enu dim ina limma imhul; adi nuteru gimillashu ul nisaallal niini; innanu immahassu Abzu'u harmaki; u ilu Muummu sha ikkamuu la edish ashbaati urruhiish taduulli; nutaar gimillashunu i niislal niini; tabku ma’ni huummura enatuuni; nutaar gimillashunu i niislal niini; zig gugeshkiri gimillasunu tirri; ana zakiku shuukkishi ishmema Tiamat amatum ilu ellu; lu taaddinu i nipuush mushmahu; shutagtag ilani kirib anduruna; ni il sag shum ina ilani; imma azrunimma iduush Tiamat tibiuni; izzu kapdu la sakipu musha u imma; nashuu tamhari nazarbubu laabbu; ukkinna shitkunuma ibannuu sulaati
umma hubur patikaat kalama; ushraddi kakku la mahru ittalad mushmahhe; zaktuma shinni la paduu atta’a; imtu kima damu zumurshunu ush maalla; ushumgalle naadrutum puulhaati ushalbishma; melamme ushtashshashaa iliish umtashshiil; amirshunu sharbaba lishharmimu; zumurshunu lishtahhitamma la ini’u iratsunu ushziz Ba'ashummu Mushussu u ilu Lahamu; Ugallum Uridimmu u Aqrabamelu; Umi Dabrutu Kulilu u Kursarikku; nashi kakku la paduu la adiru tahazi; gapsha teritusha la mahra shinaama; appunama ishten eshrit kima shuati ushtabshi ina ilani buukrisha shuut ishkunushi puuhri; ushaashki ilu Qingu ina birishunu shaashu ushrabbiish; alikut mahri paan ummani mu’irrutu puuhri; naash kakki tiisbutu tebuu anaanta; shuut tamharu raab shikkatutu; ipkidma katushshu usheshibaashshu ina karri; adi taaka ina puhur ilani usarbika; malikut ilani gimraatsunu katukka ush malli; lu shurbatama ha’iri eduu atta; liirtabbuu zikruka eli kalishunu ilu Anunnakki
[NIGGER I DON'T SPEAK HEEBIE JEEBIE, TL THAT SHIT FOR ME]
An, of the Skies, formed and created the four winds, and gave them life. He formed dusts and had the windstorms carry it; he made the storm-wave that disturbed Tiamat. Disturbed, Tiamat writhed restlessly, awoken day and night. The New Gods, unable to rest too, now also had to suffer. They plotted (with) evil in their hearts as they addressed Tiamat their mother, jeering, "Abzu, your husband, has been slain! Bitterly you wept, and sat and did nothing as you cried. Now An has created the four fearsome winds - and until his revenge has been rought, we clearly cannot sleep too! And yet, despite Abzu slain and Mummu imprisoned - here you still sit!" "Bring yourself up to speed. We will bring about his (An's) revenge and secure our peace (if that's what it takes to stop the winds). Pour out our bowels, daze our eyes, we will still wrought our vengence and secure our peace. Make a battle cry and take your vengeance, or into the whirlwinds you will be destroyed completely!" Tiamat heard the words of the young Gods. "Verily, I will give it ye and I will make monsters to disrupt Gods in the midst of An's Uprising, which shall soon draw against (you) Gods. You will curse the day you questioned Tiamat!" They (the new Gods) fumed, they plotted, without rest, day and night. They practiced battle, they seethed, they raged, they assembled their hostile forces.
The Great Mother (Tiamat), the designer of all things, gathered weapons which were unbreakable; and she gave birth to the Poison Dragons. Sharp of fang and with a merciless bite, she filled their bodies with venomous blood. Terrfying monsters, she clothed them with magnificence - an aura of divine dread and she made them appear as Gods. "Whosoever beholds them shall collapse in fear! Wherever they rise, none shall stop them!" She established the Dragonvipers, the Mushussu, and the Lahamu, Ugallu, Uriddimu and Aqrabuamelu, Umu Dabrutu, Kulilu and Kursarikku; each bearing endless weapons, each fearing no battle. Absolute were her dictations, unopposable, all. Eleven were they, borne of her wisdom which she brought into being. Among the (Young) Gods, her first born, who formed the Pantheon around her, she (Tiamat) annointed Qingu - above them all she declared him greater. Leader of her armies, commander of her Pantheon, to see the appropriate arms are bared, to advance to the assault and matters or war, and to be mighty in victory - all placed in his hand(s). She placed him on a podium and said, "I have worked my magics and in the Pantheon of Gods I have crowned thee." "The dominion of the Gods, all, I place into your hands." "Lofty you are now, for my husband is gone, you are now alone, the greatest." "May thy deeds be greater than all of the deeds of the Anunnaki."
Spoiler: Tiamat, Qingu and the Poison Dragons get BTFO.
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So while Tiamat's children are known as 'Poison Dragons', the definition is almost completely different as it would imply today, as the 'Poison' was in reference to their poisoned blood and general personalities, while 'Dragon' was simply in reference to what we'd now just refer to as a Monster. Another thing to note is that they weren't all strictly singular entities - some were indeed God-like, however others were Tiamat just creating entire races of Poision Dragons / Monsters to act as her armies - both types (singular monsters and races of monsters) of which likely / did act as conceptual stems for many monsters within later Pantheons.
Personally, I think the most appropriate transliteration would be the '11 Scourges' - but as we all know from our favourite mangos, when it comes to TL's, the more accurate to the source, the better.
After the Babylonian divine war, most of the Poison Dragons were 'redeemed' as slaves servants of the Annunaki in various roles and / or made into beneficial deities of more obscure aspects of life (not given Ziggeurats and Temples per se, but some household ritual and general respect nonetheless - to the scope that you might throw some salt over your shoulder if you spill a shaker in modern times). Others were cast into exhile, to either terrorise the land around the Mesopotamian region and the Fertile Crescent / known world or were locked away in the Land of the Dead. In the redemption cases, they often also double-up as Patrons and Spiritual Guardsmen of doorways, and statues of them would semi-regularly be built around entrances of settlements / buildings to 'guard them' from other evil Mesopotamian spirits and monsters (much like how the Norse had draconic iconography in the same places, and on top of the hulls of their dragonships).
So, at long last, as for Tiamat's children that have depictions in-game, we've got about 2/3rds of the Poison Dragons noted on:
- Ugallu - The new Chaos-side Titan of Conquest that arrived in S8, replacing Kronos.
The Giant Lion-headed, Rooster-legged Poison Dragon of the Hurricanes and Wind-Storms, and the most modernly popular of the Poison Dragons after the Mushussu - owing to the fact he is one of the only ones with a mural depiction, and a clear one at that (many of the others only existing in name or on extremely damaged / unclear/ disputed murals). After the War, he was shifted into a Patron for External Entrances, hence his iconography was popular on gateways for both housing complexes and cities, and on amulets belonging to guardsmen. He also appears in this role within Kurnugi (the Mesopotamian Underworld) serving Nergal, God of Unnatural Death and ruler of the place. Iit's unclear as to if the Ugallu was a race, or the lone Ugallu served under Nergal firstmost and extended his Patronage outside of his position.
Honestly, this one stumped me. Why not have it be Qingu? Ugallu was pretty much just a mundane monster, Qingu meanwhile was Tiamat's puppet-figurehead on the throne and general of her armies. Just... an odd choice of entity for the Babylonian in-game Titan.
As for depiction - it's pretty good, he just needs a dagger in his offhand and he'd be perfect.
- Kulilu - The new Chaos side / Babylonian minions, and also appearing in one of the murals of the Chaos-side Season 8 Conquest Base (which in of itself is modelled after some of the remains of the Walls of Babylon, one of the original 7 Wonders of the Ancient World before the Lighthouse of Alexandria was built and took it's place).
The most obscure of the 11 Poison Dragons (or at least, the least has been preserved), the Kulilu and Kulullu are a race / species of of fish-man beasts, Male and Female respectively. Overall, very little is known about them, other than their name and semi-piscine appearence (usually given as the lower half, similar to merfolk / sirens, but there's no direct evidence for it).
As a side note, the word Kulilu is a synonym with an unknown species of waterfowl within Babylonian language (a possible connection, but at the same time think of how many synonyms in English have wildly different meanings).
- Aqrabuamelu / Girtablilu - The new jungle-mob additions of the Lesser and Greater Scorpions resepctively.
Another race / species version of Poison Dragons; either given as straightforward half-man-half-scorpions, or as as the upper half of a man, the lower torso of a scorpion, chicken's legs and a snake-dick, sometimes with wings on top (snake dicks were actually quite common amongst Babylonian monsters, both Posion Dragon or notdon't knock it until you try it, I guess) (oh, and I'm not talking 'a snakes dick', I mean a literal snake-for-a-dick). Of the two in SMITE, the Lesser Scorpions are the ones closer to depiction, simply based off of the darker colour scheme (they're both good enough otherwise).
The Aqrabuamelu are one of the more iconic Babylonian monsters, and characteristically employed by the Gods post-Tiamat as guardsmen to the various entrances / inner gates of the Divine Realm (such as at Mashu, the mountain-entrance to on behalf of Shamash, each time he would leave to act as the Sun for the day). Furthermore, it's unknown how, but they were said to be able to peer across the horizon and, if they desired, kill something just by looking at it - whether that was by the employment of magic (as they were said to be quite intelligent / wise, and reason with Gilgamesh himself within the Epic before he descends to the Netherworld) or as a result of crypto-biological abilities is unknown
While they are relatively unique to the wider Mesopotamian Pantheons, given their half/half appearence, ability to kill on-sight, and their widespread motif used to instill fear, it's most likely these at least had some influence on the concept of the Greek Gorgons (aka Medusa). It may be tempting to draw parallels to the neighbouring Egyptian Scorpion Goddess, Serqet, since she acts as the guards(wo)man for Apophis for the breif periods it's subdued, but the similarities really end there - her Egyptian depiction is usually just a woman with a scorpion on her head. Also, Aqrabuamelu is a very nice word just to pronounce. Sad as it may sound, but it's probably one of my favourite words; it just rolls well.Fuck off etymology is interesting.
- Uridimmu - Seen in Tiamat's First Appearence / The Dawn of Babylon Trailer, and possibly appearing on the various wall-murals of the Conquest Chaos Base. There's a lot of dogs on the walls (and I'm not exactly sure why) so related might be an attempt at an Uridimmu depicted in the Trailer, or it might just be a winged dog
>inb4 furfags in-office asserting they're Mesopotamian divine beings.
Directly translating to 'Mad Dog', the Uridimmu was native to the Black Desert, stalking the large ex-volcanic plain whose geology gives it it's name (the Black Desert is modernly known as the Harrat, a region spanning from Northe-East ofPalestineIsrael to Northernmost Saudi Arabia - not to be confused with the Egyptian Black Desert, of basically the same reasoning).
Little concrete is known about them (again, thank the sands of time and various Great Libraries being destroyed), however what is known, is that they characteristically manifested as pitch-black wolves - sometimes with human heads, sometimes with a clouded form, always with their namesake insane / rabid temperament. Their most notable trait however, was that they predated on shadows themselves. They were Sciovores. They ate shadows. The repercussions of something having it's shadow eaten are unknown, however they do appear within the Epic of Gilgamesh / after Tiamat's defeat as servants of Ishtar and Shamash, possibly as messenge-carriers between the Gods. It's unclear as to if the Uridimmu were a race of monsters or a singular entity, however their continued appearences in seemingly unrelated scenes and artefacts seem to indicate it was closer to a species that served the Gods (much like the Aqrabuamelu).
Later identified as the monster-root of Sphinxes.
- Kursarikku / Gudalim - Tiamat's Second Flying Ult.
The Bull-man Poison Dragon of Mountains and Rockslides within Mesopotamian Mythology, and was the opponent of Ninurta, God of Grain and Farming (a famous monster-slayer within the wider Mesopotamian Pantheons) during the Divine Uprising; where they fought on the surface of the sea (over the modern day Gulf of Persia). After the war, is often paired with Ugallu as a Patron Guard of External Doorways, inferrably placing him within Kurnugi after the Divine War (though murals are much rarer, suggesting less popularity compared to Ugallu).
He should be using a War-Spade instead of an Axe, but they've got a lot of design leeway otherwise, so who cares. Looks cool.
- Umu Dabrutu - Tiamat's Third Flying Ult.
The Poison Dragon/s of Storms and Whirlwinds (ie, Tornadoes). A complex entity and scarcely attested creature, in which we honestly have no fucking clue what it's supposed to be. Both a collective and an individual to our current understanding of what's described; the Umu Dabrutu appears to be a group of incorporeal spirit-demons that act, think and move as a group - they are formless to the extent that they can pass through objects, yet are said to have distinctly lion-like teeth (when they're used as a reference to describe a different Mesopotamian cryptid, the Anzu). If I had to make a personal guess, it would be something like a group of invisible Kamitaichi from Japanese mythology - small creatures that ride the winds and cause damage to those they come in contact with, but I'm in no way asserting that as fact.
In-game... I mean your guess is as good as mine. If the orbs in the centre of the Psionado are supposed to be the Umu Dabrutu, then it 'should' be more accurate; although it's not like them being the entire tornado changes much.
- Proto-Snakes = Tiamat's First Flying Ult.
While Tiamat only created 11 types of Poison Dragon for the purpose of quelling the divine rebellion and aiding Qingu, these aren't her only children - they're only the ones purpose-created for the Babylonian Divine Uprising.
On top of one additional child we'll mention later, Tiamat is given as the mother of all Snakes (a translation which has led to extreme confusion; as the word is often cross-correlated with the Draconic Viper Trio, on top of the fact that the mythological 'original appearence' of snakes suggests similarities with the Mushussu). It's unclear when this race of Proto-Snakes were created in Babylonian mythology (either before the rebellion or during it), but they were mythologically punished afterwards by having their legs removed by Marduk, and are forced to hide in the shade forevermore for their transgressions against the Anunnaki; explaining the behaviour and appearence of serpents in real life. While they certainly have a lot of design-flair, these really just supposed to be snakes with legs - nothing fancy otherwise.
In-game, if you're especially attentive, you might recognise their movement cycle - they're rigged to the same skeleton as the 'Basilisks' in Arena and share identical animations.
While on the topic, I'll cover the other 5 Poision Dragons - because if you've still with me up to this point, you're obviously interested. No pretty pictures for obvious reasons, but these 5 are all the cool ones (4 of them being the actual 'dragons' of the Poison Dragons, the other one being kinda eldritchy), so use your imagination.
- Lahmu = The most confusing member of the Poison Dragons..... because it may or may not even be a Poision Dragon, yet is grouped with them nonetheless.
Lahmu is first attested to as Abzu and Tiamat's first child, and the fourth primordial being in existence after Abzu, Tiamat and Mummu - given as the God of Silt / Mud. Along with Lahmu's Sister (called Lahamu, Goddess of Sand... creative, I know), the two did the incest and in turn gaave birth to the Divine Realm and the Earth (the Primordial pair called Ansar and Kisar respectively; the former being given as an aspect of the Pantheon Head of the Assyrian Pantheon, as well as the origin of the namesake of the Assyrians and thus modern-day Syria). They scarcely show up after this point, but 'this' Lahmu is frequently depicted as a tall man with 6 disctinctive curls of red hair, or more scarcely as a sidewinding Desert Horned Viper - in this regard mirroring how his mother, Tiamat, also had a humanoid and draconic forme.
Then much later in the Mesopotamian Mythological Narrative, Lahmu is noted on as one of the purpose-made races to quell the Divine Rebellion (see far above for the raw text); with exactly 50 stated to exist. The name / being a child of Tiamat isn't where the similarities end either, this Lahmu also shares the sole descriptive feature of having wavy red hair (or 'hair of fire red'), however is instead said to have a form 'unspeakable to describe' and is 'mentally unnerving' to look at, with no mention of any distinct forme whatsoever. The Lahmu's conflict isn't noted on at all, only that as punishment afer the war, they were assigned as guardians of bodies of water (much like Greek Water Nymphs or Chinese Dragons).
Overall, it's unclear as to if Tiamat's first child Lahmu is synonymous with the race of Lahmu Poison Dragons - both apear to be spelt the same, directly translating as 'The Hairy Ones'. It might be a case where the two spellings appear identical (like how Kronos and Khronos are even today confused with one another), however a potential explanation I've seen put forward and put some degree of creedance in, is that the former Primordial Pair translates closer to Luhummu, or as 'The Muddy Ones' while the latter Poison Dragons are the fire-haired 'Hairy Ones' (the Primordials being a play on words or some degree of grammatical differentiation, the Poison Dragons being the direct translation). We just don't know otherwise.
[No clear depiction of a definite Poison-Dragon Lahmu exists]
- Mushussu / Sirrush - A Microdragon.
The only 'race' of actual 'dragons' within the 11 Poison Dragons, the Mushussu were dog-sized, slender chimeras; given as a somewhat large snake with the front legs of a feline (usualy given as a lion), and the back legs of an eagle, a horse's mane, along with two sets of horns - one pair of large, prominent, conical and upward horns on the top of it's head, and one pair of upward curled horns coming from the side of it's head. The correct name is Mushussu; 'Sirrush' was the initial incorrect translation, however stood for so long that it's still commonly referred to as such today. Etymologically, this roughly translates to 'The Violent / Prideful / Fierce Serpent', however their specific 'true nature' or role within the conflict is unclear, as they're far more commonly seen depicted as entities existing after the Uprising in servitude to the Annunaki, rather than before or during the Uprising.
After the Divine Uprising, they were taken in by the Annunaki as personal guardians of the Gods, but functionally as pets and micro-mounts (unironically similar to how one would use a self-balancing scooter today), with one famously being at Marduk's side at all times and appearing in a huge amount of his art, to the point that Marduk's imagery is incomplete without a Mushussu by his side. An attack dog who can carry you wherever you want - very conveninent.
Oddly absent from the Season 8 Chaos-side Conquest Walls, which is based off of murals that made the Mushussu popular to begin with. Below *might* be a Mushussu alongside an alternate depiction of a Aqrabuamelu... but the neck is way too long, it shouldn't have a barbed tail and in all honesty it looks closer to a Sauropod that it does a Mushussu.
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The Ba'ashummu = The 3 Horned Dragonvipers.
The Dragonvipers were entities which had similar appearences, but otherwise little known in connection to one another, aside from each being one of the 11 Poison Dragons, and being stated as an outright trio within it. While Qingu and Marduk were the 'leaders' and thus primary rivals within the Uprising, each of the Dragonvipers were pitted against the some of the other most popular / strongest Annunaki (the most logical explanation being that they were the custom-built counters to the power-players).
All three are the 'root entity' of all West Eurasian depictions of Dragons... and this time they're not misleadingly called 'Poison Dragons' - these ones are the real deal. Dragons, all three.-
Basmu = The original World Serpent.
Basmu's description is minimal (mostly because the bit was literally scratched away with time on the tablet we have detailing it) but is described as a colossal 200km-long sea-serpent (120 miles, for3rd4th worlders), that was only said to have had two forelegs (likely a lion's, given the pattern between the three) and had six mouths / seven tongues, as well as seven... ???'s on the length of it's stomach. Horns? Cobra-hoods? Sacs? Eyes? Markings? Flames? Decorations? Fuck knows, it got scratched out. Most modernly it's given as either indivdual wings, sets of wings or two bat-like wings with seven webbed fingers - however that interpretation is sourced from an unreliable translation, that is more likely than not incorrect owing to scratches on the cuneiforms as well as more recent findings of a depicted legged serpent that is possibly Basmu... and is notably without wings.... or anything distinctive along it's torso for that matter, making these mysterious 7 ...?'s even more of a conundrum. Its horn was located at the frontal tip of it's head (a nose-horn), akin to a modern Long-Nosed Viper, and it may have had an additional set protruding from the top of it's head like a bull's horns. There's no commentary on how many heads it had, and so is best interpreted as having - six mouths combined into one mega-mouth, or 6 jaws within one mouth (kinda like a shark's rows o teethor more accurately, a xenomorph multiple mouths).
'Basmu' directly translates as 'The Venomous Serpent', so likely had some kind of crippling toxin also associated with it (again, scratched tablet), though it may be linked to its breath (like Jormungandr in-game). Unsurprisingly, this caused some confusion regarding the mythology since 'The Venomous Serpent' / Basmu, 'The Dragon Vipers' / Ba'ashummu and 'The Poison Dragons' / Zumurshunu all sound like they describe the same thing, even if they're describing 3 completely different concepts - hence the Dragonvipers were at first assumed to be either non-existant or just Basmu by all himself as an amalgamate of all three (the 'extra' two Poison Dragons being Qingu and either the presumed Lahamu counterpart to Lahmu or the various Serpents Tiamat made beforehand - which retrospect, none of the three are).
Within the Divine War, Basmu is matched up with (and defeated by), Nergal, God of War and Unnatural Death (aka Death via War, Disease or Famine) and Ruler of the Underworld / Realm of the Dead (most similar to Hades - and yes, the inspiration for the Warhammer Nurgle), along with the aid of Palil (Minor God of Snakecharmers and Hypnosis). The Basmu rampages across the countryside, creating hills and valleys, and consuming the sacrifices intended for the Annunaki (from livestock, to wild game, to human sacrifices), before it resides in a Ziggurat that it consumed the God of (seemingly given as Eshnunna, the capital of a neighbouring Empire of the same name to the Babylonians, that Babylon later conquered). Nergal fails to slay it in the first few attempts and wisely retreats to try again, but upon requesting the advice of Palil, the two work together and wait for a thunderstorm. When lighting strikes, the Basmu is dazed and in shock (combined with the magical efforts of Palil in the background), and then prompty defeated by Nergal, who then takes the Ziggurat for himself. Afterwards, Basmu is not employed as a guardsman, but instead as Ningishzida's (God of Plantlife and Snakes) mount and servant wiithin Kurnugi, as well as frequently assisting the Ninmah / Damgalnuna (Goddess of Birth) with her duties (along with other feminine birth / fertility Goddesses). There is an alternate myth that places Tispak, God of Snakes, as Basmu's opponent, however it's much less noted on and plays out the exact same way - indicating more--likely-than-not that it was probably the Cult of Tispak self-inserting themselves into the main myth of the longest snake in their mythology. Nergal is the usual opponent.
Also the original conceptual stem of the original Caduceus Staff. On top of being the obvious root of entities such as Python, Apophis or Jormungandr; may have also been the base creature that the Ananta Shesha of Hindu Pantheon is based off of (Vishnu's mount), given the two cultures were in semi-frequent trading contact throughout both of their pre-histories.
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Musmahhu = The original Hydra.
The Seven-headed Dragon; whose chimeric aspects are completely unrecorded, only depicted. Aside from the serpentine heads, it appears to have the body and legs of a scaled leopard (due to the usual leonine design being speckled with spots) - but past that, the design is unclear; with a large, broad tail and (most distinctly) numerous spines along it's back that are longer than the necks & heads themselves. Whether it's intended to be something like a sail (akin to a Spinosaurus) or quills (akin to a hedgehog) is just unknown, but there's no indication whatsoever that it had wings - this was very much a grounded cryptid. Its horns were stubby and broad, possibly like a Ram, protruding from the sides / back of it's skulls; with the exception of the seeming 'main' head, that is depicted separate from the 6 other heads and lacking horns.
Oddly, the name of the Musmahhu appears to have nothing to do with it's appearence - translating as the "Noble Serpent". And that's almost it for what the Musmahhu 'does' or 'did'. The Musmahhu's myth has been completely lost to history as of writing, aside from a single surviving poem associated with it - which translates roughly to "O Musmahhu, how they tremble 'fore it. For it is a weapon when it runs, and it is death once it has passed". Awesome. Amazing. Intriguing. I'd still rather have the full myth. Nothing is known of the events of its conflict, or it's role after the Divine Uprising - even the figure fighting it in it's own depiction isn't directly named.
B-But I just google searched a-
Shut the fuck up, don't speak over me. To clear up the misconception - the Musmahhu is not pitted against or defeated by Ninurta. As mentioned, Ninurta was primarily busy with dealing with the Kurisakku during the war - the error is that some of the Poison Dragons are falsely placed in a separate myth associated with Ninurta's monster-slaying escapades (The Myth of the Slain Heroes), where a similar Seven-headed Serpent that Ninurta is shown to have slain (Musagimin), is falsely equated with the Seven-headed Poison Dragon, Musmahhu. Compounded with the lack of any associated myth and theretards'people' who make the stretch that Ninurta is eqatable with Heracles; the 'Mesopotamian Hydra' is incorrectly assumed to have been slain by the apparent 'Mesopotamian Heracles' (which, spoiler alert: Ninurta is not linked to Heracles, and the assertation is complete fucking bullshitI hate secondaries so fucking much, they just spout their retarded opinions on the internet and tertiaries just fucking believe them).
Most obviously across-Pantheons, the Musmahhu is given as the direct predecessor to the Greek Lernean Hydra, who shares it's characteristics and is noted on by Greek Poets as sharing an identical constellation (the Hydra likewise created by a vengeful mother, likewise defeated by a legendary hero-God) - however the less immediately obvious connection is that it's also identical to the imagery of the mount that the Whore of Babylon rides, within Abrahamic texts / The "Scarlet Coloured Beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns" (the Whore of Babylon herself is a metahpor of Ishtar, a disputed Mesopotamian Goddess - but to the Babylonians, the stigmatised Goddess of Whores, but more prominently the Goddess of the Morning Star.Not Love and War). It's unlikely Ishtar and the Musmahhu share a direct in-mythology link, as the Musmahhu was designed to slaughter the Annunaki that Ishtar was a part of, however the possibility of a link exists nonetheless, since the Abrahamic texts were written in a period where more would have been known about the Mesopotamians (for example, one may theorise that Aphrodite's separate heritage from the Olympians may have been an observation of how Ishtar could have had a separate heritage from the Annunaki, which would place her closer to Tiamat's side - but you're in borderline fanfic at that point, so don't even begin to take it as anything but speculation. DON'T.Or I'll fucking rip your pancreas out)
- Usumgallu - The strongest / dominant / head member of the Horned Dragonviper trio, and the original true 'Dragon' Dragon (the first major identifiable example of the iconic mythological beast on record).
A grand, Golden Chimera - while it's specific chimeric aspects are undepicted (or more likely, haven't been uncovered yet), descriptions state it as having the hind legs and wings of an Eagle, the forelegs and chest of a scaled lion, a lion's mane (not scaly), and like the rest of the trio, the horned head of a Snake. And yes, it used fire.... but didn't necessarily breathe it - instead described as wreathing its scaly-lion-forearms in flames, and hurling fireballs at enemies while temporarily bipedal (not to say it couldn't breathe fire, just that it's not attested to). While descriptively similar to the much more commonly depicted Shirdal (tl;dr Mesopotamian Griffon), the clear difference is the head - the Shirdal were a race of creatures with Lion's heads, while the Usumgallu was a singular God-killing Dragon with the horned head of a Viper. And it was shining Gold.
Etymologically, the word Usumgallu itself translates toAll Might'Pure Might', or any synonym of that (Usum = Singular / Purified / True / 'Only'; Gallu = Greatness / Mightiness / Magnificence) and the word in of itself became associated with the concept of rulership, similar to how you might say a someone with a strong spirit has the 'Heart of a Lion', the Mesopotamians would instead compare something's greatness with Usumgallu. Within the Divine Uprising, it is pitted against Nabu (God of Wisdom, Learning and Science) and after the war, it acted as the personal advisor to Ninkilim (Goddess of Vermin, Pestilence, Swarms and Wild Animals and general Lord of Rodents - also conflated with Ningirima, God of Mongeese and enemy of Serpentsyes, I know it's 'correctly' 'Mongooses', but fuck 'Mongooses', Mongeese is where it's at). It's specific myth detailing its conflict with Nabu has alas been lost to time as of writing.
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[No clear depiction of a definite Poison-Dragon Usumgallu exists]
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Finally, to round the Poison Dragons off you may be wondering as to how they're all related... they've gotta have some kind origin, right? Where else could 11 Minions + (1 Leader + 1 Mother that props up the Leader) be observed?
Constellations. That's where.
Each Poison Dragon is representative of various Babylonian constellations - which isn't all too different from our own due to the fact many aspects of astrology have been passed along almost completely intact across the millenia. The information we have is relatively limited, as only 18 of the 'major' ones used for various were catalogued in any meaningful way (compared to the 48 Ptlolomeic Constellations or the 88 Modern Constellations); however the ones we are aware of align very well.
- Ugallu = Leo
- Kulilu = [Unknown, not Pisces, as back then it as a Sparrow / Swallow, not a fish]
- Aqrabuamelu = Scorpio
- Uridimmu = Lupus
- Kursarikku = Centaurus
- Umu Dabrutu = [Unknown]
- Lahmu = [Unknown]
- Mushussu = Capricorn
- Basmu = Sepens
- Musmahhu = Hydra
- Usumgallu = Draco (additionally acting as the creature pulling the 'Wagon' that Ursa Major used to be known as; Enlil being the charioteer)
Hmmm...... what would an Aside be without completely derailing from the original topic....
where can I drag this......... ah!
Well, Old is apparently Gold in SMITE mythos, however it's odd that Tiamat is asserted to be 'le oldest' God within the collective global Divine Realm.
Because we can get older.
MUCH older.
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REMINDER; REMINDER; YOU ARE READING A DOC ON PREDOMINANTLY PAGAN AND POLYTHEISTIC MYTHOLOGY. WARNING; WARNING; I DON'T CARE IF YOU THINK YOUR GOD IS THE OLDEST OR 'LE TRUE GOD!!!', I'M SPEAKING IN HISTORICAL TERMS. LET'S BEGIN.
.
First of all, Tiamat isn't even the first incarnation of her own figure. Tiamat is the Babylonian interpretation of the wider Mesopotamian Nammu, who is the later version of the Amoritic (later Canaanite) entity called Y-m (also known as Ym or Yam; pronounced the same way you say the first half of Ymir. 'Im'). While the Mesopotamians have a longer history than the Canaanites, the Canaanites have Tiamat beat in this regard. Within the wider Mesopotamian Pantheons still, Tiamat / Nammu / Y-m is far from the first too - Abzu (her husband, Babylonian Primordial of the Freshwater) is recorded on notably before her, and Enki (a predominant War God) appears to be the first currently documented God worshipped within the entire Mesopotamian region, shortly before Abzu (their mythological canon seemingly coming later).
While Enki, then Abzu, were the first entities worshipped within the region, it's unclear as to when or how the wider Pantheon developed; simply 'being that way' in the gaps between when we found dated artefcts. For context, the Babylonian Empire existed ~1750 BC, while the initial worship of Enki pertains to ~5200 BC. The Hindus like to brag they're the oldest on the block ull stop, but Enki predates their most formative cultures to the scope of ~2,000 years.
A fun detail with Y-m; Ym is Set's canonical arch-nemesis within the early Egyptian Pantheon, while Set was still a favored God (pre-whicheverPharoahdecidedhekilledOsiris) and while the Egyptians were at conquestive war with the Mesopotamian region. Odd then, why Set would be waking up a direct incarnation of Y-m in-lore, and could have been a neat place to flesh out a bit - but regardless, moving on.
If you REALLY want to get wild - we don't even know if Tiamat / Y-m borrowed from an idea before her still - Tiamat / Y-m's general civilizations rose ~5,000 BC, and we know humans have been at the very least sapient and semi-cultured in the Fertile Crescent region since at least 90,000 BC, (owing to the Skhul and Qafzeh fossil sites). That, and each cradle arose at differing times (not all at 90,000 BC), easily indicating that proto-humans may have communicated with one another while in a state of nomadic pre-civilisation. After all, they all didn't develop civilisation all at the same time; because 'humanity' as we know it is a divergently and actively evolving family of homoni-.... woah, woah we almost got *advanced* racist there. Because if you make that point....which ones are the real humans? Does the existance of Grey disqualify the existance of Yin and Ya-MOVING ON.
Because we can get older.
MUCH older.
Now, to discuss the candidates for the oldest 'God' in human history; we stumble on a various amount of connundrums as to who even qualifies for that title.
Obviously the "whether we've found evidence of them even existing" factor is the most important one, but also there are such questions as "is XYZ idol we're looking at supposed to be a God or a crude human form" or "can we even qualify pre-humans and their seeming practices as human?".
These factors disqualify examples such as the various proto-Venus's found in Europe (the oldest being the semi-famous Venus of Willendorf) - not named after the Roman Goddess / version of Aphrodite, but moreso that they appeared to share some basic similarities with the goddess Venus at the time of discovery - they were essentially crude fertility idols. With recent times however, the figures depicted have been theorised to simply be models based off of a real human, both for good luck and/or masurbatory purposes fuck off pierce brosnan, they were making do with mamoth tusks, they didn't want to break the damn things with slimmer models - it's why that have nor hands, feet or faces.
It's a hypothesis I agree with personally, given various other pieces of circumstantial evidence, such as their more 'casual' places of finding compared to paleolithic holy sites (you can have your own opinion, I'm just giving my take), hence we won't be counting them.
Because we can get older.
MUCH older.
I'll stop blueballing you now. Overall, it seems our oldest God, hails not from Mesopotamia, India or Europe.... but Japan.
The nips currently have this one in the bag, with the enigmatic 'Dogu statues' that have been found dotted throughout the peninsula; the oldest of which dates at ~13,000BC (for context, roughly x6 older than Tiamat). There is no concrete name for the God depicted in most of the thousands of statues; but is agreeably an entity (or a few entities) that existed before the Shinto Pantheon of today. While it's tempting to say The Dogu may have been incorporated into the Pantheon as one of the early Hitorigami or Kamiyonanayo when Shinto gained popularity (like how many of the Mediterranean Pantheons have links to one-another), The Dogu are distinctly an entity within their own right, completely absent from the Shinto Pantheon - with the Hitorigami especially, thought to be a relatively late development within the Japanese Pantheon, to appeal to the Chinese they were trading with. With how SMITE is set up, it's reasonable that The Dogu could get in under the umbrella term of 'Japanese Pantheon' (since there are many factors of Japanese Pantheonics that aren't strictly Shinto), but that's for the devs to decide on, not for us to whine on.
Hence, The Dogu is almost certainly from one of the tribal Jomonic cultures that occupied Japan, and which maintained a peninsula-wide dominion before they were taken over by and replaced by the 'modern' Japanese Pantheon. Just goes to show that if one culture can maintain hegemony then be lost to the sands of times... is The Dogu really the oldest God? Or did it yet replace another colloquially recognised entity before that?...
One thing to note on - The Dogu should not be confused with the name Arahabaki. I say this because the design of Arahabaki is based off of The Dogu withing within the SMT franchise (or more precisely, the Shakokidogu's design), and as since have gained false equivalence within wider pop culture. Arahabaki is a much, much more modern God compared to the Dogu statues, and while still ridiculously ancient (equally as old as Tiamat), it's just not a Dogu.
"But lorefag... I'm not an Iraqi or a Japanon.... where does my team square up compared to the rest on the Urreligion scalings?"
- You, just now
Or at least you BETTER have fucking thought that.
Wh-What a good question!
How about I just throw them all on one chart for you?
bitches love charts, (You) included.
While in recent times Homo Sapiens have thought to have been in a possible state of evolutionary existence / tribal village 'civilization' at any point up to ~140,000 BC; we simply don't know how much progressed it's way into recognised religions / Pantheons (in terms of tribal customs and word of mouth), and thus (unless there is direct evidence otherwise) I'll put a general barrier at the last Ice Age (LGP = ~10,000BC), aka the Neolothic period - since that was around the time humanity proper began to amalgamate within the various Cradles of Civilization that led to modernity (and thus plausibly act as background to a Pantheon).
Also I'm using BC+AD specifically because it's just what everybody conventionally uses, regardless of what the acronym stands for. If you're BCE+CEfag (or even worse, dare I say it, a BPfag...), feel free to drown yourself in soylent after tipping your fedora for a final time, because it will *n e v e r* catch on.
For how far back each Pantheon dates back to:
- ~3,100 BC (up to ~5,000 BC / Badarian, with elements from LGP / Egyptian Cradle) = Egyptian Pantheon
- ~1,800 BC (with elements from beyond the LGP / Mesopotamian Cradle) = Babylonian Pantheon
- ~1,750 BC (up to ~3,500 BC / Minoan, with elements from LGP / Mesopotamian Cradle) = Greek Pantheon
- ~1,300 BC (up to ~2,600, with elements from LGP / Pre-Tribal China) = Chinese Panthon
- ~1,000 BC (up to ~2000 BC, inspired from LGP / Mesoamerican Cradle) = Mayan Pantheon
- ~900 BC (up to ~1,700 BC / Proto-Vedic, with elements from LGP / Indus Cradle) = Hindu Pantheon
- ~750 BC (based off of Italian Tribal cultures, with elements from the Greek Pantheon) = Roman Pantheon
- ~600 BC (up to ~3,000 BC / Early Proto-Indo-European, with elements from LGP / Caucasus Expansion) = Celtic Pantheon
- ~300 BC (with elements from beyond the LGP / Jomon Cradle) = Japanese Pantheon
- 0 = What happened that year....
- ~500 AD = Arthurian Narrative
- ~800 AD (up to ~600 AD, based off of ~3,000 BC / Early Proto-Indo-European) = Slavic Pantheon
- ~900 AD (up to ~800 BC) = Polynesian Pantheon
- ~1,100 AD (up to 100 AD, based off of ~3,000 BC / Early Proto-Indo-European) = Norse Pantheon
- ~1,100 AD (based off of ~>0 BC / Back-tracked arm of the last phase of the Bantu Expansion) = Yoruban Pantheon
- ~1,500 AD = Voodoo Pantheon
- ~1,920 AD = Great Old Ones / Lovecraftian Narrative
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On Draugrs, Trials and Great Floods
In-game, the Draugr appeared long before it's debut in Conquest, as a Sub-Boss within the Shadows over Hercopolis Adventure / Meme-mode; a re-run of the Trials of King Hercules Adventure / Meme-mode, with a new map, new mechanics and new custom-bosses.
The original Trials of King Hercules ran through June-July 2017, and saw the player and 2 others tour around a custom-made map (roughly the total size of Conquest) with the intent of grinding out in-game items (as in, finished versions of the in-match items you build in normal modes) to challenge the map again and progress further along with new builds. It came complete with an Easy Mode and a Hard Mode - the 'Easy' Mode being more like 'Preview / Practice' for the map used for grinding, while 'Hard' was the actual challenge that offered the rewards for the Event. Each area was relatively open-plan, with a large amount of NPC mobs (mostly jungle enemies), leading into chokepoints where an NPC boss could be fought to progress to the next 'Area'. If you died, you were dead until either the boss of the region was defeated or a small checkpoint away from the 'main route' was found, and enemies slowly became harder and harder the more deaths you had. Bosses had custom movesets, and when defeated, rewarded various things that could be spent at the in-menu hub to roll for the afforementioned items used to progress the run, as well as single-run buffs and debuffs that made it a cakewalk, even on hard. The areas / bosses mentioned were:
- A small forest / larger and a large detailed Greek City leading into a boss fight with the Erymanthian Boar (who would fling you around the arena, charge around, and spawn a load of minor boars)
- A large cave system with a rail section that had you you pass through a pitch-black area under a moving light - leading into a boss fight with the Nemean Lion (who would 'Roar' and Pounce at you like a cross between a Bacchus and a Heimdallr, and could be temporarily stunned if you attacked pillars around its cave, dropping stalagtites on it's head)
- A small craggy mountain region, with a tiny abandoned Greek City segment, leading immediately into a fight with the Lernean Hydra (which used the Apophis Boss skeleton, and wouldn't regenerate heads; rather, having you to fight 1 head, then 2, then another 2, then a buffed up final head with minions - on top, bombarding the arena with small and large AoE's, and requiring a set amount of basic attacks to kill each head once downed. Basically an Apophis with Agni / Vulcan Ults and Kumbhakarna Passive)
As previously mentioned, the Trials of King Hercules ran its course, and was proceeded by the Shadows over Hercopolis, which ran through November - December 2017. There were no major differences to the mode itself aside from the addition of a 3rd 'Nightmare' difficulty, however this rendition had a much more detailed map with more mechanical / structured puzzles to it, that required co-ordination to solve (instead of being plain open-plan regions), as well as an additional side-quest that allowed layers to earn some Gems if they 'found' and completed pieces of a statue by playing through the mode.
Rather than a Greek theme, this map had a Norse theme, with the areas / bosses being:
- An Ice Region, which had collapsing bridges, floor buttons and wind / sliding puzzles - focusing on a bomb escort, where one of the players would need to be protected by the other two. The boss was a colossal version of our titular Draugr for this Aside, attacking the players as they rode a boat to the next region. The first phase was it 'normally' attacking with it's moveset (along with moving Artemis root-traps around the boat), second phase was attacking it's fingers holding the boat down as
He Bo Ultstidal waves with gaps between them came in from the sides, before the final phase was a repeat of the first phase but with the addition of an boat-wideHades Ultvortex, and would raise up two walls to either side of it, and crash them into the person it was facing. - A Volcanic Region, which had steam vents and rising magma sections - focusing on a time-attack section, where instakill magma would flood the room if the players couldn't activate a trigger in time and return to a steam vent in the middle of the room. The boss of this section was
Angry Vulcan rigged to a Titan's skeleton'Surtr', who would spawn the Fire Giant's magma pools, had various fireball patterns that covered the Arena you fought him in and would Thor spin around when brought down to critical health. - A Dungeon Region, which honestly was just a more varied minion rush before the final boss, with minibosses such as the Bull Demon King and the Nemean Lion / Erymanthian Boar from the previous Adventure; finishing with this Adventure's mascot, Loki - dressed up in his Agent of Darkness skin, as the final boss. First phase was fighting him while he also used
Anubis Breathbladestorms, but at every 20% health threshold, he'd lock a player up in a cage or separate from them the group which they'd need to break out of to continue fighting. Next threshold he gained an Arena-wide floating blade projectile aura that players would need to account for, then his old minion taunt-bombs, then randomly moving sawblade projectiles, before finally gaining his Ult when at critical health.
The Draugr itself is a Norse monster, and an early version of what would now be considered a Zombie - a shuffling (usually water-bloated) rotting corpse covered in seaweed, that would linger around the burial mounds that their body was originally buried in (hence their secondary name, Barrowights). Especially, if disturbed... like, perhaps 'a flood' washing their graves away... ie, what happened to the Conquest Map.
Zombies in of themselves are cryptids that actually hail from the Voodoo Pantheon, but that being the case does not take from the Draugr serving as an earlier iteration of the 'general concept'; similar to how the Japanese have the Dorotabo, Yomikata or Jikininki Yokai as 'their Zombies'.
The Draugr's key traits were their immense strength, hardened claws, their shapeshifting / nocturnal nature, and the ability to invade into the dreams of the living - though they weren't completely mindless like the modern idea of a zombie; just consumed with irrational, insatiable envy and bloodlust for the living, rendering them extremely easy to trick and mislead. I also specifically say 'zombie' instead of a 'wight' or 'revanant' (other types of European mythological reanimated corpses), because much the modern concept of 'zombies', Draugrs were able to turn the living into other Draugrs if they were able to kill them (not just biting, it usually involved them mauling / snapping their neck or spine) - a phenomenon that was literally known as an outbreak / epidemic. Likewise, the only way to kill a Draugr was to decapitate the head or incinerate the body - though a third option existed, where you could wrestle it back into it's grave (if you could somehow overpower it), and force it into a proper resting position (though that method would likely get you cursed by the Draugr, for a yet worse outcome).
In reality, the concept of the Draugr was partial a tie-in to disease breakouts within early Europe. Those who were doomed to die but could still infect others would be colloquially referred to as the walking dead / Draugrs in slang - however Draugrs also explained the phenomena of bears digging up and feeding on corpses, then making dens out of burial mounds and barrows (killing any people who visited to pay respects to their dead). The mythology of the Draugr both led to the practices that helped the containment of the littany of infections that were circulating post-agricultural Europe, as well as a rise of extremely rigorous / secure burial practices (only seconded really by the Egyptians).
Finally, because it's too small to put elsewhere; as mentioned before, Tiamat's great flood is in reference to the same one seen in the Bible, but more topically the one in the Epic of Gilgamesh (that the previous immortal-mortal Utnapishtim survived, by building an Ark to ride it out and thus attain immortality); and has been mirrored in so many other ancient Pantheons in Eurasia (with parallels seen in basically all of them - Chinese, Celtic, Greco-Roman), that it was likely a major in-life event at one point.
The culprit is thought to be the hypothesis known as the Black Sea deluge - where the previously isolated (freshwater) Black Sea joined up to the Mediterranean Sea, after the Ice Age glaciers melted away and raised the sea level to the point it could reach / erode its way back into the Black Sea basin ~ 7,500 BC. The result of the two seas joining up resulted in roughly a 250m rise in sea level around the Black Sea (an area of general flatland and steppe) - completely deluging the formative civilizations in the region within a matter of months, and being the event that spurred the Caucasian migration of Proto-Indo-European humanity into Europe (which is applicable for both the Anatolian and Caucasus version of the Steppe model, and both the Out-of-Africa and Multiregionalism protohumanity model).
Also, if you didn't realise - this perfectly aligns with the Babylonian creation myth, Tiamat being a metaphor for the saltwater Mediterranean and the Ocean in general, Abzu being the metaphor for the freshwater Black Sea. Really, a nicely thought out in-lore event for Tiamat oversee a repeat of her own myth upon re-awakening... it's just such a shame SMITE always seems to shaft it's narrative climaxes.
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Scylla, Charybdis & the Strait of Messina
Because of course I would do an Aside on Scylla and Charybdis.
Are you kidding me? If it wasn't for their appeal to the lolicons in the gen over the years 
(along with Jing Wei's respective coom-base) the gen would be more dead than Tribes - the girls basically deserve this, for poster contribution alone.
If Jing Wei ever properly shows up in the lore outside of those bullshit cameo-mentions like Terra, Geb and Cernunnos get straddled with repeatedly, I'll do a big one for them too - I pwomiiiise~ Plus monsters are just cool, and there's a lot of material to chew into.
And no, I'm not talking about 'that' material.
The Strait of Messina isn't in Greece, but actually Italy - being the place where continental Europe and Sicily are closest (or in simple terms, where the boot-shape of Italy looks like it's kicking the island next to it).
This was (and still is) a hugely important trade route, as Messina, along with the Strait of Sicily (on the opposite, Eastern side of the island of Sicily), makes up a combined secondary chokepoint within the Mediterranean - after the Strait of Gibraltar separates the Mediterranean from the Atlantic. Given it's also in the smack bang middle of the Mediterranean, it would have been the far more trafficked chokepoint of the two chokes - requiring passage if the East Romans, Greeks or other nations to the East (Egypt, Caanan {Levant}, Anatolia {Turkey}, Mesopotamia etc) wished to to reach the nations to the West or North (Syphax {Algeria}, Sardinia, Mercia {Britain - same etymology later used for the name of aMer(ic)a}, Massalia / Gaul {France}, Iberia {Spain} etc).
While the Strait of Sicily is both far wider and far safer, it often came with the geopolitical downside of having to sail near the opposing and aggressive Carthaginians (on the African side of the Strait of Sicily in modern day Tunisia, who opposed the Greeks and Romans for a good portion of Ancient History), and was regularly frequented by independant pirates, who were a HUGE problem for the entire Mediterranean - until Rome got their shit together to deal with them, in an actually successful War-on-Terror (americlaps BTFO by shitalians lol).
This left the Strait of Messina in a unique situation - it was the more geopolitically stable and 'faster' of the two sailing tunnels - but much thinner, and also a complete natural death trap... which is how our in-game lolis became manifest as sailors superstition for the region.
And by death trap, I don't mean that in the figurative sense.
For below, the lighter areas are the regions each was said to lurk, and the more shaded areas were their canon / mythological 'main stomping ground'. You can also see Mt Etna (both Typhon's Volcanic Prison and Vulcan's {Hephaestus's} Personal Forge) as the large, white snow-capped spot below the Strait, as well as the urban sprawl of modern-day Rome, further up the coast of Italy.
So, as for the two lolis of the game; we'll start with Charybdis, because she's the more straightforward of the two, despite less generally written or known of her. She's rarely even given depiction, and in the Renaissance was many times just assumed to be the name of the whirlpool that is paired with Scylla, over being recognised as the actual entity she is.
Charybdis was the Daughter of Poseidon and his grandmother Gaia (>incest ;) ), and thus inferrable low-tier Primordial / Monster / Being of the Tide 
, Whirlpools and Vortexes. Charybdis's name itself is a literal play on words of the Ancient Greek verb 'to chug' (ekcha rubdizo = ekcharubdizo = e Charybdis). Most notably however, she is often associated with (and could also have actually just been a different name for) the far more powerful Primordial, Keto (sometimes anglacised as Ceto), under the name Keto Trienos (that was given to whirlpools, owing to the 3 times of every day they could form).
Keto was the Mother of all *Sea* Monsters - her children including Echdina (Wife of Typhon, Mother of Monsters), the Graeae (Crones of Aging), the Gorgons (Medusa and her sisters), Thoosa (Polyphemus's / The Odyssean Cyclop's Mother) and Ladon (the Dragon in Atlas's Golden Apple garden) - sometimes the Hesperides (the women in Atlas's Golden Apple garden) too. Keto fulfilled an otherwise similar role to Charybdis aside from description, and replacing the father Poseidon with Pontus (Pontus being Primordial of the Sea, one of Gaia's self-spawn) - but note however, Sea Monsters in general were known as Keto's, it's just perchance that Charybdis has far closer links and associations to Keto herself, moreso than most other 'Ketos' that may have indicated conflation at the time, that we're simply not fully aware of any more. Charybdis / Keto may also have been Hecate.... but that's just getting into the rats nest of Greek family tree fuckery, because as is, Charybdis already might be Medusa's mother and grandmother at the same time (and Bellona's mother...) (and let's not even talk about her relationship with Scylla... yet...), so we'll ignore that to save on a headache.
Also, while noting on this, I'm not sure if it's an intentional line or just Lo-Rez throwaway line luckily playing to their advantage; but in-lore Charybdis is described as 'being a child only the mother of monsters could love' - which is cruelly ironic if we go by the reasonble link that Charybdis was Keto, since it's implying nobody loves her lmfao fuckin orphans lol
The most common story behind Charybdis goes that, in her urge for conquest, she intended to continually expand the sea, onto the land, and thus increase her and her relatives domain.
One day, she got too greedy, Zeus noticed and ...SMITE!!!d her; chaining her to the sea bed with a lightning bolt and cursing her with her new appearence (the other notable backstory one being a tie-in cattle-thief to Heracles - which doesn't make much sense, given she features in myths before Heracles's trials and indicates a different myth / entity to the Charybdis we're referring to). From there, she would forevermore inhale and exhale copious amounts of sea water, forming the high and low tides, which in turn eroded the shores - continuing her endeavour to increase the size of the ocean's domain. This is sometimes equated to have happened around the same time as just after the Titanomachia, which would place Charybdis as getting a similar punishment as the Titans, despite not being one herself.
Fun fact (and hot take): Charybdis's depiction in-game is actually far closer to her mythological depiction than le big groaning mega-lamprey sea monster and modern depiction that retards most people were expecting - intentional, or (more likely) not.
While not perfect, she gets something like an imperfect 8/10, as oppose to le big sea-monster-thing that would get something like a 2/10.
Key notes in her depiction is that she was an otherwise normal / beautiful looking woman when she had no water intaken (sometimes a evil beakless cockerel head courtesy of Zeus though - because if you didn't twig, cockerels are exclusively male, and this was back when trannies were a common insult . >implying they still aren't), with the only three alterations being her webbed limbs or flippers, her abnormal amount of regenerating sharpened, pointed teeth (which would break teeth off as she intook and exhaled water, at great pain to herself as she swallowed them, along with making the exhaled whirlpools literally be lined with teeth) - and her signature stomach/bladder, that would swell up and distend to an absurd degree as she intook huge amounts of sea water a hypervorefags' literal wet dream.
No tentacles, no circular mouth, no mandibles, no gills or oversized-botfly-maggot-body. No weird eyes, no weird jaw, no scales, no tail. Just a waterlogged woman with webbed hands and multiple rows of sharp teeth chained to the sea floor. So while a Draugr with tits, flippers and a sharks mouth would probably be a more accurate design they could give Charybdis (see the above Draugr Aside) - the current design generally hits most notes about her myth, considering they wanted a throughline with Scylla, down to even using her own teeth as throwing knives (a genuinely nice touch, along with her yaeba that you can see in the ...and CHARYBDIS!!! ritualposterfag image) and inhaling / exhaling water on her 1 + 2. The fanservice mouth-whirlpool on her 3 is the least mythologically accurate aspect of her kit - she may create the whirlpools, but she isn't the whirpool itself.
She could have contextually been better as a loli attached by head as the lure to a giant anglerfish / cockerel / draugr monster that matched her description - but that's getting into OC headcanonshit wish territory, and evidently didn't happen, so I'll shut it.
Oh, and to finish up notes on her in-game design, if you didn't notice a nice detail - she's not hetrochromatic, she's half blind.
Her left eye is the same colour as (and seems to be controlled independantly / slightly out-of-sync at times, by) le THE MAW that's in place of her left arm, whose eyes share the same colour as Charybdis's out-of-sync eye. You can see this most clearly in her Ascension recolour where she / her right eye is looking at le THE MAW and the growth / her left eye are looking forward, however this is also mirrored in her other skin art, seen in her cinematic and standby animations (such as the backwards roar one) and is repeated to such a continued and subtle degree that I genuinely believe this is intentional on HiRez's end; and not the dark union of LoRez low polish, schizophrenia and seeing patterns in the numbers.
Also, from some design notes, the Maw's based slightly off of Vaal Hazak from the Monster Hunter franchise. I dunno, I just thought that was cool to mention.
In real life, Charybdis is in reference to the frequent whirlpools / maelstroms that form within the Strait of Messina even today, as the two currents of either side of the Mediterranean clash - and said whirlpools are still locally referred to as Charybdis's (instead of the shitalian word for whirpool, Mulinello). The 'shadow' cast by Northern Sicily creates a region with far lower current speed; hence Charybdis is said to occupy the Western side of the Strait, as that's where whirlpools will more commonly form - however Charybdis's can uniquely form almost anywhere in the Strait, owing to the existence of a semi-rare oceanic phenomena, in which at all times, a current moving in the opposite direction at twice the magnitude of the one above passes under the surface current (~25-30m deep) - and as such, any chance interactions between the two opposing currents can form a maelstrom.
Her described 'teeth' are likely dead bits of debris from the sea floor coral reefs (given dead corals and similar natural debris bleach white as they die), that would be kicked up between these two currents and would be visible alongside the already white foam, and would lodge in the wooden sides of vessals if they ever 'passed' a Charybdis.
A key difference of the time period however, was that the naturally warmer climate of Earth and overall slighlty lower local sea level would have resulted in even faster currents still, in somewhat shallower waters.
To begin with, the current within the Strait averages 2-5mph - which in physical terms, means Charybdis's range at radiuses around ~5m, have a funnel depth of ~1-2m and reach speeds of 6-15mph, increasing doublefold / triplefold in optimal storm conditions at high / spring tide (Read: Guaranteed Death). Overall, the potential for a whirlpool about the width and depth of a small single-storey bungalow just forming on the open water when you consider outer radius's. Today. As in, not millenia ago - back when whirlpool-creating-conditions were even more ideal, to an unknown extent.
This may sound 'small' (especially compared to the behemoth ~80-120m+ radius whirlpool we see in Charybdis's trailer, if we measure it using the ~40m Galley as reference - in which case these really are nothing in comparison) - but you're thinking in the context of on-land running speed. The speed of the current in the ocean is usually negligable, and the best manned Galleys of the period had a cruising speed around 5-7mph, with a maximum HEEEEEEEEAVE-HOOOOOOO of lifetime expert sailors reaching a burst speed of ~11mph in one direction.
Which means that, no matter how well equipped you were, no matter how strong your men were, no matter how hard you rowed - Charybdis was almost always gonna decide where your vessel was going. And if Charybdis decided you were going down, you'd best hope you have enough time to at least say your final prayers. No lifeboats were coming. No good samaritan would be suicidal to try to help. You're not even gonna get life rings or any buoyancy aid. And you're not the protagonist of a fantasy tale - you are living in real life, as shitty as that is.
If a Charybdis caught your primative sailing vessal. You. Are. Dead.
Just trying to sail though the Strait 'against' the current of the region would be a monumental task, and rowing 'with' the current would be uncontrollably fast (even ignoring the risk of whirlpools); to the point an easy potential capsize was more than possible if even a single sailor made a mistake in their timing. This strictly limited passage times through the Strait of Messina to calm-waters-only (practically twice a day for ~1-2hrs). Hitting any Charybdis, even in those calmer conditions during the 'downtimes', was still almost a guaranteed capsize.
While the Strait is far from creating the fastest or largest whirlpools in the world (that award going to the 'Big 5': Saltstraumen / Moskstraumen / Skookumchuck / Old Sow / Naruto the weeb named after the Whirlpool, not the other way around - with their speeds reaching up to 18mph and radii of 10m; more again during storm conditions) - the key aspect that made Messina so infamously deadly is that it is so heavily trafficked (compared to the others, which are generally nameless fjords and minor straits). The whirlpools didn't need to 'swallow the ship whole' to kill you - they only needed to make enough differential speed to tip your ship - which from Charybdis's point of view, would have been very, very (very), very easy. The water would take care of the rest (good luck even trying to swim on your own in that current speed, and quite literally next a whirlpool no less).
Oh, but that's not to say she couldn't swallow a ship whole either - Galleys were the largest ships of the period (smaller fishing vessels were even more fucked), and yet then, running a Galley directly into a (non-storm-force, even) Charybdis would quite literally drop it straight downward because of the depth difference, looking like the back end of the fucking Titanic. And then the whirlpool would do as all whirlpools do best, and pull the thing further downwards, as the momentum of the Galley carried it forward into the depths. The sea-floor of the Strait of Messina is lined with obliterated fragments / remains of hundreds of ships, from just about every period of human history. And every one of them would have had a crew on board. Additionally, skeletons line the sea-floor of the Strait of Messina, dating from just about every period of human history.
Even today, the current through Messina is fucking brutal - having shredded up underwater motherfucking L E A D-lined cables, roughly 25 times in the last 40 years. It's also why there's little in terms of archaeology in the area - everything has already been destroyed and 'chewed up' by our dear Charybdis. All that remains are scarce, heavily eroded fragments of the ships where hundreds, if not thousands of sailors met their watery end.
So, you might be thinking "Holy shit that was long...but definitely interestingthanksverymuchAno-, "Why would Scylla be less straightforward than Charybdis, if we know less about Charybdis?". Or you might not, but you can shut the fuck up, I'm rambling and I'm in the zone, kill yourself for not sharing a collective thought process, faggot.
While there was certainly less written about and attested to Charybdis - the issue with Scylla, is that there was instead such an overwhelming amount from so many various poets and historians, that we really don't know what was concrete about her from the period - aside from her location within Messina and her general description. In essence, Scylla is the Brave New World to Charybdis's 1984 - and that's a comparison you will not see every day.
Scylla's lolicon fanclub was so large, that I would say she was probably one of the most popular and colloquially well-known monsters within Ancient Greek culture - or at least, it seems that way from the overwhelming amount of versions we have of her. Creatures such as the Minotaur, Medusa or Cerberus all have variations, sure - but at their core, the stories and geneology stay roughly the same. For Scylla... who who fucking knows what the 'true' story was (likely owing to the idea that each sailor would have their own tale to tell as he passed through the infamous Strait). Nobody has taken responsibility for her, she's just been ditched on a Rock and left to die.
lmfao, fuckin' orphans, they exist to be bullied.
So, you know how Greeks seems to have some kind of obsession with everyone being tied into 'le divine family tree'? Scylla... has no idea who her real parents are, and there's double digits of possible mothers and fathers.
Let's compare to two girls:
- Poseidon + Gaia {Terra} = Charybdis
Simple? Simple.
As for Scylla's potential parents, we've got:
- [Unknown] + Crataeis / Krataiis
Crataeis being a Minor Water Nymph of the region and Scylla's 'most common' mother, with a deliberately unidentified father. Crataeis was the Patron of an extremely small nearby stream, nowadays locally known as the Torrente Solano / Solano Creek, whose mouth is at Favazzina, ~4km up the coast from of the Rock of Scylla. It's such a minor stream, that it's often left off of maps, which don't care about it's mythology. - Triton + Crataeis
Triton being the iconic 'Merman with the Conch-shell trumpet', as one of the Messengers of the Underwater World (similar in role to Hermes {Mercury}, Iris or Ascalaphus for their messenger-bases of the Seas / Gods / Titans / Underworld respectively). Triton was Poseidon and Amphitrite's only definite child together, as a married couple - the rest between the two either being disputed, or cases where they cheat on one another. In this parentage, this would potentially make Scylla Poseidon's grand-daughter, Charybdis's niece and Athena's foster-sister, as Triton is commonly given as the one who raised Athena as a child (given Hera's general obsessively infanticidal attitude to any of Zeus's kids who aren't hers - yes, even the ones Zeus creates by himself). In this version, Athena would certainly be close to Scylla anyways, as her childhood best-friend was Pallas, Triton's daughter - so if Scylla was also one of Triton's daughters, the logic would extend. - Deimos + Crataeis
Deimos being the God of Terror - one of Ares and Aphrodite's children. This parentage of Scylla likely stems from her moniker of the 'Horror' of the Sea; which wold inferrably make her the Goddess of Horror with this pairing. - Poseidon + Crataeis
Nothing more to explain, just Poseidon getting his dick wetpun intended. This is the parentage that puts Scylla as Charybdis's.... half sister, and is the closest possible familial relation between the two. - Phorcys + Crataeis
Phorcys being a post-Primordial of the Sea to Pontus and Gaia, usually a crab-man-merman. Most famous for his relationship with Keto, as the Father of (most) Sea Monsters - of which included Echidna (making Phorcys the Grandfather of Monsters, with Tartarus on the grandfather on Typhon's side). - Phorcys + Keto Trienos
The more famous Phorcys pairing, as him and Keto were the catch-all parents of many sea monsters. As previously mentioned, this would make Scylla sister to Echdina, the Graeae, the Gorgons, Thoosa and Ladon. In-game, this paints Scylla as Medusa's sister, Bellona's Greek iteration's {Enyo's} sister, and, *potentially* places Charybdis as Scylla's mother, depending on the "Keto Trienos = 3 Whirlpools a Day" theory. - [Unknown] + Lamia
Lamia is not a race of monsters as you may think, but is a singular entity that later became the word for snake-woman we use today.
The daughter / granddaughter of Poseidon, Queen of Libya and at-the-time most beautiful woman in the known world; whom Zeus infamously had one of his innumerable affairs with. Hera was pissed because Lamia was more than happy to have said affair (Lamia's first few children going on to become various Oracles), and she started killing every single one of her children as they were born, as well as cursing Lamia with the inability to close her eyes and thus sleep. Lamia was driven mad with grief, pain and divine mental torment; and went insane, cannibalising any newborn children she could get her hands on at night - and only from there became the iconic mythical snake-woman with elongated talons due to her deeds (sometimes disputed as to if the transformation was also Hera's doing). You might have been told about the 'monster under your bed' coming to eat you if you misbehaved as a kid - Lamia is the mythological origin of that monster, that scared Greek children into good behaviour for centuries. Definitely not a dahhling, if you get the reference.
Only after her hideous transformation occured, was she relieved of her torment (Zeus guiltily helping her sleep again, by allowing her to remove her eyes / Hera happily satisfied with her work, and so not bothering to kill more of Lamia's children as they were born), but alas the damage had been done and Lamia was mentally trapped in a state of obsessively eating human children. All her children after this transformation were non-human, and born from eggs (which Lamia would overlook - preferring to snack on live-births instead of her hatchlings).
In this family-line, Scylla would be sister of the first Oracles, multiple Shark-Monsters (such as Akheilos) and the race of Lamiai (that the word Lamia is confused with today). - Phorcys + Lamia
Nothing more to explain, just Phorcys getting his dick wetpun intended - Pallas + Styx
Pallas being the Titan of Springtime War Campaigns; Styx being the same Water Nymph of the famed Underworld River that borders the worlds of Living and Dead. This places Scylla as Nike'sand Kratos'ssister. And possibly sister of the Moon, Selene. - Phorcys + Hecate
Hecate being the famed triplicate Goddess of Witchcraft and Magic, who after Hades and his Underworld entourage, is one of the most influential Goddesses outside of Mt. Olympus. This would directly mean Scylla is Circe's sister.... but indirectly? The figure of Hecate has a huge amount of echoes in other Pantheons, meaning Scylla could also have various international half-brothers and half-sisters in the Roman, Slavic, Celitc and Babylonian Pantheons. - Apollon + Hecate
You should know who Apollon / Apollo is. Yes, he's one of Scylla's credited potential fathers, placing Scylla as sister to Asclepius and Hector of Troy, and many others. - Human ??? + Human ???
While underwhelming, two deliberately unknown humans is a common parentage for stories in which Scylla is 'transformed' into the monster, rather than 'born this way'. - King Nisus + Queen Abrota
One of the few human-based parentage origins, Nisus was the Demigod son of Ares and King of Megara. This origin has his youngest daugther, Scylla betray her Samson-esque father, by cutting off his purple lock of hair and source of strength to try to please the man she'd fallen in love with, the King of Minos (some cases after being manipulated by the King of Minos, some cases because Eros {Cupid} interfered on a whim, some cases just plain childish and innocent love). Regardless of motive, her love was not reciprocated, and the kingdom of Megara fell as a result of the act of traitorousness - Scylla being transformed into a monster after either trying to flee with the civilians, or when she attempted to board one of the King of Minos's ships (some cases as a result of King Nisus's lingering hatred of her action - some cases being Ares punishing her for getting one of his children killed or because she lead to a cowardly and un-entertaining non-conflict for the War God as the Minoans swept the floor with the powerful Megarans with minimal resistance - some cases just being Scylla's own guilt transforming her).
Sometimes this is given as Scylla being turned into a bird, however others pegs this Scylla as the same Scylla that occupies the Strait of Messina. Ironically, this would make one of her nieces a famed monster-slayer, Bellerophon - slayer of the Chimera and tamer of Pegasus. This is also the only parentage route that places Scylla as a princess, mirroring her sense of fashion in-game. - King Tyrrhenus + [Unknown]
Tyrrhenus being one of the mortal / real-life leaders of the Etruscans, aka the pre-Romans. Same guy who had the Tyrrhenian Sea named after him, the body of water that is contained by Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Italy (ie, the water at the front of the boot of Italy, that the Rock of Scylla represents the border of). - Phorbas + Hecate
Not Phocys, Phorbas. Disappointingly, there's no confirmation as exactly 'which' Phorbas is the one Hecate had children with, but based off of the various Phorbas's in mythology; the most likely contender is the most popular Phorbas, the tyrant-King Phorbas of Olenus, King of Phlegya, who had many run-ins with the Divine Realm as he personally blockaded the route to Delphi, either forcing pilgrims to pay a tax to pass or fighting and killing them outright to stealing their offerings, until he was eventually killed by Apollon. This would mean that all of Scylla's half-brothers became Argonauts, which she attempted to eat as they passed through the Strait. - Hecate = Crataeis
With this line of logic, all the Crataeis pairings have a potential to be with Hecate too. Almost certainly bullshit, but one faggotApollonius, author of the Argonautica, the most circulated version of the myth of Jason and the Argonauts as well as a multiple other mythological accounts, such as his version of the Illiad, his lost Nostoi or his version of the Typhonomachiathought it'd be a smart idea to equate Crataeis (the minor river water nymph) with Hecate (the major Goddess) in an attempt to 'fix' Scylla's parentage dispute, when they are quite clearly distinct entities. Basically, secondaries fucking ruining mythology once again, except centuries in the past. You see the damage that can be caused by just making shit up and asserting it as fact? Unbelievable. Both the assertation, and the gall of it all. Faggot should kill himself. -
Typhon + Echidna
Because of course I'd save the best until last. Typhon and Echidna, famed parents of Monsters - Typhon the writhing mass of snakes who made the entire Divine Realm shit themselves and flee from him and nearly BTFO'd Zeus to usurp the Olympians during Typhonomachia, Echidna being his beautiful half-snake wife that gave birth to most of the monsters in Greek mythology (especially so if they had no clear parentage).In-game, Medusa is pretty much Echidna's depiction to a T, Medusa's design for 'Medusa' is the inaccurate one. This would make Scylla the sister of Cerberus and, depending on account, has sibling-links to most of the Greek NPC jungle mobs in the game.I'm laughing right now, thinking of a baby / toddler Scylla wandering / slithering alone across the Divine Realm with a scrap piece of paper and a teddie bear, individually asking if all of the above are her parents, then getting shoved / kicked to the ground and told to fuck off each time.
lmfao, fuckin' orphans, they exist to be bullied.
In-lore, Charybdis might be Poseidon's bullied orphan child, but Scylla is the equivalent of a bastard child to an unknown father whose mother left her on the side of the road, so no wonder that she seems to be more unhinged than Chaybdis in-lore.
lmfao, fuckin' orphans, they exist to be bullied.
Charybdis's most common relation to Scylla (without singing 'I am my own Grandpa') is usually given as her half-aunt - they're not biological sisters at all, just sister-close-friends, and half-sisters at best. While Charybdis is definitely a near-primordial embodiment of Whirlpools / Vortexes and TTGL Spiral Power!, Scylla could either be something equally near-primordial, or just some stinkin' monster - depending on which version of her heritage you take. Hell, if you read the earlier aside attentively, she coȗ̴̯l̴͓̿d̴̩͝ ̵̢̐w̷͎͝a̴̼̐͆͆̊ỉ̵̯͇̑̆ͅṭ̵̈́̊ ̷̤́̉̋͝ǹ̵̩͙̌-̶̖̹̍͋̉n̷͕̄̚n̷̼̉̃͆̀o̴̧̩̗̭̍̀͝ ̶̛̮ͅo̸̥͋̉̆͋t̷̤̺̠̥͐̕ ̸̛͖̩̣̯̣̋͒̓̊̉͌͑͠š̵̰̹͈͙͙̚ą̸̗̠̰̲͈̰̰̪̈́́̓x̸̡̘̯͐̇̉̾̎̂̉̍̔o̵̩̞͈̞͐ĉ̵͔̝̟̹̖͈̽v̵̭͔̟̥̤͐n̶̢̛̠̹̜͔̊͌̒͋̒.
Realistically, I'm probably going to adopt an orphan later in life. It's not their fault their parents either died early or were normalfag pieces of shit who should be put the fuck down (as in, death penalty, fuck the unfunny joke that is 'human rights') like the hedonistic animals they are. It's not a substitute for having children, it's to end a vicious cycle - like the modern philosophical parable of returning the shopping cart or not.
And, much like her parentage, Scylla's myth is another complete shotgun between poets and historians.
Initial myths implied she just came bundled with the Strait since creation, and is 'just a thing' that exists there. This indicates the myths surrounding the Strait of Messina predate Greek civilisation, and this notion is also reinforced by the fact the name 'Scylla' has no etymological root - the word 'Scylla' is a genuinely original word. With this, we can infer that, while Charybdis is the mythologically / canonically older of the two girls, Scylla is by far the historically older one - and by the scope of a good few millennia (~ 3,000-2,000 BC, minimum) (Scylla is at *least* 20 times older than all of the combined history of the USA).
Her otherwise 'most common myth' usually goes along the lines that Scylla was once a beautiful maiden (of unspecified age), that at some point pissed off a divine being for being beautiful, which in turn leads to Scylla's bathing spring being poisoned and Scylla being transformed from the waist downward into a horrific monster she has no control over.
- Sometimes she's Poseidon's preistess and gets pre-emptively polymorphed by Amphitrite {Salacia} (Poseidon's lesser known wife, Goddess of Saltwater, varying from sub-Primordial to sub-Titan) so Poseidon doesn't cheat on her.
- In another, she's Glaucus's (another family-tree shitshow, usually a Demigod-Merman-turned-Immortal and Saviour of Sailors, possibly equtable to the Babylonian Utnapishtim, the immortal-guy-before-Gilgamesh that features in the Epic) object of desire, which leads Circe (extremely beautiful and immensely powerful witch / polymorpher, Granddaughter of Primordials, features in the Odyssey as the one who turns the crew into pigs) to shift Scylla into a horrific abomination, so Glaucus would pay more attention to her.
- In yet another she's given a resurrection treatment post-death where she becomes le monster at that point.
- In.... another.... she's given as a child who killed / led to the death her family, and thus was transformed as punishment - winding up at and nesting within the Rock of Scylla.
- In another, she was just born that way, daughter of some "fucking divine-being-combo" that leds to 'a Scylla' being made (see above pairings).
- In anothe-
Suffice to say - tl;dr fuckin... who knows. You could look up some DeviantArt fanfic on Scylla and it might be as valid as some of her myths. And if you think I'm joking, you heavily underestimate how theoretical and assumption-based the classical field can get at times.
>scyllafags when they're snowballing mid
Much like her parentage and much like her myth, again - who the fuck knows what Scylla is 'supposed' to look like.
The only consistant throughline was that she had multiple heads of some kind, with which she would be able to consume multiple people at once. Aside from that, the sky's the limit, with the only other consistantly specified adjective being 'Horrific'.
In her most extreme depiction, she's a demonic-draconic figure with 12 heads (6 flesh-bare humanoid ones attached to serpentine necks, 6 hounds attached to the waist), each head having 3 sets of sharks teeth, then to finish, 12 tentacles for legs and a cross between a cat and a leviathan's tail, wrapped around the Rock. Basically, a skinless Hydra on steroids. In her most tame (and initial) depictions, she's best described almost as a lamia-mermaid (upper half woman, lower half sea-serpent) and with 1-3 neck-less dog heads attached to her waist, like a belt.
While the game's version is certainly much younger than the myths imply, all in all, it's clearly going for an earlier-style of Scylla (which, in terms of marketing, clearly worked out for them) - not quite not!MermaidLamia-Scylla, but also nowhere near not!Dragondemon Scylla. There's technically no mention of her age anyway, making her loli-fication at least non-conflicting - though it does mean that in the SMITEverse, the Glaucus myth is literal ancient bearded old man lusting after a pre-developed child, or the Amphitrite / Circe / 'Envious Woman' myths has the grown seductress woman feeling less attractive than a bratty mesugaki (which, I mean in ancient mythology / history isn't exactly a rare occurence, just an implication on LoRez's end - luckily for them they distance themselves from it all in her mini-bio by going with the 'oooo we don't know where she came from either oooo').
As for another note on her design, crossing the dog-heads with the tentacles / tail(s) is something that's only grown in popularity from more modern depictions, as the myth has developed through the ages. Late Renaissance / Victorian depictions would only include the long-necked fleshbare heads peering out from the Rock of Scylla (from her later not!Dragondemon version), which were then made more hound-like with time, until they were re-designed back into Scylla herself (in her not!Mermaid version) from her waist, as the tentacles in general depictions around the early 1900's. No points for ancient historical accuracy there then, even if it's an understandable design choice to make her more identifiable; her current silhouette is based off of a modern depiction of Scylla, no matter which way you cut it, and was never her forme present within her mythology.
The only other aspects I'd criticise from a mythological point of view is that I'd say they could have easily given her 6-7 legs instead of 4 (even accounting for modelling / in-game use, or the two she can send out with her 1st ability) to fit closer to the Odyssean myth she's synonymous with, and that they could have easily stuck a wolf-motif on her belt-thing to mirror the notion they were often given to be attached to her waist. Unless of course, she actually does actually have 2 more legs hidden under her dress, as shown in..... ... .... uhhh... 'fan'...'depictions'(?)... ... ....... Look they were the ones that linked it in the thread. I wash my hands of this shit and refuse any and all responsibility for the sensible action of clicking links where I have no idea lead to (as one should ALWAYS do as a point of principle, once you've got adblock running), go fuck yourself faggot. Otherwise, there's more than enough creative freedom with Scylla - they could have safely gone with pretty much anything lightly touching on the myth and it'd work.
So not as accurate as Charybdis... but good enough. I give a 6.5/10; above average, but could easily be better with minimal effort.
An ideal would be something like her traditional / early mermaid-lamia design under the dress, then shift it into the multi-headed abomination later design for her Ult - hits all the design notes, and you could still get away with making her into a loli; though I could see why they'd avoid it at the time, given Old Wa was already slithering around in-game, and Medusa would have been in rough prototype development. At least the Ult silhouette is distinctive, which is all that matters in terms of gameplay.
Unlike her parentage, etymology, myth or depiction, in real life / geographically, Scylla has a very fixed 'home'. That home being the Rock of Scylla (located in Scilla, named after Scylla, because Silla scilla Scylla silla windowsillow godzilla gorilla mozilla) a notable outcrop located just Northeast of the Strait (again, like the faster currents creating larger whilrpools back then, would have been an even more prominent landform back then, given it's been eroding away for the last few millennia); however mythologically she was described as occupying any region on the Eastern side of the Strait, and simply making her home / nest on the Rock.
The Rock itself was prominent, despite being 'outside' the tunnel of the Strait itself, as it was extraordinarily close to the path sailors would need to take to 'safely' pass through the Strait; and given the historical timeframe may also have been in reference to any number of geological underwater outcrops between the two landforms (which again, the world sea level was lower at that point, thus the shallows were more-shallow). Every time you passed through the Strait, you'd either need to wait near the distinctive Rock for the tide to calm down, or you'd head towards it / pass by it on the way out.
Another unique aspect to the Strait is it's huge amount of underwater marine life - it being a migratory chokepoint for marine life within the Mediterranean and having a highly-fertile underwater setting (owing to the nearby actively erupting Mt. Etna).
Which included, but was not limited to, Coral Reefs.
Not, however, the nice colourful kinds of coral you see in the tourist advertisements for Australia. No, I'm talking about Black Coral - a rare deepsea coral that is functionally invisible from the surface (and again, would be much closer to the surface, owing to the lower sea level and warmer oceans of the time), that's uniquely found in abundance throughout the Strait of Messina (and barely anywhere else on Earth at such a high elevation).
As such, 'Scylla' was overall in reference to the high chance of scraping alongside any number of underwater obstacles on the more shallow and rocky Eastern side of the Strait - with the creaking hull of a given ship smashing and crunching through any shallow corals or rocky outcrops sounding like (you guessed it) dogs barking. To compound this audio aspect, the constant nearby rumbling of Etna, and minor eruptions of nearby sea vents would also create an illusion that the waters were... 'occupied' by something else.
And psychological fear / paranoia makes people do crazy things. Your ship is stuck, even though you're hundreds of metres from shore, and seafog has descended on you in a matter of minutes? Scylla's probably sunk her teeth into your boat (aka you're caught on something) and the Gods are pissed off - better get rowing and unstuck lads, because fuck knows what's under the water. Who cares if you're going to be heading straight into the maws of a Charybdis in your hurried panic. Who cares that any attempt to turn around inside the strait will result in the differential currents capsizing you.
While on the topic of the geography / biology of the Strait of Messina, before we conclude - since the Strait also acts as a natural slope upwards, the Strait of Messina is also a unique region of the sea, wherein deepwater lifeforms find themselves unusually close to the surface. We've mentioned deep-sea Black Coral, but this also includes Whales, Eels, Squid, all manner of mundane deep-sea fish... including Anglerfish (which is what Charybdis's in-game Maw is clearly inspired off of - because layers of detail).
And because of course it is, the Strait of Messina is shark-infested waters. And a whale / orca migration tunnel. And home to a great number of other rare carnivorous species owing to it's huge biodiversity / natural hunting grounds (which may have also included the undocumented Giant Eel, which were on record multiple times to occupy the Mediterranean in Ancient times). And very rarely, an aggressive Giant Squid (aka the Kraken) surfacing in the chokepoint-shallows.
Just in case all the ways Scylla & Charybdis could try to kill you weren't enough ;)
>scyllafags after they've felt THE MIGHTY SWORD! (chosen one skin) (twisting motion) (yes this is lore relevant)
To conclude all of the above, all this information combined perfectly results in what we know of our dynamic duo - you could choose to sail in the deep water (and get hit by the whirlpools that could form as a result of of more depth, or be flung around by the extremly difficult currents and sea conditions) - or you could choose to sail closer to the shore in the shallows, (and have the underside of your boat shredded up by the shallow cliffs and corals, like underwater hounds had taken a chunk out of your boat).
The result of this, is that while the Strait itself is around 2 miles wide, there's only a 300-500ft wide 'safe' zone nearing the Eastern side, for traditional wooden vessels (shallows taking up about 50% of the Strait, and the region where Whirlpools can form taking up 2/3rds, cutting into the shallows on the Sicilian West side). Modern steel and motorised ships can traverse the Strait somewhat safely by sailing the Western Charybdis-side and overpowering the current - but this was at a time when 'sails' were still a somewhat novel concept. And yes, because real life is not a videogame, there's absolutely no indication where this safe-line is; so sailors would have had to have trial-and-error'd their way across until they figured the best path to avoid both. Even then, that's just by the Strait's modern day standards - reduce that by however much the sea level was lower back then, and it was possible that said 'safe zone' didn't even exist back then. Only death awaited if you tried passing in the wrong way or at the wrong time.
Much like the legend too, Odysseus chooses to veer closer to the Scylla-occupied East side - which is coincedetally where this safe line is closest to, and may explain how Odysseus apparently got so far through the mythicised Strait before Scylla descended on his crew. The myth of Odysseus was a veiled message to sailors of the time, or may have been adapted from a similar myth before it, all being a message to the reader / listener - "Stick close to Scylla's portion of the Strait, and you'll have the best chance of surviving - but swerve just before you come close to the Rock of Scylla, or she'll get you. No matter how hard you try, there's portions of the Strait where either or both can get you, but this is the safest path".
And - for the unlucky or stupid few who did not heed the tales of those who came before them - just trying to cut directly through the Strait through the shortest possible route puts you in a region where there is both deep water and nearby shallows (the underwater volcanic Cliffs of Messina stretch across the entire Strait at one point, and cutting through puts you at an incresed risk of Charybdis, instead of having the liberty to go slower to navigate the shallows). This is combined with the East Mediterranean tide innately forcing you back inside the Strait, makes it even more difficult to escape the ultra-death double region - resulting in both Scylla and Charybdis working together to to destroy the vessal, with a high chance of crashing you into the rocks and capsizing you.
Did I also mention that, along with the high current, numerous whirlpools, razor-sharp / shallow reefs and general shark infested waters - the Strait of Messina is mostly enclosed by volcanic cliffs with relatively few beaches?
If you capsized. If you survived the whirlpool. If you did not graze yourself at any point, and avoided any nearby bloodthirsty sharks. If you could even swim to begin with. Well - you weren't getting back on land alive. There's very few places you can reliably get ashore, and doing so requires at least 1-2 solid *miles* of swimming in some of the harshest passive sea-conditions on Earth (not even counting storm-condition state).
You're gonna drown, whether you want to or not, whether you delay it or accept it.
Scylla and Charybdis have no myths where they're 'nice'. There is no 'redemption' myth. No myth where they're out-witted. There is no 'saviour' myth, and no myth where they spare anyone or simply allow somebody to pass.
They kill people. Indiscriminately. And they're good at it.
The place would have been one hell of a divine death trap back in the days of the Ancients.
Hell - it was - the sea bed is littered with the heavily eroded remains and wrecks of ancient ships - and even today, the Strait usually manages to destroy 1-2 vessels a year, despite our technological advancement, stronger materials and the somewhat 'calmer' conditions.
Which! Concludes our aside on Scylla and Charybdis. If you've made it this far without falling asleep, you're probably one of the lolicons I outlined at the start, so go jack off or something. Whatever floats sinks your boat.
The Game - you just lost it
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