Lore24 Jan 8: Atra-Ippur

 A bit over fifty years ago the fields of a farmer named Nabir suddenly split open, and a river of lava burst forth from the vast crevice. As it cooled the next eruption piled even more on top. For seven months, seven weeks, and seven days the mound grew to a hill, and the hill grew to a mountain. The lava caused a wildfire, the ash blanketed the fields, and the resulting famine killed hundreds. The priests prayed in vain, and even the Sorcerer-King’s powers proved insufficient to stop the devastation. Defeated, Ea-Nur ordered the grain of the surrounding towns seized and transported to the afflicted capital. The resulting food riots killed thousands. 

As soon as the toxic gases stopped billowing from the newly-formed caldera, the priests were ordered to scale the volcano and talk to whatever power dwelled therein. It had no name, so the priests called it Atra-Ippur, for it has appeared next to the city of Nashat-Ippur. They then made an effigy of bronze and arsenic for the new god to inhabit and speak through. They sacrificed a black bull and five sheep, and would have sacrificed a virgin too, if the god didn’t cry out. He said he was a patron of those who worked with their hands, and that the city’s treatment of them had offended him. He also said that his fires would swallow anyone who offered him the life of another thinking being. The priests fell to their knees and promised him a temple in the city, sacrifices every year, and servants and slaves to do with as he wills, if he would come to the city, and promise to spare their lives. Atra-Ippur said that he will do so, if they could find him an honest man, who works with his hands to be his high priest. 

The priests deliberated, and argued among each other, and finally made their choice. They brought forth the general Mashda. They said ‘here is a man who earns his wages with his hands, as he wields a sword for the king’. The god laughed, and said ‘this man hasn’t drawn his sword in a decade, and the last time he did, it was to pick bones from his teeth’. Next the priests brought out Kud Ba-wu, the priest who held the sacrificial animals down at the altar, so they wouldn’t escape. They said ‘here is a man who works with his hands, he holds the sacrifices still so they can go before the gods’. The god said ‘this man has been deceiving you. For years he has fed the sacrificial animals with the tears of the white poppy flower, so they require no holding down during your ceremonies’. The priests then brought out the scion of the House Akamat and said ‘here is a man who earns his bread with his hands, for he counts the money, and writes the letters of trade’. Atra-Ippur shook his head and said ‘this mans hand is soft, his throat dry, and his body is pudgy. He hasn’t worked a day in his life with his hands, and if the next man you bring before me isn’t someone that supports himself with his hands, I will burn down you palaces and temples, and only the wild animals will roam this place until the day the sun goes dark, and the world freezes over’. This frightened the priests mightily, and they whispered and argued among themselves for three days, not able to come to a conclusion. 

On the third day Anum-Eresh climbed the mountain. He was a silversmith who was working on one of the temples. ‘You fool, you have doomed us all’ cried the priests ‘why have you come here?’ ‘I came to tell you that silver you ordered from the south is of the wrong grade. I know little of the gods, but if I know one thing it’s that they will surely punish us if we don’t use the best silver for their temples. So I beg of you to turn this merchant back, and withhold his pay until he brings us the correct grade silver.’ The priests grew angry, but the god laughed. ‘This man is wiser than all of you combined, and it’s clear as day he works with his hands’ Atra-Ippur said. ‘He shall be my high priest, and your city shall stand’. And this is how the god Atra-Ippur came to reside in the town of Nashat-Ippur for which he was named.

 

Image by Miguel Morenatti

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lore24 Jan 1: Nashat-Ippur

Image
  The city of Nashat-Ippur was once a seat of great empire, now after plagues , a volcanic eruption , famine, and rebellion it is a shadow of its former self. The great firestorm burned the docks on the great river Sem, the quaint wooden houses, and the great bazaars. Now in their place stands a ramshackle collection of cheap tents, shacks, and huts inhabited by the ever-growing number of the desolate, hungry and sick. The palaces, temples, and gardens of the old imperial elite still stand in the middle, separated by a great mudbrick wall some ten meters high, from the problems of the lower class. Therein the old aristocracy still pretends at imperial grandeur, though the sources of wealth have dried up, and the great edifices of old have begun to crumble under the pressure of greed, nepotism, and plain old incompetence. As the nobles’ estates crumble, their eyes are ever vigilant for new sources of wealth. Indeed many have their gaze turned onto the sprawling necropolis on the other
Read more

Lore24 Jan 2: The White Lady

Image
The White Lady is one of the hundreds of Underworld deities mentioned in the clay tablets rescued from the ruins of the drowned city of Ab-Cir. She holds the keys to the nine gates of the Underworld, and the souls of the dead are only allowed to leave on her authority. Legends of heroes delving into the Underworld often feature bargaining with or straight-up threatening her to allow for the release of the hero’s loved ones. She is worshiped more out of fear than reverence, as in her displeasure she is wont to unseal the gates of the Underworld, allowing the spirits of the dead and other, even worse creatures to wreak havoc on the mortal world. She may alternatively bar spirits from entering the underworld, rendering the souls of the dead cursed to wander the lands of the living. She is most commonly depicted as a woman wearing a long white dress and a white veil, or as a white snake or sparrow. Her temples are made out of marble where possible, and out of limestone where practical.
Read more