They are a race of a fallen multiplanar empire and expert linguists.
there is another possibility, he's a spellweaver (given by Eric Boyd in noncanon Age of Worms conversion)
I'd like that there is some connection with Nergal (of Unther and the one in Avernus), MT suggested this one, but it should be more complicated not like father-son or similar
Nergal is the untheric deadgod? Or Nerull you mean?
-Yup, Nergal. He's a Babylonian deity, and, as such, an Untheric deity. Nerull is in the Grayhawk/"3e Core" pantheon. Nergal lives, according to the Babylonians, in the underworld and governs the dead. Nergal, apparently, was also identified as a sun deity, like Jergal during the days of Netheril, with the Dusk portfolio.
-I, personally, don't know what he is. No one does, as there is nothing official. Because Powers and Pantheons mentions him as looking like a praying mantis, I tend to think he is a Thri-Kreen. I like the concept of a non-Human deity being in charge of death (as a whole) in Realmspace. It makes things less Humancentric.
I'd like that there is some connection with Nergal (of Unther and the one in Avernus), MT suggested this one, but it should be more complicated not like father-son or similar
You know... I remember connecting the three together in that thread. I had also thought there should be a connection, and I remember 'doing something' with the lore to connect them (Nergal 'eating' some Fiend-Lord entity with a 'J' in its name?).
I can't even remember what I wrote - I should really keep track of this stuff. :embarrass
Anyhow, I think he looks like a Bodak -
I tend towards assuming Thri-Kreen, but I don't think Kreen culture is really capable of spawning a deity that seems a fair bit more civilised than them.
We know he was in the Netherese pantheon, but they also knew him as Nakasr. I presume there were two deities, Jergal and Nakasr, and one ate/absorbed/merged with the other. (And Nergal was involved somewhere.) Perhaps Jergal was the Netherese deity, and Nakasr the insectoid one? (Nakasr sounds a bit insect-like.) But I prefer to think the non-human one came out on top.
Now if I can just remember the rest...
It had something to do with the demonic Nergal posing as the divine Nergal, or some-such... if should really hunt-down that thread...
I peg Jergal as an ancient diety, and he is worshipped as Tchk'Clk-tok'Chaa, the Thri-Kreen god of Death (Thats Homebrew, but you can also using him for Xephs, or any other 'bug' people). ;)
:P
I musta been off my meds that day...
Anyway... at least that name sounded kinda cool... good job MT. :D
That fun thread. :D
My brain was running in a million directions at once in that one (I still haven't been able to locate some of the missing pieces).
so, here goes.
Jergal is a relic of a bygone age trying to claw its way back to glory
yeah bad isnt it.
Take a look at the RW god Hermes and his mixed-up lineage - he actually started out as a monkey-god in Africa, IIRC!
As Rome conquered new regions, it folded their gods into the Roman pantheon, often changing aspects of them to better fit - this is how gods 'evolve'.
Gods have to follow a pattern established by their worshippers - in effect, the gods follow them, as much as they follow the god (if he/she/it doesn't behave the way the expect, he could lose worship and therefore power).
So depending on what a certain group of followers believe, thats the name the god answers to for them, and he behaves accordingly.
If you want canon to back that up, Auril has several sects that claim she is a beneficent deity (and to them, she is), and even Umberlee has a good sect that saves people from Drowning (check Warriors and Priests of the Realms if you don't believe me). This is why Gods shouldn't really have Alignments - they may tend toward one or another, but they are known to use them all in different circumstances (how good was Corellon when he drove a segment of his people into the ground and forced them to eat each other?)
Gods are sluts - they'll be whatever you want them to be, as long as you pay 'the price' (which in their case, is adoration). All beings that have churches, religions, cults... whatever... demand 'a price'... you just have to know what your paying, and how much its going to cost you. ;)
Or we could just as easily go the '4e route' and say that they were always the same being, and scholars got it wrong. The same god, represented differently by diffeent races... whats so hard about that?
-As I already said, I don't like that.
Take a look at the RW god Hermes and his mixed-up lineage - he actually started out as a monkey-god in Africa, IIRC!
it all started with shamanic archetypes and totems, monkey is a lunar type, then it evolved into Thoth etc.
personally I'm for ''mortals created gods'', so gods aren't sluts, they change (or fragment) as the collective mortal belief changes
considering the dwarven/gnome gods of death, I take it that they aren't related with Jergal, they migrated to the Prime after the fall of Ladinion
mythologically, dwarves were ''spirits of the dead'' initially, so maybe Dumathoin and the urdunnir
think spellweavers appeared with the Weave, and Jergal apotheosis happened after the Disjunction, they don't respect gods
How to marry both ideas -
What I think is that there are 'concepts' that are floating around the universe, that these ascended mortals relate to and adhere to once they ascend (sometimes just because they are like-minded, and other times because an Overgod forces the issue, as was the case with Kelemvor).
We know these 'Cosmic Concepts' as portfolios. On some worlds, people just worship the portfolio (concept), and don't even bother with a god. However, Ao has rules against that in FR, so that a mortal can only receive spells from a god, not a concept (I think that has something to do with the Weave, but thats only my theory).
Ergo, the concepts are pre-existing, and may even have a consciousness of their own (my own concept of Primordials - ideas made flesh). Gods arise to fill these portfolios, sometimes several of them, but they do not create them, and they certainly did not create the need for them.
In that way, we can say that mortals can ascend and become gods, but the need for such a god pre-existed among the followers, and it was that need that empowered the being to ascend in the first place. Without any need, a god ceases to exist. Thats why Kiaransalee had to eventually flee her own plane - you can't get worship from the dead (it doesn't work that way).
tough in my cosmology real embodiments of concepts are planar lords, who don't care about worship
as far as I remember 4e MotP, the primordials are anti-concepts, gods are concepts, unfortunately
Kiaransalee, wasn't she a mortal necromancer when she killed Threnody, not sure
She must have pulled-off that ritual that Tammy failed at - the one wjhere you sacrifice everything and everyone to become a god.
Vecna did the same, i think... although he borrowed power from Iuz to pull it off.
So Vecna only wipes-out his own lands (as Szass was attempting), and Kiaransalee had to wipe the whole planet clean (because she didn't have the juice of a demigod, like Iuz, to help her along).
I believe both Velsharoon and Melifleur (sp?) had divine help as well - without divine assistance (willing or unwilling), you need to do a whole lot of sacrificing of mortals to ascend.
Only problem was after she ascended, there was no-one around to worship her (the dead don't provide the juice), so her power immediately began to diminish, which is why she had to flee Threnody (you can't suck energy out of a dead world).
Yeah... I don't really like what they did with Primordials in 4e - they appear to be exactly like gods, but aren't gods. Its like they took a good idea, and then didn't bother to develop it. So much potential just wasted.
I believe both Velsharoon and Melifleur (sp?) had divine help as well - without divine assistance (willing or unwilling), you need to do a whole lot of sacrificing of mortals to ascend.
-Yes, we already know he did. Talos shared with him some kind of way to become a deity, as he did to plenty of other individuals over the course of time. Velsharoon, unlike those others, was able to outsmart Talos and not get sucked dry.
-Yup, Nergal. He's a Babylonian deity, and, as such, an Untheric deity. Nerull is in the Grayhawk/"3e Core" pantheon. Nergal lives, according to the Babylonians, in the underworld and governs the dead. Nergal, apparently, was also identified as a sun deity, like Jergal during the days of Netheril, with the Dusk portfolio.
-I, personally, don't know what he is. No one does, as there is nothing official. Because Powers and Pantheons mentions him as looking like a praying mantis, I tend to think he is a Thri-Kreen. I like the concept of a non-Human deity being in charge of death (as a whole) in Realmspace. It makes things less Humancentric.
I think a point overlooked by a lot of people is all the spelling derivations of Nergal in Babylonian mythology.
a couple I have seen listed as variations in the index to some myth collections are:
Ergal
Eregal
I think that these alternative spellings are so close to Jergal that he is almost certainly the same. Or, they just used his name as a base when making Jergal.
There it is:
In fact, nearly every pantheon is a newer take on an older one, and its fun to study how certain gods evolved and 'traveled' half-way around the world, until they were completely changed.
Which is where the theory comes from that there was originally only one human pantheon, which split as the cultures drifted apart, and split again, and again, and again, etc...
And of course no record of that would exist, because it would be at least 10,000 years old. Still, mythology is one of my favorite fields of study - especially some of the more esoteric cultural mythos.
Gilgeams story in the realms was funny though. I loved seeing a stale society at the brink of revolt like so in the realms. It created a nice politcal backstory for the area I held my campaign in.
Too bad I never got to using the Jergals Book of the Dead story then. I remember seeing a nicely roleplayed cleric of Jergal on an online server of NWN. She recorded all names of the adventurers deaths in the area to help pray for those lost spirits safe travel to the afterlife.
He's one of those oddball primordials so far removed from the mass of politicing, he seems a non-entity. However, w/ Fate in his deck, and millenia on his side, I'd venture it's more of a waiting game for him than anything.
Jergal's faith spread beyond the small population of spellweavers where he was worshipped, to the greater human population around Faerûn. This was probably because he managed to wrest hold of the Fugue Plane from its prior lord and thus became the gatekeeper for the dead of the entire FR cosmos.
I am not sure if Jergal started out as a deity that the Spellweavers who interloped to Faerûn brought with them, or was once a mortal Spellweaver that walked Faerûn who managed to ascend to godhood. It might be interesting if his story parallels that of Myrkul. Did he fight for the job or is it possible that the position was handed to him by the previous Lord of the Dead, who passed on after suffering a great ennui or, having learned some lesson desired to pass on himself into death?
Just as Kelemvor, Cyric, and Myrkul were not the first gods of the Dead in the Realms, neither is Jergal. Jergal is merely one in a long line of such custodians of the Fugue. I feel certain that Null, the draconic deity of death must have held the position for a few thousand years during the time that dragons ruled Faerûn (circa -30,000 DR to -24,000 DR). Possibly Sehanine Moonbow took over from Null and governed the Fugue for a time during the period of Elven (Eladrin) ascendancy. And there may have been several others before Null and after Sehanine to fill those shoes.
We know almost nothing of the Aearee pantheon, but I like to think that they had a god of death that ruled the Fugue during their heyday. Perhaps a vulture-headed god. There are a race of avians called vulchlings in Faerûn, who I think are probably an off-shoot of the Aearee. Based on an article on monstrous deities in White Dwarf #39 (back when it's editorial staff was sort of the UK branch of TSR), he might have been called Phraarkiloorm a god of death and predation.
I swear, why WotC decided to split the core lore and continuity of D&D into yet more fractures is beyond me. I knew this would happen, I called it as 4E was released. You'll have your "pre-4E" loremasters arguing and/or scratching their heads with the "post-4E" loremasters and vice versa.
Pre-4E: "Eladrins are chaotic good celestials of Arborea! They're supposed to be like "elf angels." They're supposed to do stuff like turn into a ball of flame and the tulani kill evil with a mere gaze!"
Post-4E: "No, Eladrin are elves! The true elf race, raised in the Feywild. They're not celestials! And what the hell is Chaotic Good?"
Pre-4E: "Eladrins of 4E are a rip-off of Blood Elves from World of Warcraft. And Chaotic Good was an alignment, back when the forces of Law and Chaos were still in D&D and should've stayed in D&D. But apparently, the "NEW" crowd can't handle such concepts, only the base "Good vs Evil" or "I'm going to ignore that and play do-anything-I-want Unaligned."
And on it goes. Can't wait to see 5E split this base even more! :D