Goddess of Ambition, and the Dendapim
Personality: A cruel goddess in most respects, who feels humanity to be too easily manipulated, she teaches them the beauty of script and weaving, and expects a grateful response. She does, however, see pity in women who have been wronged, and will avenge her closest followers with gossip at their abusers. She loves to teach, and she loves to destroy, although she is not one to act, only speak.
She has a brooch which holds her various layers together, and holds three styli. The three styli are her emblem among mortals.
This brooch becomes the linchpin of the great white starcloth which she weaves with most of her power, and is her most prized creation, utterly unique and with beauty divine. Capable of preserving anything it touches, and being impenetrable, and able to become rigid at the bearer's command. A thousand horses could run on its rigid form, without any damage, it repels all filth and pestilence, and has a mysterious pocket system in which something can be hidden for all time, or until it is recalled correctly.
Monier the Great was a famed warlord who rose to power shortly after what the Dendapim call the War of Wills, where Apollyon was bested. He came out of the west, from a group of nomadic people called the Enyahir. He famously met the dwarf Sudri after the Dendapim attack on Ost-Lalaith, and was given a series of gifts, including the Ring of Amber, the Wingweave, a vial of Ryush-Kalaia, the famed Sword of Sudri, and the Dashuria Garnet (which was to be a gift to the elves before their extermination).
Upon the sudden and violent death of his mother, Monier mobilized the Enyahir and fled the continent just before the violence with Apollyon reached a peak, leaving through the Dendapim port of Nemerene-Zi, where he garnered a large following. In the west he settled, until the War of Wills ended, and the will to live filled him again
A History of the Dendapim
In a dry sweeping mountain valley, Nemea showed herself to the first of the Dendapim, a woman called Annipe, while she was washing clothes in a small creek. Nemea turned the ratty clothing into gossamer and silks, and promised Annipe that, in exchange for adoration from her and all the people she could find, Nemea would nurture a great nation. Annipe agreed, acting as Nemea's mouthpiece, preaching to the various agrarian and nomadic societies which dwelled in the valley, which Nemea called "Eooe" in her own language.
Annipe, therefore, became Avatar and settled alongside the sacred creek and the lake beyond, calling the city Eooe. She built the Great Hearthhall, where women would gather to be taught the mysterious weaving and sewing techniques. The Hearthhall soon grew to contain three wings, the House of Weaving, the House of Scripts, and the House of Sustenance, that acted as market, meeting place, university, and granary for all the Eooeiq (what they called themselves at the time).
At this time Nemea became aware of the other deities on the continent, and was, with other rising Deities of the Second Age, welcomed into the class of deities who controlled the island. Nemea's position as a deity was always in question. She was certainly a purveyor and centerpiece of much gossip, but weaving seemed to be her highest achievement, and she also laid claim to calligraphy, cooking, and the hearth of a home. Ultimately it would be Gossip and the Hearth that would remain, while also having "skilled craft" and "Ambition" applied to her name.
Eooe flourished under Nemea's guidance, becoming an economic powerhouse after a breed of yak was domesticated, which only the Dendapim knew how to transform into strong, sweet-smelling cloth, which freed up much cotton, wool, and silk to be sold. Nymphweave, the cloth Nemea herself wore, and presented to Annipe at the creek, became available from the high Artisans, who were her priests. Some of it was so perfect and so charged with power that it could turn to unbreakable stone upon command. The scribes of the House of Scripts began translating educated books and teaching the Dendapim of technology and culture. It is at this time the people became called the Dendapim, which was a translation of the name given to them by their trading partners, after their yak-like pack animals. Later, the Kuranillion would ascribe "Denda" with the meaning of "sheet metal" to the already existing meaning of "pim" which meant horse (though originally it had meant any animal). Together the term "warhorse" came to be the accepted translation.
The First Great Plague fell upon Eooe, upon the will of one of the ever-changing deities of Disease, Mercucia. Nemea attempted to reason with her, ultimately discovering that the Goddess of Pestilence had, in fact, been having a torrid affair with Ulmo, the god of the waters. It was at this time that Nemea began to look more closely into the nature of the gods of the island, and soon found blackmail on nearly every deity. Realizing that some of the dark secrets she had learned, and one in particular involving Murali, were both personally-hurtful and reasons for war, Nemea suppressed her deep desire to spread the gossip.
Unable to restrain herself, she tried distraction, she poured her power through Annippe, physically, and produced the miraculous Starweave.
The nature of the Starweave's creation has been a matter of debate for the Dendapim, and nearly caused a religious schism. It is not known whether Nemea produced it herself and gave it to Annipe, if Annipe made it herself with Nemea's instruction, or if Nemea appeared as Annipe in order to create it. A famous tapestry ultimately put an end to the conflict, by presenting what became accepted as canon. Nemea produced the Starweave through Annipe, allowing it to exist in the divine and mortal world, and thus a symbol of faith in the Dendapim. The tapestry presents this by showing Annipe weaving the cloth by passing the strands through the fire, and pulling light from the stars in a bit of surreal perspective-shift, and out of her sleeves are not only her own hands, but Nemea's guiding the glowing thread. This is a favorite symbol of the Dendapim, showing the Avatar with four hands.
The Starweave was a white cloth of unknown substance, which was created out of Nemea and Annipe's pure will. The cloth absorbed much of the light and life of the many artisans who worked on it with Annipe, as well as all of the light from the Hearth, some records describe that a fire still burned there, but cast no light, and the stars had dimmed in the presence of the cloth. It was roughly semi-circular, and could cover three people easily. Nemea presented her own silver brooch to Annipe to secure the cloth, and when Annipe wore it she was suddenly filled with light and appeared younger and more beautiful than she ever had before.
The cloth could glow and glimmer with its own light while also reflecting the light around it. The cloth became so beloved by the (now very weak) Nemea and other deities, that one of the winds, hoping to possess the cloth, promised to cast a temperate warmth on Dendapim lands and blow away any enemies who would try and take the Starweave.
Inspired by the Starweave, the Dendapim established a colony in the southern mountains, where a highly magical civilization dwelled. They brought the starweave there, and ultimately became so afraid for its safety that they integrated with the Barraduriq, and massacred the surrounding tribes, and built an enormous red wall which would come to be named Kel'p-Hai, or "That which the earth cannot shake."
Because of the Starweave's beauty, and the blessing bestowed on it by the wind, wherever it settled, even the desert around Kel'p-Hai would become fertile and lush again. Eooe, as a result, suffered, and many pilgrims poured into Kel'p-Hai to work in processing black-powder, which the alchemists of Barradur had discovered, and would ultimately fascinate the Dendapim as much as the Starweave. Unfortunately, the city laid in the path of the Orc's conquests out of the east, and its boom made it an attractive site.
Annipe, the Avatar, who at this point had born the Starweave for so long that its light obscured everything she saw, attempted to parley with the Orcs as they encamped on a salt lake outside the city walls. The orcs, in the light of the Starweave, seemed to her to be strong warriors in shining armor, and she offered them cloth, money, workers, alchemists, and prostitutes. Nemea realized that the Starweave, in existing as a bridge between the living and divine, was actually drawing life as well as light from the world, and lead to Annipe's madness.
Annipe, returning from the Parlay, dropped the Starweave and ran to the highest point of the city, where, in her madness, she threw herself into the High Hearth of Nemea.
A young, beautiful man by the name of Orphei picked up the Starweave, which, fearing for its own safety, had produced a protective failsafe that, ironically, opened it up to damage. Upon touching the shining cloth Orphei's skin turned dark as pitch and his eyes, teeth, and hair turned white as the Starweave. Orphei stood atop the highest battlements, letting the Starweave billow like a flag, thus pushing the winds against the orcs, and ordered all the Dendapim citizens to arms.
One third of the population turned to preserving food and storing water in the caves beneath the mountain. This would prove devastating for the battle, but life-saving for the Dendapim culture.
The orcs fell upon the city like the sea against rock. The Dendapim emptied their muskets and poured all manner of fireworks and explosives on the enemy. They began to use their poison gases against the hordes, which would ultimately poison the Dendapim aswell, but did slow the attacks long enough to consolidate within the gunpowder factories. The orcs successfully tunneled under the wall, and the Dendapim began to fall back. They moved up the hills, setting fire to the trees and rolling debris down the hills, while the orcs wallowed in poison gas. As the Dendapim finally began to retreat into the caves, they set off the stores of gunpowder in the factories, devastating much of the area, and finally a brave young martyr set fire to the remaining gunpowder in the wall, shattering it and cutting off the last of the orc hordes.
Devastated, Nemea broke all divine codes and entered bodily into the mortal realm to fight the orcs, hoping to buy the few remaining Dendapim time to escape into the mountains. Fighting with only her stylus and knitting needles, Nemea obliterated the remaining orcs encamped there. The Dendapim took the food they had preserved, as well as the water, and hid in the tombs. Orphei, lighting the way with the Starweave, led them through the vaulted caverns of the mountains, through the very bones and roots of the mountain range. The trek took weeks, and in the journey the Starweave collected the dew and warmth from the earth, and began to speak to Orphei.
Upon exiting the caves at the valley of Eooth-Anehima, the Starweave could suspend itself in the air, as though wrapped around an invisible figure, a woman's figure. The Dendapim called her Yorinaphe or "perfection." The valley, visited by the soft temperate winds and already rich fertile volcanic soil proved bounteous and protected on all sides by sea and mountain. There the Dendapim established Cerracella or "Mountain Port." With their population crippled, the Dendapim became even more zealous, worshiping Yorinaphe as a new manifestation of Nemea.
During this time, Nemea fell upon the deserts in pain and anguish, kicking up storms and speaking to deities who had lost their followers, and now drifted aimlessly through the spheres of the world. Her grief was unbearable.
Orphei had been poisoned heinously in the battle of Kel'p-Hai, and lost tremendous amounts of blood, but was preserved by Yorinaphe, the spirit who had sprung forth from the Starweave. Every morning she entered the abandoned halls of Nemea, and took a spark from the High Hearth, and anointed Orphei with the fire. Together they returned to the land of Eooe, where they found the Dendapim had long forgotten Nemea's teaching. This inspired the writing of the Kuranillion, a story which followed Kuranes, a mythical, idealized Dendapim, venturing into the wilderness where the world unfolded before his enlightened, Dendapim lifestyle. (This would be re-translated and modernized after the battle of Ost-Lalaith).