Another cursed object, added to the ark. This is Item 151: The Statuette of Cthulhu, but like all cursed objects, this can only be viewed on my Patreon.
So if you would like to learn about this artifact, Cthulhu and the dark side of Magusterra, why not join the secret club and read about this object on my Patreon here:
Not only do you see exclusive posts that no one else gets to read, but you are also directly helping out with keeping this site up. So thank you and I hope you enjoy!
For context on the world, please see the Intro post and context on the rings of The Sorcerer King, please see Item 22.
After gaining the Ouroboros ring, The
Sorcerer King had to increase and strengthen his army. Even though The Sorcerer
King had the army of the Viking King Seithennin backing him up, Seithennin
informed The Sorcerer King that his army isn’t enough to overthrow the kingdom
of Cantre’r Gwaelod.
But Seithennin knew where The Sorcerer King
could get more help, and that was to make a deal with the Deep Ones. I briefly
mentioned them in Item #22 The hand of The Sorcerer King, but I will go over it
again and in more detail.
The Deep Ones come from the realm known as the Golrion, the world behind the Dark Tapestry (see Item #56: Zeit Verkürzen or the Time Piece), but unlike the other dark creatures from that realm, the Deep Ones, aren’t inherently evil.
The Deep Ones can’t naturally think for themselves and need a master to tell them what to do. Think of them as living weapons and these weapons were used by none other than Cthulhu, The Sleeper of R'lyeh.
Cthulhu, like The Lady of the Lake, is a water elemental and has great power and influence over the water domain. He is the son of Nug, one of the twin sons of Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath (please see Item #56: Zeit Verkürzen or the Time Piece).
Now, I won’t go over Cthulhu’s full story in this post. But if you would like to learn more about him, you can read it on my Patreon. There I will go over the next cursed object, Item 151: The Statuette of Cthulhu, a powerful object used to worship the Elder One. Link here:
The
Deep Ones were under the command of Cthulhu when he tried to take over the
oceans of Magusterra.
They arrived in a meteor with Cthulhu and immediately started a war with The
lady of the Lake.
The war was bloody and messy. It took a thousand years
to end, but at least The Lady of the Lake was victorious. For you see Cthulhu’s
arrogance and over confidence was no match for The Lady of the Lake and the
other Immortals who stood by her.
The war is documented in my Patreon post, Item
151: The Statuette of Cthulhu. But I will say that The Lady of the Lake
imprisoned Cthulhu in the now sunken city (turned prison) of Atlantis, in a
district known as R'lyeh.
After Cthulhu’s defeat, the Deep Ones
scattered as The Lady of the Lake sent her warriors after them. But after some
time, The Lady of the Lake realised that they were harmless without a master
and decided to employ them instead of killing them.
As I mentioned in Item #22 The hand of The Sorcerer King, I met one of these beings, by the name of Garry. And the Deep Ones can only be described as walking fish/frog people. Dark green, with webbed hands and feet, they, like merpeople, have both lungs and gills. But they can’t stay out of the water for too long, as their lungs eventually will give out and reject oxygen.
The Lady of the Lake took command over them and slowly some of the elder Deep Ones gained independence. These elders were then made the leaders of the Deep Ones and served The Lady of the Lake with unwavering loyalty. But because of the way they look, the Deep Ones were given tasks that kept them hidden.
Most of the Deep Ones’ jobs were to guard
The Lady of the Lake’s special treasures in the deepest parts of the oceans.
One of these were accidently revealed, but then quickly recovered. This being
the Sea Monolith, that accidently floated to the surface during a fight between
The Lady of the Lake’s Deep Ones and Cthulhu’s Deep Ones.
During the fight the Monolith washed up on
an island, where it was discovered by an unknown Human sailor in 1914. But the
Monolith was recovered by The Lady of the Lake’s Deep Ones.
Anyway, getting back to the point: as the Deep Ones grew conscious they formed a deeper connection with The Lady of the Lake. The Lady of the Lake even had a brief relationship with one of the elder Deep Ones who went by the name Nh'avita.
Nh'avita and The Lady of the Lake had a son, Dagon. As it turns out, the Deep Ones can have children with any humanoid creature. It doesn’t matter if it is a Human, a merperson, elf, Immortal and so on.
At first the child born will look like the species of the mother it is birthed from (with a few distinct Deep Ones features, now known as the “Innsmouth look”), over time they will take on the form of a Deep One, more on this later.
I mention this, because Dagon at first looked nothing like his father, Nh'avita, but looked more like a merman. That was until he got older and became more Deep One-like.
Before we carry on, I should just briefly
mention how Cthulhu communicated and controlled the Deep Ones before he was
defeated.
He did this through his statuettes. Using
the metals and stones from the meteorites that brought him to Magusterra, he made the
statuettes to mesmerise and mind control anyone who looked at it. These figures
of Cthulhu affected many Humans and can still affect them even after he was
imprisoned in Atlantis! This is why they were all destroyed except for two, one
is the Item
151: The Statuette of Cthulhu, which you can read more about on my Patreon,
and the second belongs to Dagon and his wife, Hydra.
Hydra is the granddaughter of Mother Nature. Let’s
break it down, first, Hydra’s father is Typhon, and Typhon is the son of Mother
Nature and Tartarus. Tartarus is a fire elemental that, like Nyx, is a Night
Creature from the realm known as Chaos.
Hydra’s mother is, Echidna a naga (a Human-snake
hybrid that can live in water). Echidna is the daughter of Ceto, a female naga
and Phorcys a merman.
Hydra was born a naga, but had features of a mermaid.
The Lady of the Lake saw hope in Hydra and after
imprisoning her mother in Atlantis, and The Mighty Phoenix, imprisoning her
father in the prison of Tartarus (and yes this prison was named after Typhon’s
father, who was also imprisoned there), The Lady of the Lake made Hydra a nymph
and sent her to Lake Lerna.
There Hydra found a Cthulhu statuette. Even though
Cthulhu was captured, he was still able to telepathically communicate to anyone
who looked at it. And by looking at it Cthulhu used his powers of madness to
control her.
Because Hydra has a connection to the Chaos realm she
was easily susceptible to Cthulhu’s control, but because she was also connected
to the Immortals, she was able to resist Cthulhu’s commands to attack The Lady
of the Lake.
Instead, Hydra just became obsessed with the
statuette. You see, even though Hydra was loved by The Lady of the Lake, the
other nymphs at Lake Lerna, were scared of her and thus distanced themselves,
alienating Hydra.
Hydra became lonely and when she found the statuette
she formed a bond with Cthulhu. At first Cthulhu didn’t want anything to do
with her because he couldn’t control her, but seeing that he was in prison and
all of his other figures were being destroyed, he kept on talking to her.
Slowly, Hydra, fell in love with Cthulhu. But then the other nymphs found out about it and threatened to destroy her connection to the Sleeper of R'lyeh. This angered Hydra and she fought back.
During her fight for the statuette, it became clear that she deeply coveted the figure, and a form of Dragon sickness took hold (see Item #128: The Necklace of Brisings) and turned her into the Lernaean Hydra Dragon.
The one thing that made Hydra so dangerous, was that she couldn’t die. She had a fast regeneration healing factor, very deadly venomous spit and if you cut off her head, two more would grow back in its place.
Many have tried to kill her, but all failed and by the time Heracles was sent to kill her, Hydra already had over a hundred heads!
Heracles, with his nephew Iolaus, defeated and killed Hydra. Heracles did this by cauterising the neck every time he cut off a head with fire. This prevented Hydra from growing anymore heads. But as mentioned, Hydra can’t die, but she could be put in a state of stasis.
To do this, Heracles cut of Hydra’s first head, which
is the main head that was responsible for regeneration. And if this head was
separated from the body, it stops her from healing and puts Hydra in a
permanent state of unconsciousness. Heracles buried her head in a secret place
and destroyed the statuette.
The Lady of the Lake, feeling bad for Hydra sent her crab, Karkinos, to retrieve the head.
It turns out that when Heracles “killed her” her
dragon personality and normal personality split. And as I said, cutting of one
head, two will grow back in its place. Here the same happened, but one head was
the dragon and the other was Hydra before she became a dragon.
Karkinos surmised that the dragon become its own being
and that if you attach it to the main body the dragon would be reborn, but
without Hydra’s consciousness. Meaning that it would just be another mindless
dragon, without Hydra’s strong connection and lust over the Cthulhu statuette.
Karkinos also figured that if the dragon’s head could
come back to life, then so should Hydra’s. Fearing that the dragon would fall
into the wrong hands, Karkinos, left that and just took Hydra’s head to The
Lady of the Lake.
With the help of Mother Nature and Brother Life, The
Lady of the Lake, grew back Hydra’s original body and sent her to Dagon, where
she could recover.
There Dagon and Hydra became close, married and had a
child (more on this later). Hydra became the Queen of the Deep Ones and at
first, Hydra, with Dagon, followed The Lady of the Lake’s orders. But then she
found an ancient home of the Deep Ones before they joined The Lady of the Lake.
And there, Hydra, found another (the second last) statuette! Seeing this
artefact brought back all of Hydra’s memories and feelings for Cthulhu.
First she fought against her feelings, but quickly she
longed for him. And this is how Cthulhu controlled her. He promised her that
once he is free, they could be together, but she would have to join forces with
him. Hydra agreed and showed Dagon the statuette. He fell under Cthulhu’s
control and because Dagon was the son of an elder Deep One he could force the
Deep Ones to once again join Cthulhu in taking over the oceans of Magusterra.
Cthulhu made himself a god and formed the Cult of
Cthulhu, a religion that worships him. Dagon and Hydra were made the head
priest and priestess. Cthulhu gave them new titles, Dagon would now be Father
Dagon and Hydra, Mother Hydra. And the Deep Ones were their disciples, that
spread this cult to all other humanoid beings, especially to the Humans (see Item #22 The hand of The
Sorcerer King).
As mentioned, some Deep Ones formed their own
consciousness, and thus they were able to resist Dagon’s control. Those Deep
Ones stayed with The Lady of the Lake and a war broke out between Cthulhu’s
Deep Ones and The Lady of the Lake’s Deep Ones, that still goes on to this day!
Now this war has and will most likely always be in The
Lady of the Lake’s favour. Even though Cthulhu has Father Dagon and Mother
Hydra, they are unfortunately not as strong as The Lady of the Lake. The only
being that can turn the tides of the war, would be if Cthulhu himself joined
in, but seeing that he is locked up, that seems unlikely.
So to try and win the war, Cthulhu told Father Dagon
to grow his Deep Ones army, through what he called “Operation Breeding” a
mission aimed at the Humans who joined the Cult or Calling of Cthulhu.
The Humans who were a part of this disgusting
religion, were now forced to partake in “breeding rites” where the unmarried
women of a city or town that joined the cult would be impregnated by the Deep
Ones army. Cthulhu chose the Humans as unlike other humanoid beings, the Humans
can’t be controlled by the Immortals, due to them being part of the First
Created.
The Humans born from this unholy union would be born
with big glossy uneven eyes, a large mouth and greenish skin, referred to as
the Innsmouth Look. And as they grow older, they turn into a Deep One.
But as mentioned in Item #22 The hand of The Sorcerer King, the
Immortals hunted down the Humans pregnant with these Deep One hybrids. This led
to the Deep Ones breeding amongst themselves at times when their numbers were
dwindling, and there were times that they committed incestuous acts to boost
their numbers! But despite that, “Operation Breeding” is still an ongoing plan.
The last known place that “Operation Breeding” was
thriving, was in the town of Innsmouth in 1927. But they were discovered and
the town was attacked. Most of the residents and Deep One offspring escaped and
are still on the loose, presumably carrying on with the operation and spreading
the teachings of the Cult of Cthulhu.
Now that you have the general history of the Deep
Ones, let’s get back to The
Sorcerer King. The Viking King, Seithennin, knew about the Deep Ones, as years
ago he found a village near one of the Deep Ones’ underwater city of K'toch. Seithennin
bought slaves from this village and learned about the Deep Ones and where their
other underwater cities were located.
Seithennin knew that The Sorcerer King
wouldn’t stop until he had the kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod under his control.
But as mentioned, Seithennin didn’t have the man power to wage an attack on the
kingdom that could last several years. So using his knowledge of the Deep Ones
and their locations, Seithennin told The Sorcerer King all about them, their
history and what The Sorcerer King could offer up in order to win their favour.
Seithennin took The Sorcerer King to the
underwater city of Y'lu-Y'loa, which was the closes to the land of Cymru, where
Cantre’r Gwaelod could be found.
The Sorcerer King used his magic to allow
them to enter the city of Y'lu-Y'loa. There by pure coincidence, Father Dagon
and Mother Hydra, were hiding from The Lady of the Lake. The Sorcerer King
approached them with the promise that if they give him an army of Deep Ones, he
will share in the spoils of war, allow them to practice their breeding rites,
force the people to join the Cult and using his Midas ring, will send them
golden gifts at the end of each month.
Father Dagon approved of these terms, but
he had to speak it over with Cthulhu. At first Cthulhu wasn’t pleased with the
idea of another in command of his Deep Ones, but after hearing that The
Sorcerer King wanted Cantre’r Gwaelod, he reconsidered.
For you see there was another Kingdom in Cymru,
called the Kingdom of Gwynedd, ruled by the King Llunwy, who is a descendent of
Cthulhu’s bloodline and was a part of the Cult of Cthulhu. So, Cthulhu figured
that it would be a great benefit to have two kingdoms in Cymru under his control.
Cthulhu gave permission to Father Dagon
that The Sorcerer King can use his army, but Father Dagon had to make sure that
The Sorcerer King wouldn’t double cross them.
Father Dagon came up with the idea that The
Sorcerer King, in order to show his allegiance would have to enter a blood pact
with the Dagon family.
Using the metals from one of Cthulhu’s meteors, the Deep Ones forged two rings, more precisely wedding rings. One for The Sorcerer King, which allowed him to call upon any Deep Ones near him that were under Cthulhu’s and Father Dagon’s control. This ring was made of a strange other worldly metal and had a gem in it.
This gem contained the blood of Father Dagon, which allowed The Sorcerer King to telepathically control the Deep Ones, to a limited degree of course. Father Dagon’s telepathic powers were still stronger and had more sway over the minds of the Deep Ones.
This wedding ring was the fifth and final
ring that The Sorcerer King obtained to take over Cantre’r Gwaelod, and is
known as The wedding ring of Shala.
The second was given to Shala, the daughter of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra.
Shala’s ring had the power to break the gem
on The Sorcerer King’s ring, causing him to lose control over the Deep Ones,
sending the Deep Ones into a crazed frenzy and forcing them to attack The
Sorcerer King. But this can only be activated if The Sorcerer King wanted to
double cross them.
The Sorcerer King agreed to the pact and within a year the rings were made, the two wed and The Sorcerer King impregnated Shala (a child was the equivalent of a signature on a contract in the Deep One’s customs).
The Sorcerer King finally had all he needed to take over the kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod.
Just a final note, some might ask why Father Dagon didn’t just show The Sorcerer King the Cthulhu statuette and put him under Cthulhu’s power? Well, two things, one is that the Brisings ring’s mesmerising magic can cancel out other’s mesmerising powers. This was to ensure that for instance if someone tried to hypnotise Freya into giving up her necklace (see Item #128: The Necklace of Brisings) the necklace would cancel it out, preventing anyone from stealing any Brisings jewellery through the same power the necklace uses to enchant people.
And
second, if Cthulhu can’t control people through their minds, which he couldn’t
with The
Sorcerer King, because his determination to take over Cantre’r Gwaelod was too
strong, then Cthulhu would use their heart’s desires.
We see that Cthulhu did this with Mother
Hydra, by promising to marry her when he is set free. And as we know from Item #23: The Brisings Ring and Item #25: The ring of Ouroboros, The
Sorcerer King pulled out and crushed his own heart! So the marriage and the
threat of being constantly attacked by the Deep Ones were the next best thing.
Now to carry on the story of how The
Sorcerer King took over Cantre’r Gwaelod.
With an army of Deep Ones, The Sorcerer
King took a year to come up with a coordinated plan and to wait for the next
visit of the fairy priestess, Mererid.
During this year, Shala gave birth to Baal,
who took after his great-great-grandmother and great-great-grandfather (Mother
Nature and Tartarus), for he had power over nature and was born with horns
(which Tartarus had).
After a year of waiting, The Sorcerer King
got rid of Mererid, and the kingdom was flooded. This allowed Seithennin’s army
to charge the castle with boats full of men and the Deep Ones could simply just
swim in and take over.
Cantre’r Gwaelod’s men were outnumbered and
didn’t know how to fight underwater. And the Viking boats made it hard for them
to attack Seithennin’s warriors. They were no match for The Sorcerer King, who
then killed King Gwyddno Garanhir and took Cantre’r Gwaelod as his new home.
And as promised, Father Dagon got his share
of the kingdom’s treasure, were allowed to perform their “breeding rites” and
all the people were forced to worship Cthulhu.
The Deep Ones helped The Sorcerer King keep
the people of Cantre’r Gwaelod in line. The Sorcerer King also used the
teachings of The Cult of Cthulhu to oppress and control the people. And of
course he used his Brisings ring.
Life in Cantre’r Gwaelod was a miserable
one. This went on for many years until The Sorcerer King lost his hand and was
killed by Merlin (see Item #22 The hand of The Sorcerer King).
Then, as we learned, the kingdom was then flooded and sent to the bottom of the ocean by The Lady of the Lake. And at this time, Kingdom of Gwynedd, was under the rule of King Owen Gwynedd. Who was also part of Cthulhu’s bloodline. But The Lady of the Lake gave him the option to turn away from his evil ancestry and the Cult or face the same fate as Cantre’r Gwaelod. King Owen Gwynedd accepted and helped The Lady of the Lake chase away the Deep Ones from his kingdom.
Now for Baal…
If you want to learn more about Cthulhu and
his powers, please check out the Patreon post:
And that is the Wedding ring of Shala, the ring that gave The Sorcerer King an army of ancient fish warriors. Join me in the next post as I document the ring that started it all, Item 26: The Ring of Midas.
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want to support this site, please consider joining my Patreon, where I will be
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For context on the world, please see the Intro post and context on the rings of The Sorcerer King, please see Item 22.
Now we know how The Sorcerer King enchanted people
and got the citizens of Cantre’r
Gwaelod to do his bidding and accept him as their new king. Well, at least we
know one of the methods!
The other methods will be examined in other
documents. For now, we will be looking at the one ring that kept him alive for such
a long time, and protected him from assassination attempts, stabbings, guns
shots and much more. This is the one ring worn by the Kings and Queens of Kemet,
Hellas and Norðvegr.
This is the immortality granting ring, The
ring of Ouroboros.
The Sorcerer King not only wanted the ring to gain
immortality, but to also use the Brisings ring, without falling under its
spell.
And the only way to do that is to either gain the life that the ring shows you, as with Freya and the necklace of Brisings (see Item #128: The Necklace of Brisings), or you must get rid of the one thing that the ring uses to mesmerise anyone who looks into it, their heart.
The
second option was chosen by The
Sorcerer King and since no one can live without a heart, The Sorcerer King had
to figure out how to gain immortality.
As I mentioned in Item #22 The hand of The Sorcerer King,
after obtaining two rings that gave him power, The Sorcerer King, decided that he was only going
to use magic rings as his primary power source. One of the reasons for this
choice was that when The Sorcerer King was looking for the Midas ring and going
through Merlin’s research, he saw how powerful magic rings were and why Merlin
was trying to make (and succeeded in making) power rings.
After that The Sorcerer King was only interested in
magical rings and stole everything Merlin had on all different types of rings
that exists. And it was in those documents that The Sorcerer King stumbled on
the ring of Ouroboros.
Now what is a ring of Ouroboros? As
mentioned, it is a ring that grants its wearer immortality. Now the origins of
these rings are very interesting.
For you see the ring is made from the shedded skin
of The White Snake, Bai Suzhen.
Bai Suzhen was a lamia, Human-snake hybrids, with
the top half of a Human and the bottom half of a snake. But Bai Suzhen was a
part of the Daoist magical spirits, beings who have been born with natural
magical abilities.
Bai was one of two born from the lamias that were a
part of the Daoist magical spirits. The other lamia was Xiaoqing, The Green
Snake. Xiaoqing was also Bai’s closes friend and often considered as Bai’s
little sister.
There are other snake/human hybrids in Magusterra, such as the
naga and the gorgon, but what separates them (besides the fact that a gorgon
has bat-like wings and turns people to stone) is that lamias are all women.
Nagas and gorgons can be born male or female, but the lamias are always born
female.
To reproduce, lamias, seduce and capture male Humans
and mate with them and in some cases drain the men of all their blood
afterwards. Because of this many people have developed a fear and hatred
towards lamias.
But what makes Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing different from other lamias is that they can change their form to look like a traditional lamia, or to turn into a giant snake or (what they did for most of the time) they could change to look like normal Human women.
Not only that, but they can give birth to sons as well as daughters. But the sons are born Human and the daughters lamia.
Now the evil Queen of the lamias, aptly named Lamia, heard about the White and Green Snake sisters and wanted to use them to get her revenge on Poseidon and The Lady of the Lake.
Queen Lamia was the daughter of the Lady of the Lake’s son Poseidon and the lamia princess Libya. Libya was the daughter of Epaphus, a King of Kemet.
But as mentioned the Humans feared them and so Libu
was under constant attack. They managed to hold their own and even formed a
peace treaty with the neighbouring kingdoms, seeing that Libya was of royal
blood.
One day, while Libya was bathing in the Mare
Nostrum, she caught the eye of Poseidon. The two of them fell in love and had a
daughter, Lamia.
But as Poseidon left Libya to fulfil one of his
duties given to him by his mother, The Lady of the Lake, he came across Amphitrite,
a Nereid or sea nymph. Amphitrite was also a princess, the daughter of Doris (also
a Nereid) and King Nereus (a worshiper of The Lady of the Lake).
Poseidon instantly fell in love with Amphitrite
when he saw her dancing with her sisters. At first she turned down Poseidon’s
advances, but when he persisted and even gave her a dolphin, named Delphinus,
as a pet, she gave in and the two got married.
Poseidon did however feel guilty for leaving Libya and his daughter Lamia. And to make amends he sent two of his adopted sons, Agenor and Belus, as warriors to help protect the kingdom of Libu.
Agenor and Belus were then adopted by Libya and they became the guardians of Libu’s borders. When the war between the Humans and the Immortals broke out, Libya was killed and the newly crowned Queen Lamia pledged her allegiance to her grandmother, The Lady of the Lake, to fight back. But when Lamia learned that The Lady of the Lake didn’t want to partake in the war, Lamia joined forces with Sister Death.
Wanting to get revenge on her father and
grandmother, Lamia, sent word that she wanted to ally with Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing,
who lived outside of Libu. For not only can they disguise themselves as Humans
and help carry messages to other lamia groups, but they can help build up their
armies by giving birth to both male Human warriors and female lamia warriors.
But Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing refused. This angered
Lamia and she exposed the sisters for who they really were. Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing
went on the run from the Humans as well as their own kind as they were labelled
as lamia traitors.
Eventually after many years of running, Bai Suzhen
and Xiaoqing found a remote village, where they settled down and opened up a
medicine shop.
It was also in this village that Bai Suzhen found and fell in love with a medicine man and scholar named Xu Xian. They met when Xu offered the two sister his umbrella when they were caught in a rainstorm.
Together they opened a new shop selling herbs and special remedies to help cure the sick.
All was well, until a monk, Fahai, came to the village.
After some time, Fahai realised who she was and
warned Xu Xian. Xu Xian laughed in Fahai’s face and even belittled the monk,
offending him.
In retaliation, Fahai tricked Bai into drinking
some wine. As it turns out, lamias can’t drink alcohol, as only a little bit
can turn off their Human side, letting the snake/animalistic side take over
completely.
When Bai drank the wine she lost control and turned
into her white snake from. Attacking the villagers and seriously injuring her
husband, Xu Xian.
It was only when Xiaoqing transformed into her
green snake form that she was able to subdue and calm down Bai Suzhen.
Fahai took the opportunity to rally the villagers
and get them to attack the snake sisters. But they were stopped by the
seriously injured Xu Xian. He reminded them how Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing, helped
them when they were sick.
The villagers agreed that the sisters weren’t evil and they were an asset to their remote village. So they turned on Fahai and chased him away.
Everyone tried to help Xu Xian, but he was far to wounded and at death’s door. One of the elders in the village told Bai Suzhen about a medicine man who had a special herb that could heal and cure anyone. This medicine man was known as The Old Man of the South Pole or Xian of Longevity. With this information, Bai Suzhen, went to find this man and steal the herb.
Using her snake form to travel long distances in a
short time, Bai Suzhen found a mountain far south in Zhongguo. Bai climbed the
mountain in her Human form and made it to the palace of The Old Man of the
South Pole.
Xian of Longevity was an old man who devoted his
life to healing the sick. And when he died, he was given a peach from the Celestial Peach tree by Queen Xiwangmu
herself (see Item #59: Eilifligh flamberge or the Immortal killer).
Queen
Xiwangmu deemed him worthy of receiving an immortal peach so that Xian of Longevity can carry on
helping heal the sick. And thus Xian of Longevity travelled the land of Zhongguo
doing just that.
Xian of Longevity was later asked by Mother Nature to help create and invent new herbs and medicinal plants to help stop a plague that was spread by an evil warlock.
So Xian of Longevity moved to the mountain on the most southern point of Zhongguo, earning him the nickname of The Old Man of the South Pole. There he was successful in developing a cure alongside the Moon Rabbit. And because of his victory over the plague, Xian of Longevity, decided to stay in the mountain and carry on researching and creating new medicines.
And to protect him from anyone who sought to harm the Old Man of the South Pole, Mother Nature sent a white crane (Xianhe Tongzi) and a white deer (Bái Lù) to protect and guard his palace.
The guardians, sensing no hostility from the woman,
led her to the garden and told her to wait there as they went to fetch Xian of
Longevity.
While in the garden, Bai Suzhen, looked around for the special herb. She came across a locked greenhouse and used her lamia strength to break it open.
There she found a single plant and feeling the magic that was radiating off of it, she knew that it was the herb she was looking for.
Bai Suzhen turned into her snake form and fought
back. They both seemed to be equally matched, but then the Old Man of the South
Pole came in riding Bái Lù, the white deer.
Xianhe Tongzi tried to explain what happened, but Xian
of Longevity, silenced him and asked Bai Suzhen why she stole from him. She
explained her story and how she was doing this to save her husband.
Moved by her story, Xian of Longevity, gave her the
herb and told her to eat it. He explained that if Bai Suzhen ate the herb
herself, she will gain the ability to heal anyone with the skin that she sheds from
her snake form.
Bai Suzhen did as the Old Man said and went back
home. There she shed her skin and gave it to her husband and the rest of the
villagers that were injured when she lost control.
Years later Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian had a child, a
Human boy, who they named Xu Shilin. This enraged the monk Fahai, who, in an
attempt to get his revenge on the White Snake, trained and learned how to use
magic.
Fahai tricked Xu Xian to come to his home near the Qiantang
river. There the monk trapped Xu Xian in order to lure the snake sisters to
him.
Bai Suzhen learned about her husband’s imprisonment
and with her sister, Xiaoqing, travelled to the Qiantang river and fought
Fahai, but he proved to be too much for them to handle.
Bai Suzhen was defeated and imprisoned in Fahai’s Leifeng
Pagoda.
Xiaoqing took Xu Xian to his son. Xu Xian and Xu
Shilin went into hiding and Xiaoqing left to find a master that could teach her
how to defeat the monk.
Meanwhile, Fahai was enriching his pockets by
selling Bai Suzhen’s shedded skin to royal families from the lands of Kemet, Hellas and Norðvegr.
Fahai also sold the skin to small hidden kingdoms on remote islands.
The royals from Kemet, Hellas and Norðvegr
turned the skin into rings so that they can always have the skin touching them.
It turns out that, yes, the skin heals anyone who touches it, but once they let
go, the skin loses all of its healing properties. But the Kings and Queens
realised that as long as they touched the skin it always healed and protected
them from sickness, wounds and even time itself. Making them immortal.
As you can imagine it is quite inconvenient
to hold on to a piece of skin for the rest of your life. So the Kings and
Queens had them turned into rings, so that it would always be touching them,
while also keeping their hands free.
The reason why they went with rings is
because it was harder for enemies to remove. The Kings and Queens did try turning
the skin into clothing garments, but these could be easily removed. Same for
necklaces and bracelets.
Eventually, The Immortal One and Sister Death learned about these rings and put a stop to it.
They forced the royal families to give up
their rings and the skins, all except for the hidden island kingdoms. Because,
well… they were hidden.
Then to stop the supplier, Sister Death and
The Mighty Phoenix approached the Green Snake, Xiaoqing, and told her to find the warrior known as
Red Boy.
Red Boy’s story is long and complicated and I will go over it in more detail in a later document. But for now, all I’ll say is that Red Boy is the son of Princess Iron Fan, a follower of Mother Nature and Bull Demon King, a son of The Mighty Phoenix.
Red Boy is the inventor of a magic spell
known as the True Samādhi Fire, a spell that summons a fire that can only be
extinguished by magic water.
This spell was so dangerous, that Red Boy
was subdued by Sun Wukong, The Monkey King, on behalf of Guanyin, a follower of
The Lady of the Lake and Mother Nature.
Together Sun Wukong and Guanyin captured
Red Boy by binding him with special rings that tightened around his hands, ankles
and neck, subduing him and forcing him to become a disciple of Guanyin.
But after a while, Red Boy escaped and ran
away. He hid away from Guanyin, so that she wouldn’t tighten the rings further,
as she can only tighten them when she has the person with the rings standing in
front of her.
The Mighty Phoenix sent Xiaoqing to Red Boy so that she can
learn the True Samādhi Fire spell. But in order to learn the spell, Xiaoqing had to promise (that after
she defeated the monk) to return to Red Boy and become his guardian and protect
him from Guanyin’s soldiers.
Xiaoqing agreed and was taught the spell. When Xiaoqing
mastered the True
Samādhi Fire, she went to Fahai’s palace and defeated him with the fire spell.
Xiaoqing also used the spell to burn down the
monk’s Leifeng Pagoda, freeing her sister, The White Snake, Bai Suzhen.
Bai Suzhen was reunited with her husband and son.
They went back to the remote village and carried on selling medicine. As for Xiaoqing,
she went back to Red Boy and protects him from Guanyin’s attacks.
Now the question is: If the Immortals destroyed all of the rings and skins, and the kingdoms that still had them where hidden, how did The Sorcerer King get a ring of Ouroboros? Well, The Sorcerer King sought out the now disgraced monk, Fahai, and forced him to give up one of the hidden kingdoms.
It turns out that Fahai had some of the snake skin hidden away. And when Xiaoqing, nearly burned him to death, Fahai used his snake skin to heal himself, but he dropped it when he was escaping.
Fahai managed to prolong his live by growing plants and using healing spells that he learned from Bai Suzhen when he held her captive.
The Sorcerer King was surprised that he was still alive, but he was very fragile. The Sorcerer King promised Fahai that he will share the skin with him if he told him about one of these hidden islands. Fahai in his old and weakened state agreed and told them that he sold some of the White Snake’s skin to the king of the island of Serendid.
If you know the stories of Sinbad, this name might
ring a bell, as Serendid was an island that Sinbad washed up on in his sixth
voyage.
With the help of the Viking King Seithennin, The Sorcerer King and Fahai
sailed to the island of Serendid.
Serendid was said to be so rich that even the
poorest of its citizens lived in giant mansions. Everyone on the island wore
lavish clothes and jewellery. Even their everyday household objects, such as
plates, vases and glasses were made from the purest diamonds, rubies, emeralds
and other precious stones. Their cutlery was also made from the most valuable
metals.
The Kings and Queens of Serendid travelled with a
thousand elephants and each elephant was adorned with the most beautiful jewels
and the finest silks. And they also had the one thing The Sorcerer King wanted,
the casted off skin of the White Snake.
Where did this island get all of these riches? No
one knew, except for Sinbad.
Sinbad was a merchant from Baghdatha. He is mostly known for his tall tales, known as the Seven voyages of Sinbad. These tales brought the merchant fame and fortune, and captured the attention of everyone.
And some stories, specifically the third voyage, is
a plagiarised version of one of Odysseys’ adventures: Odysseus in the Cave of
Polyphemus. The one where Odysseus runs into and defeats the cyclops Polyphemus.
But I won’t go into that now, maybe in a later
document I will go over Sinbad’s stories and separate fact from fiction.
But what I will say is that people and scholars
don’t want to call Sinbad’s stories an outright lie, as there seems to be some
validity to them and that they might just be over exaggerated or combined with
other peoples’ and sailors’ stories Sinbad heard when he went on these voyages.
I bring this up because there is proof that his
final two voyages were somewhat true. I am referring to his sixth and seventh
voyage.
On Sinbad’s sixth voyage, he claims to have crashed
his boat and lost all of his men (this was another recurring theme in his
stories, most likely a convenient way for Sinbad to say that anyone who
witnessed his stories died). Then he found an island, where he built a raft and
floated down a stream and washed up in the kingdom of Serendid.
There Sinbad met the King of Serendid and they
became friends. They became such good friends, that the King wanted to form an
alliance with Sinbad’s kingdom.
The King of Serendid gave Sinbad a boat full of treasures and the skin of The White Snake. Sinbad went home and took the treasures to his King, the Sultan Abdalla Haroun Alraschid, the leader of a small caliph in the land of Baghdatha.
The Sultan accepted the gift and sent Sinbad back to the island of Serendid with luxurious robes, blankets and linen made from the finest silks and a bed of gold tissue. This was Sinbad’s seventh voyage.
Then when the King of Serendid said he will prepare to sail to Sinbad’s caliph to finalise their new found alliance, Sinbad went back home.
But on his way home Sinbad’s boat was captured by pirates (another recurring theme in Sinbad’s stories). The pirates sold Sinbad into slavery on an unknown island. There Sinbad was put to work. Sinbad gained his freedom by making his master so rich, that his master let him go home.
The real story is most likely that Sinbad ended up on this island by himself and lost a bet to another sailor. And to pay off his debt, Sinbad was sold into slavery. And as for gaining his freedom, the real story is believed to be that Sinbad worked with the other slaves to break their chains and run away.
But whatever the real story was, Sinbad did eventually make it home, and that is where Sinbad learned how Serendid got all of its riches.
As Sinbad disembarked from his boat, he saw that his city was destroyed and ransacked of all its treasures. It turns out that the King of Serendid would find kingdoms that he would “form an alliance with” by sending them gifts. Then that kingdom would in reciprocation send gifts back. The King of Serendid would then closely examine the gifts and determine if it is worth attacking that kingdom.
Sinbad was heartbroken to find his caliph in ruins and even ran into the King of Serendid. The King thanked Sinbad for his help in filling his pockets and gave Sinbad a small share, if he vowed to keep Serendid’s secret to their wealth.
Sinbad accepted and went on the run. But soon the money ran out and Sinbad made money by telling stories of his adventures. But he left out the part where he led to the downfall of his own kingdom.
That was until his deathbed, when Sinbad revealed the truth and Serendid’s location was revealed, putting them under a constant treat of invasion. Some wanted the island’s riches, others wanted revenge for their fallen kingdoms.
The island of Serendid managed to hold off the attacks by using their immense wealth to hire mercenaries and assassins to protect them.
As The Sorcerer King approached the island, he used Seithennin’s position as a Viking King to get an audience with the now ruling Queen of Serendid.
The Sorcerer King offered the Queen the opportunity to replenish her coffers, and help fund her war with his Midas ring. He also promised to send an army of men to her island to help fend off invaders once he became the new King of Cantre’r Gwaelod. In exchange, he gets the snake skin.
The Queen accepted, but she admitted that they didn’t have the skin anymore. The last place it was seen was the caliph of Sultan Abdalla Haroun Alraschid in the land of Baghdatha.
The Queen said that the Sultan hid the skin to save it for emergencies. And that he hid it so well that the Queen’s great-grandfather couldn’t find it when they took back their gifts and the caliph’s treasures. The Queen also said that her people were still there searching for the skin and that they would help The Sorcerer King find the hidden vault that held it.
But the Queen also required two more favours from The Sorcerer King. First was that he must bring back the snake skin to the island and second was to kill the monk Fahai. The reason being that Fahai was the only person who knew that they still had a piece of the skin, and they feared that the monk would tell the Immortals.
Luckily for her, The Sorcerer King was planning on doing it anyway and used his power ring, Pacator, to set Fahai on fire, finishing the job that Xiaoqing, The Green Snake, started.
The Sorcerer King went to the now ruined caliph of Abdalla Haroun Alraschid, and there with the combined help of the Serendid people and Seithennin’s army, they searched for the vault. It took them nearly three years and many magical hunting/searching/navigating spells, to find the skin.
Then when The Sorcerer King took over Cantre’r Gwaelod, he sent
an armada of Deep Ones to Serendid and had them kill everyone there and clean
them out for everything they were worth!
But before that… The Sorcerer King, with the help of
Seithennin (who comes from the land of Norðvegr and whose
ancestors had owned, made and used Ouroboros rings), made a new ring of Ouroboros.
First, The Sorcerer King, had to petrify the scales to
harden the shedded skin. Secondly, he carved a ring out of the fossilised
moulted flesh. Lastly, The Sorcerer King engraved the symbol that would curse
the ring to stay on his hand forever (more on this in another document). Then
to stop anyone else from also making the same ring, The Sorcerer King used the rest of
the skin to heal the Viking King and his army from the wounds they got in the
fight against the Serendid people. And the rest of the skin was destroyed.
Once the ring was made, The Sorcerer King placed it
on his thumb. Then he cut out his heart and crushed it in his hand!
Now he was completely immune from any Brisings
jewellery. Then he went back to Norðvegr where he met with Loki, freed the Brísingamen
brothers and had them make the ring of Brisings (see Item #23: The Brisings Ring).
Now to
carry on with the story of how The
Sorcerer King usurped the throne from Gwyddno Garanhir. This one is quite short,
as The Sorcerer King
only made the ring of Ouroboros
to be able to use the Brisings ring.
But the ring of Ouroboros was a big help to The Sorcerer King in surviving any
arrows shot at him, or fatal stabbings or as mentioned, any and all
assassination attempts.
The Sorcerer King knew that even though the ring
was cursed to stay on his hand forever, that if he lost his hand he would die.
And to compensate for this weakness, The Sorcerer King adopted a long ranged
fighting style, which involves him fighting enemies from a distance, only using
throwing daggers, bow and arrows and dark magical spells casted from his power
ring.
So to basically sum it up, the ring of Ouroboros’ part in taking over Cantre’r Gwaelod, was just
to allow The
Sorcerer King to use the Brisings ring and survive any fatal attacks during the
siege of the kingdom. I will continue the story in the next document.
As mentioned in Item #22 The hand of The Sorcerer King, although The Sorcerer King had his hand cut off and died, the ring of Ouroboros didn’t lose its healing abilities, as it kept the hand fresh and intact! The way you can tell if a ring is still working is that it gives off a blue glow. If it doesn’t glow blue when you try to use it, that is an indication that it had already been used.
And that was the ring of Ouroboros, the immortal giving artefact made from the moulted skin of The White Snake, Bai Suzhen.
Join me in the next post, where I talk about the ring that gave him an army of Deep Ones, Item 24: The wedding ring of Shala.
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