A Drought of Tales

Question: Are there any legends and myths on the Alihah? I'm really interested in delving into them.

Extremely few, actually, but in our opinion that's all the more reason to delve as much as possible.

The pre-Islamic religion of ancient Arabia is one of the most poorly preserved in the world. The people who practiced it were largely pre-written-word, so they didn't leave us any convenient texts about their beliefs, and furthermore they were heavily invested in worship centered around natural features of the world, especially stones and groves of trees, which means they also didn't build very many religious structures that we can investigate for archaeological clues. Of course, we've worked with less than that before, but the final nail in the coffin was the sudden and overpoweringly influential rise of Islam in the region at the beginning of the seventh century. Muhammad's crusade for his god was devastatingly effective at destroying every trace of the area's previous beliefs in order to better serve the glory of Allah, which means that what religious artifacts did exist were mostly smashed, burned, or taken by Muslim conquerors to become part of their own new religion.

With all this going on historically, it would be hard enough to find out anything concrete about the ancient Arab religions, but thanks to the area remaining strongly Muslim through the intervening centuries, there also hasn't been much of a concerted effort to investigate the ancient religion, either. The first few centuries of Islamic rule involved systematic destruction or assimilation of anything that came to light after having survived the initial pillaging, and while we have a few records by Muslim scholars of the time - The Book of Idols is the most famous and useful for the study of the Arab gods - they're not numerous and very obviously biased in favor of Islam. Muslim scientists, historians and poets went about spending a few hundred years studiously ignoring the unworthy older religion while making leaps and bounds in the study of other kinds of in history and culture, and the result is that today there's not even all that much interest in the subject, let alone active work being done on it.

Of course, there are intrepid Muslim researchers out there right now trying to preserve and discover more about the ancient religion of their forbears, so don't think there aren't. But compared to the renaissance of study that the European and Egyptian religions underwent during the nineteenth century, the field is almost deserted. And what folklore does remain is usually not translated into English, because if there isn't much interest in the subject in Saudi Arabia, imagine how much less there is in Europe and the Americas, where the average person on the street probably doesn't even know that there was a pantheon that predated Islam.

However, there are a few Arab myths still floating around, and I am here to share them with you! Since they were almost all recorded by Muslim writers, you get the same kind of monotheism-triumphing-over-the-dark-ages stuff you get with Christianity in Europe, but filtered is better than nothing.

The story of al-Uzza is probably the most famous, although also the most tragic (and obviously affected by Islamic influence). The great goddess al-Uzza was the patron of the Quraysh group of Arabs, which was also the people of Muhammad, who in his youth sacrificed goats to her. When Islam became powerful in the region, even including verses against al-Uzza in the Quran, the Quraysh were dismayed by the opposition to their deity but remained steadfastly loyal. When abu-Uhayhah, ruler of the Quraysh, became fatally ill, he spoke to his successor abu-Lahab, saying that he was afraid that after his death al-Uzza's worship would cease. abu-Lahab assured him that al-Uzza's worship had been strong before his birth and would remain so after his death. Upon hearing of this, however, Muhammad called upon Khalid, one of the greatest Muslim heroes of the time, and ordered him to go to al-Uzza's sacred grove to root out the religion. Khalid complied and went to the grove to chop down one of its trees, thus hoping to render the goddess' worship powerless, but upon returning to Muhammad was told that this was not enough. He returned to the sacred grove again and chopped down another tree, but again was told that his efforts were insufficient. Finally, he returned a third time and cut down every tree in the grove, at which point al-Uzza herself appeared, looking haggard and miserable and wailing and gnashing her teeth. Khalid then killed her by slicing her head in half as well as murdering her priest who tended the grove, and declared that Islam had triumphed over the pagan creatures. The myth is pretty clearly not one written by those Arabs who were fans of al-Uzza and would never have dreamed a mortal could hurt her, but that's monotheistic revisionism for you.

The short story of Isaf and Nailah is also partially preserved by Muslim writers, although most likely in a radically altered form. In the Islamic version, Isaf and Nailah were an insufficiently pious couple on their way to Mecca, and upon arriving there at the end of their pilgrimage, they had sex inside the Kaaba, which so infuriated Allah that he instantly turned them to stone as a warning to all others. However, evidence suggests that Isaf and Nailah were probably originally pre-Islamic deities and that this story was invented to de-divinize them and make them figures of ridicule who reinforced Allah's position as the most important god in the area. The stones that were once the two lovers are theorized to have represented guardian gods who protected pilgrims on their annual hajj for religious destinations or festivals.

Another myth is a future prophecy, something predicated by the prophets of Islam but not yet come to pass, which concerns the god Dhu Khalasa, a deity of justice and redemption. The god was reportedly worshiped by ecstatic rituals including dancing and veneration of his shining white nisab, which was housed in the Kaaba of the South, a major hajj destination; although the second Kaaba was destroyed on Muhammad's orders to prevent it from being a rallying point for the older religion to compete with Islam, it is predicted that one of the signs of the end of the world is that the women of Dhu Khalasa will once again dance (the exact wording is closer to "a commotion of their backsides", so you can enjoy this example of an ancient prophecy that predicts booty-shaking) around his nisab. Whether this means a literal end of the world or just the end of Islam's world and return of the ancient beliefs is up for debate. Interestingly, it might be argued that this already did happen; despite the destruction of the southern Kaaba, the worship of Dhu Khalasa resurfaced later and was only finally destroyed as recently as 1815, when more modern Islamic groups stormed the reconstructed temple and demolished it and its nisab with gunfire. Of course, the world is still here and so is Islam, so if that was the fulfilment of the prophecy, what did it end? And if it wasn't, why not and when will it actually be?

Finally, there's the story of Iram or Ubar, colloquially called "Atlantis of the Sands", a lost city of an ancient Arab tribe said to be buried somewhere in the desert. According to Islamic myth, King Shaddad of Iram conquered and united all the Arab peoples and some of the nearby Canaanites as well, creating a giant kingdom that he ruled from his capital city, but the people were worshipers of the ancient gods and therefore drew the wrath of Islam. The famous Muslim prophet Hud went to the city and demanded to the king that they convert, but Shaddad refused. Allah retaliated by causing a massive drought, but when even that could not force the people of Iram to abandon their gods, he finally destroyed the city with a massive windstorm, which smote the city so violently that the entire place sank into the desert and was swallowed up, leaving behind only a few faithful Muslims who had been living there.

As the above stories pretty clearly show, the vast majority of Arab mythology we have remaining is embedded in Islamic mythology, from which it has to be isolated and interpreted without any guarantee that what stories remain aren't heavily rewritten by the rival religion over the many centuries between then and now. Most of these stories were created by Muslims who wanted to illustrate how much better their god and religion were and how thoroughly they triumphed over the pagans of yore, but even so we can find a few kernels of truly ancient belief within them. And modern Islam itself still contains a great number of religious concepts and practices, including the hajj, circumambulation of sacred sites, and even the Black Stone of the Kaaba itself, that are probably at least partially based on ancient Arab practices.

So there's no Bhagavad Gita or Theogony for the ancient Arabs, no coherent ancient body of myths or running narrative of stories, but we do still know a thing or two about their gods and what those gods did for their people. The unique desert-nomad culture the gods were based in and the subsequent almost total wiping of all evidence of their existence makes them a fascinating pantheon to study and theorize about, even if most of our information comes from archaeological evidence and descriptions of worship rather than easily-told stories.

Maya-World Relations

Question: How do the K'uh get along with your 'homebrew' (I use the word sparingly because I don't believe it really is, given the amount of research put into it) pantheons?

The first of several Homebrew Pantheon Posts! Whoever you are, thank you for being so kind about the work we put into these - it's nice to know you guys like 'em. :)

Okay, round one: the K'uh and making nice with everybody else. Of the other downloadable pantheons, they probably have the most trouble interacting with the Elohim; these are two pantheons who really just don't get each other and probably never will. The K'uh think the Elohim are crazy and reactionary, psychotic and overly vengeful, too complacent in their city-states when things like cities never stand for long, and they would have no particular interest in fighting over who has the most layers of divine kingship. On the flip side, the utter changeability of the K'uh would drive the Elohim out of their minds trying to figure out what they were doing, and they would not only not understand the idea of the many-gods-in-one, they would be likely to think of the whole Harmony-obsessed pantheon as misty-eyed hippies with no ability to get anything done. There'd no doubt they could probably both impress one another in battle... but it's hard to bond over Courage alone. Mostly you just both get covered in entrails and then go home.

The Anunna are similarly foreign to the K'uh, though less volatile and therefore less worrisome. The Anunna are very old and very sure of their superiority, so they'd be likely to treat the K'uh as strange upstart children who have developed some very weird customs indeed, and conversely the K'uh probably wouldn't think the Anunna had a lot to offer that was relevant or useful to the modern world (especially since they're so rigidly rules-focused and unchanging). They wouldn't dislike each other, but there's not a lot of respect on either side.

But the Apu, there are some people the K'uh can relate to. Although their empires never met in antiquity (I'm serious, don't make me start yelling about the Inca and the Maya being nowhere near each other again), they share many common goals and ideals, including territorial expansion, human sacrifice, strong emphasis on noble lineage and the idea of the gods as awesome cosmic forces of nature, not just really powerful people who run around in heaven. Their most major difference is in the K'uh emphasis on the fluid nature of the divine, contrasted against the Apu as the unchanging forces of the elements themselves, but they would probably both allow that there's room for both interpretations.

The Alihah... well, they understand things that don't stay the same, and while the K'uh turning into various versions of themselves isn't quite the same as the Alihah embarking on their eternal travels, in the end there's a common philosophical idea of a journey that changes oneself that they could probably get together on. The K'uh, like many other pantheons, are probably a little disdainful of the Alihah, whose people never had any true military or imperial might and who were worshiped in a very disorganized and piecemeal manner by their standards, but the Alihah are chill enough that they probably don't care. In fact, the two pantheons find each other intriguing: each sees the other as a group of deities with an enticingly different way of changing and moving, and would probably be very interested in experiencing a little of that.

And, finally, the Bogovi, who are probably inclined to be best friends with the K'uh. Both pantheons are prone to changing their selves without losing the core of who they are - the K'uh through their different aspects, the Bogovi through their many faces and names - and they share a love of the proper natural balance and a drive to preserve and support it. The K'uh are not a very hands-on pantheon when it comes to their mortal worshipers, which never hurts when trying to make friends with the Bogovi, and the two probably have a great time trading war stories, planning escapades against the Titans and playing exotic sports.

Heart of the Desert

Question: Am I utterly blind? I can't seem to find a listing of the Virtues the Alihah espouse.

You're probably not blind, but you do seem to have missed it. The Alihah Virtues are on page 7 of the supplement, after the writeups of the gods, so missing them is understandable for those used to seeing them at the top in the White Wolf books.

The Alihah have Endurance, Expression, Piety and Vengeance. They are folks who mean business.

Errata

Question: I noticed that in your Alihah writeup Whedh has no favoured or banned Purviews. Is that a typo, or a deliberate decision, considering what Whedh is the Titanrealm of?

Oh, damn, no! That's a mistake and the realm's associated and banned purviews should have been listed at the beginning like those of all other Titans. Allah's writeup and the Henosic template offer some clues, but I apologize for not including the official rulings.

Whedh's favored purviews are Chaos, Justice, Mystery and Psychopomp. Chaos and Psychopomp are the two purviews that break down barriers and encourage the chaotic recombination of everything and anything, which is of course Whedh's ultimate goal. Mystery does the same for knowledge, causing anyone to be able to learn anything regardless of experience or division, and Justice works for Whedh's uncompromising belief in unification and the ultimate order that it brings.

Whedh's banned purviews are Guardian and Magic. Guardian is all about placing boundaries and blocking things from going where and when they wish, anathema to Whedh's desire to destroy such restrictions, and Magic, as the purview that controls the restricting bonds and activities of Fate, does the same thing in the realm of the occult.

And speaking of mistakes, the Henosic template states that creatures using it suffer piercing damage from attacks against them made with the Justice and Magic purviews. This is incorrect; replace Justice with Guardian.

Gah, I hate it when mistakes make it into the PDFs. Sorry, everybody!

It Burns Us!

Question: I love your Alihah write-up, but I'm not entirely sold on Unity as a Titan concept, so I was considering a Light Titanrealm, with Djinn (smokeless fire could be interpreted as Light) as Titanspawn, since as desert-dwelling nomads who love the night sky, they seem to have issues with the Sun. Does Allah have any solar connotations? Or do you think the whole idea is too mythically inaccurate?

Glad you enjoyed it! I can definitely see the appeal of setting the Alihah up as opposed to a Titanrealm of Light; they're the gods of one of a very few cultures that could be said to be opposed to the idea of the sun, since they live in a desert climate and do most of their traveling out from under the harsh eye of the unforgiving daystar. There aren't a lot of world religions that really demonize or even mildly dislike light, which is a concept almost universally associated with sunshine, truth and life.

Unfortunately, though, I don't know that I've got much to help you. The pre-Islamic Allah has no solar connotations that I know of; he's a god more associated with spirit and communication than anything else, with possibly minor sky associations thanks to an ancient reconstructed image of him as one of those great big sky-fathers everybody in the Mediterranean area seems to love so much. He's more similar to Ahura Mazda over in Persia than to any of the sky Titans, though, and has nothing in common with Aten other than the connection to monotheism (which happened in distinctly different ways and eras for the two figures). The Islamic Allah doesn't have any real connection to the sun, or to light in general for that matter, that I know of, either; by the time he's morphed into one of the big bad monotheistic powers of the modern world, he's almost exclusively about omnipotence rather than having any specific associations.

The Alihah and the ancient Arabs that worshiped them also weren't really all that opposed to the sun, which makes the connection difficult as well. It was inconvenient and overheating, but not something they considered malevolent, more a fact of life that they dealt with by minimizing their exposure to it, and since it's a constant and predictable danger it lacks the immediacy and enmity of other natural disasters like storms or earthquakes. Their solar deity, the goddess Shams, is not particularly important because of this image of the sun as dehydrator and heat-source rather than all-important giver of life, but she's still a positive figure with no particularly nasty associations that I'm aware of. The religion's closer to being annoyed with the fundamental concept of light than most others, but that's not saying much.

I wish I had something awesome to offer, but alas, the Arabian peninsula is just not cooperating today.

De-Unification Theory

Question: If some (very!) heroic Scion were to save Atarsamain from Whedh, what would be the reaction from the Alihah? From Ruda? Would there be any reward? I imagine the Scion would quickly get many friends. I've read your Alihah story, and I really want my Aesir Scion to go out there and save at least someone from Whedh.

Ambitious, but awesome! Saving someone from Whedh is a very tall order - dangerous, difficult, likely to change you forever - but not completely impossible.

Atarsamain and Nuha have been gone a very long time; they were swallowed by Whedh back in the first Titan war, and therefore haven't really existed except as part of Allah's realm for many centuries. They have no prayer of becoming themselves again (or even of remembering they had selves in the first place) without outside help, which is where your Scion can come in. He or she will have to organize an impressive outing of gods to get this done, but it definitely can be done.

You'll first need to find the right approximate "part" of Whedh to look for them; technically all of Whedh is the same place and it doesn't really have parts, so your Storyteller might rule that you can do this anywhere, but the popular Alihah legend that the throne of Allah is made of the stuff that was once the essence of absorbed gods is a good place to start if you need to look further. I would probably require some pretty hefty Occult, Mystery or other related rolls to try to latch onto the right goddesses - Whedh has swallowed many, many, many people over time, gods included, and it might be hard to find the specific deities you're trying to rescue when they're part of that huge composite. You'll also need a god to use the Wyrd, which is the only power great enough to find and separate the strands of Nuha's and Atarsamain's fates from the mass of Whedh that they are currently part of. Once you've done that, different Storytellers may want to run with different things that have to happen; you may need someone with a lot of Health to reconstruct new bodies for the fallen goddesses, warriors to fight off encroaching ghilan, psychopomps to help everyone escape before Allah (who may or may not be alerted as soon as you start doing this) from thundering down on everyone, or simply enough strength to drag these goddesses who haven't been separated from the realm since time immemorial physically away from it. It will no doubt be dangerous and harrowing - opposing a Titan in his own realm is a ballsy move indeed!

If you succeeded in such a thing, however, you would probably indeed be something of a hero. The Alihah can use every deity they can get, and they would undoubtedly be very glad to see the goddesses back on their side; poor Ruda's mental problems come from overexposure to Whedh and probably won't disappear, but even so he'd probably be overjoyed to be reunited with his family. You'd probably be considered an ally of the Alihah as a whole, and Ruda himself might offer you some reward if he has one - if you're a dude, hey, he's got this daughter you just rescued, so care for a marriage alliance? - or give you a promise of help at some time in the future when you need it.

Of course, there could be pretty potent downsides, too. Going into Whedh is exceptionally dangerous, which is why the Alihah haven't tried to rescue too many of their lost gods themselves - the whole time you're in there it will be trying to absorb you and your relics, and you're like to come out permanently different from when you went in. This is a danger for anyone you bring with you, too, and if one of your allies dies while helping you, you may have to deal with the weighty consequences among his friends, family and pantheon. Atarsamain and Nuha themselves may be slightly odd - even more than Ruda, they've not only been exposed to Whedh but actually wholly eaten by it, and they may not be entirely themselves when they return. Finally, Allah may come down in his wrath as a result of your theft - either head-on at the Alihah, who might or might not be in a position to scramble fast enough to deal with him, or at you or your home pantheon for this affront you've just perpetrated. (Though if that's the case, at least the Alihah will have another reason to like you - thanks for the breather, man!)

Nuha and Atarsamain are but two of the ancient Arab deities that have succumbed to Whedh's all-encompassing hunger. It's equally possible to rescue others, and depending on Storyteller decision, any number of minor, mostly-forgotten Arab gods might be in the great mass of Whedh waiting to be rediscovered. Most gods aren't going to be excited about the idea - that's a horrible hellscape that eats relics and destroys personalities! No one wants to go in there for some minor goddess who died millennia ago! - but a Scion with a silver enough tongue, a strong enough determination and a good enough argument could still make it happen.

Invest in Willpower, Integrity and Stamina, and take good friends. It's dangerous to go alone.

Arab Annotations

Question: Okay you knew this question was coming. You know your article "All The Fiddly Bits"? Now that they're done, could we get that for the Alihah, please?

Question: Since posting your "Race Relations" article, you have written two more pantheons. Would you mind telling us how the first three and the new two get along?

Someone actually wasn't patient enough for the question box and already asked about the fiddly bits, so that original post has been updated here. Go forth and learn specifics!

As for relations between the pantheons, that's a longer and stickier post! Let me try to break it down a little bit here:

The Apu have little contact with the middle eastern pantheons, which are far away and generally look pretty strange to them, but they have a lot of common ground with the Alihah, who similarly respect the importance of the World and its natural foci of power. They do not get along very well with the Elohim, whom they consider loose cannons with no regard for the damage they cause in their personal spats (but, unfortunately, the Apu themselves are likely to get into those spats with them out of outrage). The Anunna tend to look down their noses at the Apu, who are obviously too wrapped up in the petty concerns of the world to aspire to true power; the Apu in turn mostly ignore the ancient, obviously out-of-touch gods of Mesopotamia. While they tend to express it very differently, the Apu and Bogovi actually have a lot in common in their desire to steward the world and its natural cycles, but unfortunately they usually can't agree on method, and the Bogovi are especially likely to be very intolerant of the Apu practice of being strong divine presences in the world of mortals.

The Alihah, in contrast, are traditional allies of the Elohim, with whom they shared some worshipers and whom they have always considered fairly friendly neighbors. The Alihah recognize that the Elohim can be kind of insane and take care not to upset them by horning in on what they consider their "territory" too much, but the Elohim in turn aren't very threatened by a pantheon that seems largely nomadic to them, and enjoy them as polite visitors who come by every now and then. The Anunna are one of the few pantheons to actually respect the Alihah as a power in their own right, as they remember them at the height of their religion and are so old themselves that they don't consider having no presence in the world any measure of importance. They still think of the roving Alihah as slightly barbaric and childish, but then again, they think that about everybody. Finally, the Bogovi are distantly polite with the Arab gods; they don't have a lot in common and are confused by what seems to them like an unstructured, rootless pantheon that must have trouble functioning, but they're willing to aid one another for the good of the war effort even though they really don't get one another.

I should probably brush both posts up and just put a link to them somewhere in the sidebar, so they're easy to find for those laboring with too many PDFs.

Nodes and Leylines

Question: Could an ancient standing stone be both an ansab for an Alihah god and the center of a huaca for an Apu god? Also, can an ansab be placed in a Terra Incognita?

Ooh, good questions. No matter how thorough we try to be when we write something new, you guys always come up with possibilities we didn't consider.

While the powers of Huaca and Hajj don't technically overlap, we would still rule that no, you can't have the same object be both a huaca and an ansab. Both huaca and ansab are uniquely dedicated magical things that are tied to their patron deity only; they are part of that god's Legend and are intrinsically tied only to him. Just as you can't tie a relic to two different people by giving it two different sets of powers, you can't tie a single stone to both an Inca god and an Arab god. One of them will just have to be gracious and let the other one have the pretty rock (although that's a turf battle that could get ugly really quickly - these are two pantheons who are very serious about their pretty rocks).

Whomever consecrated the stone to themselves first would be the one who ended up "owning" it. John suggests that if you want to open the door to inter-pantheon rock wars, you could also allow a huaca or ansab to be "stolen" by the other pantheon's powers, provided that Scion or god attempting to do so rolls their Legend when they use the boon on it. If they get successes equal to twice the rock's current owner's Legend (or just the owner's Legend if he or she happens to be dead), they can steal it and make it their own permanent huaca or ansab, and its original owner will suffer the painful consequences of losing it. If they fail, the stone is too strongly connected to its current owner and spurns their attempt to magically make off with it.

I am shuddering at the thought of the insane political and military backlash just waiting to happen if anyone seriously tries to steal one anothers' sacred loci of power. Seriously. These people have Harmony, Vengeance and no previous positive interactions. They will take this to the next level of insanity.

In happier news, though, ansab and huaca aren't completely incompatible. A Scion with the Yachay boon would be able to recognize an ansab as a form of foreign huaca even if she doesn't know exactly what it's all about, and would even be able to gain bonuses by honoring it with the Kawsay boon. An Alihah Scion, in turn, would be able to use his Ahtram Shym and Tawaf boons at an Inca god's huaca just as easily as he could at one of his own peoples' shrines, provided he recognizes and respects it for what it is.

As for where you can have these things, you're in luck: ansab can be put anywhere you want, no strings attached. Unlike huaca, which are part of the natural forces of the World and can't leave it, ansab may be placed anywhere the god who owns them wishes, allowing him to move them to a Terra Incognita where they may be safer from danger or to provide a link from a foreign locale to his own Overworld. They're more often found in the World, the better to use them to affect matters and mortals there, but as long as a god can lift it, he can move it.

Which may not always be a plus for an Arab god, actually, as it's entirely possible for enemies, pranksters or people who don't recognize the ansab for what it is to steal it and put it somewhere he wasn't intending it to go. But that's the price you pay for portability.

Gods of Sand and Stone

After many months in the wilderness of research, we finally come back bearing exotic gifts: the Alihah, the pantheon of the pre-Islamic Arabs, are finally finished and available for download!

Working on the Alihah was seriously a journey. I've always found Arab folklore incredibly fascinating, but their pre-literate oral religion was so thoroughly curbstomped by Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries that it almost completely vanished. Trying to reconstruct it from scraps of myths preserved by reclusive nomads, oral retellings recorded by Dutch explorers in the nineteenth century and echoes still remaining in modern Islam was a crazy undertaking; even now, much more educated on the subject than I was before, the result is a piecemeal patchwork of memories, folklore and half-remembered gods. We've never tried to write a full pantheon supplement for a pantheon with so little in the way of surviving mythology, so it was a really interesting experiment. I'm not sure if we'll do it again any time soon, but it was seriously a blast.

The Alihah are a very different flavor of gods, and their inescapable entwinement with the roots of Islam makes for a supplement that can go in a lot of potential directions. We hope you enjoy their secretive, nomadic, celestial deities and find plenty of material to help flesh out the Arab world in your Scion games. Also, there are jinn, like, everywhere in this darn thing.

We'll be resetting the next-pantheon poll over to the right momentarily with new voting options for the next round. The Maya won the last vote of 2012, so we're shedding our dusty desert travel gear in favor of sturdy machetes and jungle boots.