Introduction to the Lost Book of Etyries, Named Goodears

This is the opening to an exciting new translation of The Lost Book of Etyries, Named Goodears, which tells the story of the life of the Lunar Trade Goddess. Almost all existing materials from the Zero Wane leave Etyries' life before she met Teelo Estara a cipher, saying simply that she was a merchant's daughter (or the daughter of Issaries, which is a more poetic way of saying the same thing). These materials instead put emphasis on her redevelopment of the God Learner's Gamble and her role as the Goddess's Messenger, carrying carefully-worded missives written by Deezola and Irippi Ontor in Her name. This work, instead, contextualizes her in a way that turns the humanocentric narrative of the Hero Wars period on its head.

This work may shed new light on depictions of Etyries cultists wearing orange and red sashes around their midriffs, one end left to trail at their hip or behind them, and the "triangle hoods" that they are sometimes seen wearing in Heartland murals. Similarly, the references to Teelo Estara being distracted by "her Good Ears prancing" in The Ten Rules of Rule now make much more sense if we take this work to be authoritative.

Notes on Heortling Dyarchy

This is yet another excerpt from Mianmo's journals, where she noted down a conversation that (as far as we know) she had with Mesyllandre Otoros, an Etyries cultist from Peloria, about the nature of Orlanthi leadership as it was practiced in the Kingdom of Sartar.

Most scholarship on Orlanthi leadership practices has hitherto focused on the Orlanthi Book, which was written by a Lunar officer gathering intelligence on the tumultuous then-province of the Empire. Within, Dagius Furius notes that, among other things, a clan's chieftain must "know men's magic," can be removed from office by either the council and the people he represents, "must know all customs of giving and gifting [... and deliver] all gifts [...and] lead the defense of the clan against any foe. He must schedule, open, and oversee all clan markets, celebrations, battles, sacrifices, and movement. He must oversee food harvest, storage, and distribution. He must interact with all strangers and foreigners who enter clan lands." (Quotes here derived from G.S.'s foundational translation in the anthropological textbook King of Sartar: The Mystery of Argrath, or, How One Man Became a God.)

Dagius Furius was an outsider looking in on the Heortlings of Sartar. Mianmo, here, speaks as a relative insider with a distinct pro-Earth agenda. Perhaps further research will confirm the assertion here that Heortlings aspired towards mutually-beneficial dyarchic gendered power structures, despite the cultural pressure to define themselves strongly as Storm-aspected and reject the domination of Earth that characterized Esrolia.

Eurmal Stories

These four folk stories concern Eurmal, which was the Theyalan name for the universal Trickster figure (which may or may not have been synthesized into being by the Trickster College of Slontos, a theory which will not be addressed here). While the title of Trickster might bring to mind Mianmo's light-hearted wit and ability to dance around a point, she is here quite clear that the role of Trickster within Heortling culture was to be a negative example of behavior: to show the reason for rules by demonstrating what happened when they were broken.

Eurmal was not a god of Chaos, not inimical to the existence of the world. Indeed, it was necessary in the course of the Lightbringer's Quest, which was carried out by the Seven Lightbringers in order to save and reconstitute all of existence; the world could not have been remade inside of the net called Time without the assistance of Eurmal. But Eurmal is not tame, not good, and not anyone's friend. It is part of the world, but the part that we all would rather overlook and forget: the impulse to be selfish, to take what you do not need, to act without consideration, and to break laws simply because they are there. Such behavior is sadly not unnatural. Eurmal simply is.

Note, however, that Eurmal is allowed to flirt with Chaos, to invite it and its powers of dissolution back into the cosmos. Here we see the origin of a truly horrid Chaos cult (or one of its folkloric origins, at least), after all. This may be reflective of the fact that inside of Time, all of us have the power (should we so abuse it) to invite the inversion of the world back into the world: a world where people eat each other, where what is solid melts away, where broos sing their horrid songs, where Scorpion eagerly clicks her pincers.

The Six Great Predators

This piece was part of one of Mianmo's working journals, labeled: "From the Cottar." Given its rhythms, and its distinctly oral nature, it is likely that this was dictated directly to her, and it never found its way into one of her own works. Here we see a glimpse of what was important to pass on among the lower class of the pastoral Heortlings: direct information on how to avoid being eaten by the predators of Kerofinela, and how to protect your flock of sheep from the same (as sheep were a distinctly lower-class animal to herd; the more affluent carls herded cattle and yoked them to the plow).

However, it's important to note what this, too, omits: there is no reference here to the wolves that we know haunted the highlands of Sartar at the time, Telmori or otherwise, and neither is there reference to the Praxian saber-toothed lion, or to the Lesser Esrolian Tiger, or to the roving packs of scavenging dinosaurs that were a menace to travelers skirting northwestern Sartar. Rather, this hexapartite list serves as an introduction to the elements that formed the backbone of Heortling cosmology, each one attached to a certain creature which displays characteristics of the element. Little wonder, then, that Mianmo felt this was worth noting down.

(Translator's note: while predatory bats may seem laughable, the crag bats of Dagori Inkarth are widely attested as being both large enough to carry enlo riders and ravenous enough to eat sheep, not to mention the humans who looked after them. While scholarship is uncertain whether they ever spread to the Quivini, don't get so lost in the Lunar allegory here that you write off what was possibly a very real fear. For more on this, this translator recommends the paper "BATS ARE BUGS: Third Age Chiropterology and the Politics of Darkness.")

Fragments from the Elura Tales

In these fragments from Elura Stories, Mianmo gives us a teasing glimpse at the stories told about the mother of the sa-elurae, quite possibly told by the sa-elurae themselves. But some historical context is important to understand both the stories and Mianmo herself.

While sa-elurae could be found as enterprising individuals in places as far afield as Glamour and Nochet, archeological evidence suggests that their communities were centered on the northern bank of the Stream, particularly at Duck Point, Quackford, Bayberry and Clearwine. (Note that while these communities were close to Beast Valley, they were outside it; the sa-elurae were distinguished from the elurae of Beast Valley by their choice to live among humans, rather than treating them solely as somewhat dimwitted entertainment.) While all sa-elurae were by birth members of the cult of the primordial fox goddess Vusalka (who was likely the Vuskaratha of Middle Sea Empire texts), they were also strongly associated in Sartar with the trade-cults of Issaries and Etyries, who they called Etyries Goodears and claimed as one of their own; with the cult of Donandar the Entertainer, particularly the Puppeteer Troupe; and Ernalda-Uleria, Ernalda in her aspect as the Great Lover.

These associations, along with their inability to breed with humans (without proper dispensation from Ernalda-Uleria) despite very active libidos, led to the sa-elurae being stereotyped as untrustworthy sex workers among the Heortling tribes of southern Kerofinela. Stories abounded of how sa-elurae merchants would lift their tails to sweeten a deal, and how their musicians were more than happy to accommodate “private performances”; we have records from the Blue House in Boldhome that suggest the priestess “Kellys Brightbrow,” a top earner from 1616 to 1626, was a sa-elurae using a natural talent for mimicry for her scandalous performances. 

In the margin of one of her manuscripts, Mianmo wrote: “my tunic embroidered NOT A MEMBER OF THE CULT OF LANBRIL is provoking many questions already answered by the tunic.” As no such piece of clothing was found in her tomb, it is unclear as to whether this was another one of her jokes— but it is similarly revealing. The thief-cult was associated with Illusion, after all, and the sa-elurae were forced to the margins of society. Would it have been surprising if some turned to the cult as just another way to make a living?

Perhaps it would be surprising in the Kingdom of Sartar, given their loyalty to the kingdom’s legendary founder, a shocking polestar for these mercurial beast-women. (In them we can see a feminine echo of the wild Telmori bodyguards of the Princes of Sartar.) While overlooked by Fazzur Wideread’s Duck Hunt, many sa-elurae risked their hides to act as Duck smugglers, and Lunar tax forms reveal some fox woman pelts were mixed in with the dead Ducks. They are on the margins of the tales of rebellion against the Lunars from 1602 to 1625: as daring smugglers, as spies in Lunar caravans and command posts, as messengers and facilitators for rebel warbands. Perhaps it was in this context that Mianmo had interactions with the Haraborn clan, the core of the famed Company of the Dragon.

(Translator’s note: the use of “sales” below may seem anachronistic; Mianmo used a New Pelorian loanword here, which had developed similar connotations among the Heortlings at the time of her writing.)

Fragments from the Thedogony

Someone tried to destroy this material.

The manuscript for the Thedogony was found in a casket among Mianmo’s grave goods. The sheets were loose (but showed signs of having once been bound into leather), were out of order (insofar as an order can be imposed), and had sustained some damage from fire. It is possible that they are the remnants of a research journal, though it is equally possible that they form a Mianmo narrative similar to Foundational Myths of Kerofinela, relying on the reader’s interpretation of what lay within— but we have had to reconstruct what she had to say to us, between the damage and the disorder. As the title says, these are just fragments from a larger document; Mianmo has forced me to join her in making deliberate artistic choices, and the rough chronological order is my own.

Let me be clear: this material flies in the face of conventional Kerofinelan studies. Paulis Longvale’s writings on the Unholy Trio and the birth of the Devil are clear. “Madness was his father, Rape his mother, and Plague his midwife.” “Hatred, selfishness, greed and jealousy motivated them.” (Though I believe that all four motives can be found in Mianmo’s account, just in different shapes.)

So perhaps she was simply writing perverse, blasphemous fiction in very poor taste. Or perhaps we have, through her, a glimpse into the folk traditions and the women’s traditions of Kerofinela (and these often go hand in hand), undocumented by Paulis and other such important men.

But whatever the truth is, you must remember: someone tried to destroy this so that you would not be able to read it. Doesn't that make you a little curious?

(Translator's Note: yes, I know it should be Thedgonia. "Thedogony" was a joke that stuck, and now we are stuck with it.)