Research thread, Give me legends

Okay... while I'm continuing to work on this manuscript... I swear, I thought it was finished two months ago... I keep getting more and more ideas to put in it. So, I've decided that at the least I can add more to my research notes, and while I know that there are numerous sites out there, I decided to ask you all, CDN.

What legends strike you from your home culture? Can you give a brief summary, and then possibly somewhere to go to read more?

The galaxy is a big place with numerous creatures and cultures. I'd like to see where the legends take us.

Ta'ruan the Captor is a creature of folklore among my people that is quite common. A creature that punishes the souls of batarians who have not fulfilled any meaningful purpose in their lives due to sloth, wastefulness, and wanton excess. Those who are captured by Ta'ruan are sent to Maenek, the Quarry of the Unworthy, where they must serve a sentence befitting their punishment, before they can be pardoned and allowed to pass on to the next world.

As you can imagine, it is a rather popular choice for bedtime stories.

The Manifestation of Guilt is a loose translation for an entity that pervades all forms of drell religion. Most commonly referred to as "The One Who Consumes All Selves," this leviathan - a metaphorical beast, mind you - seeks those who utilize their bodies incorrectly and acquire guilt without acknowledging it. In short, it is a fail-safe, but it is rarely recognized in modern religions.

On a minor scale, this entity has invaded some essence of hanar religion as well, but it is loosely regarded at best. Conceptually, Guilt can take the form of anything the mind conceives; it is a manifestation, not a stable existence.

Reverent pride: The Ghorsuulan is an old tradition indeed, and its customs and legends have been reinterpreted over the centuries to remain consistent both with tradition and the steady advance of elcor knowledge.

Slight tinge of embarrassment: Hence the reference to the planet’s iron/nickel core in the current chant of the Massing, despite the ritual’s origins predating such knowledge.

Wistfully: One legend rather incidental to the core tradition, but which always intrigued me in my underyears, was that of the Dorgalanoss. I suppose its purpose is to acknowledge that memory and custom can never provide total certainty, and that humility, or at least an awareness of mortal limitation, should be present in the minds of elcor, lest they succumb to an overly prideful sense of their own infallibility.

Briskly informative: Essentially - and this is more of a religiously-approved rumour than a true belief, an exercise in speculative thought and not without self-deprecating humour – the Dorgalanoss is the trickster sprite that - so the legend suggests - governs the urge to migration. Not the need or practical cause of migration, but the psychological urge. It plays with the elcor mind, coaxing it back and forth as part of its child-like sense of good entertainment.

Casual speculation: I suppose elcor simply don’t like feeling out of control, or anything less than stable and grounded, so they speculate as to whether these instincts for movement are some form of cosmic prank, played by a sprite which lacks the wisdom to stay where it is or honour its roots.

Sly humour: The true joke is on the Dorgalanoss, of course, because the migration urge served the practical requirements of the people, and thus it played its role in helping the customs of the elcor become safely established. Or is the joke on us after all, as we still observe the annual migration even now that technology has triumphed over the climate?

Casually and unconvincingly cheerful: Naturally, you can see why the legend is a bit controversial. Some say it’s subversive and challenging simply for the sake of being so, others that it aids us in avoiding excess pride by reminding us that we’re subject to chaotic or uncontrolled forces. Still others say that it isn’t subversive at all and instead demonstrates how custom and memory are powerful enough that even childish whimsy ultimately gives way to stability and a sense of personal history.

Firmly: More of my people should ponder the purpose of this legend.

Thanks to everyone who's posted so far... I would like as many as people are willing to give though. Come on, weigh in.

In some circles, it is said that after the work of the Enkindler's was done, they left a great burning light deep within the depth's of Kahje. This light is said to grant the finder ultimate wisdom if they are deemed "worthy" enough to acquire it.

But for one to be deemed "worthy" they must first survive the dangers of the depths of Kahje. As the light is guarded by many of Kahje's most fierce predators and numerous other trials set forth by the enkindlers.

Many hanar have left in search of this light. Few ever return.

Of course, the light is likely a metaphor. Since one who is wise does not venture in the depths of Kahje to search for a possibly metaphorical light in the first place.

edit: Though this one guesses they would figure that out if they actually found the light.

This one respectfully inquires if the other has encountered any who applied themselves to the search? It would be most interested in discussing the reasoning of such others, and the eventual results of their pilgrimage, assuming the journey was attempted. This one observes that the isolationist customs of hanar culture may have contributed to reactionary assumptions that wisdom is indigenous to Kahje, and that these ones alone have potential access to the Enkindlers' truth. Such a belief is incompatible with this one's own understanding of the Enkindlers' will.

Perhaps this one could discuss the other's experience during its next visit to the other's establishment?

Does the other have any flimmshimmishin on the menu?

When the great and wise sage Väinämöinen was finally driven out of Kalevala by the son born from an union of a maiden and lingonberry (allegory of Christianity arriving in ancient Finland and replacing the local pagan beliefs), he set off in a boat made out of copper and swore to return when Finland would need him again. (Apparently Reapers weren't enough pressing threat for the sage)

Of course, before that had been the epic odyssey to the cold north to steal back the Sampo, magical mill that could churn out flour, salt and gold that had been stolen by the Hag of the north. On the way there, Kalevalans and Väinämöinen defeated a giant pike and carve out a musical instrument called a kantele from its jawbone for Väinämöinen. Using this enchanted instrument, the sage sings a sleeping spell on the people of the north so the Kalevalans can sneak past them and snatch the Sampo. However, the Hag catches them in middle of the act and great chase on the ocean follows, culminating in a fight between the Kalevalans and the northerners, led by the Hag that had turned herself into a giant eagle. The Sampo is broken to pieces however, and the Kalevalans have to return home empty-handed. The enraged Hag sends various curses to torment Väinämöinen's people, but they all are cured.

This one does not wish to "derail" the thread too much. But it will answer the other's questions to the best of its abilities. It has indeed known a few hanar (and one compactee) who have attempted the search. None returned, so it cannot discuss their results in any real fashion besides the obvious. But it can give a few theories for why they went in search of it.

All of them believed finding the light would help redeem them from a past failure.


Yes.

The Algonquian peoples believed in the existence of something called the Wendigo. Which depending on the legend was either a spirit which could possess people, a monster someone could become, or both. The point on which the legend is the same though is what Wendigos do. A Wendigo, or a person possessed by them; is a malevolent being constantly hungering for human flesh, the murder and consumption of just one victim was not enough either. They were believed to be literally insatiable, only stopping when destroyed or when they have no more prey.

They were supposed to be vaguely human shaped, gaunt as though malnourished, with skin color ranging from sickly yellow to a grayish color. Beyond that the details vary greatly from story to story, some giving them human like teeth others fangs or needle sharp teeth, hair, fur, antlers, and eyes ranging from black to glowing were other common features. One of the most widespread features however was that they were supposed to grow taller with every victim they devoured, so that they would never be sated.

It's generally believed that the Wendigo was supposed to represent gluttony, greed, and excess, and the stories were told to discourage this sort of behavior. Also, scaring the hell out of people is amusing.

Without getting into the specifics of my location there is the story of the Watchman. When the world was settled our community was but one small town surrounded by mineral rich mountains, hills, etc. The oldest amongst us say that a tall humanoid would stare upon the town, never doing anything, just standing in the distance, they say sometimes that there would be a hellish roar when it disappeared. As the town expanded and the community grew the creature would become more invasive, staring into individual homes at night, those few who think they saw it described it as a fleshy tall creature with no eyes and a mouth capable of stretching open to let out a nightmarish howl. One night there was a mass disappearance of children from the outermost parts of the colony and the only thing recovered was a disturbing recording detailing a frightened child trying to communicate with the creature. People became angry and scared.

Details after that are muddied but from what I can tell they eventually discovered that there was a hive of ‘Watchmen’ and they found the children and...there were no survivors. This led to my home’s current policy of total militarization, authoritarianism, etc. The most shocking thing in my opinion is not the mass slaughter of children but that the Watchmen apparently were not natural lifeforms, they had been altered, but they were mutated to such a degree that no one could really tell just what they were to begin with.

Well, I imagine you've already heard the same commonplace asari myths and legends I have. There is one that comes to mind, though, that's fairly specific to my home - Attena - and so far as I've found not very well-known elsewhere, so...

As you may (or may not) know, one of Attena's notable coastal landmarks is the Dancing Bird Straits, a massive cluster of vertical rock formations sandwiched between the coastal cliffs on one side and Dancing Bird (less an island and more of a mountain sticking out of the ocean) on the other. Brilliant obstacle course to fly through in an ornithopter or glider. Most people assume they take their name from the avian population of the island - they do 'dance', they're primarily acamaris genus, so lots of intricate flying patterns for communication, you probably know the kind of thing (luckily they don't go down into the straits themselves, otherwise there'd be no chance of taking an aircraft through) - but in fact they're named for Tasisa T'Ara's Dancing Bird, the first ship (unless someone else did it and just didn't tell anyone) to make the crossing from Tescani to Majesa, in addition to various other feats of exploration which were quite impressive given the sail technology at the time. (The ship, it seems, was named after the birds, and the island then named after the ship.)

Now, the official story - which is to say historical accounts - say that when Tasisa finally retired from exploring every body of water she could find (at the ripe old age of 1107), she had the Dancing Bird set down on the bottom of the nearby Tanic Bay as an artificial reef - to give something back to her beloved ocean (if so, it worked, the resulting Grand Reef is incredible). But... some say (I feel like I'm on Top Core suddenly) that after Tasisa passed on, not long after, the ship's remains themselves vanished, leaving the reefs that had begun to form to enclose the area on their own. (There's a lot of biotic corals in Grand Reef, it tends to bemuse everyday sensors, and after all this time even top-of-the-line passive probes can't really tell what's at the heart of the reef - the ship's materials would've been dispersed by now anyway.) They say that, if you're around the island or in the straits, and you look out to sea, you can sometimes catch a glimpse of the Dancing Bird, with Tasisa at her wheel, sailing out with the morning sun behind her.

(And before you ask, no, I haven't seen them. I've caught glimpses of something, now and then, out of the corner of my eye, but they could be literally anything - the speed Vixen flies through the straits it's there and gone in a flash, and in any case you don't want to get distracted or you'll wind up bobbing on the water in a shock-foam bubble, and no longer the proud owner of a functional ornithopter, so best to keep your mind on the business at hand. So, were they just birds in the distance, or a breaking wave? Probably, but where's the harm in believing?)

This is a bit...different than most myths, but way back when during my time on Tarith, stories were circulating among us grunts about a guy we called the Phantom Gunner. Every unit, every FOB, combat outpost, had a different story about the man, but all agreed on the key details: he was a Marine, a heavy-weapons trooper, on recon duty behind the Blue Suns lines. When he got captured by them he offered to defect for the higher paygrade, an offer that was readily accepted. Still wearing his issue armor and kit, he turned on the infantry he once called brothers.

That's what we agree on. Once you get past the basic "facts", things get a little hazy, so to speak.

At Outpost Alpha, the pampered babies of Sector 1, the Phantom Gunner was a Marine officer, the stripes of a Lieutenant gleaming on his shoulders, who inspected their outpost to make sure it was battle-ready despite the utter lack of action there. Nobody had seen him before and no one would again, because after the the inspection, the man disappeared. That next night, Outpost Alpha got hit by a Suns assault. A big one.

At Outpost Bravo, my home in the Tarith murk, we held closest to the original tale, because ours was the truest (or as true as any soldier's legend can be). Trading fire with the Suns forces day in and day out, the Phantom Gunner couldn't infiltrate our OP from his side without getting wasted, so he took a different approach. Posing as the Recon trooper he'd once been, he approached one of our patrols outside the wire telling 'em he'd found a major Suns ammo dump. Not wanting to miss cashing in on Recon's glory they followed him and walked into a perfectly set L-shaped ambush.

High up in the Klixen-infested mountains, the poor bastards at lonely Outpost Charlie had a tale of their own. One night one of their snipers had been observing a Suns patrol, looking for the guy in charge. The sniper radioed in that it was a man in the hardsuit and kit of a Marine Gunnery Chief, and despite that none of the other guys on sentry saw him, he stuck to his story every time they asked him to confirm.

Everyone knew somebody killed by the Gunner, be it a friend or a legend in the Battalion. The most hilarious Marine I've ever met, and one of the few tolerable POGs, Mellow Yellow Zheng Li, got smoked by the Gunner delivering supplies to Outpost Charlie. The Grim Reaper, a Recon officer rumored to have been the Gunner's original CO, was killed when he took his platoon out to bring back the man, dead or alive like some goddam Western movie.

Everyone had their own story about the Phantom Gunner, but when those of us who survived the final Suns assault were rotated offworld and to different units, the stories stopped. We were at new places, new postings, with legends of their own and to make our own. But somewhere on Tarith, I just know that a man in the hardsuit of a Marine is standing in the wreckage of Outpost Bravo (or whichever one you were stationed at), looking at the fallen bodies of the men he once called his brothers.

And I know that son of a bitch is laughing his ass off.

You probably know about our religious fables. Its nonsense, of course, but lots of tales and legends got associated with them.

One I got told when I was young, back in Seville, was about a man who taunted the Son of God on his way to crucifixion (the Jesus one). He was a shoemaker, and asked him why he did not go any further and hit him. Because of that the man was cursed to wander the earth until God made his final justice upon the earth (called the Second Coming in legend).

There were all sorts of folk legends associated with this, such as that the fella could only rest on a plough, or only on Christmas.

You may also come across the Eternal Hunter, an old germanic tale that is somewhat similar.

This would make the Wandering Jew over 2000 years old already, a respectable age even for Asari and Krogan.

Heard no reports of him during the Reaper invasion.

Now ain't that neat, I'm studying this stuff in college. One interesting figure of legend is Black Pete, also called the bag man or bogieman. Black Pete is a tall, ugly looking man dressed up in tatered black cloths and carries a rough stitched sack over his hunched back. This ugly fellow is more of a spirit than a person, and no story giving him an origin exists. Like many figures of simpler legends, he just is. Anyway Black Pete is so ugly the sun would burn him, so he can only come out at night. And when he does, he goes creeping through town looking for little children to steal and stuff in his sack to Cary home and eat. Of course, he only comes out late at night when all good children are safe in bed inside the house where he can't get them, so only bad children that sneak around at night have to worry about him.

It's kinda obvious that Black Pete is a story told to children to frighten them into behaving; human folklore is full of figures that exist only to punish those that do wrong and the vast majority only target children. The Scissor Man who cuts of the hands of thieves, Smiling Jack who steals the mouths of liars, and Krampus who kidnaps naughty children to be his servants in his house because parents wouldn't mind such horrible brats going away are a few other ones. Besides Black Peter, the only one who really gets his looks described is Krampus. He is noted to have the horns of a bull, the toung of a snake, the teeth of a wolf, the eyes of a cat, the body of a man covered in hair, the legs of a goat, and the tail of a lion. Like Black Pete he carries a sack, but he also carries a bundle of sticks to beat the children if they displease him.

Quite frankly, considering the number of monsters we tell children are out to get them, it's a wonder they can sleep at night.

All these legends - and reality turned out to have much worse monsters that were present in no mythology.

Or were they? Anything out there had even a hint of the reapers?

Eh closest you get in human myth is the Grim Reaper, the physical embodiment of death itself. A ubiquitous skeletal figure in black robes carrying a harvesting tool called a scythe, the image originated in 12th century AD Europe, and proceeded to spread world wide as a universally recognized symbol of death. In fact, it became so pan cultural that the term "Reaper", which technically means "one who harvests", came to be short hand for "Death", "Murder", and even "Evil" depending on context.

Why, I'm surprised no krogan here has yet mentioned Kalros.

Once, there was a great battle on the fields of Khar’Shan, between one-eyed demons and the batarian people. It lasted many days, and hope was all but lost for the batarians, but they banded together and did what many had thought impossible: they won.

The blood of thousands soaked the ground, and the skies had turned red in the night. Slave and master looked on in fear, terrified of what might become, for the man that had brought them together - the one who had the courage to face the demons, to land the final strike upon them, had died.

Months passed. The crops grew, though the taste of blood remained in the bounty. The man they called Hero grew into legend, until one day, a knock came upon a farmer’s door in the middle of a rainy night.

The Hero, they say, lives anew.


Perhaps if the only krogan who posted in this thread had done so, you wouldn't need to mention it.

...That is not very fucking funny.