Hetht

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“The Priests of Hetht are very wise. But one should be wary of such ancient wisdom. The affairs of man tend to fall a bit below its gaze.”

– Garnybos Moalrem, The Suspicious.

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Born in the very moment of creation itself, Hetht is undoubtedly the first Dragon. Hetht appears as a great black dragon with fiery green pits in place of his eyes. But to say of the color of this great beast as black is something of an understatement, because light itself is swallowed completely in the scales of his body. As, one can discern no reflection upon the surface of Hetht’s skin, nor may one see any hint of texture upon it. To look upon Hetht is to witness what appears to be a great rift in space, one which moves about in the shape of a dragon.

Hetht travels among the stars, visiting places known only to him. Hetht is a great proponent of law and order, but he is also known for exercising great wisdom in his approach to such matters. Hetht is firm but fair in his dealings with others. He is also known to support any who will conduct themselves in like manner.

There is an air of calm about Hetht and his followers, owing largely to the awesome power wielded by this great creature. Being as old as time itself and as powerful as any living creature in any known world, there is little that could cause Hetht any worry. As for others, he has seen civilizations come and go. Hetht knows he will outlive the worst of his enemies and that the best of those he favors will fall to corruption in time. It is not that Hetht is uninterested in the affairs of other things, but he always sees a little beyond the urgency of the moment. And for Hetht, the urgency of the moment could well be a geologic era. So, Hetht seems always to be aloof in his dealing with mere mortals, and even most divine creatures; it takes a great deal to break this calm.

Religion: Followers of Hetht generally seek to bring order and justice to the lives of those around them. They seldom seek extensive involvement with kings or other such powers, but they will make their preferences known. Priests of Hetht will try to locate their temples a day or so travel away from large populations. This enables them to gain access to the powers that be when necessary without creating needless entanglements in day to day affairs. Where dragons are present, the followers of Hetht will often make an effort to contact them and establish a relationship of one kind or another. Those proving benign will quickly fall under the protection of Hetht’s Priesthood. Those inclined to hunt people or destroy property may well find themselves hunted by men well-schooled in the ways of dragons, sent by the church itself.

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Domains: Justice, Patience, Travel.

Symbol: A black dragon with its wings stretched wide.

Favored Offerings: Hetht is pleased with offerings of incense or the burning of scented candles. He does not seem overly interested in the price of such offerings, but he prefers to see those making an offering take their time and stay in prayer and meditation for as long as their endurance holds out.

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This is Chapter 1 of the most authoritative account of creation contained in the Stone Philosophic. A full table of contents can be found here.

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Text

In the beginning there was nothing, not even Hetht, a fact which displeased him to no end. And so the great dragon brought himself into existence. There is little reason to believe that he meant to create the rest of the world, but of course accidents do happen, and something else soon followed the self-creation of Hetht. All things in this world have their origins in this something else, the afterbirth of the first Dragon.[1]

No sooner had he brought himself into this world than the great dragon flew to the east, but his claw caught a corner of his afterbirth and stretched it right along beneath him. For eight days and untold miles the great dragon flew to the east. Finding nothing of interest, he turned to the South, still dragging a corner of his afterbirth along with him. Sixteen days did the great dragon fly to the south, but he found nothing to keep him occupied. So, Hetht turned and flew west for thirty two days before changing course. Finally, Hetht flew to the North for sixty four days, the formless mass still caught in his claw. [2]

Wondering at the effort it now took to fly, Hetht looked beneath his feet and finally saw the great stretch of ill-formed mass now grown large and spinning slowly beneath him. Tired of dragging so much weight along with him, Hetht finally shook the mass from his claw, yawned a bot and stretched his wings one after another, until he resolved to shed the feeling of exhaustion that had come over him. So, Hetht laid down upon the center of the mass beneath. His sleep was fitful, and Hetht tossed and turned for ages, kicking up mountains and digging out great impressions in the mass below his body.

Thus did the world begin to take its present shape, even as it slowly hardened beneath of the fitful dragon sleeping on top of it.

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[1] The dvergr sage, Horst Gverdigen, objects to this passage, arguing that the world could not possibly be the afterbirth of a dragon as of course any real dragon would have issued from an egg. Gverdigen does not object to the notion that this world is secondary to the self-creation of Hetht, but he does reject the specific notion that the world began as a sort of placenta.

The hrega sorceresss, Tiannon Shigire, has provided what most consider to be best answer to this argument when she noted 3 things, 1) that Horst Gverdigen is known to have disappeared fully a hundred years before one might expect a Dvergr to die of old age, and no-one alive today can rule out divine retribution, 2) it is in fact an article of faith among the priesthood of Hetht that he is the sole dragon to have been born rather than hatched, and 3) the next phase of creation is far easier to reconcile with the qualities of soft and malleable placenta than those of a hard and brittle egg,

The Cult of the Broken Shell has long argued that Hetht was indeed hatched and this world has an entirely different origin, but this is best regarded as a minor heresy of little concern to serious scholarship.

Melia Turee, Archivist, Library Philosophic

[2] A wise man would note that the direction of movement in the first stage of creation matches that of benign winds and whirlpools. This is not a coincidence. All right-thinking winds and currents follow the pattern of creation by turning from east toward the south. Following the pattern later established by Mizizra, a corrupt wind reveals its nature by turning from east to north.

The pattern of movement described herein is of course the basis for the common terms used to describe the direction of spinning movement. Those turning from east to south are commonly said to be turning creatively whereas those turning from east to north are said to be spinning destructively.

Professor, Nilgin Fozhe of the Library Philosophic

The Stone Philosophic

A Fantasy Setting

Hetht

I: Out of Nothing