Nelazgus
| Species | Deity |
|---|---|
| Title | God of darkness |
| Powers | Creation of life through the Eyearke Stone; the granting of god-like power to those below him |
| Family | The Nelazgians, the people he made |
| Status | Long passed |
| First appearance | Sacred: Eslura's Calling |
Nelazgus is the god who stole the Eyearke Stone from Aezaros while she slept and used it to make the Nelazgians.[1] Veskadoth keeps his name and swears by it where the mainland swears by hers, and Obellius Kalaar claimed the War of Shadows was fought to restore his land.[2][3] By Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened he is spoken of as long passed.[4]
Appearance
Two images of Nelazgus survive in the books, and both are at Veskadoth.
The mural carved into the stone wall flanking the port gate shows two figures with their hands outstretched to the sky, one female presenting and one male presenting, with a purple stone suspended in the light between them. Nelazgus is the male figure and the shorter of the two, and the account attached to the mural says he lived constantly in the shadows, whether they were Aezaros's or his own.[5]
A statue of him stands in the central square of the city, partially suffocated by black vines and missing several limbs. Lumikki Otsby recognises it on sight despite the damage.[4]
Personality
The one motive the books give him is envy. The creation account has him hungry with power and riddled with jealousy over Aezaros, and it is jealousy that moves him to the theft.[1] Looking up at his ruined statue, Lumikki wonders what the world would have been like had Nelazgus not been gripped by greed.[4]
He is also said to be open-handed with his power. Seely had heard tales of Nelazgus bargaining his god-like powers away to those below him, and of the people of Veskadoth contacting him and channelling that power through objects.[3]
Background
In the beginning of time there were two gods, and Nelazgus was the second of them. The two were given a stone from the sky and named it the Eyearke Stone: it could create and manipulate life and make the four elements of the world. Aezaros, being the taller, reached it first as it fell, and it was she who made the first people with it.[5]
What Nelazgus is god of is given two ways and never reconciled. Seely, a Knower of Many Things, calls him the god of darkness and despair.[3] The creation account told at Veskadoth calls him the god of darkness and death, and repeats the phrase when explaining why his people came out as they did.[5][1]
Story
Sacred: Eslura's Calling
Nelazgus does not figure in the version of the creation the mainland tells. There Aezaros retrieved the stone from the heavens and handed the power of the elements to the Sacred Rulers, and no theft and no second god appear at all.[6]
What the book records instead is the use his name is put to. Alpin Loomin calls a young Olphin a spawn of Nelazgus while beating him unconscious with a staff.[7] Tabitha Glowdish describes the Nelazgians as worshippers of their god's idiotic ideals who follow him as though they would die if they did not.[8] Drayzuzian, carving the Nelazgian mark into Tab's wrist, orders her to scream so that Nelazgus might hear it.[8]
The book's one substantial claim about the god comes from Seely, exiled from Galecrest for asking about the Olphins and living alone in the ruins of Treenode. Working from a translucent grey stone that Barnaby Britto carried in to him, he demonstrates its effect on the boy, who drops, convulses, rises with his eyes emptied of everything that made him himself, obeys an order and afterwards remembers nothing. Seely calls the stone a weapon from a god, names Nelazgus as the only god it could be, and concludes that Obellius Kalaar of Veskadoth struck a deal with him as many of his kind had before, and so obtained the power to control the Olphin race. Alpin recalls that Obellius justified the war as restoring Nelazgus's land.[3]
Sacred 2: Flames of the Awakened
The Veskadoth mural gives Nelazgus his own part in the creation. Jealous of Aezaros and hungry for power, he stole the stone while she was sleeping and created a settlement of his own, ruled by one all-powerful king, and called them the Nelazgians. He tried to make them just like Eslurians, but being the god of darkness and death his creations came out resembling those traits, which is why a Nelazgian is half black fur and half exposed bone.[1]
The city he made keeps him. Nelazgians swear by his name where Eslurians swear by Aezaros, and the oath turns up on the mainland as well: a patron at The Avonbourn demands to know who in Nelazgus's name Aero Ellisvat thinks he is.[2] Standing over a field of mutilated bodies at Morgaedion, Barnaby thinks their faces look as though they had seen the evil god Nelazgus set foot on earth.[9] Lumikki, passing his broken statue, calls him long passed and the god who once tried and failed to usurp Eslura's first Head.[4]
Relationships
Aezaros. The other of the two gods, taller than him and first to the stone. Every telling that names them both sets him against her, and the theft is the only dealing between them the books record.[5][1]
The Nelazgians. His creation, made in imitation of Eslurians and marked by what he is. They are native to Veskadoth, keep no surname, and take his name in oaths.[1][4]
Obellius Kalaar. Seely's conclusion is that Obellius bargained with Nelazgus for the power that broke the Olphins, and that others of Veskadoth had done the same before him. Nothing in the books shows the bargain, gives its terms, or says whether the god knew what it would be used for.[3]
Shadow Reapers. The bestiary appendix says Shadow Reapers are brought to life by the god Nelazgus himself.[10] Demise's own account of himself credits Obellius instead, with a curse laid on a living man.[11] The two accounts stand side by side and are not reconciled.
Behind the scenes
The pronunciation guide printed at the back of both novels gives Nelazgus as Nuh-laz-gus and Nelazgian as Nuh-laz-gee-ann.[12]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Book 2, Ch. 25.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Book 2, Ch. 8.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Book 1, Ch. 17.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Book 2, Ch. 19.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Book 2, Ch. 24.
- ↑ Book 1, Ch. 10.
- ↑ Book 1, Ch. 13.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Book 1, Ch. 23.
- ↑ Book 2, Ch. 18.
- ↑ Book 1, "The Many Creatures of Eslura".
- ↑ Book 2, Ch. 28.
- ↑ Book 1.