Memnor

Memnor is the giant deity of pride and control. He is an ambiguous figure in the Ordning, whose tales concerning him are quite disparate with one another. He often schemes to usurp Annam All-Father as the head of the Ordning, but has been thus far unsuccessful, or so it is often suspected by his siblings.

Description

Ancient depictions of Memnor often portrayed him as wearing a two-faced mask.

Personality

Memnor is typically described as charming, intelligent, cultured, subdued, clever, and persuasive. His greatest flaw is his strong sense of pride, though he is also said to be deceitful, intensely cruel, and manipulative. Many of the stories within giant society that recount his exploits emphasize his charisma and manipulative nature.

Worshippers

Generally, giants who worshiped Memnor were typically of an evil alignment, though some were merely of a neutral alignment. His most prevalent worshipers were cloud giants, though many within the race rejected him due to his deceitful nature. Benign cloud giants typically revered him for his persuasiveness, charisma, and intellect. While those who leaned more towards evil were known to value his cunning, secrecy, and the element of surprise over victory through mere brute force. They embraced his selfishness and imitated his trickster ways, with such priests oftentimes trying to undermine or exploit the ordning to their own benefit. Other priests instead faithfully served the Giant pantheon, acting as advisors or advocates throughout giant society.

After a priest of Memnor was accepted into the clergy of the Ordning by the Stormazîn, the god's own high priests would visit the initiate and subject them to a secret ceremony. During this ceremony they would be made to pledge to uphold the secrecy of Memnor's plans from the uninitiated and to aid him in whatever way they could.

Priests of Memnor typically were well dressed and had a regal manner to them. They often covertly communicated signals or warnings to each other by means of touching their left wrist with their right index finger.

Priests of Memnor were known to be gifted the spells forget, suggestion, magic jar, and speak with wyvern. Those who reached the highest echelon of their faith were typically gifted a wyvern servant. They also received a leather necklace with a talon charm. This special necklace allowed them to summon their wyvern servant to them three times per day.

Dogma

Those who worshiped Memnor believed that Annam had grown old and weak. They viewed his incompetence as being largely at fault for the fall of Ostoria. Many considered it their highest duty to be safeguarding the secrecy of Memnor's scheme to one day overthrow Annam. Though when it came to mortal giants who already knew of this scheme and levied accusations against Memnor's priests, they would insist that their god had only the welfare of all giant-kind in mind, wishing to restore them to their rightful place of glory.

Rituals

Each year the clerics of Memnor would hold three feasts in his honor for the mainstream of giant society. They were also known to gather together with their wyverns every one hundred days atop crags. There they would discuss strategies and at times even receive orders from Memnor himself.

History

One myth conflictingly spoke of Memnor as being Annam's twin, rather than his child, and claimed that the reason Annam was so aloof was due to being weakened after defeating Memnor. In most other myths Memnor was portrayed as playing tricks on and infuriating his father, incurring Annam's wrath upon both himself and more often than not his brothers as well. In one such myth, back when Memnor was but a child his mischievous acts of "play" with his brother Grolantor led to a minor war between the Jotunbrud and the ogres. This incident was one of many things that was said to have ultimately led Annam to forbid his children from meddling in the affairs of the Material Plane's giants.

When Annam eventually exiled himself from Gudheim, Memnor and Grolantor went and convinced their siblings Stronmaus and Hiatea that Annam's decree was no longer valid. From that day onward, Memnor and his brother would go on to continually meddle in the affairs of the mortal giants. At times their antics got so bad that Stronmaus and Hiatea felt they had no choice but to intervene and put an end to their games.

Memnor

Intermediate deity

Basic Information

Pantheons

Ordning

Attributes

Alignment

Neutral Evil

Symbol

Thin black obelisk

Realm

Bleak Eternity of Gehenna/Chamada/Thraotor

Portfolio

Pride, Mental Prowess, Control

Favored Weapon

Morningstar

Following

Worshippers

Giants (particularly evil cloud giants)

Alignments

LE, NE, CE

Domains

Evil (-)
Knowledge (Espionage, Thought)
Rune (Legislation)
Trickery (Espionage, Innuendo)