Remyalan

In the religious tradition of the Eleven Cities, Ramyalan was a princess of the royal family of Ramoros who achieved lasting fame as one of the paramours of Zargyod and the mother of Morogyad.

Narrative

Ramyalan's precise lineage differs in different versions of the tale, though one universally consistent attribute is that she was the niece - not the daughter - of a ruling king of Ramoros. She is an eccentric girl who from earliest adolescence felt a strong kinship with the sea, feeling energetic and sanguine at high tide and weak and enervated at low tide. Her parents attempted to rectify this by diet, feeding her boldly-flavoured herbs in an attempt to connect her more with the land. This failed, however, and the symptoms of her illness grew worse as time passed. One day at high tide she waded out into the sea and was swept away by the outgoing tide.
Three moons later Ramyalan was returned by the sea, alive and well. She explained that she had been turned into an octopus and possessed by the god Zargyod, who also took that form. People were sceptical, but the pregnancy ran its course and Ramyalan eventually gave birth to twins. One of her sons was an amorphous mass of writhing tentacles which strangled its midwife before slithering down to the shore and swimming away in the sea, never to be seen again, The other, more straightforwardly, was a robust and healthy boy, who Ramyalan named Morogyad.
Zargyod visited Ramyalan once more when their son was a toddler, coming to Ramoros in the form of a lammageier, picked the baby up in his beak and carried him away to the island of Kobolon where he tutored him in magic for seven years. Morogyod eventually returned to Ramoros flying on a disc of stone.
The king of Ramoros (again, accounts differ as to exactly who) felt threatened by the appearance of the young wizard, but also wary of directly challenging his power. He therefore summoned Morogyad to his court and informed him that unless he left the city his mother would suffer. Morogyad did not reply, but simply waved his left hand at the king and left his presence. He used his left hand to inscribe secret symbols on a scallop shell and gave it to Ramyalan to wear as a pendant.
When word reached him that Morogyad was still resident in Ramoros, the king sent soldiers with orders to beat and defile Ramyalan. They found her shift impervious to their swords, and when they laid hands upon her their hands were struck with a cold that burned like fire, causing horrendous pain. Fleeing, they intended to show their king the terrible grey scars left by this enchantment, but these had disappeared by the time they reached the palace. More soldiers were sent and ended up suffering a variety of often gruesome injuries and afflictions; the mythopoeic tradition surrounding the episode is varied and inventive in this regard. Among the more common injuries are blindness, impotence and the loss of their tongues. Mythopoeic tradition is divided over which of these issues are permanent; in some sources the soldiers never recover, while in others the condition lasts until the turn of the next moon or year.
Satisfied that his mother was safe Morogyad left Ramoros to seek his fortune. Before doing so he informed his mother that the scallop shell was an amulet against all harm, including the ravages of age. Ramyalan was wary of the notion of immortality and visited a shrine to Krezzan, where she communed with the god and received a warning from him that such an amulet would frustrate him. She thus visited the headland where Morogyad landed in Ramoros and tossed the amulet into the sea. Sinking, it caught on a branch of red coral, rendering the reefs to the northeast of the city inexhaustible. Krezzan was irritated by this but appreciated Ramyalan was not responsible and took no action against her.
The mythopoeic tradition then falls silent on Ramyalan; there are no accepted orthodoxies as to her dotage or death.

Literary/artistic tradition

Ramyalan exists in the mythopoeic tradition chiefly as the mother of Morogyad and the beneficiary of his early feats of magic. As such she is discussed in considerable detail in the pre-Wesmodian biographical tradition surrounding her son, but there is very little discussion of her in her own right. She has not, for example, attracted the sort of artistic or literary devotion that Thamyan, the mother of Chonyos, has in the city of Chogyos.
Godanqs the Younger's Life of Morogyad discusses Ramyalan in considerable detail, attributing her adolescent malady to direct intervention from Zargyod, who Godanqs claims had spotted the princess as a likely conquest very early in her life, even approaching her father (in disguise) to discuss the possibility of an arranged marriage. The father - who, beyond being identified as the brother of the king, is not named - declined.
The anonymous manuscript The Ramoros Libram features in an extensive, digressive chapter on Morogyad, in which Ramyalan is given due consideration. She is described as an attentive and loving mother who suffered greatly during her separation from her young son.
Orredeph's Lives of the Wizards praises Ramyalan as the primum mobile of the sub-cult of Morogyad within the broader worship of Zargyod. Orredelph belabours Ramyalan's good fortune rather than her evident connection to the sea.

Commentary

Ramyalan is widely regarded as something of a formalistic figure, existing in mythology mostly as a female vessel for Morogyad, and of only passing significance of her own. That said, the biographical tradition surrounding her is of interest to those studying the development of the cult of Zargyod - which seems to have developed over time from being a cult of the sea to one of luck and wealth - and with it the otherwise poorly-documented attendant cult of Morogyad.